Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees

If you have a passion for our connection to trees but not the experience of actual conversation with them Deakin will engage you as Plato in dialogues as memorable as they are true. In this grand memoir of spirit and yearning for the unobtainable, Wildwood reveals the most patient gentle and majestic creatures on earth and their unfathomable love for the human souls who thrive because of the trees and in their abundance are also destroying them. The trees have a warning for us and Deakin is their messenger. I gratefully wept when I read the final page.

After reading this book, I wanted to know more; about the author, the places he wrote about and the people. It’s an exotic journey, several in fact and it really made me curious about the subject matter. I especially loved the intimate detail. No, we all can’t live this lifestyle but living it vicariously is better than nothing!

Really interesting exploration of landscapes, forests, natural history, with people blended throughout. It would be more meaningful if I were English rather than American -- so many of the terns would be unfamiliar to non-English readers (assart is one I happened to know, but I bet few Americans do). The details of geography would also mean more to someone familiar with the intricacies of England's physiognomy. Then again, those might be special assets of the book for anyone who like the challenge of reading along with a dictionary and map in hand!

Won't someone please, perhaps his friend Robert MacFarlane, go through Deakins papers so this book won't have to be his last? Another excellent book going undeservedly undernoticed and unsung. Believe it or not one of the best chapters is "Among Jaguars"-a chapter on automobiles in a book about trees; I squeal with delight! Find out a great deal about cricket bats and eel traps, and the Green Man, among other fascinating things. Squeezing himself inside a hollow thousand year old holly, full of holes and decay: "Yet the tree was in full foliage and blackbirds were sampling the first of its ripe pink berries." A book to be savored...

My husband said, "Read this book,you will love it." He could not have been more right. I do not know when I have read a book I loved more than this journey around the world of trees. Having grown up in the Midwest, in a little Iowa town full of maple trees and river bottoms, I was so at home in this book I cried when I read the last page. I travel in Britain, particularly Wales, when I can, and have been in some of the ancient groves. I once walked a footpath through the woods near Stackpole, and got so thoroughly lost that when I emerged on a road hours later, it was a terrible shock. I had been in the world of trees. Deakin took me back to that place so thoroughly, that one night at about 3:00 I stopped reading and was surprised to find myself on my couch in front of the fire, I had been so immersed in the walnut trees of Kyrgystan. Roger Deakin is no longer on this earth, but these works of his will endure in the genre of nature writing forever.

In the very early goings of this book (p.9), author Deakin, in describing the "bothy" that his father built for him as a lad when he was about six, writes: "Thoreau would have approved of the name we gave it: `Cosy Cabin' emblazoned on a tin sign above the door." Would he have indeed? Readers familiar with Thoreau know that there is nothing at all "cosy" about him and his writing. Sorry, but Deakin is not anywhere near a modern Thoreau, more like an anti-Thoreau in point of fact - despite "professional" reviewers claims to the contrary and the fact that Thoreau is the writer whose name is most often invoked by Deakin. Thoreau was a misanthrope. Deakin loves company. Deakin delights in the wild, open spaces - once he departs England where - to be blunt - they don't exist. Thoreau spent a night in gaol because, in part, of his objection to The Mexican War and proffers a deep, meditation on that institution in "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience." Deakin visits a woodworking family and watches the Iraq war on the telly. But the essential difference, why Walden is great literature and Wildwood is not, is that Walden is filled with deep introspective insights that resonate with any poetic reader, whether he or she lives in town or country. Wildwood is stuffed with very interesting information: about trees and old customs and folkways of all sorts, woodworking, moths, walnuts, the "ur-apple," and on and on. At the end of Walden, the similarly attuned reader feels he knows Thoreau's heart and soul. At the end of Wildwood, I don't feel I know anything about Deakin at all, except that he liked trees and liked to hang around with people who liked trees as well. There are some worthwhile things here: "The Moth Wood" chapter is surely the most entrancing of the book. But, essentially, this book is best described as a chummy eco-tour of certain places and their flora and fauna. If this is all you wish from the book, it will not disappoint. If you're searching for something more profound, keep searching or perhaps re-read Walden; though from the few reviews here, I have a suspicion that none of the readers have read Walden in the first place. The last lines from Robert Frost's poem, "A Tree at My Window" kept recurring to me whilst reading this rambling account: "That day she put our heads together, Fate had her imagination about her, Your head so much concerned with outer, Mine with inner, weather." Deakin's head is very much concerned with outer weather.

I think the books and writing of the late Roger Deakin are all marvellous. Loved Wildwood, loved Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, loved Waterlog: so sad that he has died at a relatively early age. Sadly, for readers who care about the natural environment, he will write no more.

The book was great. It covers a mix of art, poetry, history and the husbandry of trees. Add to this a dose of wonder and the spirituality of places and this touches on this engaging read.

This is one of those delightful books that you stumble on from time to time that is almost impossible to categorise. Roger Deakin was a campaigner, writer and environmentalist; he was one of the founding members of Friends of the Earth. He was a true English eccentric. He lived in a house, in Suffolk with a moat - in which he swam regularly. A few years ago he wrote a book that centred on his desire to visit - and to swim in - most of the important bits of water in the UK (and many less important ones as well). In this book Deakin turns his attention to wood - all things to do wtih wood, wood clearly being one of the passions of his life. So, Deakin explores woods. He camps out in woods to be at one with the environment and the wildlife. He camps in woods in England and explores woods around the world. But he also turns his mind to other things to do with wood. There are fantastic articles on driftwood for example, There are pieces on artists who work in wood. There are contemplations on the economic value of wood and how it may yet have a major role to play in creating a sustainable world economy. Deakin's writing style is fluid, easy to follow and very entertaining. He is both eccentric and funny; a genuinely warm man. Sadly, Deakin died just after this book was completed. I wonder to what extent this was conceived and put together as a very unique work of love. Still, Wildwood stands as a fine legacy to a superb writer. I wish I could describe this book more fully but I simply wouldn't be able to do it justice. But if this sounds remotely interesting go and buy it. You won't be disappointed.

The most amazing book about Trees and how we have depended and worked with them over centuries. A real revelation and joy to read.

I should begin with the words “ where should I start“, how about at the beginning. Having read all of Roger Deakin's books, Wildwood was always going to be on my list. It is a fantastic journey through material and living entities to which we pay little attention to in our everyday life. Deakin takes you close to the wood and the trees in a way that pulls you along and makes you not want to finish the book. If you yearn to travel through trees, take the journey with Roger Deakin. You will not be disapointed.

A astonishing journey of the soul, touching memories and emotions almost unfashionably nowadays. Like a walk into the wilderness of our inner self. Sheer poetry as a guide back to the really important things. I'm happy I have found this little precious gem.

Wildwood is a fascinating and even spiritual appreciation for wood in all its various states of being and beauty, from its stately grandeur in nature and the terrible tragedy of the elm to its function within the landscape as ecological habitats and how skilled crafts persons manage and shape it into utensils, furniture and magnificent art forms. Deakin is an excellent and knowledgeable fellow, evoking a mesmerising land of lost orchards and hedgerows; his enthusiastic passion for nature and storytelling really comes across whether he is talking about the rookery and the twilight world of the woods in literature; his journeys to the New Forest and the Forest of Dean and Wye, or the Australian outback and the Russian Steppe. Trees are part of our ancestral heritage and our link back to the great wood; the familiar way markers in a landscape - the `fairy tale' woods of our childhoods, dark and haunted, imprinted upon our psyche, they remain with us. Enchanting and definitely recommended!