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#naturewriting

3 posts3 participants1 post today

“It’s impossible not to love the world more when reading Burnside, and impossible not to be more scared and saddened while doing so. He was the ideal laureate of our age, painfully alive to the glory of what we’re losing.”

—Sarah Crown reviews John Burnside’s posthumously published final poetry collection THE EMPIRE OF FORGETTING

@bookstodon

theguardian.com/books/2025/jul

The Guardian · The Empire of Forgetting by John Burnside review – last words from an essential poet of our ageBy Sarah Crown

“I was born in 1962. There’s been an environmental crisis for as long as I’ve lived. To step outside that constant culpability was one of the many delights of RING OF BRIGHT WATER.”

—Kathleen Jamie in the London Review of Books on Gavin Maxwell (1914–1969) – born #OTD, 15 July

@bookstodon

lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n14/ka

London Review of Books · Kathleen Jamie · Diary: In the West Highlands
The Cunning and the Cost

This short passage, written in a restrained, almost documentary prose, begins like a naturalist's field notes. We are told of the cunning and caution of the Ussuri panther—an intelligent beast, attempting to outwit the humans who track it. The writing builds a sense of respect for the animal, detailing its clever strategy of hiding on a bough opposite its tracks, a creature perfectly in tune with its environment.

But the tone shifts sharply and brutally in the final three sentences. The narrative of a living, thinking creature is severed by the cold, detached line: "When we skinned the panther..." In that moment, a beautiful nature sketch transforms into a quiet tragedy about the collision of two worlds. The story is not just about a hunt; it's about the abrupt and final cost that the wilderness pays when it encounters man.

A powerful reminder that behind every trophy lies a story of intelligence and a lost fight.

#BookReview #ShortStory #LiteraryAnalysis #ManVsNature #RussianLiterature #HuntingStories #UssuriTaiga #Wildlife #NatureWriting #Bookstagram #WhatToRead #ClassicLiterature #StoryAnalysis