Comments on: Swimming in cold pools

By: Stephen Watson

Stephen Watson — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 22:41:31 +0000

The Machine Stops was read for ‘O’ level back in ‘74 and it made a big impact on me then and I’ve never forgotten it. Amazingly I’ve spoken to other people who’ve read quite a bit of Forster and never heard of it so really good to see it recognised here.

By: Leeroy Fandango

Leeroy Fandango — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:49:24 +0000

Bukowski anyone? He had a lot to say about the nonsense of civilisation. To deal with it he had to go to the pub all the time. When he couldn’t afford that, he’d lie on his bed for days and do nothing. Sounds like a damned fine prescription to me x

By: Vivian Connolly

Vivian Connolly — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:12:30 +0000

W.S. Merwin less uncompromising than Jeffers? How about his poem”One of the Laws” which begins “So it cannot be done to live/without being the cause of death?”

By: Julian

Julian — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:53:15 +0000

Very much agree with comments about DH Lawrence and EM Forster.

Then there is LP Hartley, writing around the same time, whose ‘The Go Between’ paints the evocative suffocation of inbred aristocratic families living a life of sactuary amongst their grand estates. And this is how it still is today, generally speaking – which raises a significant point: with something like fifty percent of private land in their hands .. what might it take to shift this closseted perspective and for them to start opening up their fields for prospective agrarians?

By: Marie Byström

Marie Byström — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:47:13 +0000

I am reading Thoreau’s Walden at the moment but I am afraid I find it vastly overworked with tedious discussions about civilisation. The freshness of his life in nature rarely shines through on the pages.

I would recommend Olga Kharitidi’s Entering the Circle and The Master of Lucid Dreams. Her books are not about civilisation and uncivilisation but about trauma, but the two are intertwined and parts of a whole. She also keeps a very interesting log on http://www.cliffhousepublications.com .

By: Dave Straton

Dave Straton — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:06:34 +0000

John Gray has written a review of ‘Uncivilisation: the Dark Mountain Manifesto’ in the New Statesman, 10th Sept 2009.

http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2009/09/civilisation-planet-authors

By: Ron Parry

Ron Parry — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:00:13 +0000

Great website. I highly recommend “The Road Washes Out in Spring”, a memoir by the poet Baron Wormser. Wormser and his life raised two children in the Maine woods without electricity or indoor plumbing. He describes a life filled with meaning, grace, and an awareness of place, not one cramped by a minimalist lifestyle. A beautifully written account showing that a much simpler lifestyle might not be as constrained as some might imagine it to be. Thoreau would have like this book.

By: Marmaduke Dando Hutchings

Marmaduke Dando Hutchings — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:39:17 +0000

I’m just reading Aldous Huxley’s “Ape and Essence” a screenplay written in a novel, it is THE blueprint to a Dark Mountain film.

In fact most of Huxley’s novels have uncivilised rants in them, no doubt down to the influence DH Lawrence had on him, though not to underestimate his own intelligence. Quite a natural conclusion when one thinks about it.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:36:10 +0000

I was going to put in a word for After London; and I see two folks have already beaten me to it. I enjoyed the longer second part; but the much better first part was quite haunting.

By: Elizabeth Rimmer

Elizabeth Rimmer — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:31:04 +0000

Kenneth White (a Scottish-born poet living and working in France)has a lot to say about moving beyond ‘civilisation’ and founded the Institute of Geo-poetics in which to say it. Worth checking out what you can find in English.
Gary Snyder, American poet and anthropologist, is a must.
Annie Dillard, ‘Pilgrim at Tinker’s Creek’ is a classic, though perhaps dated now. Good writing, though.
Jamie Whittle’s White River is very poorly written, but brings together an enormous range of experience and thinking.