Ness by Robert Macfarlane & Stanley Donwood
Womble note - Special book tempting shout out to the great Alasdair Stuart for tempting me with this tale in his weekly newsletter The Full Lid – one of the best summaries of great geek stuff out there by one of the bet fan writers we have. If you’ve not subscribed, please find the link to do so here and you will not be disappointed
https://alasdairstuart.com/the-full-lid/
Publisher – Penguin
Published – Out Now
Price - £14.99 hardback £9.99 Kindle eBook
Somewhere on a salt-and-single island inside a ruined concrete structure known as The Green Chapel, a figure called the Armourer is leading a ritual with terrible intent.
But something is coming to stop him.
Five more-than-human forms are traversing land, sea and time towards the Green Chapel, moving to the point where they will converge and become Ness. Ness has lichen skin and willow bones. Ness is made of tidal drift, green moss and deep time. Ness has hagstones for eyes and speaks only in birds. And Ness has come to take this world back.
What happens when land comes to life? What would it take for land to need to come to life?...
I think one of the biggest misconceptions is the phrase ‘we need to save the planet’. The planet is five billion years old and has seen life forms come and go and if say we were to create a climate that led to fires that are as long as the continent of Europe (oh look we did) then eventually when humanity is no more then life will take over again in new forms. Of course, it’s not simply careless disasters we are capable of we have weapons that could destroy huge populations across continents in seconds and all we need is to elect evil amoral leaders who care little about the consequences (oh look we did that too). Humanity has an amazing desire for destruction and in the weird, beautiful and amazing novella Ness by Robert Macfarlane & Stanley Donwood we get an epic tale of saving the planet from forces of destruction in miniature.
For context this tale is set in Orford Ness a remote piece of land only approachable itself via a National Trust Ferry. You can see more of it here (https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/orford-ness-national-nature-reserve) a place of stunning natural wilderness and beauty yet once home to a Ministry of Defence outpost that included atomic weapon testing. Horrific destruction hidden in beauty. Now you can tread through deserted buildings to see the past and what it could have destroyed. What kind of mind puts such a horrific thing in a wonderful place like this – a human one.
In this tale we have The Green Chapel a strange deserted building once home to weapons of the finest destruction five entities known as The Armourer, The Engineer, The Botanist, The Ornithologist and The Physicist gather to fire a wonderful weapon to destroy the world. However, on the way to Ness are It, He, She, They, and As - entities of nature made of metal, air, plants and life to stop them.
This however is not an epic fantasy novel watching evil dark lords carefully hatching a plot and our heroes tread a long distance to stop them. This is more a mix of poetry and very carefully tailored writing in a minimalist form. The whole tale is completed in 81 pages – we get single page scenes of entities and constant repetition and evolution of refrains they say to each other. The entities well let’s call them forces of destruction cite what sounds very much like actual MOD guidance notes on weaponry. The forces of nature are described in terms representing all life, movement and time. Eternal, more than human and in their own way remorseless. It’s a feast of language, description and an absolute pleasure to soak into the words and the strange haunting blank and white illustration of places on Ness. A delicious tasty reading experience taking me to a place I’ve never heard of before and appreciating that finely tuned balance between two great forces but a reminder the planet has tenure.
As a short example of the delights in store early on one entity is described: -
“Look – here he comes, his bones are willow & he sings in birds. He rises in marsh, slips forwards by ripple & shiver. Between his tree-ribs birds flutter, then swoop ahead to settle, sing, quiver. His head is a raven’s, his eyes are wrens’ nests. By day from his throat fly finch & fore-crest & in anger he speaks only in swifts.”
If you enjoy language, poetry and weird literary fantasy the this would be a great but short read to settle into; then be taken to a strange land that actually exists and watch a battle between the powers of the world. A reminder that nature ultimately takes over from us long after we are gone and just possibly gives us hope it can stop us going too far.
