Into the Dark: What darkness is and why it matters

by Jacqueline Yallop

'Often poetic ... highly-researched and thought-provoking'New Scientist
'Gently and thoughtfully enquiring' The Spectator

Can you remember the first time you encountered true darkness? The kind that remains as black and inky whether your eyes are open or closed? Where you can't see your hand in front of your face?

Jacqueline Yallop can. It was in an unfamiliar bedroom while holidaying in Yorkshire as a child, and ever since then she has been fascinated by the dark, by our efforts to capture or avoid it, by the meanings we give to it and the way our brains process it.

Taking a journey into the dark secrets of place, body and mind, she documents a series of night-time walks, exploring both the physical realities of darkness and the psychological dark that helps shape our sense of self. Exploring our enduring love-hate relationship with states of darkness, she considers how we attempt to understand and contain the dark, and, as she comes to terms with her father's deteriorating Alzheimer's, she reflects on how our relationship to the dark can change with time and circumstance.

Darkness captivates, baffles and appals us. It's a shifty thing of many textures, many moods, a state of fascination and of horror, an absence and a presence, solace and threat, a beginning and an end. Into the Dark is the story of the many darks that fascinate and assail us. It faces the darkness full on in all its guises and mysteries, celebrating it as a thing of beauty while peering into the void.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Science, Literature, Audiobook

224 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 9, 2023

Reviews

[Fern A · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Into the Dark’ is one of my favourite type of non-fiction books in that not only is it an interesting subject but each page is brimming full of information. Tackling the broad topic of darkness, Yallop explores what is it (we often define it as an absence of light but that does not answer the question of what darkness itself is). Using a mixture of science, history, literature and personal experience the book looks at how much darkness is a part of each day in more ways then we might immediately think of. I especially liked how the author combined the research and academic takes of others with her own personal experiences of both her childhood fear of the dark and how dementia changed her father’s relationship with it too. A great book from which you’ll come away knowing a lot more and intrigued to learn further in the future.

[Eman Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting topic...

[Lucy Coleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to the publisher Icon Books Limited and Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A wonderfully erudite and informative treatise on darkness and its meanings. This book examines the science, cultural history, and the mythology of darkness mirroring this with a powerful description of her father’s experience of dementia and his own personal descent into darkness.

The book is divided into four sections – 1) New Moon, 2) Waxing, 3) Full Moon and 4) Waning.

Full of interesting facts and interwoven with the account of dementia’s devastating effect on the author's father makes this a really interesting book about a truly fascinating subject.

[Leni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mye interessant å hente her, særs når det gjelder mørkets sosiale implikasjoner (lovgivning, religion, rasisme, og femininitet, sex og tabu). Dessverre leder formatet til mye oppramsing som er vanskelig å følge i lydbokform. Hadde jeg hatt boka fysisk foran meg, ville jeg kanskje vippet den opp til fire stjerner.

[Shari · Rating 5 out of 5]

I sometimes joke that I must be part bat--usually when my husband asks me, 'How can you see?' I tell him that I can see just fine. I love the dark in its different gradations. I prefer night to day, cloudy days to sunny ones, and dim light to bright. I'm a night owl and I love the long nights of winter. With the exception of the occasional day of sun on a cold day, bright sunshine agitates me while grey days bring a calm feeling. I need light to read, stitch, or do other tasks at night, but I have a portable USB lamp and a headlamp that I can adjust to shine directly on the page or project, leaving the rest of the room dark. I never turn on the overhead lights. So when I saw this book, I was eager to read it. I'm so glad I did!

Jacqueline Yallop has paid attention to the dark since she was 7 or 8 years old and on holiday, spending a night in a farmhouse. It was the first time she ever experienced real darkness--not the kind I described above, but a deep dark that prevented her from seeing the hand in front of her face. From that moment, she was fascinated and paid attention to the dark. This interest only deepened when her father was diagnosed with dementia. One of the things that changed for him was his relationship to the dark. His experience was the opposite of my own. Bright light calmed him and even the fading light of dusk agitated him. He would turn on every light in the house every night. The author knew she could not fully understand her father's experience, but she decided to try to get as close as she could by investigating the dark. What are the ideas we have about the dark? How do we 'see' the dark? How do our bodies process light and dark? This excellent book is the result of her investigation. She observes and cares for her father. She takes herself to unfamiliar places on very dark nights and is very aware of what she is feeling in an attempt to get a little bit closer to understanding the new terrain he is having to navigate.She draws on human experience, biology, philosophy, literature, poetry, visual art, popular culture, folklore, architecture, language, and culture. Her writing is beautiful and often lyrical. There were times I stopped and let the words just sink in.

The book is structured in chapters that go along with the phases of the moon--waxing, full moon, waning--and also her father's progression through dementia. This book is so well written and is such a joy to read.

I thank NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for a digital review copy.

[Popokigirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have not read any other works by this author, which I think is relevant to say, because in looking at the titles of her other works, it seems that she works quite a lot in history. One of the things that I have not enjoyed about reading some history books is that they often resemble what I call a “ Data dump”. There is a lot of that here, interesting yes but rather disconnected facts about darkness which aren’t really woven together to make a conclusion or a concrete point. It’s more an exploration of different ideas about darkness that is very tenuously connected to the author’s father’s Alzheimer’s disease.
I normally don’t write reviews, but I felt that this was something that I needed to do because while the intention of the book, as stated at the end, is to increase kindness and understanding towards Alzheimer’s patients, I really feel that it rather comes short on both counts. I speak as someone whose own father had Alzheimer’s. And I suppose one of the irony that I see in this work is the recognition that darkness as she puts it, which is littered with the unfamiliar and which is acknowledged to be threatening, is an experience and perhaps even a common one of Alzheimer’s patients, it is kept at a distance; it’s not entered into with her father, it’s not entered into in the company of her father, in the sense that there isn’t an attempt to really share the understanding of what it means to have a familiar world become unfamiliar. There is a lot of recent work regarding the care of Alzheimer’s patients which actually deals with this, the entering into the world of the person with Alzheimer’s and not attempting to force outside ideas in it which can be threatening and feel uncomfortable.
So while there are certain segments of the book particularly in the last chapter, which I feel touched on that, there was a lot of dry fact reciting that made this book seem very academically oriented rather than something that leads to the acknowledged intentions.
Perhaps, then, I expected something different from this book then what it actually was, but I write this review in the hopes that others will not make the same mistake.

[Andi Chorley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent erudite exploration of darkness inspired by a childhood experience and by the author's father's dementia triggering a fear of the dark.

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wish it would have been a little less scattered, but overall really interesting. Yallop’s prose sings!