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The Peregrine

by J.A. Baker

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Reading for the 2nd time

read in December 2015

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j said: " When I was asked by a friend to describe J.A. Baker’s short novel, The Peregrine I struggled to say more than “1/3 biological field notes, 1/3 poetic prose and 1/3 Kafka’s The Metamorphosis”.

This novel follows the author across the English countrysid When I was asked by a friend to describe J.A. Baker’s short novel, The Peregrine I struggled to say more than “1/3 biological field notes, 1/3 poetic prose and 1/3 Kafka’s The Metamorphosis”.

This novel follows the author across the English countryside as he tracks peregrines, noting their movements, behaviour and perhaps most importantly, their relationship with the living world beneath them. Aside from the field note nature of Baker’s observations, the book follows no distinct plot outside of the daily activities of peregrines. However, the quality of Baker’s prose is enough to regard this book as a compelling read. Despite the lack of any distinct plot, the changes as the novel progresses in Baker’s use of language when describing his relationship with these birds tells a fascinating story in itself. The feelings of alienation of man amongst nature are evident in Baker’s relationship with the peregrines, particularly during the early parts of the novel.

“We are the killers. We stink of death. We carry it with us. It sticks to us like frost. We cannot tear it away”.

Not only are Baker’s words on peregrines beautiful, the descriptions of the landscape in which they reside are equally so. Few things could provoke such a desire to experience the dreary greyness of English weather as the way Baker manages to describe it.

“All day the low clouds lay above the marshes and the thin rain drifted in from the sea. Mud was deep in the lanes and along the sea-wall; thick ochre mud, like paint; oozing..”

Every few pages, found amongst the striking lyrical feeling of Baker’s prose beautiful aphorisms are found.

“Nothing is as beautifully, richly red as flowing blood on snow. It is strange that the eye can love what mind and body hate”.

“The bird out of place is always the first to die. Terror seeks out the odd, and the sick, and the lost”

Overall, even with my already keen interest in birds and the natural world, I would recommend this novel to absolutely any reader, as Baker’s command of the English language must be regarded as amongst the best. ...more "

Mar 10, 2017 02:54PM · see review

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Thinking, Fast and Slow

by Daniel Kahneman

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Oct 14, 2020 01:57PM

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Mysteries

by Knut Hamsun

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Oct 14, 2020 01:56PM

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j’s Quotes

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
― Franz Kafka

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