Monday, March 15, 2010

Nature Writing

I wanted to tell you a little bit more about that amazing sea of lava in Lanzarote - the tumultuous impression of jaggedness you experience as you survey its massive extent; that chaos of lava rocks straining towards the sea. I would have added something more perhaps about the variety of colours highlighted on the volcanoes' flanks, as cloud shadows scudded/glided/slid/oozed over their surfaces. But it just won't do.
I read a piece by Andrew Greig in the Scottish Review of Books last weekend in which he observes that : "In the attempt to get across the immediacy and power of one’s experience, Nature Writing too often leads to this over-emphatic, over-adjectival, overly figurative striving." He's right.

5 comments:

Rosie said...

the photo is good enough - who needs adjectives anyway!

Mim said...

I don't mind adjectives as long as the writing is good.

This must have been a lovely vacation!

Jonathan Wonham said...

Nice photo. It explains why geologists need precise colour charts in order to describe what they have seen.

nmj said...

I find physical landscape almost impossible to describe well...

I see you have put a fence up! :)

Lucy said...

Yes, this thing about avoiding adjectives. I have been trying but then I find I'm cheating and just turning them into abstract nouns instead, not sure that's the point...

Indeed, the photos are great anyway.

Confinement

Being confined indoors most of the day, just the four of us, is reminding me of the days when my children were wee and most of our weekends ...