Book Review - Underland: A deep time journey by Robert Macfarlane

Robert Macfarlane travels to various parts of the subterranean world, visiting deliberately hidden places such as a Nuclear waste site in Finland, threatened settings like the ice caps in Greenland, the hard-to-reach such as the prehistoric Norwegian Sea caves and worlds beneath cities like the catacombs beneath Paris.

I found the section in the catacombs beneath Paris to be fascinating, with so much subterranean history. It felt like it had an element of danger to it and definitely for me one of the better sections. And the caves in England had me feeling claustrophobic, and as this part came early I thought it was going to continue in that vein.

It’s also moving at times, depressing actually, especially when it comes to the melting ice cap and the drilling in the oceans off the Norwegian coast.

But I have to say that parts of this really dragged for me. The prose felt too ornate at times, and I felt some chapters were too long, especially the trip to the ice caps in Greenland. I felt I’d spent so much time there that I was going to have to put on a hat and pair of gloves. It also jumped around a lot, and some sections just felt overly dense.

There were times when the descriptions just didn't work for me, especially the section in Greenland. I did find parts of the writing lyrical and poetic, but after a while they began to just wash over me. The style of writing was just no my cup of tea. A sort of ‘it’s not you it’s me’ sort of book.

Lots of this is informative and interesting and I can certainly see why it has achieved so much praise. There’s a lot in here about myth and history but to me it was just too long and parts of it just completely lost me.

496 pages

Published August 18th 2020 by W. W. Norton & Company