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Deep Country: Five Years In The Welsh Hills (2011)

by Neil Ansell(Favorite Author)

3.91 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0241145007 (ISBN13: 9780241145005)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Hamish Hamilton

review 1: I have to say this book turned out not to be what I had expected and in a way, not what I had hoped. I had been keen to find out more about Ansell's experience of escaping from the conventional world and spending five years living alone in a isolated stone cottage miles from anywhere. I guess like many people I have sometimes wished I could get away from it all and wondered what it might be like.What led Ansell to make this choice and what did significant people in his family think when he decided to do it? Did it make him re-evaluate the norms that most of us live by? Did he miss anything? Women, sport, reading, music?I'm afraid there is little about this side of his experience, instead the book sometimes feels like an extended account of bird watching. There are many pag... morees about the different birds that Ansell observed from various locations around the cottage. And while these are often interesting and informative in their own right, I really wanted to know something else which he just didn't seem to write about - his experience. What about the days when he woke up cold and tired and just didn't feel like having to chop wood again, what did he say to himself then, could he feel his mood changing as the day wore on?The most interesting chapter is the last one, where Ansell describes his final months in the cottage and the role that illness played in making him think again about staying there. But even here I would have liked a little more reflection and disclosure perhaps. Why did it make him feel so bad when a phone was installed for him, what was the line of thinking which led him to conclude that he would have failed if he had used the phone for anything other than emergencies.A further chapter exploring how Ansell found the return to normal life would have been interesting. Was it hard for him after five years away on his own?So all in all a book that raised more questions for me than answers...
review 2: Nothing earth-shattering but a very pleasant bedtime read (and if by that I'm implying that it sends you to sleep, I mean it kindly). This is perhaps more of a birdspotter's or naturist's book than an introspective tale of backwoods living; indeed, Ansell's ultimate point is that he eventually 'disappeared' from his own narrative as all his attention became focused on the world around him. Hence you won't find any deep truths or ponderings about the nature of man, only a gentle, engaged story of one man's experience in the wild.Which, given the lack of significant events or major surprises, is what makes it ideal bedtime reading. less

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