Absolutely gorgeous prose. I don’t think I’ve read anything like this I could compare it to Nor have I even heard of “mountain literature”. I doubt I’ve ever witnessed any locations like this whatsoever, let alone have the diction to convey it, if I did. Will look at more of her work.

The whole time I somewhat imagined if there was any sort of Lord of the Rings-type fantasy that intersected with something like this. That would really be something. I haven’t read any fantasy that conveyed an ecosystem and land in this kind of way.

I was so excited for this book after having seen an audio-visual performance inspired by it. It felt like something sacred and something I knew I would enjoy. I did. It felt like an intimate record, not just of exploring the Cairngorms, but of connection, companionship, and self-discovery. Nan Shepherd displays a deep understanding of what it means to be human and a true appreciation of nature. Robert Macfarlane and Jeanette Winterson do a much better job of explaining how it feels to read this book in the introduction and the afterword than I can but, honestly, this book is a truly beautiful experience. It took me a little bit longer to get into it than anticipated and sometimes I felt like I wasn’t invested but I realised I was whenever I had to put it down and felt as though I was being jolted back into the real world.

Some quotes I liked from Nan Shepherd:

“The inaccessibility of this loch is part of its power. Silence belongs to it… It is necessary to be sometimes exclusive, not on behalf of rank or wealth, but if those human qualities that can apprehend loneliness”. P14

“When the mist turns to rain, there may be beauty there too. Like shifting mists, driving rain has a beauty of shape and movement. But there is a kind of rain without beauty, when air and ground are sodden, sullen black rain that invades body and soul alike”. P44

Some quotes I liked from Jeanette Winterson in the afterword:

P111- “We have lost all sense of home - whether it’s the natural world, our only planet, or our bodies, now sites of anxiety and dissatisfaction, or our scrabble for property in vast alienated cities where few afford safety, peace, quiet, even a garden”.

P113- “I do not know if the soul survives physical death - and I do not care - but I know that to lose your soul while you are alive is worse than death. I want to protect my soul”.