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"Enthralling... an excellent evocation of White and his times which certainly deserves a place beside the original work" Alan Sillitoe, Sunday Times "His evocation of the landscape is brilliant. We seem to be jogging down those deeply rutted lanes behind the parson looking over his shoulder.' Times Educational Supplement"
Book Description
Richard Mabey tells the enthralling story of Britain's first ecologist
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Richard Mabey's elegant and straightforward book provides an almost uncanny window onto Gilbert White's life. It is written with such detail and sympathy -- no doubt aided by the voluminous letters and journals that were eventually condensed into The Natural History of Selborne -- that one gets an almost photographic picture of White going about his daily routines of cucumber harvesting, swallow observations, and tortoise experiments. While much of White's life at Selborne will be familiar to readers of the Natural History and his journals, Mabey fleshes out the chronology of White's early life and his personal relationships (especially with John Mulso, one of White's few close friends). Two features of this book particularly stand out. First is the setting, the village of Selborne itself. Mabey manages to convey an astonishing sense of place in his biography. Weather patterns and details of the physical environment were always on Gilbert White's mind, and they are never far away in this account of his life. Second is the personal affection that Mabey clearly feels for his subject. By the end of the biography, one feels so fond of White and his enthusiasms that a journal entry written towards the end of his life -- "Sad, blowing, wintry weather. I think I saw a house martin" -- brings its own pang of sadness.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found this biography of Gilbert White tough-going and confusing. I think there are two reasons.
The first one is that I think Mr. Mabey was desperately trying to write an interesting biography when really he's not a very good writer of biographies. It has no flow; there's nothing about it that makes you want to read on, to discover more about White's life. It's dry and uninspiring, which means he fails on Rule One of a biographer: make the subject come to life!
The second reason, which stems from the first, is that Mabey is confusing. He understandably quotes heavily from White's vast correspondence with his immediate family members, distant relatives, clergy colleagues, neighbours, scientists etc., and then goes into so much detail of these correspondents that he frequently lost the plot - and me. Who is Mabey writing about now? Oh yes, Charles Lamb, who was writing a poem about Barrington, who, let me think, was the fourth son of Viscount Barrington, who knew Thomas Pennant, whom White met while visiting his brother Benjamin, or was it his brother Thomas ... oh I'm completely lost now. Back to the start of the chapter to work out who all these people are. Or perhaps not.
And don't say to me "well that's because it's a biography, and biographies go into all that detail." No, I don't buy that argument. I have read scores of biographies, of Elizabeth I, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Cromwell, Eric Morecambe, Wellington, Napoleon, Richard Branson, Samuel Pepys, and never have I come across one so confusingly difficult to read - and frankly boring - as Richard Mabey's Gilbert White.
If you are a research student writing a thesis on Gilbert White, you will undoubtedly find much of interest here. If you not, I wouldn't bother picking it up.
The first one is that I think Mr. Mabey was desperately trying to write an interesting biography when really he's not a very good writer of biographies. It has no flow; there's nothing about it that makes you want to read on, to discover more about White's life. It's dry and uninspiring, which means he fails on Rule One of a biographer: make the subject come to life!
The second reason, which stems from the first, is that Mabey is confusing. He understandably quotes heavily from White's vast correspondence with his immediate family members, distant relatives, clergy colleagues, neighbours, scientists etc., and then goes into so much detail of these correspondents that he frequently lost the plot - and me. Who is Mabey writing about now? Oh yes, Charles Lamb, who was writing a poem about Barrington, who, let me think, was the fourth son of Viscount Barrington, who knew Thomas Pennant, whom White met while visiting his brother Benjamin, or was it his brother Thomas ... oh I'm completely lost now. Back to the start of the chapter to work out who all these people are. Or perhaps not.
And don't say to me "well that's because it's a biography, and biographies go into all that detail." No, I don't buy that argument. I have read scores of biographies, of Elizabeth I, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Cromwell, Eric Morecambe, Wellington, Napoleon, Richard Branson, Samuel Pepys, and never have I come across one so confusingly difficult to read - and frankly boring - as Richard Mabey's Gilbert White.
If you are a research student writing a thesis on Gilbert White, you will undoubtedly find much of interest here. If you not, I wouldn't bother picking it up.
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