Late Light by Michael Malay

BookNotes author: [[ Michael Malay ]]

Memor / nature writing about an obsession with strange creatures- eels, moths, mussels and crickets- and what their decline means for the wider ecosystem. I really enjoyed this because Malay’s writing is beautiful, linking disparate ideas together effortlessly. There’s also a sense of sorrow and a plea to do things better, linked with the political commentary that runs through the book. It also helps he talks a lot about Troopers Hill, near where I lived in Bristol so I can picture kit. Really recommended, reminded me of Robert-Macfarlane in places.

• Attention to anything reveals a deep world. Twined with sorrow as species and nature is declining. Losing a ‘rich grammar’ of the unseen world.
• Also initially an outsider’s view of England and it’s nature, and all the words we use for it.
• Decline has several chaotically linked causes - can be difficult to unpick, but human activity is at the root of a lot of it.
• Eels travel to the sargasso sea and back to reproduce.
• Links throughout to politics, clamp down on migrants. Eels show us borders are ficticious.
• We should see the natural work as neighbours.
• Move to a gift economy - no ownership, only in motion.
• Diminishing nature diminishes the wildness in us.
• Spoilt places from industry are often rich in life.