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I want to end our #CoReadingVirus journey together by gathering & celebrating some of the creative work that's arisen in response to Nan's work/the Cairngorms. Please do add to this thread with anything you think relevant, including your own writing, art, music! Here goes...
...there's @Jenny_Sturgeon's forthcoming album The Living Mountain, inspired by Nan's work, out in autumn this year: Jenny's put two *beautiful* tracks (recorded in the Cairngorms) up for the group to listen to here (one arising from the 'Man' chapter)... https://soundcloud.com/hudsonrecords/sets/jenny-sturgeon-the-living-mountain-reading-group-preview/s-GdGJu888nNH
...then there's @NapierHamish's beautiful album The Woods, with Somhairle MacDonald. Just released. I've been listening to a lot in these hard weeks, and it's transported me to the Caledonian pine forest & the Cairngorms. You can listen too, here: https://hamishnapier.bandcamp.com/album/the-woods
...and musically I think also of Wounded Knee/Drew Wright's 2013 album In The Shadow of the Mountain, inspired by a journey "into the heart of the Cairngorms, and by Nan Shepherd's book". Up on @Bandcamp here. I love it.
https://woundedknee.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-shadow-of-the-good-shepherd-2
https://woundedknee.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-shadow-of-the-good-shepherd-2
...& for those who'd like to find out more about Nan's life and work, there's @thecpeacock's wonderful biography of her, Into The Mountain. @thecpeacock also edited Wild Geese, which gathers Nan's previously uncollected writings. Both are published by @Galileobooks, who also...
...re-published Nan Shepherd's first & only volume of poetry, In The Cairngorms (1934), which I edited & introduced. There's some extraordinary work in there, as well as some less sure poems; those who know The Living Mountain will see her testing out images here...
...it also contains 'Fires', which I take to be the stand-out poem of the volume, and which to me resonates powerfully with our current moment: sheltering place from the storm, the comfort of kin, a world in turbulence...I've included it below here.
...I last week mentioned @SimoneRKenyon's performance project, Into The Mountain, and the film arising, "How The Earth Must See Itself", co-created with Lucy Cash. You can watch that film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Tty8pAPD8HY&feature=emb_logo
...and of course there are Nan's three remarkable novels, for which she was best known in her lifetime, and that together with The Living Mountain form The Grampian Quartet.
The Quarry Wood
The Weatherhouse
A Pass in The Grampians
I love all three & especially The Quarry Wood.
The Quarry Wood
The Weatherhouse
A Pass in The Grampians
I love all three & especially The Quarry Wood.
...then there's the film-maker Ben Rivers' quiet minor modern classic, Two Years At Sea (2011) about a man living amid the pines of the Cairngorms, which you can now watch in full here. Settle into its rhythms, its gentle & enigmatic intricacies.
...well, I could go on, as you can probably tell, but I'll hand over to you for your recommendations, suggestions, additions, whether it's your work or that of others, whether directly or obliquely related to the Cairngorms or Nan. I'll almost-end by thanking Erlend Clouston...
...Nan's friend & literary executor, who's been a wonderful, generous support to me over the years in my passion for Nan's work; & who gave me this: Nan's linen-paper touring map of the Cairngorms region, with her hand-writing marking it. One of my most treasured things...
...and of course I want *truly* to end by thanking you all for your companionship along the path into #TheLivingMountain. I've loved watching friendships, exchanges & conversations spring up; I've learned so much. And it's surely helped me through these hard past few weeks. So...
...go well one & all. The mountains will be waiting patiently in the months ahead, there for us all when we emerge again. And how we will need them.
“Haste can do nothing with these hills. I knew when I had looked for a long time that I had hardly begun to see.”
(Nan Shepherd)
“Haste can do nothing with these hills. I knew when I had looked for a long time that I had hardly begun to see.”
(Nan Shepherd)
