Yes I know of Walden or The Peregrine, but are there any other books/writers who are considered essential in this genre? The type of nature or time period doesn’t matter to me, just looking for books with abundant descriptions of the natural world.
>>25373113Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford considered the nature writer WH Hudson to be a model of the kind of loose, easy, energetic prose style they were after themselves. i recommend his book The Naturalist in La Plata.
>>25373113Herman Melville "The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles"
>>25373113Richard JefferiesEdward abbey>>25373121You don't know what nature writing means
Wendel Berry is pretty beloved by nature enthusiasts who like literature. >>25374205NTA but lots of novel writers and poets who were not primarily concerned with naturalism or environmentalism developed the ability to paint landscapes and natural scenes in really rich, poetic and allegorical ways, so I think it is completely fair to mention someone like Melville who had this gift. Tolstoy, and Chekhov were very good at this. Dostoevsky not as much. Shakespeare not as much. Many poets come to mind Wordsworth, Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, Walt Whitman, Emerson, Melville again, Thomas Hardy, too many to name.
>>25373113Robert FrostWilliam WordsworthHenry Wadsworth LongfellowRudyard KiplingPeter Hathaway Capstick
>>25374231You absolutely do not know what nature writing means. All writers have occasional descriptions of nature in their books, that's not what makes it nature writing.
>>25374251What do you want, Rachel Carson? Is Wendell Berry not a nature writer? Do you have a concept of nature or nature writing that is not overtly related to the 20th century ideology of environmentalism?
>>25374258Retard, those books by Chekhov, Melville, Tolstoy can hardly be called nature writing. They absolutely don't go anywhere beyond a standard novel in describing nature.
>>25374263"But look, what a view!" said Samoylenko as the horses turned to the left, and the valley of the Yellow River came into sight and the stream itself gleamed in the sunlight, yellow, turbid, frantic."I see nothing fine in that, Sasha," answered Laevsky. "To be in continual ecstasies over nature shows poverty of imagination. In comparison with what my imagination can give me, all these streams and rocks are trash, and nothing else."The carriages now were by the banks of the stream. The high mountain banks gradually grew closer, the valley shrank together and ended in a gorge; the rocky mountain round which they were driving had been piled together by nature out of huge rocks, pressing upon each other with such terrible weight, that Samoylenko could not help gasping every time he looked at them. The dark and beautiful mountain was cleft in places by narrow fissures and gorges from which came a breath of dewy moisture and mystery; through the gorges could be seen other mountains, brown, pink, lilac, smoky, or bathed in vivid sunlight. From time to time as they passed a gorge they caught the sound of water falling from the heights and splashing on the stones."Ach, the damned mountains!" sighed Laevsky. "How sick I am of them!"At the place where the Black River falls into the Yellow, and the water black as ink stains the yellow and struggles with it, stood the Tatar Kerbalay's _duhan_, with the Russian flag on the roof and with an inscription written in chalk: "The Pleasant _duhan_." Near it was a little garden, enclosed in a hurdle fence, with tables and chairs set out in it, and in the midst of a thicket of wretched thornbushes stood a single solitary cypress, dark and beautiful.
>>25374205The Encantadas absolutely counts as nature writing.
>>25374263 Take five-and-twenty heaps of cinders dumped here and there in an outside city lot, imagine some of them magnified into mountains, and the vacant lot the sea, and you will have a fit idea of the general aspect of the Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles. A group rather of extinct volcanoes than of isles, looking much as the world at large might after a penal conflagration.It is to be doubted whether any spot on earth can, in desolateness, furnish a parallel to this group. Abandoned cemeteries of long ago, old cities by piecemeal tumbling to their ruin, these are melancholy enough; but, like all else which has but once been associated with humanity, they still awaken in us some thoughts of sympathy, however sad. Hence, even the Dead Sea, along with whatever other emotions it may at times inspire, does not fail to touch in the pilgrim some of his less unpleasurable feelings.And as for solitariness, the great forests of the north, the expanses of unnavigated waters, the Greenland ice fields, are the profoundest of solitudes to a human observer; still the magic of their changeable tides and seasons mitigates their terror, because, though unvisited by men, those forests are visited by the May; the remotest seas reflect familiar stars even as Lake Erie does; and in the clear air of a fine Polar day, the irradiated, azure ice shows beautifully as malachite.But the special curse, as one may call it, of the Encantadas, that which exalts them in desolation above Idumea and the Pole, is that to them change never comes; neither the change of seasons nor of sorrows. Cut by the Equator, they know not autumn, and they know not spring; while, already reduced to the lees of fire, ruin itself can work little more upon them. The showers refresh the deserts, but in these isles rain never falls. Like split Syrian gourds left withering in the sun, they are cracked by an everlasting drought beneath a torrid sky. "Have mercy upon me," the wailing spirit of the Encantadas seems to cry, "and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame."Another feature in these isles is their emphatic uninhabitableness. It is deemed a fit type of all-forsaken overthrow that the jackal should den in the wastes of weedy Babylon, but the Encantadas refuse to harbor even the outcasts of the beasts. Man and wolf alike disown them. Little but reptile life is here found: tortoises, lizards, immense spiders, snakes, and that strangest anomaly of outlandish nature, the iguana. No voice, no low, no howl is heard; the chief sound of life here is a hiss.
>>25374263 I was returning home by the fields. It was midsummer, the hay harvest was over and they were just beginning to reap the rye. At that season of the year there is a delightful variety of flowers -- red, white, and pink scented tufty clover; milk-white ox-eye daisies with their bright yellow centers and pleasant spicy smell; yellow honey-scented rape blossoms; tall campanulas with white and lilac bells, tulip-shaped; creeping vetch; yellow, red, and pink scabious; faintly scented, neatly arranged purple plaintains with blossoms slightly tinged with pink; cornflowers, the newly opened blossoms bright blue in the sunshine but growing paler and redder towards evening or when growing old; and delicate almond-scented dodder flowers that withered quickly. I gathered myself a large nosegay and was going home when I noticed in a ditch, in full bloom, a beautiful thistle plant of the crimson variety, which in our neighborhood they call "Tartar" and carefully avoid when mowing -- or, if they do happen to cut it down, throw out from among the grass for fear of pricking their hands. Thinking to pick this thistle and put it in the center of my nosegay, I climbed down into the ditch, and after driving away a velvety bumble-bee that had penetrated deep into one of the flowers and had there fallen sweetly asleep, I set to work to pluck the flower. But this proved a very difficult task. Not only did the stalk prick on every side -- even through the handkerchief I wrapped round my hand -- but it was so tough that I had to struggle with it for nearly five minutes, breaking the fibers one by one; and when I had at last plucked it, the stalk was all frayed and the flower itself no longer seemed so fresh and beautiful. Moreover, owing to a coarseness and stiffness, it did not seem in place among the delicate blossoms of my nosegay. I threw it away feeling sorry to have vainly destroyed a flower that looked beautiful in its proper place."But what energy and tenacity! With what determination it defended itself, and how dearly it sold its life!" thought I, remembering the effort it had cost me to pluck the flower. The way home led across black-earth fields that had just been ploughed up. I ascended the dusty path. The ploughed field belonged to a landed proprietor and was so large that on both sides and before me to the top of the hill nothing was visible but evenly furrowed and moist earth. The land was well tilled and nowhere was there a blade of grass or any kind of plant to be seen, it was all black. "Ah, what a destructive creature is man. . . . How many different plant-lives he destroys to support his own existence!" thought I, involuntarily looking around for some living thing in this lifeless black field....
John MuirAldo LeopoldAlexander von HumboldtBarry LopezThis thread is ass
>>25374351OP is an asshole and felt the need to call me retarded for giving a sincere reply when he could have just said "thanks anon but I'm looking for something more like this" so I destroyed his thread in revenge. Sorry everyone.
>>25374318>>25374324>>25374325>3 passages describing nature somehow suggest that the whole books are mostly just descriptions of natureYou're dumb as fuck>>25374322No it does not. It's not nature writing when you pick one feature among millions and then go off on tangents that aren't even directly related to the nature around you. It's the exact opposite of nature writing which depends upon minute observation and immersion.
This is the only novel that qualifies as nature writing because it doesn't relegate nature to being an occasional distraction from the narrative, nor uses it as an excuse for digressions.
>>25374419>You're dumb as fuckYou are antisocial, rude, unpleasant and arrogant. Since you have no desire to interact with other human beings like a human being there is no point in your being here:https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=most+beloved+nature+writersClick the link and enjoy your solitary perusing. If you desire you may (out loud or silently) refer to perused sources and writers as "retards" and "dumb as fuck" and having "no clue what nature writing is."
The Traveling Tree by Michio Hoshino got a full translation into English just this year.
Would Kenneth Grahame count?Beatrix Potter?Charles Kingsley?
>>25373113>The PeregrineI read it, because of Werner.
>>25374358I’m the OP and I didn’t insult you. You can tell because that initial insulting reply was also giving recommendations. Thank you for your recs, and I should note my original post is pretty clear that I’m looking for any books with nature descriptions, not just strict nature writing. So you are fine, the other guy was being pedantic>>25374419You need to calm down. And if you’re going to be a stickler then you may as well read the full original post before sperging.
I like Wendell Berry and Paul Kingsnorth
>>25374427No instead it just depicts nature as some comically cruel and evil cosmic-scale deity based on nothing real.
>>25373113This may not be your cup of tea or what you asked for, but consider reading some scientific literature, especially monographs. Dirac's is extremely dense but you could try something less intimidating like Penrose's "Road to Reality" or Mandelbrot's "The Fractal Geometry of Nature".
>>25374876>some comically cruel and evil cosmic-scale deity based on nothing realYou are retarded and didn't read the book
>>25374419Nature writing is nonfiction or fiction prose about the natural environment. It often draws heavily from scientific information and facts while also incorporating philosophical reflection upon various aspects of nature. Works are frequently written in the first person and include personal observations.Nature writing encompasses a wide variety of works, ranging from those that place primary emphasis on natural history (such as field guides) to those focusing on philosophical interpretation. It includes poetry, essays of solitude or escape, as well as travel and adventure writing.[1]
>>25374893Lol
>>25374427>This is the only novel I've read that qualifies as nature writingficked
>>25375406Looking back, my post is particularly autistic and off topic.
Peter Matthiessen: Far Tortuga, Snow Leopard, lots of travel/naturalist stuff.Paul Theroux: I'm a sucker for the train stuff
>>25374351>John MuirLove that lil nigga
