The focus on place
and our interaction is a common thread between this book and Tom
Cox’s Ring the Hill.
Macfarlane is
skilled at bring a place into being in the readers mind, not just a
set of physical descriptions but an emotional response.
Linking the places
with the theme “Underland” Macfarlane shows that human beings
across the wide reaches of existence seems to have always had a rich,
if complex, relationship with underground spaces. Early humans used
caves is ways that don’t seem to have been driven by utilitarian
needs – spaces that often seem to have been treated as somehow
“holy”.
The twin poles of
the earth as place to bury the death, and dispose of waste of all
sorts, and the earth as place of resource, the soil that supports
crops to feed us, the mines that supply fuel, metals, gem stones –
these play against one another in creative ways.
Some of the places
he explores are natural and some are human creations, - spaces hidden
within the visible city – in those places he joins with others in
“urban exploration” - “Urban exploration might best be defined
as adventurous trespass in the built environment...” but he feels
that there “There are aspects of urban exploration that leave me
deeply uneasy, and cannot be fended off by indemnifying gestures of
self-awareness on the part of its practitioners. I dislike its air of
hipster entitlement, its inattention towards those people whose
working lives involve the construction, operation and maintenance –
rather than the exploration – of these hidden structures of the
city.” an unease I can recognise and one that seems to increase
with the sharing of resulting photos on social media – the desire
for an encounter with a space and place exchanged perhaps for good
quality click-bait that will return a healthy crop of “likes”?
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