Nature Tales for Winter Nights by Nancy Campbell is a curiously mistitled book. To the casual browser, at first glance it appears to be a short story collection, when in actuality, it’s a wintry-themed literary pick’n’mix. Almost fifty different pieces, ranging through time and genre; a lucky dip could bless the reader with a letter from Vincent Van Gogh, a passage from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, or maybe an extract from the meteorological records of an Arctic explorer. Eclectic and evocative, it makes a lovely companion for these long, dark days of the year.
Campbell is a poet and writer, whose own work is inspired by landscape, nature and geopoetics (a philosophy that emphasises the interdependence of humans and the natural world). In this very personal selection, she introduces us to a season of endurance and reflection, whilst we daydream of hibernation (along with the common whippoorwill, apparently the only bird to actually do so).
‘Hibernation is a miraculous spell of time akin to the transformations undergone by a shaman, whose spirit travels while their body is in trance. Likewise, hours spent in a library might seem to be a retreat from the world, yet promise encounters with a myriad voices.’
This is certainly the case here, where some of the pieces are absolutely transporting. As expected, there are some fine observations from the old-time bearded gentleman types such as Charles Darwin, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman. Consider this wonderfully expressive pre-winter gardening tip from the eminent 17th-century diarist and horticulturist, John Evelyn, ‘Sweep and cleanse your walks and all other places, of autumnal leaves fallen, lest the worms draw them into their holes, and foul your gardens…’
Fast-forwarding to today, we find some brilliant contributions from women writers, in particular a poem called Grace by former U.S Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo, the first Native American to hold the post. This stunning poem describes a search for grace, as a dispossessed woman in a harsh place and season, the travails of winter symbolising colonial oppression, (hear Harjo read Grace on YouTube, she’s an inspiration).
A more familiar contributor is Virginia Woolf, and here Campbell has chosen a dazzling excerpt from Orlando, set during ‘The Great Frost’ of 1608-9. The Thames has frozen over and a wonderful festival has been set up on the ice, attended by the most brilliant of London society. Woolf’s glorious descriptions of lavish food, costume and gaiety are only surpassed by her upending of the scene, when the ice melts and the now terrified Thames dwellers and revellers are swept downriver on little icebergs, pacing ‘their twisting and precarious islands in the utmost agony of spirit’. Such tremendous writing calls for an immediate revisiting of the novel.
The perfect ‘dipper’, Campbell’s book introduces the reader to new voices and reacquaints them with golden oldies. Surely most readers are less than familiar with Robert Louis Stevenson’s essay grumbling about the Swiss Alps? It’s here, in this book, and it’s fascinating.
Be sure to delve into the illuminating glossary of authors at the back of the book.
Nature Tales for Winter Nights by Nancy Campbell is published by Elliott & Thompson, 272 pages.
