Product Description

In the last year of the old millennium, Richard Mabey, Britain's foremost nature writer, fell into a severe depression. For two years, he did little more than lie in bed with his face to a wall. He could neither work nor play. His money ran out. Worst of all, the natural world - which since childhood had been a source of joy and inspiration for him - became meaningless. Then, cared for by friends, he gradually recovered. He fell in love. Out of necessity as much as choice he moved to East Anglia. And he started to write again. This remarkable book is an account of that first year of a new life. It is the story of a rite of passage - from sickness into health, from retreat into curiosity. It is about the adventure of learning to fit again. Having left the cosseting woods of the Chiltern hills for the open flatlands of Norfolk, Richard Mabey finds exhilaration in discovering a whole new landscape. He writes about the changing seasons in prose so exact and so beautiful that every sentence delights the reader. But "Nature Cure" is also a larger story. In finding his own niche, Richard Mabey gained insights into our human place in nature. He reflects on the inherent value of all creatures; on our presumptions that mankind is superior; on the ancient morality of common land; and above all on the role of the imagination - not as a barrier between us and nature, but as our best way back to it. This was his 'nature cure': not a passive submission to nature, but an active, sensual re-engagement. Structured as intricately as a novel, a joy to read, truthful, exquisite and questing, "Nature Cure" is a book of hope, not just for individuals, but for our species.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49125 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-06
• Released on: 2006-04-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
"* 'A book of which only he could have written a single page... marvellously observed, deeply felt from sentence to sentence. The writing is exquisite.' - David Sexton, Evening Standard * 'A brilliant, candid and heartfelt memoir...The account of how he broke free of depression, reshaped his life and reconnected with the wild becomes nothing short of a manifesto for living... Mabey's particular vision, informed by a lifetime's reading and observation, is ultimately optimistic. It is also what makes his voice so appealing amid all the froth and flam of the eco-debate.' - Philip Marsden, Sunday Times * 'Written in the radiant, tingle-making prose that has earned Mabey literary prizes and a multitude of fans... both a wake-up call and an example of how the love of nature can electrify and heal the imagination.' - Val Hennessy, Daily Mail * 'What good company is Richard Mabey - and how utterly necessary...like Seamus Heaney, he is one of those writers whose language is pressed very close to the world. It's exact and attentive, not a "dirty glass" which divides us from nature.' - Kathleen Jamie, Scotland on Sunday * 'Nature Cure moves between the nervous breakdown of an individual and the madness of the modern world with a prescience akin to that of TS Eliot's Waste Land.' - Jonathan Bate, Guardian * 'Mabey is a radical, inheritor of an old English tradition...The core of the book is his exploration of his new landscape. It feels a privilege to share it, watching him unpick the layers of watery Norfolk, with dazzling skill and the warmest of hearts, as his troubled mind heals.' - Michael McCarthy, Independent * 'He has rediscovered the credo that in his black moments he feared he had lost for ever: a belief in the importance of a sensual engagement with the world and a conviction that, to remain on an even keel in life, it is foolish to ignore the links that exist between feelings, the imagination and intelligence.' - Caroline Moorehead, Spectator * 'Part autobiography, part meditation on the relationship between nature and culture. It's a dense, meandering work, a bit like Norfolk, with rivers of shining, sinuous prose suddenly emerging from intriguing thickets of opinion and memory... Mabey understands that beautiful writing is a matter of never being bigger than your subject...and has not lost the childlike pleasure in nature that transports him and his readers to the gates of heaven.' - Will Cohu, Daily Telegraph"

Independent
"enthralling musings on the profound importance of the natural world…"

Ross Leckie, Saturday Times, 8 April 2006
This book is rich in lore and learning…fecund, fertile and full of hope.

Customer Reviews

Doesn't 'do what it says on the tin'
I really wanted to love this book. Depression is a vile, destructive thing, and also something of a mystery, and any tale of its defeat should be both inspiring and informative. Add to this the location, the East Anglian countryside, this book looked (to me) irresistible. And then there were all the fulsome comments from national newspapers on the cover...

However, in the end I was disappointed. I learnt little about depression, its causes and cures - or about the real inner life of the author. I got little sense of the horror of depression at the start, of an eventful and bumpy journey in the middle, of any interest in the psychological forces at work as we travelled, or of a real cure at the end.

Behind a veil of lyricism, the author is really rather reticent. For example, part of his healing process came via a relationship, but we are offered no insight into this at all - no doubt tactful to the lady involved, but it makes dull reading.

Of course, there are good things about this book. Mabey writes with poetry and elegance about the environment, and his love of nature shines through (`It was the kind of day that makes one feel like saying grace for a blade of grass'). Were it marketed as a series of essays on rural life, ecology etc., or just a literary diary of a year in rural East Anglia, it would be very pleasant. But it purports to be something more, and to me it does not deliver on this promise.

A marmite - Love it or hate it!!
There is no denying that Richard Mabey is a talented author and naturalist, so its no surprise that the combination of these two qualities produce a book that is both eloquent and imaginative, and will for some people be the epitome of what a thought-provoking 'nature book' should be.

However I was first introduced to Nature Cure through Mabey's column in BBC Wildlife of the same name, and found it to be not only pessimistic but also somewhat dismissive of efforts to aid the natural world. So upon embarking on the book I was prepared for much more of the same, and I wasn't disappointed.

From the word go Mabey seems intent on reminding us of what we have lost rather than what we still have and what it can do for us. Although he describes swift sightings and deer encounters with heart-warming enthusiasm, it is always followed by a lengthy account of how out of tune we have become with nature, or a depressing metaphor for mankind's fall from grace!

Even the title is somewhat misleading. I expected the theme of Nature Cure to be a description of how the power of the natural world helped Mabey overcome depression. However it begins with Mabey already recovered, with barely a glimpse back into his life before recovery. As such the book meanders its way through what can only be described as a rather uneventful 'recuperation' period. Mabey's talent for describing natural events kept me interested enough to see it through to the end but it did become a chore and left me far from inspired.

There are some people who will find the book wonderful. There are beautiful descriptions and evocative thoughts which will make the more romantic nature lover's day. But for the more practical wildlife enthusiasts (like me) who like to learn and experience, it was rather disappointing.
For me Nature Cure was not an exhilarating literary venture in the way Mabey's Flora Britannica was, but it is something a little different, and for that reason is both refreshing and worth a try.

Ignore the title, just enjoy the contents
You can imagine the scene. One of Britains most respected and brilliant nature writers having recovered from a bout of severe depression turns up for a meeting with his publishers with his latest work. "How are we going to market this book, Richard? What title shall we give it?" Nature Cure.
But, despite the fact that this book is up to Richards usual high standard, there's precious little on how he came back from the brink and the part that reconnecting with nature played. And this is the real disappointment. Much has been done and written in the scientific community, for example by Professor Roger Ulrich amongst others, on the effects of exposure to the natural world on patients.
But this is dry academic stuff and I was really hoping that someone with Richards power of prose could present a more cogent and lucid understanding of the role nature can play in restoring the mind.
If that publishers conference had decided that this was really a book about upping sticks from your home in the Chilterns and moving to and re-discovering the East Anglian landscape then I expect it wouldn't have been so attractive or compelling even if it was more honest.
So ignore the title, don't have too many expectations and just enjoy Richards evocative writing. I certainly did.