Evans, Gareth and Robson, Di (Eds): Towards Re-Enchantment

The full title continues 'Place and Its Meanings' which describes this collection of essays and poems about different parts of
the United Kingdom by various authors. Some are much better than others at evoking a sense of the place they are describing with the essays by Richard Mabey on Norfolk, Iain Sinclair on Springgield Park, Jay Griffiths on Ystrad Fflur being
especially good. Others which impressed were Ken Worpole on Essex and Kathleen Jamie on Rona while Robert Macfarlane on the Isle of Lewis rather extended the local to the more general. However, I found this final essay in the book to be one of the more memorable. A few were spoilt for me by the political undertones with which I did not agree and I wonder if this was the appropriate place to express them - the editors presumably thought it was. The editors run a production agency which provides a platform for artists to explore the nature and values of contemporary society etc. which does incline one to the feeling that radical/socialist thought is more likely to find favour than expressions of a more right-wing frame of mind. There is, of course, every reason to encourage this approach even though it is not one which I find quite to my liking.
Overall, I am pleased to have read the collection though I did sort of skip the poetry.