As a lover of literature, all literature, I have been
attempting to read more non-fiction books. I’m a heavy reader of fiction,
frequent reader of poetry, occasional reader of short fiction and fairly light
reader of non-fiction. Which is not strictly true, exactly, as I read a lot of
news reports and articles related to my work or matters of interest, but books of non-fiction not so much. My
challenge is to read one piece of non-fiction per month, spread over the month.
I find it difficult (but not impossible, the amazing Book of Silence proved
that) to continuously read a book of non-fiction in the same way as I read a
fictional work. I suppose this shouldn’t be too surprising as I would not
expect to read poetry in the same way as I read a novel so neither should I
expect to read non-fiction in same way.
Of course I have fallen behind on my target, but bear with
me. I could catch up yet.
I also wanted to read non-fiction written by women. I think
where there is an acceptance of female novelists and poets, there remains a
challenge for women writing non-fiction. Perhaps this is linked to the idea
that women cannot be experts, or a general preference for fiction, or perhaps
it is women who think themselves unqualified to write about non-fiction
subjects. Who knows. Whatever the reason, it is harder to find non-fiction
written by women.
Anyway, that aside I did
find a non-fiction book written by a women on a subject that interests me.
Alexandra Horowitz’s book ‘On Looking’ is all about how to look and feel and
experience more closely that which we take for granted: our local streets and
neighbourhoods. Horowitz is based in New York, so her walks were all city based
which gives an interesting contrast to my own experience which is more rural in
nature. Not being a fan of cities in general, it gave me an interesting view on
how to find the fascinating even in the concrete and glass jungle which seems so off-putting to me.
In exploring how to see and experience more of our
environment, Horowitz took a series of walks with different experts and taking
different perspectives. This helps to draw out different aspects of the
environment which might otherwise be missed on a city walk. As a starting point
Horowitz took and described her own walk, including some interesting
information about why it is that we learn not
to see, and she also took a walk with her small son, allowing him to guide her
in his own exploration of their neighbourhood. The results were quite
interesting. Horowitz discovered that when she walks she walks to be somewhere
taking little in and moving swiftly, whereas her son’s walk was far more of an
exploration sometimes taking 20 minutes before moving from one interesting
sight to another. In her walk with her son Horowitz was surprised to find how
frustrating she found it, how much she longed to move determinedly through the
streets whereas her son longed to linger and examine and see.
This theme repeats throughout the walks that Horowitz takes
with the experts, but in these walks she is much more open to seeing and
experiencing the city through the eyes of her fellow walkees. Horowitz walks
with Sidney Horenstein an expert on geology, Maria Kalman an illustrator whose
willingness to walk into seemingly off-limits places Horowitz found both
exciting and disturbing (much notice is taken of personal space), Paul Shaw an
expert on typefaces, Charley Eiseman a naturalist who spends most of his time
flipping over leaves looking for evidence of creepy crawlies, John Hadidian who
has a similar interest but in the larger animals living in the city, Fred Kent
an expert on the use of urban space and a man who enjoys a well thought-out
shop front, Dr Joseph Bell who can diagnose medical conditions at a glance. By
far my favourite walk was that she took with Arlene Gordon whose blindness
doesn’t stop her from ‘seeing’ the city, and she also took an interesting walk
aimed at hearing the city better and one from a dog’s eye (or more accurately:
nose) view.
The specifics of the walks aren’t really important, but what
this book made me think about was the quality of my own walking. Often I walk
with a purpose: I am going somewhere.
I walk up hills because I want the sense of achievement from reaching the top
coupled with the reward of an amazing view. I walk to exercise, swiftly and
with little care about where I’m going. I walk with earphones in my ear,
listening to my own soundtrack and not the soundtrack of the world outside.
Reading this book made me think of the pleasure of walking for the sake of
walking, for the pleasure of the walk itself. I’d forgotten how much that could
be a voyage of discovery. I think that in the Western world we have become
obsessed with the idea of goals and stages and achievements and challenges, and
there’s nothing wrong with that except it denies us the pleasure of the
journey, that the point of a goal is that you are going somewhere but it is the
bit between the setting of the goal and achieving of it in which all of your
learning and striving and doing takes place. Ignoring the middle part is a bit
dumb, when you think about it.
Perhaps it just mirrors the way I’ve been feeling recently,
but the idea of going for a walk for the pleasure of walking, as a means unto
itself, is very appealing. There is something wonderful in being reminded that
life is a means unto itself, that we don’t have to wait until tomorrow to find
pleasure in our existence. This book reminded me that you don’t have to go
somewhere else to find something beautiful or interesting, that it’s right
there outside the window as long as your eyes are open.
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