The Peregrine (New York Review Books Classics) [Paperback]

J.A. Baker (Author), Robert Macfarlane (Introduction)

Book Description

Release date: December 31, 2004 | Series: New York Review Books Classics

From fall to spring, J.A. Baker set out to track the daily comings and goings of a pair of peregrine falcons across the flat fen lands of eastern England. He followed the birds obsessively, observing them in the air and on the ground, in pursuit of their prey, making a kill, eating, and at rest, activities he describes with an extraordinary fusion of precision and poetry. And as he continued his mysterious private quest, his sense of human self slowly dissolved, to be replaced with the alien and implacable consciousness of a hawk.

It is this extraordinary metamorphosis, magical and terrifying, that these beautifully written pages record.

Editorial Reviews

Review

 

"...the book is a work of tireless outward observation, with an astonishingly inventive and precise prose style....Baker’s feet may be on the ground, but his gaze is skyward, toward the birds he envies." —Lisa Darms, Bookforum


"Remarkable...the lyrical prose hammers home the attraction of pitting predator against quarry." --Daily Telegraph (London)

 

About the Author

JOHN ALEC BAKER is also the author of The Hill of Summer. He was a native of Essex, England.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics (December 31, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9781590171332
• ISBN-13: 978-1590171332
• ASIN: 1590171330
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #252,701 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Peregrine February 12, 2010

By Indanthrone Blue

Format:Paperback

"The Peregrine" is the most incredible thing I've read in a long time, maybe ever. Both for the writing, and for the experiences that the writing coveys. It begins with two brief chapters, the first about watching, and the second about the form and habits of Peregrine Falcons. These are followed by Baker's diary entries as he follows a pair over the countryside near his home in Essex, England during a winter in the 1960's.

He observed them very closely, with enormous patience and effort. He wanted to join with them, to become one if he could, as though one of Ovid's metamorphoses could be brought about by sheer willpower. He got at least halfway there. This is not a normal book. It is a voice from another world.

A more or less random sample:

"He climbed vertically upward, like a salmon leaping in the great waves of air that broke against the cliff of South Wood. He dived to the trough of a wave, then rose steeply within it, flinging himself high in the air, on stretched wings exultant. At five hundred feet he hung still, tail closed, wings curving far back with their tips almost toughing the tip of his tail. He was stooping horizontally forward at the speed of the oncoming wind. He rocked and swayed and shuddered, close-hauled in a roaring sea of air, his furled wings whipping and plying like wet canvas. Suddenly he plunged to the north, curved over to the vertical stoop, flourished his wings high, shrank small and fell.

He fell so fast, he fired so furiously from the sky to the dark wood below that his black shape dimmed to grey air, hidden in a shining cloud of speed. He drew the sky about him as he fell. It was final. It was death. There was nothing more. There could be nothing more. Dusk came early. Through the almost dark, the fearful pigeons flew quietly down to roost above the feathered bloodstain in the woodland ride."

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars ...red in tooth and claw February 19, 2007

By LaRougerie

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is nature, hard core. The line between Baker and his prey disappears during the year he spends with these birds. Magnificent, heart-stopping, sense-exploding writing. I read it slowly because it made me more observant of everything I miss when I rush. Makes you a better creature on the earth for reading it.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and dramatic April 6, 2010

By Wowbagger

Format:Paperback

Although bird-watching seems at first sight a boring pursuit, the author's narrative of his tracking of peregrines over one winter is riveting. One finds oneself getting sucked into his obsession. He does not pull any punches when describing the brutality of a predatory lifestyle, but he does so so empathetically that one finds oneself increasingly seeing things from the birds' point of view. This leads to a strange but compelling mixture of the brutal and the romantic. His descriptions of the Essex countryside are also beautifully worded. Like with the birds, he describes the countryside in a style that is straightforward, i.e. not flowery, yet full of drily apt metaphors that convey the understated beauty of the countryside.