The Nan Shepherd/The Living Mountain #CoReadingVirus Book Group: as promised, some Sunday thoughts about how it might work. If you're new to the plan, the tweet below should help explain the idea; do join us!
Otherwise & anyway, read on & RT.
[Thread...]
Otherwise & anyway, read on & RT.
[Thread...]
...People around the world are getting hold of copies of Nan's wonderful book, written in a time of world crisis (1940s). They're buying them, borrowing them, being given them by strangers (see tweet below if you want to give or be given a copy)...
...acquiring audio-copies/e-books. It's been heart-lifting to see the global response to the idea; I've spoken about it on Canadian, New Zealand & British radio & we've participants from dozens of countries. Really, how it might work is mostly up to all of you... 
...but having run a couple of Twitter Reading Groups in the past (#TheDarkIsReading & #TheReadingsOfSaturn), I think what I'll plan to do is start the group on Sat 28 March, and then take the book chapter by chapter every 2-3 days or so. Chapters are short, 15 pp or less...
...the whole book only 30,000 words or so: a modest masterpiece. For each chapter, then, I'll post questions, thoughts, reflections here; two/three a chapter, p'raps. People can respond in the threads, or start their own using the hashtags (#CoReadingVirus/#TheLivingMountain)...
...and you might also want to contribute not only conversationally/analytically in response to The Living Mountain, but also with memories, photographs, stories, cross-references to other works of literature, art or music, or even...
...you might want to try your own short writing or art in response to Nan's book, its landscape, its ideas, its aura, its world. As we go I'll try to share resources/references to do with The Living Mountain, which has prompted a wonderful wave of creative work recently...
...esp. in the UK/Scotland, from musicians, dancers, walkers, writers, photographers, artists & everyday readers. You don't need to know & love the Cairngorms, or the Highlands, or even the hills, to find your way into Shepherd's book. Don't be put off by the blizzard of...
...place-names & site-specific references that you'll encounter early on––though & of course there's a rich pleasure in looking them up on maps, & dreaming your way into the Cairngorm massif–– because these are functions of Nan's intense concentration on this landscape...
...which is part of her means of making it richly, wildly resonant, of "thinking with" the mountains. They were her university, her laboratory, the place she experimented & philosophised, developing progressive, original ideas about bodily knowledge, beauty, ecology...
...: as she says in the final pages, in lines that speak of a lover or dear friend, as well as of a place, "Knowing another is endless...The thing to be known grows with the knowing."
Lastly, I just wanted to say that I'm aware many of you are struggling right now...
Lastly, I just wanted to say that I'm aware many of you are struggling right now...
...with surging fears, sleeplessness, carrying heavy burdens of care, finding the hours & the days hard. I know I am. And I know there's harder times to come. I suggested this Reading Group because I believe it might in some small way build community, kindness, mutualism...
...at a time, God knows, when we need such qualities more than ever. We'll be reading together, I hope, not in ignorance or denial of the storm that's breaking over us, but as a way to leave us a little better able to cope & therefore a little better able to care for others...
...kin, kith and strangers alike.
Anyway, that's quite enough from me. In short, let's start walking "into the mountain" together on Sat March 28th, around 7pm UK time. Draw others to join us. Listen in, speak up, share, or just walk quietly alongside. All ways are welcome.
Anyway, that's quite enough from me. In short, let's start walking "into the mountain" together on Sat March 28th, around 7pm UK time. Draw others to join us. Listen in, speak up, share, or just walk quietly alongside. All ways are welcome.
