The Living Mountain (Canons): A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland: 6

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The brilliant introduction notes that ‘Reading The Living Mountain, your sight feels scattered – as though you’ve suddenly gained the compound eye of a dragonfly, seeing through a hundred different lenses at once…’ I couldn’t think of a more fitting description. It is ephemeral and transcendent, but completely couched in the very real earthiness of the inhospitable environment. We feel the chill of the gales, the crisp delicacy of crunching new snow beneath our boots, the verdant scent of damp moss and marvel at the resplendent abundance of the flora and fauna in so harsh an environment. A bewitching work of wisdom and light and, for the truth it expresses, the most important record you will listen to this year."

That experience came to mind as I read Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain. Drafted in 1945, published in 1977, the slender book is a meditation on Scotland's Cairngorm Mountains, and a master class in listening to and seeing the landscape from someone who dedicated her life to being fully present in these mountains. Nan Shepherd is best known as the author of the The Quarry Wood, The Weatherhouse, and A Pass in the Grampians, novels which she wrote from 1928-1933. In Robert Macfarlane's sensitive introduction to The Living Mountain, he describes Shepherd's struggles with writing after that time. Those struggles make The Living Mountain even more precious, a beautifully written and observed account of Shepherd's beloved Cairngorms, based on a lifetime's worth of walks. As Macfarlane notes, "Reading The Living Mountain, your sight feels scattered – as though you’ve suddenly gained the compound eye of a dragonfly, seeing through a hundred different lenses at once. This multiplex effect is created by Shepherd’s refusal to privilege a single perspective." It's become increasingly rare to have an intimate and lasting relationship with a wild space. If you have one, I think you will identify with many of Shepherd's experiences; if you don't, perhaps this book will provide the impetus to get out there and find your own living mountain (or dune, or forest, or whatever). Shepherd’s book records – with luminous precision – details of the Cairngorm world: ‘the coil over coil’ of a golden eagle’s ascent on a thermal, a pool of ‘small frogs jumping like tiddly-winks’, a white hare crossing sunlit snow with its accompanying ‘odd ludicrous leggy shadow-skeleton’.

And last October, just as winter was tightening its grip upon the Highlands, I travelled to the Cairngorms to make a Secret Knowledge programme about Nan and the range. The film adapted a chapter of a book of mine called Landmarks, which explores the huge power of language – single words, strong style – to shape our sense of place.

Sensual is one of the words Macfarlane uses to describe Shepherd’s work. She herself wrote that she found “a joyous release” in walking and climbing, often toiling through foul weather. The Living Mountain begins with the observation: “Summer on the high plateau can be as sweet as honey; it can also be a roaring scourge. To those who love the place, both are good, since both are part of its essential nature.” Where was my epiphany? I am sure it said on the tin that I was due one and I feel rather ripped off.

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Everyone in Scotland knows what Nan Shepherd looks like. Her face, complete with bejewelled bandanna, stares out from the Scottish five-pound note. Yet how people many have read her books? Yet often the mountain gives itself most completely when I have no destination, when I reach nowhere in particular, but have merely gone out to be with the mountain as one visits a friend with no intention but to be with him. The book was written in the last years of the Second World War. You catch this in the details. It was put in a drawer and not published until 1977. Complaints were made that maps and photos should be added. In fact, I thought this myself, but only at the start. You must pay attention and listen. You do not want to be diverted. The writing is lyrical, and it leaves you thinking.