djmelvill 's review for:

Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane

4.0

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Somewhere between 4-5 stars, but I’m going to have to review my notes to get a better sense of where exactly. Macfarlane is one of my very favourite creators working today—he is one of my heroes. Unlike some, I’m completely on board with his central question (my prof, Mari Jorestead’s, work on the Hebrew Bible convinced me of this), but for much of the book I was left with a stronger impression of the people rather than the rivers he encounters. This does shift in the book’s magnificent last third, however. Also, I did feel that Macfarlane’s prose stumbled in a few places, making this the first full-length book of his that felt somewhat unformed. Yet the spirt and vitality of this book is strong, almost as strong as the rivers which inspire it. I plan to write on this book for my school’s magazine, so I’ll have better, more cohesive thoughts coming later this year.