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Far Away and Long Ago: A History of My Early Life
For at some period of a man's life; at all events of some lives; in some rare state of the mind, it is all at once revealed to him as by a miracle that nothing is ever blotted out.
248 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1918
About the author
William Henry Hudson
630 books86 followersWilliam Henry Hudson was an Anglo-Argentine author, naturalist and ornithologist. His works include
Green Mansions
(1904).
Argentines consider him to belong to their national literature as Guillermo Enrique Hudson, the Spanish version of his name. He spent his youth studying the local flora and fauna and observing natural and human dramas on then a lawless frontier, publishing his ornithological work in Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society, initially in an English mingled with Spanish idioms. He settled in England during 1869. He produced a series of ornithological studies, including Argentine Ornithology (1888-1899) and British Birds (1895), and later achieved fame with his books on the English countryside, including Hampshire Days (1903), Afoot in England (1909) and A Shepherd's Life (1910). People best know his nonfiction in Far Away and Long Ago (1918). His other works include: The Purple Land (That England Lost) (1885), A Crystal Age (1887), The Naturalist in La Plata (1892), A Little Boy Lost (1905), Birds in Town and Village (1919), Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn (1920), and A Traveller in Little Things (1921).
Argentines consider him to belong to their national literature as Guillermo Enrique Hudson, the Spanish version of his name. He spent his youth studying the local flora and fauna and observing natural and human dramas on then a lawless frontier, publishing his ornithological work in Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society, initially in an English mingled with Spanish idioms. He settled in England during 1869. He produced a series of ornithological studies, including Argentine Ornithology (1888-1899) and British Birds (1895), and later achieved fame with his books on the English countryside, including Hampshire Days (1903), Afoot in England (1909) and A Shepherd's Life (1910). People best know his nonfiction in Far Away and Long Ago (1918). His other works include: The Purple Land (That England Lost) (1885), A Crystal Age (1887), The Naturalist in La Plata (1892), A Little Boy Lost (1905), Birds in Town and Village (1919), Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn (1920), and A Traveller in Little Things (1921).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 72 reviews
August 25, 2016
This book tells the story of the author's childhood and boyhood on the Argentine pampas. His was a warm and loving family in which the children had plenty of freedom to explore the natural world around them, since they were educated at home in their early years. His love of nature began at an early age and he became a careful observer of birds and other creatures. There is an elegiac mood created as he states that many of the wonderful natural places he knew as a child were now gone forever due to the spread of agriculture.
This book was written one hundred years ago but his observations about the disappearance of natural spaces are still valid for today.
This book was written one hundred years ago but his observations about the disappearance of natural spaces are still valid for today.
April 26, 2020
An interesting autobiography written in 1918 of a childhood in the Argentinian pampas (plains), a boy who never grows out of his love of nature and eventually develops a kind of mystical relationship to it, despite doing all the cruel tings young boys do growing up in rural isolation with older brothers.
Inevitably perhaps, despite the appreciation for the wild, there is the presence in the text of racial prejudice and superiority, but if one can out that aide, it provides a unique glimpse into life in another era, in a naturalists paradise, on the path of many migrating birds, a freedom that comes from a lack of a strict education and not needing to go away to school.
I read this because it was recommended to me when I created a list of my top 5 nature-inspired reads, because it's over 100 years since it was published I was able to download a copy from Project Gutenburg and was all the more interested to read it and it is mentioned as one of the texts that in some way informs the excellent The Adventures of China Iron.
The final chapter is a beautiful lament to his mother and makes me wish he was able to write more about his parents and how they came to be living out there in the first place, perhaps it is childish adoration, but they seemed unsuited to the harshness of that environment and there is no sense of actually farming, he does seem to have the most incredible sense of freedom, perhaps because they employed people to do the actual work, as if often the 'colonial' way.
An enjoyable read.
Inevitably perhaps, despite the appreciation for the wild, there is the presence in the text of racial prejudice and superiority, but if one can out that aide, it provides a unique glimpse into life in another era, in a naturalists paradise, on the path of many migrating birds, a freedom that comes from a lack of a strict education and not needing to go away to school.
I read this because it was recommended to me when I created a list of my top 5 nature-inspired reads, because it's over 100 years since it was published I was able to download a copy from Project Gutenburg and was all the more interested to read it and it is mentioned as one of the texts that in some way informs the excellent The Adventures of China Iron.
The final chapter is a beautiful lament to his mother and makes me wish he was able to write more about his parents and how they came to be living out there in the first place, perhaps it is childish adoration, but they seemed unsuited to the harshness of that environment and there is no sense of actually farming, he does seem to have the most incredible sense of freedom, perhaps because they employed people to do the actual work, as if often the 'colonial' way.
An enjoyable read.
April 13, 2012
The strangeness of the world is never-ending, particularly in the memoirs of those who have long ago left us. Hudson evokes a bird-world in South America that even he laments as lost, from his burrow in the smokey London of his exile. He knew what was happening in his homeland, the spread of efficient agriculture that doomed wetlands and their denizens. And this was over a century ago. The beauty and oddity of this memoir just absolves it of the terrible pain it causes. That seemed to have been Hudson's case as well.
April 13, 2015
Wonderful book.
I didn't rate it four stars because of a curious reticence on the author's part about his own family--in a memoir of his childhood. Although he tells us the names of neighbors, their personalities and biographies, he never tells us the names of his brothers and sisters, and doesn't even bother to mention that he has any or how many until well into the narrative, and we learn very little or nothing at all about them. The same for his parents. He scarcely mentions his father and only discusses his mother in any detail in the last chapter. Weird.
That aside, it was an exceptional book that acquainted me with a curious and wonderful world that I had no idea had ever existed, and when the last page was turned and the story done, I hated to close the book and let it go.
To fully appreciate the memoir, I had to do a little outside reading. Thus I discovered that, Hudson, born in 1841 to American parents who had emigrated to Argentina, was writing about that country as it was in the late 1840s and early 1850s. The land that was to become Argentina had become independent of Spain a quarter of a century before, but wars among the provinces had been ongoing, as well as a conflict with Chile, which intended to seize Patagonia, and promoted rebellions by and against the native populations to attempt to achieve that end. It's all very complicated to one unfamiliar with the history.
Nonetheless, it bears on Hudson's story, especially in explaining why all the estancias, or landed estates...ranches...haciendas...seemed to be in a state of decline, relics of a better and more peaceful and prosperous time, why the books in his household, some hundreds of them, were mostly a century old. That's because the Argentine, as well as the rest of South America, under Spanish rule, had been more peaceful and prosperous, and once the colonial rulers were expelled, anarchy and warfare became the norm.
To Hudson as a little boy awakening to a beautiful natural world, all this was an only rarely troubling aspect of his existence. But the economic retrogression that the political turmoil engendered actually helped preserve a little while longer the beautiful natural world that he so enjoyed and has told us about in his charming remembrance of things past.
But do not think that Hudson sugar coats his memories. He is utterly honest about the life and the casual cruelty of the world he grew up in, whether he's describing the way of killing cattle or the way of killing men. It was a brutal, violent world without mercy or tenderness, except within the family, and within his own boyish heart as he grew to appreciate and understand nature and the lives of the wild creatures that instilled in him a profound joy in living and happiness in the sheer awareness of being alive.
I didn't rate it four stars because of a curious reticence on the author's part about his own family--in a memoir of his childhood. Although he tells us the names of neighbors, their personalities and biographies, he never tells us the names of his brothers and sisters, and doesn't even bother to mention that he has any or how many until well into the narrative, and we learn very little or nothing at all about them. The same for his parents. He scarcely mentions his father and only discusses his mother in any detail in the last chapter. Weird.
That aside, it was an exceptional book that acquainted me with a curious and wonderful world that I had no idea had ever existed, and when the last page was turned and the story done, I hated to close the book and let it go.
To fully appreciate the memoir, I had to do a little outside reading. Thus I discovered that, Hudson, born in 1841 to American parents who had emigrated to Argentina, was writing about that country as it was in the late 1840s and early 1850s. The land that was to become Argentina had become independent of Spain a quarter of a century before, but wars among the provinces had been ongoing, as well as a conflict with Chile, which intended to seize Patagonia, and promoted rebellions by and against the native populations to attempt to achieve that end. It's all very complicated to one unfamiliar with the history.
Nonetheless, it bears on Hudson's story, especially in explaining why all the estancias, or landed estates...ranches...haciendas...seemed to be in a state of decline, relics of a better and more peaceful and prosperous time, why the books in his household, some hundreds of them, were mostly a century old. That's because the Argentine, as well as the rest of South America, under Spanish rule, had been more peaceful and prosperous, and once the colonial rulers were expelled, anarchy and warfare became the norm.
To Hudson as a little boy awakening to a beautiful natural world, all this was an only rarely troubling aspect of his existence. But the economic retrogression that the political turmoil engendered actually helped preserve a little while longer the beautiful natural world that he so enjoyed and has told us about in his charming remembrance of things past.
But do not think that Hudson sugar coats his memories. He is utterly honest about the life and the casual cruelty of the world he grew up in, whether he's describing the way of killing cattle or the way of killing men. It was a brutal, violent world without mercy or tenderness, except within the family, and within his own boyish heart as he grew to appreciate and understand nature and the lives of the wild creatures that instilled in him a profound joy in living and happiness in the sheer awareness of being alive.
January 21, 2016
Far Away and Long Ago is a reminiscence rather than a true autobiography. I'm about halfway through my third or fourth reading of this marvelous book—not to mention the many times I have dipped into it. It has a charm for me that never fades—the charm of a sensitivie, warm, kind-hearted personality who was in love with the natural world around him from the time he first encountered it. Hudson was shy and unhealthy as a child and noticed everything in nature with utter fascination. He became a renowned ornithologist with many distinguished publications and a number of literary friends, including Joseph Conrad and John Galsworthy, but this book traces the important psychological events of his childhood in Argentina from age six to age fifteen. It is a delightful record of childhood impressions and misimpressions along with a gradual awakening to the beauties of the natural world and the beginning of a lifelong fascination with birds. Whenever the modern world becomes too noisy and intrusive, it is a pleasure to turn to this joyful and lyrical memoir. The title was supposedly taken from a song his wife Emily enchanted him with.
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June 28, 2021
Sobre todo al principio me hizo acordar mucho a Ranqueles, por esto de la experiencia física concreta que después se vuelve narración. Me encantaron las partes en las que habla sobre la consciencia de la muerte y el amor de la madre, que están en las primeras y en las últimas partes. Hudson insiste todo el tiempo sobre su admiración y su intenso amor por la naturaleza, algo que siempre lo hizo sentirse un poco diferente, y que, al final, cuando ya estaba solo y triste en Londres por estar alejado de sus adorados árboles y pájaros, le recordó que es mejor "ser, que no ser". Mi descripción favorita es esta:
"De todos los árboles, después del duraznero, los álamos parecían sentir la nueva estación con mayor intensidad. Se me ocurría que ellos experimentaba, como yo, la influencia ejercida por el brillo del sol y expresábanlo con su fragancia, al igual que los durazneros y otros árboles con sus flores. Asimismo, lo demostraban en los nuevos sonidos que daban al viento. El cambio asumía contornos y tonalidades de real maravilla, cuando las filas de los esbeltos árboles, que por meses habían hablado y gritado con extraño lenguaje sibilante, que llegaba hasta los alaridos cuando soplaba un ventarrón, ahora, al llenarse de hojas, emitían un gran caudal de sonidos más continuos, suaves y profundos, como el rodar de las olas sobre la ancha playa. Los otros árboles los seguían y, poco a poco, hallábanse plenos de follaje y dispuestos a recibir a sus extraños y hermosos huéspedes procedentes de las selvas tropicales del lejano norte"
Lo que me gusta de esta descripción es que Hudson les da a los árboles características humanas: sentían la nueva estación, experimentaban el brillo del sol y lo expresaban en su fragancia, hablaban y gritaban, recibían huéspedes. No sorprende entonces que los árboles parezcan personas porque, para Hudson la naturaleza es una compañía, una amiga, una parte de él mismo.
"De todos los árboles, después del duraznero, los álamos parecían sentir la nueva estación con mayor intensidad. Se me ocurría que ellos experimentaba, como yo, la influencia ejercida por el brillo del sol y expresábanlo con su fragancia, al igual que los durazneros y otros árboles con sus flores. Asimismo, lo demostraban en los nuevos sonidos que daban al viento. El cambio asumía contornos y tonalidades de real maravilla, cuando las filas de los esbeltos árboles, que por meses habían hablado y gritado con extraño lenguaje sibilante, que llegaba hasta los alaridos cuando soplaba un ventarrón, ahora, al llenarse de hojas, emitían un gran caudal de sonidos más continuos, suaves y profundos, como el rodar de las olas sobre la ancha playa. Los otros árboles los seguían y, poco a poco, hallábanse plenos de follaje y dispuestos a recibir a sus extraños y hermosos huéspedes procedentes de las selvas tropicales del lejano norte"
Lo que me gusta de esta descripción es que Hudson les da a los árboles características humanas: sentían la nueva estación, experimentaban el brillo del sol y lo expresaban en su fragancia, hablaban y gritaban, recibían huéspedes. No sorprende entonces que los árboles parezcan personas porque, para Hudson la naturaleza es una compañía, una amiga, una parte de él mismo.
December 14, 2007
The author grew up in Argentina in the late 1800's and he describes a fantastical natural world, at least to those of us who grew up in the tame North American forests. The ostriches, the vaqueros, the cattle, the birds. As a boy he falls in love with birds and, although he studies and appreciates all of nature, the birds are his first love. Despite having no formal education, a few tutors helping him and his brothers with the basics, he has the most lyrical and moving way of writing. Very excellent nature writing. I've also read "Idle days in Patagonia" but I can only find the version in French, and I read it in English.
November 9, 2022
Un libro che piace fin dalle prime pagine perchè scritto bene e pieno di interiorità vera, di vita vissuta, di emozioni realmente provate, non quella fasulla di tanta letteratura odierna: il famoso naturalista inglese racconta la sua infanzia vissuta in una estancia nella pampa argentina nella prima metà dell'ottocento, negli spazi immensi e vergini di una nazione ancora giovane, i primi contatti con la natura e l'amore per gli uccelli e un po' per tutti gli animali, l'attaccamento alla terra, il rapporto profondo con la madre e i fratelli, aneddoti e avventure di quell'epoca ormai lontana.
February 9, 2014
Written in 1918 by this Englishman who tells about his life as a boy in the Argentine Pampas. Filled with intense melancholy -but at the same time joy- that those recollections produce in his memory. Whoever reads this biographical account cannot but adore this man.
He achieves the difficult task of making us readers see nature, wildlife, and human beings with the same eyes as his young and avid ones. He talks a lot about plants and birds, and this to me is the only minus I can find, since I sympathize with his love for nature but cannot go along with his terminology. He describes the people he met and that left in him a greater impact. His family, the daily chores at home and in the fields; but above all we get to feel like a child, to see that far away wilderness with the innocence and vulnerability of a little kid.
However, the book wouldn't have been more than a picturesque story of an English child in the Pampas if it wasn't for the last 3 or 4 chapters. The death of his mother, his illness and the sentence inflicted by the doctors of a short life, the angst of knowing that his beloved nature, trees, birds and all to be lost soon, produces a struggle of faith against the pullings of new-come Darwinism and its partisans. A struggle that millions must have gone through -as the author admits- but I can't think that anybody could describe it so beautifully.
How different those two men must have been: Darwin and Hudson.
“Darwin, writing in praise of the gaucho in his Voyage of a Naturalist, says that if a gaucho cuts your throat he does it like a gentleman: even as a small boy I knew better- that he did his business rather like a hellish creature reveling in his cruelty.”
Hudson´s parents were Protestant Christians, true believers. Not all his brothers inherited the parents' faith: the desire for immortality is not universal, as he mentions. But W.H.Hudson´s desire was enough to grant him the faith he so much struggled to retain in the passage from childhood to manhood.
An inspiring story, humbling and beautifully told.
He achieves the difficult task of making us readers see nature, wildlife, and human beings with the same eyes as his young and avid ones. He talks a lot about plants and birds, and this to me is the only minus I can find, since I sympathize with his love for nature but cannot go along with his terminology. He describes the people he met and that left in him a greater impact. His family, the daily chores at home and in the fields; but above all we get to feel like a child, to see that far away wilderness with the innocence and vulnerability of a little kid.
However, the book wouldn't have been more than a picturesque story of an English child in the Pampas if it wasn't for the last 3 or 4 chapters. The death of his mother, his illness and the sentence inflicted by the doctors of a short life, the angst of knowing that his beloved nature, trees, birds and all to be lost soon, produces a struggle of faith against the pullings of new-come Darwinism and its partisans. A struggle that millions must have gone through -as the author admits- but I can't think that anybody could describe it so beautifully.
How different those two men must have been: Darwin and Hudson.
“Darwin, writing in praise of the gaucho in his Voyage of a Naturalist, says that if a gaucho cuts your throat he does it like a gentleman: even as a small boy I knew better- that he did his business rather like a hellish creature reveling in his cruelty.”
Hudson´s parents were Protestant Christians, true believers. Not all his brothers inherited the parents' faith: the desire for immortality is not universal, as he mentions. But W.H.Hudson´s desire was enough to grant him the faith he so much struggled to retain in the passage from childhood to manhood.
An inspiring story, humbling and beautifully told.
May 6, 2012
It's a little difficult to expand on my title for this review.
The author suffered an acute illness in later life and, during this time, his childhood memories came back to him with a clarity that is a cause of envy for those of us with the usual hotch potch of muddied memories of our best times.
He then took the opportunity to record these memories.
Mr Hudson gives an insight into a world distant both in geography and time.
Describing many different aspects of his childhood - from the vast pampas to a strange encounter in Buenos Aries - the narrative is always captivating.
To know that he ended his life "penniless in Bayswater" adds further pathos.
I could - and often do - go on, but suffice it to say that, several years after I read this book I still think of it often.
The author suffered an acute illness in later life and, during this time, his childhood memories came back to him with a clarity that is a cause of envy for those of us with the usual hotch potch of muddied memories of our best times.
He then took the opportunity to record these memories.
Mr Hudson gives an insight into a world distant both in geography and time.
Describing many different aspects of his childhood - from the vast pampas to a strange encounter in Buenos Aries - the narrative is always captivating.
To know that he ended his life "penniless in Bayswater" adds further pathos.
I could - and often do - go on, but suffice it to say that, several years after I read this book I still think of it often.
August 21, 2015
¿Es posible mantener fresco en la memoria el asombro y la fascinación que sentimos, siendo niños, la primera vez que vimos un flamenco? ¿Y el miedo reverencial cuando, por vez primera, contemplamos una serpiente? Guillermo Hudson relata con mirada de niño y de sabio (la misma mirada, realmente) su infancia en un área rural de la provincia de Buenos Aires. El futuro naturalista creció entre árboles y pájaros pero también en un período de fuego de la historia argentina, con las batallas entre unitarios y federales a pocas leguas. Con lenguaje elegante y poético, conoceremos los recuerdos y las aventuras del "inglesito" (hijo de estadounidenses, en realidad) que creció y amó las pampas.
November 17, 2021
Wonderful memoir of a time and place little is known about. Hudson was born in Argentina in 1841 to English-American parents who moved there to become farmers. Isolated from most of their neighbors by distance and language, the family estancia was a magical place to grow up in. He explored the local flora and fauna with the encouragement of his parents, becoming a naturalist at any early age. Hudson's story takes you to another world, a fascinating world seen through the eyes of a young boy who was enchanted by his surroundings.
April 2, 2018
This autobiography of William Henry Hudson covers his early years. It was an interesting look at life in Argentina in the mid 1800's. This audio book was read by multiple readers. In this case it was rather distracting since not all were very distinct readers. Also, the book was rather rambling and back and forth in time. Hudson usually made it clear when he was changing time so it wasn't too confusing. Overall, it was interesting enough to continue through the entire book.
February 2, 2017
Far Away and Long Ago W H Hudson (1841 – 1922)
Hated précis at beginning of chapters! Why? Annoying. Some stories were pointless.
The son of American settlers – he wrote the book in London (died penniless in Bayswater at 80) during 6 weeks of illness, its about his childhood in what is to become Argentina. They fought for independence from 1810 to 1818 – followed by a civil war til 1861. (and conflict with Chile)
It’s a fascinating view into a lost way of life – he was a naturalist and ornithologist and evokes a bird, animal and natural world.
Despite having little education – a moving, lyrical style. The death of his mother, his struggle with faith – search to become spiritual and his animism are beautifully and humblingly described. The animistic faculty (something divine in nature) is lost to civilized man? It’s a primitive faculty, a sense of an intelligence like our own a soul in plants. A delight in nature – a reverence, awe- intoxicated by the sounds, colours and scents – he heard snakes talking to one another.
He had a profound joy and happiness in living – though it was a brutal and violent world. The detail and passion are contagious – every day he went out to look - a magnificent sunset was sometimes more than he could endure.
The estrancias (landed estates) were in a state of decline – where they had once been prosperous and peaceful. 100year old books were relics of the past.
We learn nothing about the politics – though his family are threatened by defeated soldiers? (Slitting the throat of their captain)
No details about his family – not even their names, yet he describes his neighbours in great detail. How could he remember their names, clothes, the shape of their noses, colour and shallow? eyes, skin, hair, home made clothes? Painted by memory in strong, unfading colours
The Saladero – the killing grounds – lasooed, hamstrung, throat cutting ritual by gauchos – terrible bellowing of cattle, horrible stink, feet of crusted blood, offal and bones – the plantations had walls of skulls. The water had red clay and mosquito lava in it in Buenos Ares – one drunk the wrigglers – typhus.
He says he didn’t have the intellect or strength of will as his brother, but was ashamed of his indolence and ignorance and refusing to part with childish things – only ever read 3 books, though 3-400 books in his house. When young – one feels immortal – clear and vigorous mind – untroubled by death and afterlife – worshipped nature not God – struggled to become spiritual – not convinced by Darwin, but this brief he became an evolutionist.
Hated précis at beginning of chapters! Why? Annoying. Some stories were pointless.
The son of American settlers – he wrote the book in London (died penniless in Bayswater at 80) during 6 weeks of illness, its about his childhood in what is to become Argentina. They fought for independence from 1810 to 1818 – followed by a civil war til 1861. (and conflict with Chile)
It’s a fascinating view into a lost way of life – he was a naturalist and ornithologist and evokes a bird, animal and natural world.
Despite having little education – a moving, lyrical style. The death of his mother, his struggle with faith – search to become spiritual and his animism are beautifully and humblingly described. The animistic faculty (something divine in nature) is lost to civilized man? It’s a primitive faculty, a sense of an intelligence like our own a soul in plants. A delight in nature – a reverence, awe- intoxicated by the sounds, colours and scents – he heard snakes talking to one another.
He had a profound joy and happiness in living – though it was a brutal and violent world. The detail and passion are contagious – every day he went out to look - a magnificent sunset was sometimes more than he could endure.
The estrancias (landed estates) were in a state of decline – where they had once been prosperous and peaceful. 100year old books were relics of the past.
We learn nothing about the politics – though his family are threatened by defeated soldiers? (Slitting the throat of their captain)
No details about his family – not even their names, yet he describes his neighbours in great detail. How could he remember their names, clothes, the shape of their noses, colour and shallow? eyes, skin, hair, home made clothes? Painted by memory in strong, unfading colours
The Saladero – the killing grounds – lasooed, hamstrung, throat cutting ritual by gauchos – terrible bellowing of cattle, horrible stink, feet of crusted blood, offal and bones – the plantations had walls of skulls. The water had red clay and mosquito lava in it in Buenos Ares – one drunk the wrigglers – typhus.
He says he didn’t have the intellect or strength of will as his brother, but was ashamed of his indolence and ignorance and refusing to part with childish things – only ever read 3 books, though 3-400 books in his house. When young – one feels immortal – clear and vigorous mind – untroubled by death and afterlife – worshipped nature not God – struggled to become spiritual – not convinced by Darwin, but this brief he became an evolutionist.
February 27, 2018
Toen ik jong was en de dieren nog spraken, was er een programma op de radio dat Het Einde van de Wereld heette. Het ging over Patagonië, maar niet echt. Elke zondagavond voerde programmamaker Dree Peeremans zijn luisteraars mee naar nergensland, naar het imaginaire uiteinde van de wereld dat overal kan liggen.
De Engelse natuurkundige en schrijver W.H. Hudson was een van de sterren van dat programma en als ik ergens een (tweedehands) boekje van hem kan kopen, doe ik dat graag. In Lang Geleden en Ver Weg doet hij het verhaal van zijn kinderjaren op de Argentijnse pampa’s. Het waren jaren vol verwondering en onschuld.
De kleine Hudson kan “gebiologeerd van verrukking luisteren naar de wilde roep van de goudpluvier” (p.239) en geraakt helemaal in de ban van de rijke fauna en flora van zijn omgeving.
Voor een stedeling uit de 21ste eeuw die amper het verschil kent tussen een esp en iep, is de opsomming van dieren- en plantennamen behoorlijk confronterend. Anderzijds zit daarin net de magie van het boek. De natuurbeleving van de jongen bereikt een haast mystieke dimensie.
Vooral over vogels is de kleine Hudson mateloos enthousiast. Ongewild grappig (?) wordt het wanneer die passie doorklinkt in zijn beschrijvingen van mensen. De schelle stem van een buurman vergelijkt hij met “die van de zwarte kraai wanneer de vogel zich in de paartijd het meest laat horen en in het bos zijn langgerekte, schorre, schrille roep laat weergalmen” (p.117); het gekwebbel van de wasvrouwen doet denken aan “het kabaal van een grote menigte meeuwen, ibissen, grutto’s, ganzen en andere lawaaierige watervogels op een moerassig meer” (p.88). Ook de mensen op de pampa’s zijn eigenlijk rare vogels.
Diepe filosofische beschouwingen moet je hier niet verwachten, de memoires geven wel een mooi beeld van de tijdsgeest. Op het einde van het boek maakt de jonge Hudson kennis met de ideeën van Darwin en komen enkele religieuze beschouwingen aan bod. De politieke en sociale actualiteit (op de achtergrond valt een dictator) kan de pampajongen eigenlijk maar weinig schelen.
Wel erg is dat het gebied dat eens “wemelde van de reigers, lepelaars, zwarthalszwanen, zwermen zwarte ibissen en grote blauwe ibissen met hun weergalmende stemmen […] nu in handen is van vreemden die alle wilde vogels doden en graan op het land verbouwen voor Europese markten” (p.157). Toen al!
De Engelse natuurkundige en schrijver W.H. Hudson was een van de sterren van dat programma en als ik ergens een (tweedehands) boekje van hem kan kopen, doe ik dat graag. In Lang Geleden en Ver Weg doet hij het verhaal van zijn kinderjaren op de Argentijnse pampa’s. Het waren jaren vol verwondering en onschuld.
De kleine Hudson kan “gebiologeerd van verrukking luisteren naar de wilde roep van de goudpluvier” (p.239) en geraakt helemaal in de ban van de rijke fauna en flora van zijn omgeving.
Voor een stedeling uit de 21ste eeuw die amper het verschil kent tussen een esp en iep, is de opsomming van dieren- en plantennamen behoorlijk confronterend. Anderzijds zit daarin net de magie van het boek. De natuurbeleving van de jongen bereikt een haast mystieke dimensie.
Vooral over vogels is de kleine Hudson mateloos enthousiast. Ongewild grappig (?) wordt het wanneer die passie doorklinkt in zijn beschrijvingen van mensen. De schelle stem van een buurman vergelijkt hij met “die van de zwarte kraai wanneer de vogel zich in de paartijd het meest laat horen en in het bos zijn langgerekte, schorre, schrille roep laat weergalmen” (p.117); het gekwebbel van de wasvrouwen doet denken aan “het kabaal van een grote menigte meeuwen, ibissen, grutto’s, ganzen en andere lawaaierige watervogels op een moerassig meer” (p.88). Ook de mensen op de pampa’s zijn eigenlijk rare vogels.
Diepe filosofische beschouwingen moet je hier niet verwachten, de memoires geven wel een mooi beeld van de tijdsgeest. Op het einde van het boek maakt de jonge Hudson kennis met de ideeën van Darwin en komen enkele religieuze beschouwingen aan bod. De politieke en sociale actualiteit (op de achtergrond valt een dictator) kan de pampajongen eigenlijk maar weinig schelen.
Wel erg is dat het gebied dat eens “wemelde van de reigers, lepelaars, zwarthalszwanen, zwermen zwarte ibissen en grote blauwe ibissen met hun weergalmende stemmen […] nu in handen is van vreemden die alle wilde vogels doden en graan op het land verbouwen voor Europese markten” (p.157). Toen al!
March 2, 2022
Far Away and Long Ago is both a magical and deeply flawed book. W.H. Hudson is remembered for his exceptional works of fantasy fiction such as Green Mansions and the dystopian A Crystal Age and for his ruminations on natural history set in his adopted England and native Argentina. Toward the end of his life while convalescing from a serious illness Hudson composed this memoir recalling his early life in the mid-nineteenth century as part of the expatriate “English” community among the cattle and sheep ranches south of Buenos Aires (his parents were actually from New England). His accounts of his spiritual love of nature, flowers, trees, and particularly birds, and vivid mental impressions of the eccentric gaucho and European neighbors who inhabited the surrounding estancias are luminescent. The otherworldly quality of the writing is enhanced by the fact that his parents and siblings who are mentioned frequently are unnamed (he slips once I think) and seem almost to be spectral presences, which can be rather frustrating if one is interested in the author’s biography. Unlike another memoir that successfully conveys the lasting mental impressions of childhood and adolescence, Laurie Lee’s great Cider with Rosie, Hudson’s Far Away is essentially devoid of chronological structure to propel the narrative forward or to prevent one’s attention from wandering during long passages on native flora and fauna embellished by the author’s adult scientific knowledge. But an even greater flaw is Hudson’s lapses into expressions of distain for persons of African ancestry which mar the book from the start. Even charitably taking into account the differences in attitudes in the century since the book was written the racism is too ugly to overlook.
December 22, 2018
"¿Qué deseaba entonces? ¿Qué quería yo tener? Si hubiera sido capaz de expresar lo que sentía, habría replicado: solo quiero conservar lo que poseo. Levantarme cada mañana y mirar el cielo y la tiera verde toda mojada de rocío, día tras días, año tras año".
Tenía una idea previa sobre este libro, pensaba que era algo así como un Martín Fierro en prosa y escrito por un inglés. Pero, ¡oh cielos!, qué equivocado estaba. La enorme influencia que ejercieron sobre el autor la naturaleza y el paisaje autóctono, difícilmente puedan encontrarse en otra obra. Seguramente para las personas criadas en la ciudad, será difícil de comprender, a menos que se lo ubique en alguna corriente panteísta. Pero para alguien con algún contacto con el campo (sobretodo en la región de la Pampa Húmeda), supone un viaje interno, una introspección que llama constantemente a la nostalgia, al recuerdo de una belleza que se va extinguiendo, que se va marchitando en pos del autoproclamado "progreso".
De todas formas, el libro no termina allí, hay mucho mas. Resaltan las descripciones de personajes rurales de la época, en la figura de vecinos de otras estancias, con sus particularidades y costumbres; todo inserto en el turbulento mapa político de aquella época. Sobre el final incluso se trata el tema del misticismo, el debate entre la muerte material y la vida eterna, que afecta a cada uno de nosotros. Este libro me ha resultado sumamente conmovedor, y no puedo dejar de recomendarlo. 5 estrellas totalmente merecidas.
Tenía una idea previa sobre este libro, pensaba que era algo así como un Martín Fierro en prosa y escrito por un inglés. Pero, ¡oh cielos!, qué equivocado estaba. La enorme influencia que ejercieron sobre el autor la naturaleza y el paisaje autóctono, difícilmente puedan encontrarse en otra obra. Seguramente para las personas criadas en la ciudad, será difícil de comprender, a menos que se lo ubique en alguna corriente panteísta. Pero para alguien con algún contacto con el campo (sobretodo en la región de la Pampa Húmeda), supone un viaje interno, una introspección que llama constantemente a la nostalgia, al recuerdo de una belleza que se va extinguiendo, que se va marchitando en pos del autoproclamado "progreso".
De todas formas, el libro no termina allí, hay mucho mas. Resaltan las descripciones de personajes rurales de la época, en la figura de vecinos de otras estancias, con sus particularidades y costumbres; todo inserto en el turbulento mapa político de aquella época. Sobre el final incluso se trata el tema del misticismo, el debate entre la muerte material y la vida eterna, que afecta a cada uno de nosotros. Este libro me ha resultado sumamente conmovedor, y no puedo dejar de recomendarlo. 5 estrellas totalmente merecidas.
December 28, 2015
Other reviewers have spoken about the joy of hearing the voice of a young man who would later become a botanist.
I enjoyed the book, which is essentially a collection of connected vignettes, reading about a boy who had an even more "feral" upbringing than my own, lying somewhere near Huck Finn territory. Only occasionally schooled, usually free to roam from sunup to sundown across Argentinian meadows and forests, coming across plants and animals that interested him, and then giving first an informal and then formal description of them.
The book, however, is dated. The author holds beliefs no doubt common from his era, but dated now. Not only does he speak of "negresses" smiling contentedly at being allowed to mother to a "superior race," but he even places the European settlers in a hierarchy, with the dauntless, inestimable English at the top, and the earlier Spanish settlers as land-wasting, lazy careless fools near the bottom. While he would have been considered quite liberal at the time (he does not put down "negroes" specifically, and indeed speaks very highly of some; he did not share the "barefoot in the household" view of women, as two examples), by today's standards he is "old fashioned," to put it very mildly.
I did learn a lot about the flora and fauna of S. America, and just how much it has changed. Even in the author's time, he noted how, in just the space between his birth and adulthood, how many species had been hunted to extinction, or driven out of habitat, something relatively rare to read about in the era he was writing.
I enjoyed the book, which is essentially a collection of connected vignettes, reading about a boy who had an even more "feral" upbringing than my own, lying somewhere near Huck Finn territory. Only occasionally schooled, usually free to roam from sunup to sundown across Argentinian meadows and forests, coming across plants and animals that interested him, and then giving first an informal and then formal description of them.
The book, however, is dated. The author holds beliefs no doubt common from his era, but dated now. Not only does he speak of "negresses" smiling contentedly at being allowed to mother to a "superior race," but he even places the European settlers in a hierarchy, with the dauntless, inestimable English at the top, and the earlier Spanish settlers as land-wasting, lazy careless fools near the bottom. While he would have been considered quite liberal at the time (he does not put down "negroes" specifically, and indeed speaks very highly of some; he did not share the "barefoot in the household" view of women, as two examples), by today's standards he is "old fashioned," to put it very mildly.
I did learn a lot about the flora and fauna of S. America, and just how much it has changed. Even in the author's time, he noted how, in just the space between his birth and adulthood, how many species had been hunted to extinction, or driven out of habitat, something relatively rare to read about in the era he was writing.
January 30, 2022
This vivid collection of reminiscences about the childhood years of a young man from an English family that settled in Argentina in the mid 1800s was not an easy book to read, but well worth the effort. At times I got bogged down during the author's lengthy descriptions of birds, snakes, plants, and the majesty of the earth as seen through the eyes of a young boy growing up on the pampas of Argentina long ago. (I admit to skimming certain chapters that seemed entirely devoted to the author's love of and communion with nature.) For me, the best parts were vignettes describing experiences with people he met during his young life and the impact they had on him. Certain stories will be engrained in my memory forever, some in a haunting way, including the old gaucho who shared his life experience that led him to not believe in God, and the fate of a young military captain at the hands of his mutinous troops after an unsuccesful local war. The book was eye opening about the dark side of many gauchos and their lack of regard for human life. The final chapters, in which the author shared his personal struggle with the beliefs of his protestant upbringing, the deep influence of his mother, and his quest to find meaning to life were soul revealing in deep and meaningful ways.
February 6, 2018
I read about Hudson’s work in a literary piece about ‘great forgotten literature.’ Far Away and Long Ago was the favored of the books. It is his biography of his early years on the pampas south of Buenos Aires.
The early and late nineteenth century were years of great isolation in this part of the world. Many Europeans settled in Argentina, which was then one of the two or three richest countries in the world. But those on the pampas were rich, with vast estancias; they survived with smaller, often poor estancias, some times with bizarre, lonely individual surviving through simply iron will; then, the gauchos, with only a bedroll and what would be carried on horseback. The violence and beauty of the landscape is always there, too.
Hudson was driven by his interest in birds and, secondly, in other animals and wildlife. His descriptions of birds in their environment, of snakes under the house, of fishermen in Buenos Aires, of violent fights between gauchos: it is all part of an amazing youth. He saw more by ten or twelve years of age than many of us see in an entire life time. I will read on in his story of when of his return to and adult life in England.
The early and late nineteenth century were years of great isolation in this part of the world. Many Europeans settled in Argentina, which was then one of the two or three richest countries in the world. But those on the pampas were rich, with vast estancias; they survived with smaller, often poor estancias, some times with bizarre, lonely individual surviving through simply iron will; then, the gauchos, with only a bedroll and what would be carried on horseback. The violence and beauty of the landscape is always there, too.
Hudson was driven by his interest in birds and, secondly, in other animals and wildlife. His descriptions of birds in their environment, of snakes under the house, of fishermen in Buenos Aires, of violent fights between gauchos: it is all part of an amazing youth. He saw more by ten or twelve years of age than many of us see in an entire life time. I will read on in his story of when of his return to and adult life in England.
April 1, 2020
Un libro que me transportó a una Argentina para mí desconocida, casi cómo sacada de una película, con la belleza de la naturaleza y la calma contrastada con la violencia y lo salvaje de esa época, con Hudson describiendo personajes, paisajes y eventos que dibujé en mi mente, y con una reflexión final sobre la cualidad única de poder ver la belleza de la vida, que no muchos tienen
October 15, 2016
There is something very special about this book, its magical descriptions of Argentina, told in a warm-hearted, simple but carefully detailed way. You feel, as you read, as if you are there. Can't reccommend highly enough.
August 14, 2013
Charming. Quite similar to Durrell's My Family and Other Animals.
February 24, 2017
Pocos libros me conmovieron tanto como este.
July 21, 2017
Like a wonderful walk in nature with a friend
January 8, 2018
Good reading when in Argentina, to get a feel for the way life on the pampas was at the end of the 19th century.
September 26, 2018
Un libro realmente maravilloso.
January 26, 2019
Excelente biografía de W. H. Hudson.
January 6, 2019
The story is slowly strangled in the undergrowth. Fascinating narrative strands, such as slaughtered sheep dragged behind horses to create firebreaks during a pampas conflagration, are immediately pelted and dissolved by ammoniac bird droppings. This book sinks beneath a never-ending parade of birds and trees. Birds, birds, birds; trees, trees, trees.
I couldn't make it past the half way mark. I will never be best friends with Bill Oddie.
I couldn't make it past the half way mark. I will never be best friends with Bill Oddie.
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