Henry Williamson (1)Recensioni

Super-dense prose, unrelenting in its exact description. Many things happen, but they're mostly the same things over and over. Admirable writing, but also lots of work required from the reader. I can't imagine what people who don't see pictures in their heads would make of this book.

"Pity acts through the imagination, the higher light of the world, and imagination arises from the world of things, as a rainbow from the sun."

Starting with his birth, the book takes us almost day by day through Tarka's life — learning to swim and fish, wrestling and sliding down riverbanks with his sisters and mother, before heading off alone to find himself a mate, around the estuaries of Devon.

This is one of the best known nature novels but its not a sanitised Disneyesque nature. There is beauty is everywhere but there is also danger everywhere. Everything tries to eat everything else and the local farmers and water-bailiffs hunt otters, which they see as vermin. The sub-title of the novel, 'His Joyful Water-Life and Death' , tells us what the inevitable ending will be but beforehand gives a highly realistic insight into an otter’s life, its joys and perils. Williamson spent years tramping the riverways of Devon studying otters so whilst this is fiction its based on fact and close observation.

The writing is beautiful, in particular when Tarka was in the water, I could almost visualise it. Its sometime easy to think of otters as cute fish eating creatures but we mustn't forget that they are carnivores that will eat birds, frogs and other mammals as well. The book was first published in 1927 and thankfully attitudes have changed and despite the ending is neither sad nor depressing. It's a classic for a reason. My only real grumble was the constant use of local slang for many of the creatures that featured, whilst he initially tells us what the proper name is when they reoccurred later on I had forgotten it. The glossary could have been more expansive I felt.

“Time flowed with the sunlight of the still green place. The summer drake-flies, whose wings were as the most delicate transparent leaves, hatched from their cases on the water and danced over the shadowed surface.”

Classic fiction, otters

This is the most uncompromisingly "animal" of all animal stories, more like a TV nature documentary than a novel. On the one hand, the writing itself is as beautiful as the place it describes: north Devon with its deep wooded valleys and rich farmland, its high moors where wild ponies graze under huge skies, its headland-fringed coast with the tallest sea-cliffs anywhere in England, are lovingly described by a Londoner who came to know every inch of it. But on the other hand, there's no moral, no "lesson", just life in the raw the way it really is for a wild animal: cubs, parents and mates disappear from the narrative and are simply never mentioned again.
   It's not a book about hunting. None of its otters die of disease or old age, most are killed and most of those by people - by the otter-hunt, or in gin-traps, or cornered and battered to death as "vermin"; yet Williamson's own attitude was to some extent contradictory. He admired the huntsmen themselves for their knowledge of otters and of Nature in general - he got to know them and followed the hunt himself; but in Tarka he also managed to get down on paper, better than almost anyone else I've read, the numbed outrage I feel at senseless cruelty to animals.
   Environmental campaigners such as Rachel Carson have taken inspiration from this book - and, for all I know, Tarka may even have helped to save the otter itself because much has happened since 1927 when it was written. Their numbers declined for decades until otters finally disappeared completely from most of England in the 1960s (due as much to pesticides running into rivers as to hunting) and they even made it into the Red Book as "vulnerable to extinction". But then in 1978 hunting was banned, and in 1981 the landmark Wildlife and Countryside Act was passed into law, with otters as one of the first animals to come under its protection. These days they're making a comeback and the future looks bright.
   Tarka isn't really about all that either though, neither about hunting nor conservation; in fact just for once, refreshingly, here we have a novel which isn't about us at all - and I think maybe that at least partly explains its enduring appeal. It's a story in which humans are peripheral figures, absent altogether for much of the time and only periodically erupting into Tarka's life like just another incomprehensible destructive phenomenon, like storms, like bad luck, like winter. And in the interludes we get glimpses of a different Earth (my favourite passage in the book: Tarka and a raven playing together), the way it must have been throughout almost all its history: no "moral", no "point" to it all, just life.

It's the life of a river otter, though the animal does spend some time on the edge of the sea as well. It's mostly the otter's rovings, endlessly going up and down waterways, chasing fish with delight and wondrous dexterity, fiercely driving others off his food one moment, playing with them the next. It depicts the otters as very gregarious and friendly to their own kind, while driven off and hunted with dogs by men (the fishermen view them as competition and vermin). Very specific to a place- around the Taw river in North Devon. Detailed descriptions of the animal life, plants, weather, lay of the land etc- and specific local dialect when the otter encounters man. I liked this as it gives a real sense of place, but had to refer to the glossary a few times, which oddly isn't in alphabetical order but it's not long so easy enough to find a word. I didn't know before how avidly otters were once hunted with dogs and guns. From the wild animal's perspective it sounds terrifying, to be harassed by the hounds even to death- which is how this otter finally meets his end. Not without pulling a dog down with him. I think what stands out most vividly to me through this reading was how fluidly the otter moves through the water, using the course of rivers and streams to his advantage.

more at the Dogear Diary

A truly captivating and unromanticized account of HENRY'S STRUGGLE TO RESCUE A DILAPIDATED ANd run down farm in the 1930's. Despite all the gardships it still contains wonderful passges of wildlife description etc

(Original Review, 1981-05-05)

The best fictional writing about the First World War is a series of novels written by Henry Williamson. In a long fictional cycle with the overall title of "A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight" there are 5 novels that deal with the period 1914 - 1918.

These are: “How Dear is Life”, “A Fox under My Cloak”, “The Golden Virgin”, “Love and the Loveless”, “A Test to Destruction.”

Henry Williamson joined up in August 1914 and first saw action in November of that year. He was wounded several times and was a soldier until the end of the conflict In this fictional cycle - "A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight" - Williamson creates an alter-ego, Phillip Maddison, and it's through this veil of fiction that we see the horrific events of the World War One. I use the verb "see" because first and foremost Williamson is a descriptive writer who is able to convey in extreme detail life on the front line and, also, the life of his family in the suburbs of London.

These novels are just crying out to be turned into a top quality TV series by Auntie BBC; details stay in your mind years after you've read the books. The famous football match of Christmas '14 - Phillip finds a push-bike and goes for a ride behind enemy lines; when they first go up to the front line, they haven't received any rifle training; the horrific injuries and conditions of the soldiers' lives and, despite it all the spirit of camaderie .. When he goes back to England on leave, the gap that exists between civillian and military perceptions of the conflict...

Please read these novels. They haven't been published for years -sometimes you'll find the odd one at a good second hand shop. Otherwise you can order them from the Faber and Faber web-site.

Wonderfull (2 ls or one?) totally involving reading, unputdownable!!! [2018 EDIT: ROTFL!]

Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson is the classic story of an otter living by the Torridge River in North Devon. Originally published in 1927, this book captures life in the wild as seen through the eyes of an otter. Tarka means water wanderer and although this name gives a certain character to the otter, the author keeps the story’s atmosphere and detail on the side of reality. This isn’t a cute story about an animal with human characteristics, this otter is a creature of the wild and the author doesn’t hesitate to show the rawness of nature.

This book is more of a nature documentary than an “animal story”. The writing is beautiful in it’s description of the Devon countryside with it’s wooded valleys, rich farmland and gentle waterways. Many call this book an early “environmentalist” book, as the scenes of otter hunting and baiting called attention to the fact that otters were being systematically destroyed and by the 1960’s had almost become extinct. Although not written as a conservation book, it has helped to effect change and today otters are making a comeback.

Timeless and evocative, Tarka the Otter is a delightful read. The story is enhanced by the accompanying illustrations by Annabel Large. Although this book was not originally written as a children’s story over the years has become a beloved children’s classic and hasn’t been out of print once in it’s long existence.

The scandaroon is a breed of pigeon that originates from the Baltic area.

This is a nature tale from North Devon. Henry Williamson, whose experience of World War One was so devastating that he embraced a love of, and a dedication to the keen observation of the natural world. The result was classic stories of nature such as "Tarka The Otter" and this story, completed near the end of his life.
We are introduced to the world of pigeon fanciers, who breed tipplers and homing pigeons. We learn about the unkind practices of the fanciers who will interrupt natural mating and breeding habits of pigeons to produce a champion, not to mention the use of strychnine to destroy predators.
Hovering, as it were, over this world of enthusiasts is the fastest animal on earth, the peregrine falcon. This magnificent bird is known to reach 200 mph in a dive, and is a predator on all flying birds, none more so than the homing pigeon, itself capable of a mile a minute when fresh, but tired after a flight from Northern Spain.
This is a wonderful story, based on characters that Williamson met in and around the estuary of the Taw and Torridge Rivers at Bideford (also Barnstaple) Bay.
You are well advised to read "The Scandaroon".

The story of Private John Bullock from recruit to crippled, war-wounded evacuee. Never saw action, never saw the front lines, never entered the fighting line, but a war victim of the first literary order.

This book was written in 1927. I give it four stars because it is ahead of its time as a fictional work that addresses ecology and other scientific premises so much that it begins to feel like a true story. It is set in the West Country of England or the county of Devon. Devonshire is about 200 miles from London. The language is a bit hard on the American reader because it uses a lot of words that defy meaning even in the dictionary such as fitch which I think is a weasel. The author also lists the location on every page of the book giving the story a sense of place. The reader follows Tarka up and down the Two Rivers area and the Severn Sea. The author's use of language is an important part of the book and the imagery is nature-nature as man plays only a minor unbecoming part in the book. The reader is also immersed in the cycle of life and death. Tarka is the protagonist and his life is but four years. His short life was quite exhausting for the reader as well as the otter. The author's title is Tarka the Otter His Joyful Water-Life and Death in the Country of Two Rivers. The introduction b y Robert Finch states, "By convincing us of Tarka's joy, it may prepare us to change out sympathies, that is ,our notion of what constitutes joy." I would recommend this book if you enjoy prose and nature.

What a beautiful book to have read in a place so far removed from the setting of Tarka the Otter. The village of Male on the Rai Coast of Papua New Guinea has no rivers like that of Devon, no autumn leaves stain them brown, nor do the rivers here freeze in winter. There are no moors, and the coast does not echo to the cry of gulls.

This book was therefore a perfect read for my time in Male because, by reading it, I could escape the constant heat and humidity, attempt to ignore the raucous sounds of village life and, let’s be honest, try to forget I was living in a house with no furniture, no electricity and no running water. In fact, I was back as close to Henry Williamson’s living context when he wrote this as I could have been.

The tale has a Hardyesque nature about it with its beautiful descriptions of English countryside. But instead of an exploration of the depths of the human soul, we are portrayed as very shallow in this attempt to depict the nobility of the nature we live in.

The scenes of otter hunting are quite traumatic. However, there’s enough in the book to help me understand that man shares with the otter the desire to kill for sport alone. I honestly didn’t think I’d enjoy this but I found it captivating from beginning to end.

Walden isn’t a patch on this. Ruskin would be proud.

Read this as a child for the otter story, but have recently found a copy and plan to reread it for the more adult elements.

Though I knew Tarka was going to get killed at the end I was still overcome with grief when I reached the last pages. I had been slowing down my reading as if to make Tarka's life last a little longer. Grief and anger; shame upon anyone who kills an animal in the name of sport.

Tarka the Otter - Henry Williamson ****

Been meaning to read this book for years. Finally got around to it after I saw a copy going cheap.

The novel tells the trials faced by an otter in the Devonshire countryside.

Taka is born 1 of 3 cubs, practically as soon as he is born he begins to recognise the dangers that will dictate and eventually end his life.

The book explores nature and the harshness encountered through both the wild and also mans interference. Nothing is left out or to the imagination. Often harrowing, the story details Tarka’s constant battle with the otter hounds, and in particular their fearsome leader Deadlock.

In many ways Williamson’s bleak writing of the English countryside reminded me of Cormac Macarthy, in particular the Orchard Keeper.

The only reason I gave this book 4 stars, not 5, is that the local dialect used for various landscape features got a bit tiresome and repetitive.

All in all, a very good read, but also a sad one which causes the reader to reflect on mans wrongful treatment of nature more than any other book I have read.

Bought it in Rare and Racy 30 years ago and should re-read.

Wonderful forward by the actor Paul Scofield. Beautiful descriptions of nature and an engaging story. Hampered somewhat by dialect words from West country England and ultimately a sad story.

Reading this book was like watching Disney's True-Life Adventures years ago--fascinating, thrilling, sometimes horrifying. The birth to death saga of an otter in the West Country of England in the early part of the 1900's is full of local language and customs, as well as a study of the wildlife which, even then, was rapidly disappearing. Recommended.

After reading this book I added a note to it "Wow! A book to end all books"

"With a feeling of strange fascination he saw her turning over, lying on her belly, slowly drawing herself over the seaweed towards him, until the mermaid was clasping his feet with her hands, thrusting her head between his ankles, kissing one foot, then the other foot, and winding her arms round his knees and clasping him in stillness and in silence until with her warmth his being shed its phosphorescence of decay, and his blood was thrilling with her soft wet mouth; he must turn away, lie with his back to the moon, concealing his desire in shadow. O beautiful human life!"½

The life of an otter, told as realistically as possible, up to its death in battle with a hunting dog. Supposed to be a children's book, but more suitable for youths over 10 years old.

If the only books that you have read of Henry Williamson are his wonderful Animal stories,then I urge you to find and read his Village books.This one is particularly good,and chapters include 'Old Men','Village Children','P.C. Bulcornworthy' and 'Billy Goldsworthy's Cow'. A fantastic evocation of village life in a time gone by.

penguin 81