Underland: A Deep Time Journey

Written by Robert Macfarlane

Narrated by Matthew Waterson

Hailed as "the great nature writer of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), Robert Macfarlane is the celebrated author of books about the intersections of the human and the natural realms. In Underland, he delivers his masterpiece: an epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself.



In this highly anticipated sequel to The Old Ways, Macfarlane takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind. Traveling through "deep time"—the dizzying expanses of geologic time that stretch away from the present—he moves from the birth of the universe to a post-human future, from the prehistoric art of Norwegian sea caves to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, from Bronze Age funeral chambers to the catacomb labyrinth below Paris, and from the underground fungal networks through which trees communicate to a deep-sunk "hiding place" where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come. Woven through Macfarlane's own travels are the unforgettable stories of descents into the underland made across history by explorers, artists, cavers, divers, mourners, dreamers, and murderers, all of whom have been drawn for different reasons to seek what Cormac McCarthy calls "the awful darkness within the world."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highbridge Company
• Release date: Jun 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781684573073

Robert Macfarlane

Robert Macfarlane is the prize-winning author of The Wild Places (2007) and The Old Roads (2011), Landmarks (2015) and Underland (2019). His writing has been widely adapted for television and radio. He is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

Reviews for Underland

[Elona UnderWood · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

the poetics are sweeping and beautiful. the stories told quite fascinating

[Grayson Sussman Squires · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Robert Macfarlane takes on a massive subject in this gorgeous book: human relationships with subterranean ecologies and the unfathomable depths of time that such spaces harbor. In his distinctive voice, Macfarlane recounts journeys through mines and glaciers, crypts and underground cataracts, revealing the histories and secrets humans and nonhuman ecosystems have placed in each. This book is truly a journey across time and place. It is one that imparts a deep emotional impact that I suspect will remain with me for a long time. Highly recommend.

[Mark · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Loved the book, but the audio book was too monotone and dry to hold my attention.

[JL Andrews · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful writing. Less than optimal narration. Why elect for such a dispassionate reading of passionate material? Also, again, the editing is lousy - the last word(s) of the chapter are clipped off, requiring that i go to the PDF.

[Nancy Steinhausen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The authors descriptions of the dramatic landscape on and below ground is remarkable. I was able to explore breathtaking vistas through this book. Well narrated and written.

[Tiffany Hammer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book would’ve been daunting to read, but as an audiobook, it was such a lovey companion on long walks and drives. I learned so much and it’s one of the best non-fictions I’ve read this year. (I also really loved Hidden Life of Trees) if you’re interested in nature and what it can teach us, or how we interact with it, check it out!

[William Shields · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

wonderful insights, amazing personal adventures, so much to learn and worry about in the future

[andy5185 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating subject matter, but overall not my kind of reading. It failed to keep my attention one too many times for my liking.

[treebeard_404 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Of Macfarlane's loosely-thematically-linked books, I have enjoyed this one most. There's plenty of little-known natural history here.

[tnilsson_24 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Many people seem to love this book. And you may as well. Just don’t fall for the claim that this book is “an epic exploration of the Earth’s underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself.” While the book does cover some aspects of our subterranean world, it’s almost solely from the personal perspective of the author and his musings (in very floral and anthropomorphic language). There was little to no survey, or even discussion, of our subterranean world in human myth, literature, science, or history generally. So while I did learn some things from the book, it wasn’t the popular history or science book I mistakenly took it for. If you want a better balance of wonder and science, I’d strongly recommend William Glassley's marvelous book, A Wilder Time: Notes from a Geologist at the Edge of the Greenland Ice, which, unlike Underland, is a book I would not mind reading again (though sadly the English language edition of that book lacks the color plates of the German edition).

[m.belljackson · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Yes, well-written from the "riven trunk" onward, but deeply depressing,
from fears of being buried alive through more experimenting on nature
into the ongoing greed of oil destruction and more horror in the tombs for nuclear waste.
Death and more death...

Macfarlane's ending foreshadows the death of his son.

[okies-600424 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Loved dipping into this. It's beautiful.

[reader1009-863136 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

"nonfiction"/lyrical meandering that sometimes has to do with concrete things but not in a meaningful way

If you are looking for a straightforward nonfic book filled with cool stuff that occurs underground, this isn't it. If you are looking for pages and pages of poetic drivel that goes off on tangent after tangent after tangent after tangent, and just want something, go ahead and try this.

[Anderolatz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very interesting book that explores the depths. Beneath the ground we walk on lies an unknown world. Mines, catacombs... are described in a very menacing way, introducing knowledge but also anguish in the face of darkness. (Translated from Spanish)

[sgtcat · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

There are a lot of interesting facts included in the book and I learned a little about a lot. It's a nice book for opening doors to new interests.

[steve02476 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not at all sure what this book was about. I guess it’s sort of a memoir so it was ‘about’ the author’s experiences and thoughts. He traveled to a lot of strange and difficult places. The writing was beautiful in a lot of places, otherwise I wouldn’t have continued reading such a meandering book.

[ma_washigeri · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well I admit to being a bit overwhelmed by Rob Macfarlane's abilities at climbing, caving, sailing, reading the history, geography and biology of land, and gaining access to sensitive sites - and he can write so well too. But it also resonated personally at many points: the handprints and dots in caves in northern Spain, Boulby mine in Yorkshire, tops blown off mountains and tunnels within in northern Italy after war - these are the bigger resonances but there are many others are smaller levels.

[andjhostet-527429 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

As someone who loves caves, I thought this would be a very interesting topic: writing about below ground places. The catacombs of Paris I found particularly interesting. However a lot of the book was a bit dry. Occasionally, the author got way off track, like when he rambled about a fisherman in Norway for a long time, or ice burgs in Greenland. The writing was pretty good at times, but a lot of this book lost my attention for large portions of it.

[richardderus · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Publisher Says: In Underland, Robert Macfarlane delivers an epic exploration of the Earth’s underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself. Traveling through the dizzying expanse of geologic time—from prehistoric art in Norwegian sea caves, to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, to a deep-sunk "hiding place" where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come—Underland takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind.

Global in its geography and written with great lyricism, Underland speaks powerfully to our present moment. At once ancient and urgent, this is a book that will change the way you see the world.

LITTLE FREE LIBRARY ACQUISITION...AND BACK IT GOES, TOO.

My Review: I don't think this is as wonderful as most of y'all do. It isn't awful, certainly, though I was heading in the "two-stars-get-it-away-from-me" direction at the end of Third Chamber (p248). I left it on my TBR pile for a couple years after the white-hooded guy with the film gets irradiated.

Part Three—Haunting (The North) was, unexpectedly, a much different reading experience. It's still too long, it's way too ornately wrought for its subject matter...Robert Mulvaney and his "haven't sailed the east (British) coast unless you've grounded" shtik almost got the book put down again...but there is a simple and essential heartbeat of passion for the planet that came through to me more clearly after the hauntings began.

(No, not ghosty-ghouly hauntings.)

I won't re-read it, and I doubt I'll knock over any little kids to grab the last copy of his latest, but the book ended up feeling like time well spent. As that was not the direction I was headed for over half the read, I think it's a minor miracle I kept going long enough to find that out.

[ken5me5old5mate · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Here is Robert McFarlane doing that thing that he does so well.

I always wonder if he’s ever had a regular job because he seems to be able to wander to amazing places whenever he wants and he seems to know other people with interesting lives.

Did he start out climbing shelves in Tesco’s warehouse? I don’t think so, if anything he was born fully formed under an oak tree in an ancient forest. He seems of the land itself.

I think this is what makes him so special, he seems without artifice or guile. I really think that how he comes across in his books must be how he really is, how else could he write in such a moving and heartfelt way without ever coming across as insincere.

This book is both enlightening and uplifting and at the same time depressing as it chronicles some of the momentous changes happening on this earth right now that can only end badly.

I hope I never hear of him on one of those mindless minor-celebrity-humiliation programs that pass for entertainment for people who pass as literate.

[bhiggs-822148 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Amazing read. It covers all things underground. It's a history book, an environmentalism book, a geology book, and an anthropology book all in one. I love the allure of underground spaces, and the interesting and less known features of our planet. This hit all the marks for me. Highly recommended!

[derekcaelin · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Robert Macfarlane's voice reminds me of Kim Stanley Robinson's, and for me this is a compliment. He is lyrical, focused both on the human and the scientific.

The passages about underground cities moved me the most. I don't think I have it in me to visit places so dark, and claustrophobic, and hidden from the world above. I was also fascinated by the focus of the book on Deep Time. How do humans storing nuclear waste plan to tell those who are to come 10,000 years hence that the thing we buried is harmful? Language, iconography, all are insufficient because they will stay the same and the world marches on, forever, until the meanings that were transmitted can no longer be understood.

I was saddened and inspired by this book. Wood reccomend.

[fegolac · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is an amazing journey through a lot of nature's hidden gems (literally hidden since most of them are underground, and the ones that aren't are very remote). Robert Macfarlane has a real knack for talking about science with very evocative, poetic language. And it's not the "I fucking love science" kind of writing either: it's clear that a lot of research went into writing this book (although I thought the chapter on dark matter was a bit thin), and since it is as much about the act of discovering as it is about the discoveries themselves, he emphasizes the notion that science is something that's done by real people rather than falling from the sky.

This is not really a travel book, but it made me really want to visit some of the places he talks about. Which makes this perhaps not ideal reading for coronatime, but it was nice to check out some pictures online. And each chapter touches on so many different subjects that I felt compelled to check Wikipedia every couple of pages or so. If you're a curious person, this book will definitely broaden your horizons.

[pdcread · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Mankind has long looked to the heavens seeking fortune, inspiration and direction. Numerous cultures have all considered the underworld to be a place where a river carried the dead away from the surface, where death abounded, hell, hades and other places were thought to exist. It was somewhere to be avoided. Yet, people have worked underground for thousands of years, tracing and extracting the minerals and ores in the ground, However, it is not something that most people do on a regular basis in the UK now our mining industry is gone. We do head beneath the surface though as millions of people think nothing about going on the tube under London and other capital cities to get to work. However, very few get to go to where Macfarlane is heading.

His journeys into the nether regions of our planet will take him to the catacombs of Paris where his guide knows the numerous passages so well that she doesn’t need a map. Squeezing through tiny gaps, pulling his bag behind him, he will not see the sun for a week. He will venture deep underground in Finland visiting a nuclear waste site. Here they are burying copper and steel tube holding waste uranium, that will have to be buried for thousands of years and sealed behind a million tonnes of rock. The engineer’s joke that they might find the last lot that was buried in the rock they were blasting.

People have been entering caves since time immemorial, some caves are easy to enter, though not straightforward to reach and they reveal art that is millennia old. The caves he visits to see this amazing art are not always the easiest to find, and it is not always the easiest thing to see on the walls as he discovers. Each cave he enters challenges his perception of the underground landscape, having to descend vertically in almost pitch back, wading through underground rivers that might flood with no warning. He sees first hand how the same forces that shape our coasts and mountains, also transform the Underland. Most memorable is an underground chamber where there are dunes of black sands.

In Greenland, he climbs mountains and abseils down a moraine in a glacier and it is as cold and frightening as I’d expect. Secrets from under London with Bradley Garret from the London Consolidation Crew are revealed as they head to places that they really shouldn’t be going. Underneath forests are more than just roots, as Macfarlane understands how trees talk to each other through the Wood Wide Web. One of the deepest points he reaches is to see the place where they look at the stars…

The way into the Underland is through the riven trunk of an old ash tree…

It is through these and the other locations he takes us, that we get to hear the stories of these places that never see the sun. As will all of Macfarlane’s books, there is a wider message that he is talking about in what has been called the Anthropocene and that is about the damage that we are doing to this, our only planet. The reason he can abseil down the moraine on the glacier is because of global warming and the implications for humanity should the repositories hold the nuclear waste leak or rupture do not even bear thinking about. If you have read any of his previous books then this is a must read. It is not as uplifting as those books as it is much darker given the places he visits and the subject matter but that doesn’t make it any less thrilling. It is not one to read if you suffer from claustrophobia. I like the way that he can link seemingly unrelated subjects from classical history to modern day physics with that common thread of being under the ground. Macfarlane has a way with words that carry you as he heads deep Underland to see our past and glimpse our future. I have been anticipating this for over a year now and it was well worth the wait. If there was one tiny flaw, I would have liked to have seen some photos included of the places he visits.

[nmele_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don't know what is so compelling about Macfarlane's stories of exploring the world beneath the surface, sometimes deep beneath the surface, but his book is powerfully compelling. For one thing, he ranges from early cave art to the deepest mines and excavations on earth, from hard rock excursions to glacier exploration. His chapter on exploring the city beneath Paris reminded me of my own explorations of underground New York as an undergraduate: tunnels under the campus of Columbia University, abandoned subway stations, and so on. Just a fascinating journey beneath the "everyday" surface of the earth that yields insights into deep time and the mysteries of war, faith and creativity.

[sonorandreamer-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The content of this book was unexpected. I thought I was going to be reading about natural caves and human relationships with them. This book was about that and more. The book was mostly about exploring caves, which I am not very interested in, but this book is worth reading anyway. It was about the damage of civilization to the natural world, it was about politics, it was about climate change, and it was about resistance to the dominant culture that is causing all the damage.

[neurodrew · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I started this when traveling back from Las Vegas, finished it quickly because it was fascinating. MacFarlane must be in excellent shape, because he describes crawling in narrow openings, climbing and rapelling in deep caves as well as visiting mines and sites for storing nuclear waste. Very hard to summarize, but evocative writing about burials, limestone caves in Italy and Slovenia, a gamma ray observatory in a salt mine, traversing the sewers under Paris (including crawling a few feet under train tracks, and feeling the thump of the wheels), visiting claves in glaciers in Greenland. It is hard to call this a travel book, and hard to categorize as history. I will keep this book and possibly read it again.

[schant-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed it, but it does become a bit like watching someone's endless snaps of his adventure holidays - eventually your mind wanders while retaining a polite smile. The most interesting sections were the human underlands - exploring the Paris catacombs, being overwhelmed by ancient art in hard to reach caves, bouncing along in a van through halite caves in an undersea potash mine.

[labdaddy4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very complex book - looking at our world and what impact man has had - and is having - through the exploration of spaces - even “worlds” - that are hidden from common view, the authors “underland”. The author writes very beautifully, descriptively, even poetically about the variety of places he has explored. The book is intriguing, observant, and depressing all at once. Overall the author does not seem to be too optimistic regarding man’s impact on our planet.

[mdoris_6 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was another amazing book by Robert Macfarlane!

He allows you to be an armchair adventurer tagging along with him by going to impossible places. In our daily lives we mostly view things above the earth's crust (except perhaps parking garages below ground) but Macfarlane takes us to places below ground that make you view the world so differently. It creates a conceptual difference reading this book. He takes you to caves and cave art, to glacier's moulin (the funnels that plunge below glacier surface like whirlpools), to deep underground storage units for storing nuclear waste, to the catacombs below Paris, to cave art in remote Norway (Lofotens) to the communications of tree and plant roots.

I read this book very slowly and jumped off often to You Tube clips to bring the places or events into a visual focus such as watching calving of glaciers in Greenland and the cave treks in England where the tragic accident of Neil Moss occured in 1959.

In his writing Macfarlane is never far from his environmental concerns for climate change, the plastics in the sea, the need to make our geologic time be known as Anthropocene.

Marfarlane is such a gifted and poetic writer and captures many levels of the experiences he expertly shares with us. What a great book this is!