Travel to South America

Far Away And Long Ago: A Childhood in Argentina

Format: Paperback
Author: W. H. Hudson
ReleaseDate: 15 May, 2006
Publisher: Eland
Rating:

Warmth
Well I can say that this book is best read in the winter, for it will melt the snow in puddles around your shoe, and warm your heart and soul at the same time. I became aware of this book through an article Hemingway wrote about books he would like to read twice. So make haste and buy it now, while the cold winds still blow.

A Naturalist's Childhood on the Pampas


W. As we continue to pave over the beauties of our world and turn them into concrete wastelands, it is good to think back what life was like 150 years ago before we began the process of destruction in earnest. H. Hudson, the naturalist, is revered in Argentina, where they refer to him as Guillermo Enrique Hudson and name streets and towns after him. In simple and stately prose, he writes about his boyhood as one of several sons in an English family that ran an estancia on the Pampas. Despite several failed attempts to school him, he managed to pick up one of the best educations available: by using his eyes and ears to study nature. His skill in language, which is considerable, came from reading his father's books on his own.

Whether writing about ombu trees, plovers, snakes, lightning storms, rheas (Argentinian ostriches), or his neighboring ranchers, Hudson brought a whole world to life with this book.

Hudson published FAR AWAY AND LONG AGO in 1917 while he was living in England -- around the same time that a Frenchman named Marcel Proust was following where that elusive taste of madeleines led him in REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, and around the same time that World War I was destroying a whole way of life. As he writes in the book:

"It is difficult, impossible I am told, for any one to recall his boyhood exactly as it was. It could not have been what it seems to the adult mind, since we cannot escape from what we are, however great our detachment may be; and in going back we must take our present selves with us: the mind has taken a different colour, and this is thrown back upon our past. The poet has reversed the order of things when he tells us that we come trailing clouds of glory, which melt away and are lost as we proceed on our journey. The truth is that unless we belong to the order of those who crystallize or lose their souls on their passage, the clouds gather about us as we proceed, and as cloud-compellers we travel on to the very end. "

FAR AWAY AND LONG AGO is perhaps one of the greatest autobiographies ever written. Although I finished reading it several days ago, I am still feeling its afterglow and get this itch to re-read passages from it. This is, indeed, a book that will withstand several readings. .

Recreates the history, culture and geography of Argentina in a way few travel books accomplish
H. The Argentine pampas was a land of freedom and excitement: one literary figurehead W. Hudson describes in his memoir FAR AWAY & LONG AGO: A CHILDHOOD IN ARGENTINA. Descriptions of natural history and wildlife abound - and also of politics and interpersonal relationships of the times. You'd think FAR AWAY & LONG AGO would give insights into Hudson's childhood and life - and it does - but more importantly it recreates the history, culture and geography of Argentina in a way few travel books accomplish.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
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