As a genre I’ve never given much thought to nature writing. It never even registered on my reading radar. Nature writing was the equivalent to travel writing, as far as my initial conceptions went. Leisurely works of wholesome qualities, which are adequately commissioned, though I always doubted that their consumption was widespread. To me, nature writing inhabited a dual sphere. On the one, it stemmed from leisure and even to an extent good fortune and luxury, whereby the writer could continually ramble on about the brambles in their garden, the ancient trees, the annuals, the perennials, the pesky animals complete with human character. Then there is the other facet, a piece of non-fiction work whose singular concern is to report the egregious error and terrifying damages plaguing the environment, whereby human beings are the plague rats; yet its message is lost in the technicalities of science, bone dry logic, and inconvenient facts. Yet over the years, I heard of a book “Meadowland,” whose full title is: “Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field,” written by an English farmer and lifestyle columnist, who heralds from the West Midlands, which in itself sounds quintessentially English in itself; complete with winding lanes, tranquil and censored meadows, babbling brooks, green hills, grey and dour skies, with rock fences slithering and snaking through hills and fields in equal measures. In all: the kind of pastoral land one expects every from of fantasy fiction to take on, one that is both ancient and cultivated. Anything else will just not do.
When envisioning the English countryside, stereotypically, we imagine it as it has often been presented: manicured, tamed, cultivated, colonized, orderly. There’s the English gardens, all neat and tidy. Roses in regalia; lilies trumpeting; fragrant herbs; conspicuous and unsightly weeds like dandelions plucked and pruned; hedges trimmed, tamed, shaped and formed; cobblestone paved garden paths; manicured lawns of a verdant and vibrant green. In essence all of natures beauty curated for adoration and enjoyment, without the bite, the danger, the wild. After generations and centuries of farming, complete with cultivation and animal husbandry, there is no doubt that England would eventually slowly transform into its muted and almost ‘unwild,’ landscape we imagine it as today. The pockets of forest, are more fit to imagine the homes of the characters of Beatrix Potter’s tales or the quaint tranquil pastoral life of the anthromorphic characters of “The Wind in the Willows.” Now and then though we may glimpse a darkened and uncomfortable reproach. Something forbidden, haunted, and ancient. The woods of some gothic and weary estate that perhaps the Brontë’s had conjured and placed on a fetid heath or windswept moorland.
Through centuries of agriculture, cultivation, deforestation, and civilization, the wilds of England, Scotland and Wales, have been either altered or lost. Gone are the legendary wolves of Great Britain, as well as the bears and lynx. The animal kingdom is ruled by the competing apex predators, on the ground is the badger and fox, in the rivers the otter, while the skies are shared by the eagle in the day and the owl as night falls. The fox as the apex remains a curious figure. Rather than sheer power and killer instinct, such as its cultural related wolf, whose nobility is crowned in its ideal sense of superiority, its moon directed prayers and praise, echoing through the shadows of the night. Its pack orientated understanding, and its ability to take down large wild game. The wolf occupied a state of noble and chivalrous understanding within human culture, both as a haunting and mournful nocturnal foe, but also noble warrior, a symbol of pride courage and northern resilience and survival. Culturally speaking, the wolf never relied on tricks or deception or cunning to get what it wanted. It takes by force. An otherwise chivalrous force, one with a sense of dignity and straightforward virtue.
Whereas on the contrary, the fox must use less then appealing methods to obtain its goals. Throughout cultural depictions and further enforced with literary adaptions, the fox is portrayed as maliciously intelligent, mischievously clever, and malevolently capable of obtaining its rewards by preying on the gullibility of others. In the famous fables, Reynard the Red Fox, bests all the other beasts with his own wits. He does not have the respect of the lion; the brutish strength of the bear; the nobility of the wolf (Isengrim); the onery resolve of the donkey; yet Reynard has intelligence, and this aptitude for manipulation, deception, and cunning logic in order to thwart the foolhardy plans of the other animals, whose ideals and virtues, however noble, chivalrous, valiant, loyal, and principled, are secondary and pedestrian, unsuitable for the harsh realities of life, and inevitably not realistic ideals. Reynard as fictional character becomes the necessary antihero of the common man, satirizing the smug and out of touch lion as monarch; the gluttonous landlords in the bear; the violent and fascist knights in the wolf; the blind, devote, and cantankerously stubborn clergy who demand tithes in their denominational taxation, as the donkey. Reynard in turn, becomes that antiestablishment folk hero.
In “The Wild Life of the Fox,” John Lewis-Stempel, provides a brief overview of Reynard as the fabled folk hero. The fable is more a literary reference, to how human society and civilization has come to admire, respect, and in turn detest the fox; but whose brilliant red coat has come to inhabit a cherished and well-earned space in popular imagination. In turn, John Lewis-Stempel mentions the rivalry between Mr. Tod and Tommy Brock, in Beatrix Potter’s tale “The Tale of Mr. Tod.” The rivalry exhibited between Mr. Tod (a fox) and Tommy Brock (a badger) is evident, when the later invades the home of the former stashing away rabbit kittens to be eaten later. Their mutual distaste provides enough distraction for both Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny to reclaim the young bunnies and return to safety. “The Tale of Mr. Tod,” was an interesting departure for Beatrix Potter and a marvelous swansong, as it allowed Potter to resign herself to write a tale with two disagreeable parties at the heart of the tale. After so many tales with warm hearts, soft edges, and agreeable perspectives, came a tale riddled with subtle and underlying danger presented in the case of Tommy Brock and Mr. Tod.
For John Lewis-Stempel the fox is the undisputed heir and ruler of the English countryside or as Lewis-Stempel put it:
“our most ancient landowner.”
Yet the relationship with the fox is riddled with complications. For farmers it’s a nuisance. A killer of livestock, who is not easily prevented or barricaded out. As if with almost mythological admiration, John Lewis-Stempel recounts the stories of others along with his own encounters with the apex predator, whose ingenuity and frightening aptitude for intelligent thought has thwarted farmers attempts to keep the fox out of the hen house both proverbial and literal, such as the case with his own red menace’s ability to deduce how to disarm an electric fence. While others have recounted seeing foxes taunt dogs as they stroll with measured and precise steps on hay bales, while the dogs bark with their usual war cries. While another recounts how the fox has been observed rolling in the mud to disguise its scent and avoid the dogs on the chase and hunt.
Fox hunting is an expected topic to be touched on in this short book, and John Lewis-Stempel tackles the subject with a sense of naturalist respect and grace, coupled with an understanding for tradition and ritual. The now banned hunt in the United Kingdom, has been a point of contention for many years—both leading up to its prohibition and long since after. Opponents of the fox hunt view it as a senseless and cruel game parading itself as a gentlemen’s sport. Supporters in turn called it a necessary and woven tradition of rural English life and operates as a form of conservation and pest control. Regardless, the hunt fell out of style and tolerance by the people. It was viewed as an archaic and barbaric tradition, a symbol of an otherwise bygone era. John Lewis-Stempel who kindly aligns himself in line with the fox hunting, does point out to the uniquely English tradition rich with historical nuance, rural aesthetics, and eventually evolving into a societal affair that transcended the social and class barriers all at the call of the hunter, the bark of the dogs, the thunder of hooves, the trumpeting of the horn, as chase gives way for the red phantom skirting through the fields, meadows, and thicket of trees that is the quintessential English countryside. John Lewis-Stempel points out that more foxes are killed on average by cars then they were by the hunts.
“The Wild Life of the Fox,” was an enjoyable introduction into the world of John Lewis-Stempel’s nature writing. Currently there three other books him resting on my bookshelf to be read. “The Wild Life of the Fox,” in turn proved itself to be fair and measured introduction the realm of nature writing. Not bone dry but not covered in the sinewy slime of the biologically graphic. It was a panoramic purview that engulfed both historical, cultural, biological, literary, and personal anecdote to cover a singular animal, who has been the point of admiration and contemplation with human society for centuries. All in all, a quick read which proved to be enjoyable company on otherwise routine and mundane bus rides. As for the fox it remains a perennial fascination to our collective imagination, being the perennial illusionist, trickster, satirist and antihero. The fox inhabits the space of in between. Though canine in appearance it is feline in every way possible. Though renowned for its sly, deceptive, and manipulative nature with a sense of smug intelligence, it is unapologetically beautiful and flashy in its display of vibrancy. Long live the fox as the English apex predator. One can’t help but think itself a suitable occupant of the role, maintaining a sense of tamed wild regality, relying on its wits over brute force and wild instincts.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
M. Mary
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