J. A. BakerThe Peregrine (New York Review Books Classics)

Great nature writing

What one would expect from an author (a book) on bird watching? Even if in this case it is The Bird... The Peregrine? Well, I would assume that not much for the most common reader but the recommendation was most emphatic and sincere... and so I tried it... to discover a world of profound reflections worth of the beautiful scenery described. The Nature, its equilibrium and the dysfunctional presence of the Sapiens makes for re-evaluating at least some of the concepts that became standard wisdom of late. Profit from it... and read it.

No other way to put it: This book is a treasure of the English language.In The Peregrine J.A. Baker describes how he tracked and trekked over months and miles in his native England to watch and record in language like you've never read how peregrines hunt and feed and fly and play and rest. The language he uses to construct his sentences is like none other I have ever read. It's a vivid mix of nature writing and the best poetry. The text is so dense, the sentences are so packed with words bringing life to action--there really is no reading experience I can compare this to. I could only stand to read a few pages at a time; "relish" not "read" would be the better word there.This is more than "nature writing," too. Baker gets under the very surface of life to expose what lurks. Just a few excepts to illustrate:"The hardest thing of all to see is what is really there.""Terror seeks out the odd, and the sick, and the lost."“There is no mysterious essence we can call a 'place'. Place is change. It is motion killed by the mind, and preserved in the amber of memory.”“Whatever is destroyed, the act of destruction does not vary much. Beauty is vapour from the pit of death.”I cannot give The Peregrine anything less than 5 stars. It's more than a book, it is a reading experience. Reading it will expand your senses. It will enliven you and enrich you as a human being. I think that's the greatest thing we can expect from any book.

If you have an interest in peregrine falcons this book will tell of their daily routine in such descriptive ways that each day brings a kaleidoscope of terminology not seen or read before. It’s not a fast read as the mind has bursts of illusions forming from the words written. Take it a day at a time and just enjoy it.

I'm at half reading of it. So far it is indeed, a good piece of writing. Meticulous and clear descriptive.

I am definitely conflicted about how much I like this book. On the one hand, the prose is beautiful as Baker creates a deep map of eastern Britain during the fall and winter. He takes you on near-daily hawk watching expeditions through some very interesting terrain. His ability to convey color, motion, and the natural world is uncanny. But on the other hand, the book consists of repetitious reflections on the peregrine falcon. How it flies, hunts, eats, disgorges pellets, and roosts. The reader is treated to innumerable discoveries of dead birds the peregrines have preyed on along the way.If you're a birder this book is for you. I am a birder and so give the book 4-stars. Birders can relate to Baker's long walks, his standing in foul weather, and his unvarnished excitement at watching the avian natural world unfold. If you're not a birder, I think you will grow a trifle bored of the narrative even if you enjoy nature writing. Recommended for birders; recommended with reservations (for the unvarying narrative) for others.

Purchased this after listening to an interview with director Werner Herzog, who stated that this is the only book that he *requires* all of his film students to take. He writes:"I’m Werner Herzog, I’m a filmmaker normally but I do read. The book I would really recommend is an obscure book published in 1967: “The Peregrine,” by J.A. Baker, who is somebody about whom we know nothing, literally nothing. He wrote in Great Britain when the last peregrines were dying out—now they have bounced back a little bit. He observes peregrines and it’s a most incredible book. It has prose of the caliber that we have not seen since Joseph Conrad. And an ecstasy—a delirious sort of love for what he observes.The intensity and the ecstasy of observation is something that you have to have as a filmmaker or somebody who loves literature. Whoever really loves literature, whoever really loves movies, should read that book.In a way, it’s almost like a transubstantiation, like in religion, where the observer becomes almost the object—in this case the falcon—he observes. He writes, for example, about the falcon soaring high up, and then higher and higher until the falcon is only a dot. Then he writes, “and then we swoop down,” as if he had become a falcon himself. And there’s a variety of moments where you can tell that he has completely entered into the existence of a falcon. And this is what I do when I make a film, I step outside of myself into an ekstasis in Greek, to step outside of your own body, a point outside. Baker steps into the fog and in an ecstasy of observing the world it is unprecedented."

One of the most amazing and boring books I have ever read. Boring in the sense that the book is only about a man keeping sight of a peregrine in England throughout the months of one year. Amazing because of his commitment, his dedication, his passion, his love, his recognition of beauty and ability to express it in the most beautifully written way keeps you reading and wondering, and totally in love. This book is not for everyone, and it does take as much patience as the writer himself who trudged the fields in search of the peregrine in rain and sun and cold, but you will be rewarded with a vision that is cinematic, profound, and transcending.