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| The Worm Forgives the Plough (Vintage Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: John Stewart Collis
Creator: Robert Macfarlane
Publisher: Vintage Classics
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
Buy New: £7.19
You Save: £1.80 (20%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 447238
Media: Paperback
Pages: 304
ISBN: 0099529483
EAN: 9780099529484
ASIN: 0099529483
Publication Date: March 5, 2009 (In 107 Days)
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Not yet published
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| Customer Reviews:
A vision of the perfection of things January 30, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
In the early days of World War II John Stewart Collis elected to work as a manual farm labourer rather than take a wartime occupation more suited to his studious, intellectual nature. In this book he not only describes his experiences on two farms in southern England, but reflects on the nature of everything he encounters, from manual labour through to nature itself. Although never stated, one can sense the difficulty and occasional loneliness he felt trying to integrate with fellow workers who were both suspcicious and sometimes openly hostile to his presence. But mostly this memoir is a happy meditation on the pleasure of hard physical work through the seasons in the open air. Anyone who has ever worked on a farm will recognise many of his observations, and anyone who yearns for a simpler way of life will find this book as evocative as the smell of a freshly ploughed field on a January morning.
The second section of this book describes how for a year he worked alone thinning a wood near Iwerne Minster in Dorset, where he lived an almost hermit like existence, yet wanting for nothing more than to be where he was, and engaged in what he was doing. I have never read such a moving memoir as The Wood; a memoir of a man so at peace with himself and his surroundings, able to regard the warming sun on his back in early spring as the most profound of pleasures. If I ever get a chance to emulate Collis and his experience working in the wood I will count myself fortunate indeed.
A Must For Anyone Interested in the Countryside November 25, 2001
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
Collis provides a poignant account of his years working on English farms during WW2. This book contains a combination of philosophical insight and detailed description of a rural Britain that has (temporarily?) passed but is once again becoming relevant again. The simple farming and forestry practices he describes remind the reader of what our civilisation is based on. Collis was an educated man who came to farming late in life and so he provides very valuable insight into non-intensive practices that we may need to embrace once again. I would strongly recommend this book as a must read to anyone interested in farming, ecology, animals, anthropology and a whole heap of other subjects. He describes a world based on sustainability rather than waste. Excellent.
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