In an isolated structure, known as The Green Chapel, a nuclear threat – represented by the looming black mass of The Armorer – rises and seethes. It is a hazard that is answered by the land itself, part-anthropomorphised in the totemic, element-hewn figures of it, he, she, they and as. 

Redolent of the mesmeric power of Ted Hughes’ The Iron Man and infused with the timeless fluidity of a Mystery Play, Ness is an extraordinary collaboration between two of the most original minds of our time.  Drawing on previous works – including Robert Macfarlane’s Untrue Island libretto in association with the National Trust-run site of Orford Ness – as well as Macfarlane and Donwood’s career-spanning interests in language, memory and the incipient threat posed by climate change and global development, it is a melting pot of experimental thought and imagination. 

Incorporating strands of ancient myth and Middle English storytelling and told in a combination of prose-poetry and image that demands to be spoken, read-aloud and shared, Ness brings to life the very imminent threat to our age: the fundamental crisis of the Anthropocene. Vital and enlivening, it is a work that asks fundamental questions about our living landscape, the potency of language and how we defend ourselves from the dangers we ourselves pose and create.

Author: Robert Macfarlane & Stanley Donwood
Hardback
ISBN: 9780241396568 
Publisher: Penguin Books 07/11/2019