Editors Reads Verdict
Macfarlane's most ambitious and most unsettling book — the descent metaphor is both literal and structural, and the final section, in Finland with the nuclear waste repository, achieves something genuinely disturbing about the Anthropocene. His best book.
What We Loved
- The structural metaphor — descent as a way of accessing deep time — is executed with genuine consistency
- The Finnish nuclear waste section is one of the most disturbing pieces of non-fiction written about the Anthropocene
- The range of underlands — cave systems, city tunnels, Greenland glaciers — sustains the theme across the full length
Minor Drawbacks
- The opening Somerset cave section is less compelling than what follows
- The book is long — at 500 pages the pacing occasionally flags
Key Takeaways
- → Deep time — geological time — makes human history look like a thin surface film on a very old planet
- → The problem of nuclear waste storage forces us to think about communication across 100,000 years — longer than human civilisation has existed
- → What lies beneath landscapes — in caves, in roots, in fungi networks — is as complex and interconnected as what is visible above
| Author | Robert Macfarlane |
|---|---|
| Publisher | W. W. Norton |
| Pages | 496 |
| Published | January 1, 2019 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Non-Fiction, Travel, Nature Writing |
| Difficulty | Intermediate |
| Best For | Readers of literary nature writing and environmental thought — anyone interested in deep time, the Anthropocene, and what humans have made and unmade. |
Descent
Macfarlane’s previous books went up (mountains) and across (paths). This one goes down. The book is structured as a series of descents — into cave systems, into the Paris catacombs, into the darkness under Somerset, into a Finnish nuclear waste repository that is being built to last 100,000 years.
The structural choice is also a thematic one: going underground means going deeper in time. The caves contain traces of early human ritual — Macfarlane finds art made 40,000 years ago. The nuclear waste repository contains a different kind of trace — the problem of leaving a warning that will still be legible in 100,000 years’ time, when no current language will remain.
The Anthropocene Underground
The Finnish section is the book’s moral and intellectual centre. How do you mark a site as dangerous for 100,000 years? What symbols, what materials, what structures might survive and still communicate? The question is disorienting because it forces you to think from outside the human scale.
Our rating: 4.4/5 — Macfarlane’s most ambitious book — descent into deep time and the disturbing weight of the Anthropocene.
Reading Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "Underland" about?
Macfarlane descends — into caves beneath Somerset, into the Paris catacombs, into a salt mine in Slovenia, into the bedrock of Finland where nuclear waste will be buried for 100,000 years. A book about what lies beneath: time, death, and the dark matter of the planet.
Who should read "Underland"?
Readers of literary nature writing and environmental thought — anyone interested in deep time, the Anthropocene, and what humans have made and unmade.
What are the key takeaways from "Underland"?
Deep time — geological time — makes human history look like a thin surface film on a very old planet The problem of nuclear waste storage forces us to think about communication across 100,000 years — longer than human civilisation has existed What lies beneath landscapes — in caves, in roots, in fungi networks — is as complex and interconnected as what is visible above
Is "Underland" worth reading?
Macfarlane's most ambitious and most unsettling book — the descent metaphor is both literal and structural, and the final section, in Finland with the nuclear waste repository, achieves something genuinely disturbing about the Anthropocene. His best book.
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