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Is a River Alive?
The renowned nature writer and author of the best-selling author of Underland delivers a revelatory book that transforms how we look at the natural world—and life itself.
Hailed as “a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler” (Holly Morris, New York Times), Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reporting, and natural history. Is a River Alive? is a joyous exploration into an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law. Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada—imperiled by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s house, which flows through his own years and days. Powered by Macfarlane’s dazzling prose and lit throughout by other voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers—and always has.
Hailed as “a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler” (Holly Morris, New York Times), Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reporting, and natural history. Is a River Alive? is a joyous exploration into an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law. Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada—imperiled by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s house, which flows through his own years and days. Powered by Macfarlane’s dazzling prose and lit throughout by other voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers—and always has.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2025
1294 people are currently reading
36113 people want to read
About the author
Robert Macfarlane
114 books4,211 followersRobert Macfarlane is a British nature writer and literary critic.
Educated at Nottingham High School, Pembroke College, Cambridge and Magdalen College, Oxford, he is currently a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and teaches in the Faculty of English at Cambridge.
Robert Macfarlane is the author of prize-winning and bestselling books about landscape, nature, people and place, including Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination (2003), The Wild Places (2007), The Old Ways (2012), Holloway (2013, with Stanley Donwood and Dan Richards), Landmarks (2015), The Lost Words: A Spell Book (with the artist Jackie Morris, 2017) and Underland: A Deep Time Journey (2019). His work has been translated into many languages, won prizes around the world, and his books have been widely adapted for film, television, stage and radio. He has collaborated with artists, film-makers, actors, photographers and musicians, including Hauschka, Willem Dafoe, Karine Polwart and Stanley Donwood. In 2017 he was awarded the EM Forster Prize for Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Educated at Nottingham High School, Pembroke College, Cambridge and Magdalen College, Oxford, he is currently a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and teaches in the Faculty of English at Cambridge.
Robert Macfarlane is the author of prize-winning and bestselling books about landscape, nature, people and place, including Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination (2003), The Wild Places (2007), The Old Ways (2012), Holloway (2013, with Stanley Donwood and Dan Richards), Landmarks (2015), The Lost Words: A Spell Book (with the artist Jackie Morris, 2017) and Underland: A Deep Time Journey (2019). His work has been translated into many languages, won prizes around the world, and his books have been widely adapted for film, television, stage and radio. He has collaborated with artists, film-makers, actors, photographers and musicians, including Hauschka, Willem Dafoe, Karine Polwart and Stanley Donwood. In 2017 he was awarded the EM Forster Prize for Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 461 reviews
May 8, 2025
I suppose you want a review of the book, hang on a bit... This is the ninth Macfarlane book I’ve read and it’s been fascinating to watch his progress. I haven’t read them in the right order, but as you journey through his five ‘great’ books (no disrespect to the others) Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, The Old Ways, Underland and Is a River Alive, you can feel him growing into his writer-self, inhabiting it more fully and confidently.
All these five books contain the same joy of stories and storytelling, fascinating people and facts, quotes and references, anecdotes and theories, poetry and music, passion and earnestness. Mountains is wonderful, but lacks the balance of later books. You could be forgiven for thinking, while reading Wild places and Old ways, here is a writer at the peak of his powers. And then he hits you with Underland. And you think oh my goodness, wow. That is unbeatable. Which could be a bit of a curse for a writer.
But no, he has hit cruising altitude, he has our attention, and his voice in Is a river alive has confidence and authority. The book is less episodic and more thematic. It has all the best elements of any Macfarlane book. Memorable characters, memorable scenes, memorable stories. It balances despair and hope, and is an Important Book. But ultimately, it’s a wonderful read. He’s done it again.
All these five books contain the same joy of stories and storytelling, fascinating people and facts, quotes and references, anecdotes and theories, poetry and music, passion and earnestness. Mountains is wonderful, but lacks the balance of later books. You could be forgiven for thinking, while reading Wild places and Old ways, here is a writer at the peak of his powers. And then he hits you with Underland. And you think oh my goodness, wow. That is unbeatable. Which could be a bit of a curse for a writer.
But no, he has hit cruising altitude, he has our attention, and his voice in Is a river alive has confidence and authority. The book is less episodic and more thematic. It has all the best elements of any Macfarlane book. Memorable characters, memorable scenes, memorable stories. It balances despair and hope, and is an Important Book. But ultimately, it’s a wonderful read. He’s done it again.
June 17, 2025
An ode to the natural world through travel along three rivers in Ecuador, India and Canada. It is clear that the human vs nature dichotomy is running it's course, but besides a sense of wonder and legal rights as a potential solution I found less fixes than I had hoped upfront
Resources are not, they become
Is a River Alive? is in a sense a non-fiction accompanying piece to There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak. Both books invoke a sense of wonder in respect to the water cycle and the broader natural world. Robert Macfarlane travels along three rivers, introducing the reader to the concept of a cloud forest, a broad assortment of passionate nature protectors and an equally myriad number of challenges.
I enjoyed the perspectives on natural rights, granting rivers a similar legal status as a company (which is also clearly a construct) and how this notion is slowly gaining traction. However capitalism (and even in a more benign form the want for economical development) lurks around all corners, not valuing biodiversity and trying to influence the legal process every step along the way. The travels through nature are interesting described and got me wanting to canoe, even though to be honest I would probably not survive following the track of the Magpie river.
More thoughts to follow!
Resources are not, they become
Is a River Alive? is in a sense a non-fiction accompanying piece to There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak. Both books invoke a sense of wonder in respect to the water cycle and the broader natural world. Robert Macfarlane travels along three rivers, introducing the reader to the concept of a cloud forest, a broad assortment of passionate nature protectors and an equally myriad number of challenges.
I enjoyed the perspectives on natural rights, granting rivers a similar legal status as a company (which is also clearly a construct) and how this notion is slowly gaining traction. However capitalism (and even in a more benign form the want for economical development) lurks around all corners, not valuing biodiversity and trying to influence the legal process every step along the way. The travels through nature are interesting described and got me wanting to canoe, even though to be honest I would probably not survive following the track of the Magpie river.
More thoughts to follow!
June 27, 2025
I have some fairly minor criticism of this book, but I’m really thankful for getting to spend time with it. It’s wonderful to get to see someone experience the world, literature, and thinking through our lives as he does through these stories. And in the ongoing saga of climate change, I think the perspective about considering the earth is as important as considering us humans - I think it’s more grounded, but also so much more beautiful.
June 9, 2025
Robert Macfarlane's latest work reads like the breathless account of someone who has just discovered that water is wet. His excitement about the "revolutionary" idea that rivers and landscapes are alive is genuine and infectious, but it lacks the humility one might expect from someone stumbling upon wisdom that indigenous peoples have carried for millennia.
The central thesis—that we should recognize rivers as living entities deserving legal rights—is presented as if Macfarlane himself has unearthed some profound new understanding of our relationship with the natural world. What he's actually describing, of course, is animism: the participatory experience of nature that comes from generations of elders passing detailed knowledge of place to their people. This understanding, essential for survival before written language freed (or severed) knowledge from specific locations, recognized everywhere that humans weren't the only beings to communicate, learn, and know.
He travels to the mountains of Ecuador to visit the cloud forest, to India to work all night rescuing sea turtle eggs on the beach in Chennai, and makes a ten-day kayak trip down an enormous lake and a wild river in Quebec, Canada. His descriptions of these adventures are fabulous: the characters he encounters and comes to know and love, the beauty and grandeur of the days spent there.
What becomes increasingly difficult to stomach, however, is the staggering hypocrisy woven throughout Macfarlane's global pilgrimage. He jets between continents on aluminum aircraft powered by fossil fuels, drives rental cars to remote locations, and uses mass-produced equipment—all while delivering righteous condemnations of the very industrial systems that make his journey possible. His kayak didn't manifest from river stones and good intentions. The steel, aluminum, petroleum products, and synthetic materials that enable his adventure exist because of the mines, factories, and extraction industries he so vehemently opposes.
This isn't merely intellectual inconsistency—it's a profound failure to grapple with the actual complexity of modern existence. His childlike rage at companies like Hydro Quebec (which produces electricity without greenhouse gas emissions) or Ecuadorian mining operations reveals a startling naivety about the interconnected systems that provide him with clothing, shelter, food, and even the paper his books are printed on.
Macfarlane champions constitutional rights of nature as a legal panacea, citing Ecuador's pioneering framework with the fervor of a true believer. But the evidence from Ecuador itself tells a more sobering story. Despite enshrining nature's rights in their constitution since 2008, Ecuador's economy remains fundamentally unchanged: oil still accounts for roughly one-third of government revenue, mining exports hit record highs in 2022 at $2.8 billion, and analysts predict mining will become the country's third-largest export by 2025.
The much-celebrated Los Cedros case—where constitutional rights blocked a mining project—represents an isolated victory rather than systemic change. Meanwhile, illegal gold mining has consumed 1,600 hectares of forest, and the government actively promotes mining expansion worth billions in investment. The uncomfortable truth is that Ecuador's extractive economy continues expanding despite constitutional rights of nature.
Macfarlane's genuine love for rivers and landscapes shines through every page, and his desire to protect them is admirable. But his overly enthusiastic advocacy for rights of nature as a silver bullet solution reveals a troubling disconnect from both political realities and conservation history.
Macfarlane makes essentially no mention of the massive conservation achievements that preceded his insight about the more than human world. While the global rights of nature movement claims roughly 150 mostly symbolic initiatives, conventional conservation has actually protected over 5.6 billion acres of land—more than 100,000 protected areas covering 17.6% of Earth's terrestrial surface. In the United States alone, land trusts have conserved 61 million acres through conservation easements and land acquisition—an area larger than all 63 national parks combined.
These aren't feel-good constitutional declarations but enforceable legal mechanisms with proven track records. The U.S. Endangered Species Act has prevented major damage for decades. The Clean Water Act routinely blocks or modifies development that harms our water. Land trusts, conservation easements, marine protected areas, wilderness designations, and international treaties have created a vast global infrastructure of environmental protection that operates through property law, regulatory frameworks, and institutional capacity rather than legal personhood for rivers.
The scale of the disparity is staggering: conventional protected areas cover literally millions of times more territory than rights of nature initiatives have demonstrably conserved. A single mechanism—conservation easements and land trust holdings in just the United States—protects more land than the entire global rights of nature movement combined. Yet Macfarlane writes as if environmental protection began with his philosophical awakening, ignoring the pragmatic, effective work of generations of conservationists who understood that protecting nature requires more than constitutional language—it demands robust institutions, enforceable law, dedicated funding, and sustained political commitment.
Like many passionate advocates, Macfarlane may someday confront the sobering recognition that his earlier certainties were badly informed and sadly impotent to create lasting change. This would be merely personal growth were it not for his considerable platform and compelling prose, which risks leading thousands of readers down the same path of magical thinking that ultimately breeds profound disappointment.
The real tragedy of this beautiful book isn't that rights of nature frameworks don't work—it's that they may distract people who care from grappling with the fundamental economic forces that actually shape land use. The vast majority of Earth's surface is governed by the relentless economic pressures of real estate development and natural resource extraction—legal and financial structures that exist because human societies need places to build and materials to extract. These powerful economic forces don't vanish because of passionate writing and declarations about river personhood, and they're barely constrained even by proven conservation laws with enforcement mechanisms. Even the most successful conservation efforts represent only a fraction of human activity on land.
Rivers are indeed alive in ways that matter. But protecting them will require more than taking a few special places out of the economy by making them parks, or by declaring that they have rights. The hard work ahead involves building on the substantial conservation infrastructure that generations of environmentalists have created. We are going to have to align the realities of human economics with the needs of the living world, rather than chasing the beautiful but naïve romanticism that mistakes philosophical satisfaction for ecological protection.
The central thesis—that we should recognize rivers as living entities deserving legal rights—is presented as if Macfarlane himself has unearthed some profound new understanding of our relationship with the natural world. What he's actually describing, of course, is animism: the participatory experience of nature that comes from generations of elders passing detailed knowledge of place to their people. This understanding, essential for survival before written language freed (or severed) knowledge from specific locations, recognized everywhere that humans weren't the only beings to communicate, learn, and know.
He travels to the mountains of Ecuador to visit the cloud forest, to India to work all night rescuing sea turtle eggs on the beach in Chennai, and makes a ten-day kayak trip down an enormous lake and a wild river in Quebec, Canada. His descriptions of these adventures are fabulous: the characters he encounters and comes to know and love, the beauty and grandeur of the days spent there.
What becomes increasingly difficult to stomach, however, is the staggering hypocrisy woven throughout Macfarlane's global pilgrimage. He jets between continents on aluminum aircraft powered by fossil fuels, drives rental cars to remote locations, and uses mass-produced equipment—all while delivering righteous condemnations of the very industrial systems that make his journey possible. His kayak didn't manifest from river stones and good intentions. The steel, aluminum, petroleum products, and synthetic materials that enable his adventure exist because of the mines, factories, and extraction industries he so vehemently opposes.
This isn't merely intellectual inconsistency—it's a profound failure to grapple with the actual complexity of modern existence. His childlike rage at companies like Hydro Quebec (which produces electricity without greenhouse gas emissions) or Ecuadorian mining operations reveals a startling naivety about the interconnected systems that provide him with clothing, shelter, food, and even the paper his books are printed on.
Macfarlane champions constitutional rights of nature as a legal panacea, citing Ecuador's pioneering framework with the fervor of a true believer. But the evidence from Ecuador itself tells a more sobering story. Despite enshrining nature's rights in their constitution since 2008, Ecuador's economy remains fundamentally unchanged: oil still accounts for roughly one-third of government revenue, mining exports hit record highs in 2022 at $2.8 billion, and analysts predict mining will become the country's third-largest export by 2025.
The much-celebrated Los Cedros case—where constitutional rights blocked a mining project—represents an isolated victory rather than systemic change. Meanwhile, illegal gold mining has consumed 1,600 hectares of forest, and the government actively promotes mining expansion worth billions in investment. The uncomfortable truth is that Ecuador's extractive economy continues expanding despite constitutional rights of nature.
Macfarlane's genuine love for rivers and landscapes shines through every page, and his desire to protect them is admirable. But his overly enthusiastic advocacy for rights of nature as a silver bullet solution reveals a troubling disconnect from both political realities and conservation history.
Macfarlane makes essentially no mention of the massive conservation achievements that preceded his insight about the more than human world. While the global rights of nature movement claims roughly 150 mostly symbolic initiatives, conventional conservation has actually protected over 5.6 billion acres of land—more than 100,000 protected areas covering 17.6% of Earth's terrestrial surface. In the United States alone, land trusts have conserved 61 million acres through conservation easements and land acquisition—an area larger than all 63 national parks combined.
These aren't feel-good constitutional declarations but enforceable legal mechanisms with proven track records. The U.S. Endangered Species Act has prevented major damage for decades. The Clean Water Act routinely blocks or modifies development that harms our water. Land trusts, conservation easements, marine protected areas, wilderness designations, and international treaties have created a vast global infrastructure of environmental protection that operates through property law, regulatory frameworks, and institutional capacity rather than legal personhood for rivers.
The scale of the disparity is staggering: conventional protected areas cover literally millions of times more territory than rights of nature initiatives have demonstrably conserved. A single mechanism—conservation easements and land trust holdings in just the United States—protects more land than the entire global rights of nature movement combined. Yet Macfarlane writes as if environmental protection began with his philosophical awakening, ignoring the pragmatic, effective work of generations of conservationists who understood that protecting nature requires more than constitutional language—it demands robust institutions, enforceable law, dedicated funding, and sustained political commitment.
Like many passionate advocates, Macfarlane may someday confront the sobering recognition that his earlier certainties were badly informed and sadly impotent to create lasting change. This would be merely personal growth were it not for his considerable platform and compelling prose, which risks leading thousands of readers down the same path of magical thinking that ultimately breeds profound disappointment.
The real tragedy of this beautiful book isn't that rights of nature frameworks don't work—it's that they may distract people who care from grappling with the fundamental economic forces that actually shape land use. The vast majority of Earth's surface is governed by the relentless economic pressures of real estate development and natural resource extraction—legal and financial structures that exist because human societies need places to build and materials to extract. These powerful economic forces don't vanish because of passionate writing and declarations about river personhood, and they're barely constrained even by proven conservation laws with enforcement mechanisms. Even the most successful conservation efforts represent only a fraction of human activity on land.
Rivers are indeed alive in ways that matter. But protecting them will require more than taking a few special places out of the economy by making them parks, or by declaring that they have rights. The hard work ahead involves building on the substantial conservation infrastructure that generations of environmentalists have created. We are going to have to align the realities of human economics with the needs of the living world, rather than chasing the beautiful but naïve romanticism that mistakes philosophical satisfaction for ecological protection.
March 30, 2025
the rain never arrives, but hummingbirds do. they move around and between us with ear-vibrating thrums, shifting so quickly they seem to beat time. they are so gifted and interdimensional that i long to become one. these are the real ores of the forest, i think, its rare earths: the coppers, silvers and golds, all lapped metal and whirring clockwork.robert macfarlane's exceptional prose is equal parts enthralling and exquisite. in his latest book, is a river alive?, the british nature writer travels to three continents, seeking answers to the non-rhetorical titular query. with a chorus of polyvocal replies both non-human and human, is a river alive?'s crucial, timely question seems to all but answer itself. with erudition, adventurousness, and an uncommon depth of listening and breadth of understanding, macfarlane offers a compelling, convincing perspective on the rights of nature.
Read
February 22, 2025A compilation of descriptors that startled me with their beauty:
“Rain-fed, the spring’s stream surges seaword: gravity at work, or something like longing”
"Far to the north, where glaciers once dragged their bellies”
“Nightshade, magpie cackle, flies scribbling the same message over and over again in floating patches of sun”
“an egret, white as a slice of snow standing stone-still in the exhausted outflow channel”
“The fireflies start it, their orange diodes winking on and off as they drift”
“Mist hangs in scarves. The forest froths with sound"
“hummingbirds” as “interdimensional” (my personal favorite)
“In a wide tub of rock, the river plunges and boils. It is shaped like a natural font"
“algae baizes the water”
“Sun volleys off the waves”
"A half-foot-long dragonfly slips briefly out of the Jurassic era, then vanishes again”
And many more...
“Rain-fed, the spring’s stream surges seaword: gravity at work, or something like longing”
"Far to the north, where glaciers once dragged their bellies”
“Nightshade, magpie cackle, flies scribbling the same message over and over again in floating patches of sun”
“an egret, white as a slice of snow standing stone-still in the exhausted outflow channel”
“The fireflies start it, their orange diodes winking on and off as they drift”
“Mist hangs in scarves. The forest froths with sound"
“hummingbirds” as “interdimensional” (my personal favorite)
“In a wide tub of rock, the river plunges and boils. It is shaped like a natural font"
“algae baizes the water”
“Sun volleys off the waves”
"A half-foot-long dragonfly slips briefly out of the Jurassic era, then vanishes again”
And many more...
May 29, 2025
From the book blurb I was expecting the main focus of the book to be about rivers - the science about rivers as well as the case for viewing rivers as living beings. I did expect it to include a fair amount of focus on nature in general but not to such a large extent that the premise for the title almost seemed like a “by the way.” From discussions about fungi, sea turtles, whales, moths, etc. to the rights of nature, it would have seemed more apt for the title to be Nature is Alive and Well. Don’t get me wrong, the book is a font of nature loving descriptions and has much to absorb for nature lovers, of which I am one. I do declare though, I kept turning the pages hoping for a deep dive into why rivers are alive rather than the reference to people feeling alive and invigorated when they dive and splash around in the river. In the end, while this was a fairly interesting book about nature, the impacts of humans on the environment, and the beauty of the natural world around us, as well as some of the people the author met on his travels, it did fall short on the Is A River Alive question or musing, so a bit disappointing. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.
June 2, 2025
I can safely say that Robert Macfarlane is indeed, still my favorite author.
How do I review this? His books truly are a journey: in this case, a journey of rivers. He takes the reader through the loud, living, fungi-filled cloud forests of Equador, through the polluted marshlands, rivers and turtle-lined coast of eastern India all the way to the crystal-smooth to roiling white waters of Northeastern Canada/Innu territory.
His books are part memoir, part travelogue, part essay, and through and through: prose-poem. Macfarlane's mastery of words truly makes the natural world live and breathe, makes all the activists, poets and adventurers pop off the page, and gives language to experiences and thoughts I was unable to articulate myself.
The concept of this book might be my favorite of his so far: indeed, is a river alive? I have been fascinated both by the contemporary Rights of Nature movement, as well as Indigenous and pre-Christian spirituality of an animate natural world, inseparable from humans. And those ideas are investigated through the three 'case-studies' of this book, making them and the people involved truly "animate" to the reader as well.
To me, and to Macfarlane, the answer to the titular question is a full-bodied yes. By broadening our understanding of what is 'alive' in the natural world, by seeing the interconnectedness of all things, we can live both with more responsibility as well as with more joy for the world.
A good book also makes you want to DO something. In this case, many things. Hike in a cloud forest, become a mycologist with apparent mystical powers (Giuliana, you are amazing), kayak a blazing river in the far north, truly become an activist and fight for the Rights of Nature, create more, write more, read more... So: read this book!
How do I review this? His books truly are a journey: in this case, a journey of rivers. He takes the reader through the loud, living, fungi-filled cloud forests of Equador, through the polluted marshlands, rivers and turtle-lined coast of eastern India all the way to the crystal-smooth to roiling white waters of Northeastern Canada/Innu territory.
His books are part memoir, part travelogue, part essay, and through and through: prose-poem. Macfarlane's mastery of words truly makes the natural world live and breathe, makes all the activists, poets and adventurers pop off the page, and gives language to experiences and thoughts I was unable to articulate myself.
The concept of this book might be my favorite of his so far: indeed, is a river alive? I have been fascinated both by the contemporary Rights of Nature movement, as well as Indigenous and pre-Christian spirituality of an animate natural world, inseparable from humans. And those ideas are investigated through the three 'case-studies' of this book, making them and the people involved truly "animate" to the reader as well.
To me, and to Macfarlane, the answer to the titular question is a full-bodied yes. By broadening our understanding of what is 'alive' in the natural world, by seeing the interconnectedness of all things, we can live both with more responsibility as well as with more joy for the world.
A good book also makes you want to DO something. In this case, many things. Hike in a cloud forest, become a mycologist with apparent mystical powers (Giuliana, you are amazing), kayak a blazing river in the far north, truly become an activist and fight for the Rights of Nature, create more, write more, read more... So: read this book!
June 9, 2025
Disappointing and quite self-indulgent. By the end a bit vacuous and even a little nauseating.
Note: Landmarks and Underland were very fine books indeed. And I was really looking forward to this one.
He believes far too much in his own writing talent - so many over-worked metaphors and similes that both jarred the narrative and were often counterproductive. Nabokov he ain’t.
His world view is also highly simplistic. Ancient ways good, modern ways bad. Despite the fact that hydroelectric dams are one of the most sustainable ways of producing cost effective energy for growing urban populations over many years - he has nothing positive to say about them - except indicating they would stop privileged people like him having mystical experiences while ‘becoming the river’. I can’t remember if he actually said that but that’s the jist I took away.
There is plenty of good stuff in here too - particularly in the first two river stories, but just not enough genuine substance or balanced critique of the bigger picture eg. he seems to only blame the British empire for the current industrial pollution issues in Chennai with only vague suggestion of current day responsible people or organisations.
Two recently read watery books I would recommend highly above this are:
Sweet Thames Run Softly - Robert Gibbings (not a recent publication by any means!).
Blue Machine - Helen Czerski (a truly excellent piece of work about the worlds ocean - the history, the crimes, the science and the whole length, breadth and depth of it).
Note: Landmarks and Underland were very fine books indeed. And I was really looking forward to this one.
He believes far too much in his own writing talent - so many over-worked metaphors and similes that both jarred the narrative and were often counterproductive. Nabokov he ain’t.
His world view is also highly simplistic. Ancient ways good, modern ways bad. Despite the fact that hydroelectric dams are one of the most sustainable ways of producing cost effective energy for growing urban populations over many years - he has nothing positive to say about them - except indicating they would stop privileged people like him having mystical experiences while ‘becoming the river’. I can’t remember if he actually said that but that’s the jist I took away.
There is plenty of good stuff in here too - particularly in the first two river stories, but just not enough genuine substance or balanced critique of the bigger picture eg. he seems to only blame the British empire for the current industrial pollution issues in Chennai with only vague suggestion of current day responsible people or organisations.
Two recently read watery books I would recommend highly above this are:
Sweet Thames Run Softly - Robert Gibbings (not a recent publication by any means!).
Blue Machine - Helen Czerski (a truly excellent piece of work about the worlds ocean - the history, the crimes, the science and the whole length, breadth and depth of it).
June 18, 2025
"The moon path flutters in the current."
I am spellbound in succinct lyrical phrases.
It's been a while since I've experienced a book with the emotional impact to compel me to invite many friends to read!
MacFarlane is compassionate and inspiring! He narrates river adventures, introduces friends, and advocates for the greater-than-human living world with deeply touching agility. Of course this is one of the books Elif Shafak celebrates among “The five emotional books that have shaped me.” If you love this, you'll want to read Shafak's novel There are Rivers in the Sky. And vice versa.
I am spellbound in succinct lyrical phrases.
It's been a while since I've experienced a book with the emotional impact to compel me to invite many friends to read!
MacFarlane is compassionate and inspiring! He narrates river adventures, introduces friends, and advocates for the greater-than-human living world with deeply touching agility. Of course this is one of the books Elif Shafak celebrates among “The five emotional books that have shaped me.” If you love this, you'll want to read Shafak's novel There are Rivers in the Sky. And vice versa.
February 28, 2025
"No one is without another." & "Hope is the thing with rivers."
June 18, 2025
Dit was een prachtig, hartverscheurend boek. Ik vond het heel lastig om te lezen, maar ik ben blij dat ik het weer het opgepakt, al was het alleen maar voor dat laatste hoofdstuk.
July 8, 2025
Rivers are in crisis across the world, and Robert Macfarlane is writing poetry.
Say one thing about the Green Movement, it is a very broad church. Ranging from reckless activism, spoken word nihilists, critical materialists and stat hardened analysts, there are a lot of people very passionate about protecting the environment. Macfarlane's work has always adopted a narrative-centric perspective, telling stories about the way nature acts and operates in overly sentimental, but moving, ways. His latest, Is a River Alive? misses the mark for my own tastes by quite some distance.
Macfarlane's book focuses on his travels across Ecuador, India, and Canada exploring the Los Cedros, the Adyar, and the Mutehekau Shipu, respectively. These are interesting stories and Macfarlane writes wonderfully. He has an agenda as one of the owners of River Action, in promoting the importance and livelihood of rivers across the globe, but this is transparent from the off.
My biggest issue was the book was the complete lack of tension. Besides one very brief excursion across the Mutehekau Shipu, there is never much mystery or stakes. Macfarlane begins the book in Cambridge, and there is no indication that his quasi-spiritual and endearingly bright eyed view of the importance of rivers on planet earth will be radically different from the start.
Instead, the journey Macfarlane goes on is littered with side characters. Some are more interesting than others, and having listened to this on audiobook I am veering away from ignorantly misspelling names. Josef DeCoux was my favourite of this cast, an environmental lawyer with a gruff attitude who opens up to Macfarlane as they travel through Ecuador's cloud forest. There are a couple of incredibly friendly young men who help steer a boat up the Canadian rivers and teach Macfarlane about the indigenous history of that county. There is a women who journeys into the river very poorly and returns rejuvenated. And there are plenty of others who feel passionately about the sorry state of their home countries rivers, particularly in the incredibly polluted waters running through Chennai.
All of these characters are fine, but again, Macfarlane is presenting people who, generally, have very little room to grow or offer a fresh perspective. Every one of Macfarlane's companions loves rivers and it makes the book seem a little textureless. The caveat here is DeCoux, who really is a great starting point and the Ecuador sections of the book are worth reading on their own.
My other issue with the book is how quasi-spiritual it is. This is much more a personal taste issue than a technical issue. Macfarlane meets a shaman, who the book spends way too long obsessing over. Magic is not something I have much patience for, and Macfarlane pretends to be skeptical at first without any real firepower behind this opinion, which obviously leads the reader to expect the vague and insubstantial prophecies he receives to be fulfilled. On balance, this is a fine position to adopt and I know a lot of very clever people who will really like this approach.
However I found it vague, unsatisfying, full of holes and incredibly simplistic. It is a disappointing tact because Macfarlane is advocating for an incredibly nuanced adaptation of 'legal personality' for rivers throughout this book. In September 2008, Ecuador became the first country to recognise a river's right to personality. in 2017, New Zealand adopted a similar approach and in 2021, the Mutehekau Shipu in Canada was declared a legal person and 'living entity'. The River Ouse in East Sussex, UK, has similarly recognised that river's legal personality.
This is why its is disappointing but very forgivable that Macfarlane adopts such a quasi-spiritual bend to his work. A book about the technical and contentious legal argument behind way MacDonalds and Starbucks are recognised as legal persons, but the Thames, Ribble and Wyre are not, would be fascinating and actually help propel an argument behind way this should not be the case. On the back of reading this book I am in no better position to advocate on behalf of rivers' legal personality than 'they're very beautiful and make people feel good'.
Rivers across the world are in crisis and this was not the book for me. But I really, sincerely hope there are those that find more meaning in the text than I did, because there is a lot in here for someone with a different temperament than me to fall in love with.
Say one thing about the Green Movement, it is a very broad church. Ranging from reckless activism, spoken word nihilists, critical materialists and stat hardened analysts, there are a lot of people very passionate about protecting the environment. Macfarlane's work has always adopted a narrative-centric perspective, telling stories about the way nature acts and operates in overly sentimental, but moving, ways. His latest, Is a River Alive? misses the mark for my own tastes by quite some distance.
Macfarlane's book focuses on his travels across Ecuador, India, and Canada exploring the Los Cedros, the Adyar, and the Mutehekau Shipu, respectively. These are interesting stories and Macfarlane writes wonderfully. He has an agenda as one of the owners of River Action, in promoting the importance and livelihood of rivers across the globe, but this is transparent from the off.
My biggest issue was the book was the complete lack of tension. Besides one very brief excursion across the Mutehekau Shipu, there is never much mystery or stakes. Macfarlane begins the book in Cambridge, and there is no indication that his quasi-spiritual and endearingly bright eyed view of the importance of rivers on planet earth will be radically different from the start.
Instead, the journey Macfarlane goes on is littered with side characters. Some are more interesting than others, and having listened to this on audiobook I am veering away from ignorantly misspelling names. Josef DeCoux was my favourite of this cast, an environmental lawyer with a gruff attitude who opens up to Macfarlane as they travel through Ecuador's cloud forest. There are a couple of incredibly friendly young men who help steer a boat up the Canadian rivers and teach Macfarlane about the indigenous history of that county. There is a women who journeys into the river very poorly and returns rejuvenated. And there are plenty of others who feel passionately about the sorry state of their home countries rivers, particularly in the incredibly polluted waters running through Chennai.
All of these characters are fine, but again, Macfarlane is presenting people who, generally, have very little room to grow or offer a fresh perspective. Every one of Macfarlane's companions loves rivers and it makes the book seem a little textureless. The caveat here is DeCoux, who really is a great starting point and the Ecuador sections of the book are worth reading on their own.
My other issue with the book is how quasi-spiritual it is. This is much more a personal taste issue than a technical issue. Macfarlane meets a shaman, who the book spends way too long obsessing over. Magic is not something I have much patience for, and Macfarlane pretends to be skeptical at first without any real firepower behind this opinion, which obviously leads the reader to expect the vague and insubstantial prophecies he receives to be fulfilled. On balance, this is a fine position to adopt and I know a lot of very clever people who will really like this approach.
However I found it vague, unsatisfying, full of holes and incredibly simplistic. It is a disappointing tact because Macfarlane is advocating for an incredibly nuanced adaptation of 'legal personality' for rivers throughout this book. In September 2008, Ecuador became the first country to recognise a river's right to personality. in 2017, New Zealand adopted a similar approach and in 2021, the Mutehekau Shipu in Canada was declared a legal person and 'living entity'. The River Ouse in East Sussex, UK, has similarly recognised that river's legal personality.
This is why its is disappointing but very forgivable that Macfarlane adopts such a quasi-spiritual bend to his work. A book about the technical and contentious legal argument behind way MacDonalds and Starbucks are recognised as legal persons, but the Thames, Ribble and Wyre are not, would be fascinating and actually help propel an argument behind way this should not be the case. On the back of reading this book I am in no better position to advocate on behalf of rivers' legal personality than 'they're very beautiful and make people feel good'.
Rivers across the world are in crisis and this was not the book for me. But I really, sincerely hope there are those that find more meaning in the text than I did, because there is a lot in here for someone with a different temperament than me to fall in love with.
April 28, 2025
Macfarlane has moved into a new level of nature writing, connecting with the world and the people who know it in a way that he, and many readers, have not experienced in his writing before.
Recognising the plight of his local spring and river in Cambridgeshire, he visits three rivers across the world, journeying to Ecuador, India and Canada. The people that he meets are activists, indigenous voices, conservationists, educators, musicians and guides. The rivers themselves are characters too, part of our shared landscapes and facing various threats: pollution, mining, warming temperatures, felling of surrounding forest, concrete development and dam-construction.
Is a River Alive follows an awakening and a way of recognising the natural world in new ways which might enable us to change our attitudes and legislation before it is too late. Part travel, part conservation, part philosophy, this book is one of the most important books I have read.
Recognising the plight of his local spring and river in Cambridgeshire, he visits three rivers across the world, journeying to Ecuador, India and Canada. The people that he meets are activists, indigenous voices, conservationists, educators, musicians and guides. The rivers themselves are characters too, part of our shared landscapes and facing various threats: pollution, mining, warming temperatures, felling of surrounding forest, concrete development and dam-construction.
Is a River Alive follows an awakening and a way of recognising the natural world in new ways which might enable us to change our attitudes and legislation before it is too late. Part travel, part conservation, part philosophy, this book is one of the most important books I have read.
April 14, 2025
read some of this to my girlfriend. she told me she thought it could be used as an implement of torture. continued to read it, until she shouted "I'LL TELL YOU WHATEVER YOU WANT TO KNOW!"
10/10 would objectify rivers again.
10/10 would objectify rivers again.
May 28, 2025
By far his best work, stunning prose and perfectly read (I listened to the audiobook). Is a river alive? I think the answer is a resounding yes!
Read
May 11, 2025Don’t feel I can judge it fairly based on the Radio 4 book of the Week abridgment but what I heard was fascinating and heartbreaking.
June 5, 2025
"Sind Flüsse Lebewesen?" ist eine Hommage an die Schönheit der Natur. Es zeigt die miteinander verwobenen Mechanismen der Natur und wie wir Menschen drauf und dran sind, diese zu vernichten.
Wir folgen dem Autor Robert Macfarlane selbst auf drei große Reisen rund um den Globus. Von Ecuador und der wunderschönen Natur eines Nebelwaldes und seinen Flüssen, die durch den Abbau von Gold bedroht sind, bis nach Südindien, wo Aktivist*innen verzweifelt versuchen, die Flüsse, Bäche und deren Lebewesen, die durch die derbe Verschmutzung dieser immer mehr zu toten Landschaften werden, zu retten und einem scheinbar hoffnungslosen Verfangen gegenüberstehen. Zuletzt geht der Autor in den Nordosten Kanadas, wo einer der gewaltigsten und lebendigsten Flüsse der Welt durch die Planung von Staudammbauten bedroht wird.
Mich hat es wirklich fasziniert wie Robert Macfarlane es nur durch seine poetische und leidenschaftliche Sprache schafft, diese drei Landschaften zum blühenden Leben zu erwecken. Vor allem der Nebelwald Los Cedros in Ecuador wurde zu einem genialen Wechselspiel der Flora, Fauna und Funga(!).
Genau diese Wirkung zeigt jedoch, wie das Gefühl von Lebendigkeit erzeugt wird. Wir Menschen haben uns in den letzten Jahrhunderten durch den Fortschritt der Technologie immer weiter von der Natur entfernt, haben eine Distanz zu ihr aufgebaut. Wie oft bist du noch in Wäldern unterwegs, siehst Bäche, Flüsse oder beobachtest die Insekten und Vögel? Gar nicht mehr so oft wahrscheinlich. So ist es zumindest mit mir. Doch früher war dies anders. Viele Kulturen und Menschen haben im Einklang mit der Natur gelebt und tun es noch heute. Für sie ist die Antwort auf die Ausgangsfrage klar. Doch für uns wurde die Natur längst zu einem Objekt, das wir ausbeuten und uns zunutze machen.
Durch die lebendige Sprache Macfarlanes hat er es geschafft, die Natur wieder in mein Bewusstsein zu rufen und veranschaulicht, wie jedes kleine Lebewesen auf das nächste aufbaut, sodass ein kleiner Umbruch dieser Kette verheerende Folgen für die gesamte Natur mit sich bringt.
Macfarlanes Beschreibungen seiner erstaunlichen und abenteuerlichen Reisen haben es mir wirklich angetan. Vor allem das letzte Abenteuer, bei dem er mit ein paar wenigen anderen Personen auf einem Boot dem Mutehekau Shipu in Kanada gefolgt ist und sich von der Strömung tragen gelassen hat, war wirklich atemberaubend.
Tatsächlich behandelt dieses Sachbuch die Ausgangsfrage nur in ganz kleinen Abschnitten dieses Buches. Vielmehr geht es um die Gefahren, der die lebendige Natur in unserem Zeitalter ausgesetzt ist und wie ein paar wenige Aktivist*innen diese Naturgebiete lebendig halten. Zumindest noch. Es geht jedoch auch um die Frage, wie es anzustellen wäre, Flüsse oder ganze Landschaften per Gesetz als lebendige Wesen und juristische Personen zu definieren, die von sich aus Unternehmen oder Personen verklagen könnten, die ihnen schaden. Das wäre nämlich ein recht kompliziertes Unterfangen. Doch vor allem ist diese Frage, ob Flüsse Lebewesen seien, immer im Hintergrund des Buches präsent. Sie wird selten aufgegriffen und doch beantwortet Robert Macfarlane bei jedem Satz, den er schreibt, diese Frage immer wieder aufs neue mit Ja! Und das auf eine wunderschöne Art.
Ich weiß nicht, ob es daran lag, dass ich dieses Buch in Pausen meines stressigen Alltags gelesen habe und deshalb nie ganz in Ruhe lesen könnte aber leider hat mich die Handlung manchmal verloren, weshalb ich nicht immer hundertprozentig folgen konnte und immer mal wieder verwirrt war, wie die Personen plötzlich in diese Situationen gekommen sind. Entweder es lag an ungenauen Beschreibungen oder an meiner fehlenden Konzentration.
Insgesamt ein lyrisches und bewegendes Buch, das dir die Schönheit und Verwobenheit unserer Natur neu aufzeigt. Eine Empfehlung für alle, die in die Welt der Natur eintauchen möchten und gleichzeitig verdeutlicht haben möchten, wie wir Menschen die Natur wortwörtlich töten!
Wir folgen dem Autor Robert Macfarlane selbst auf drei große Reisen rund um den Globus. Von Ecuador und der wunderschönen Natur eines Nebelwaldes und seinen Flüssen, die durch den Abbau von Gold bedroht sind, bis nach Südindien, wo Aktivist*innen verzweifelt versuchen, die Flüsse, Bäche und deren Lebewesen, die durch die derbe Verschmutzung dieser immer mehr zu toten Landschaften werden, zu retten und einem scheinbar hoffnungslosen Verfangen gegenüberstehen. Zuletzt geht der Autor in den Nordosten Kanadas, wo einer der gewaltigsten und lebendigsten Flüsse der Welt durch die Planung von Staudammbauten bedroht wird.
Mich hat es wirklich fasziniert wie Robert Macfarlane es nur durch seine poetische und leidenschaftliche Sprache schafft, diese drei Landschaften zum blühenden Leben zu erwecken. Vor allem der Nebelwald Los Cedros in Ecuador wurde zu einem genialen Wechselspiel der Flora, Fauna und Funga(!).
Genau diese Wirkung zeigt jedoch, wie das Gefühl von Lebendigkeit erzeugt wird. Wir Menschen haben uns in den letzten Jahrhunderten durch den Fortschritt der Technologie immer weiter von der Natur entfernt, haben eine Distanz zu ihr aufgebaut. Wie oft bist du noch in Wäldern unterwegs, siehst Bäche, Flüsse oder beobachtest die Insekten und Vögel? Gar nicht mehr so oft wahrscheinlich. So ist es zumindest mit mir. Doch früher war dies anders. Viele Kulturen und Menschen haben im Einklang mit der Natur gelebt und tun es noch heute. Für sie ist die Antwort auf die Ausgangsfrage klar. Doch für uns wurde die Natur längst zu einem Objekt, das wir ausbeuten und uns zunutze machen.
Durch die lebendige Sprache Macfarlanes hat er es geschafft, die Natur wieder in mein Bewusstsein zu rufen und veranschaulicht, wie jedes kleine Lebewesen auf das nächste aufbaut, sodass ein kleiner Umbruch dieser Kette verheerende Folgen für die gesamte Natur mit sich bringt.
Macfarlanes Beschreibungen seiner erstaunlichen und abenteuerlichen Reisen haben es mir wirklich angetan. Vor allem das letzte Abenteuer, bei dem er mit ein paar wenigen anderen Personen auf einem Boot dem Mutehekau Shipu in Kanada gefolgt ist und sich von der Strömung tragen gelassen hat, war wirklich atemberaubend.
Tatsächlich behandelt dieses Sachbuch die Ausgangsfrage nur in ganz kleinen Abschnitten dieses Buches. Vielmehr geht es um die Gefahren, der die lebendige Natur in unserem Zeitalter ausgesetzt ist und wie ein paar wenige Aktivist*innen diese Naturgebiete lebendig halten. Zumindest noch. Es geht jedoch auch um die Frage, wie es anzustellen wäre, Flüsse oder ganze Landschaften per Gesetz als lebendige Wesen und juristische Personen zu definieren, die von sich aus Unternehmen oder Personen verklagen könnten, die ihnen schaden. Das wäre nämlich ein recht kompliziertes Unterfangen. Doch vor allem ist diese Frage, ob Flüsse Lebewesen seien, immer im Hintergrund des Buches präsent. Sie wird selten aufgegriffen und doch beantwortet Robert Macfarlane bei jedem Satz, den er schreibt, diese Frage immer wieder aufs neue mit Ja! Und das auf eine wunderschöne Art.
Ich weiß nicht, ob es daran lag, dass ich dieses Buch in Pausen meines stressigen Alltags gelesen habe und deshalb nie ganz in Ruhe lesen könnte aber leider hat mich die Handlung manchmal verloren, weshalb ich nicht immer hundertprozentig folgen konnte und immer mal wieder verwirrt war, wie die Personen plötzlich in diese Situationen gekommen sind. Entweder es lag an ungenauen Beschreibungen oder an meiner fehlenden Konzentration.
Insgesamt ein lyrisches und bewegendes Buch, das dir die Schönheit und Verwobenheit unserer Natur neu aufzeigt. Eine Empfehlung für alle, die in die Welt der Natur eintauchen möchten und gleichzeitig verdeutlicht haben möchten, wie wir Menschen die Natur wortwörtlich töten!
June 9, 2025
Books concerning environmental ethics tend to be depressing; what they tell us is almost all bad news. MacFarlane’s latest therefore, is a breath of fresh air in that he unearths characters that are truly inspirational in their endeavours and their passion for their rivers.
Macfarlane travels to, and explores three river in particular: Los Cedros, the River of the Cedars, in Ecuador, the Kosasthalaiyar, Cooum, and Adyar, three rivers that merge in Chennai, India, and the Mutehekau Shipu in the north of Quebec.
Few authors write with such determination about our collective responsibility to the environment, but to traipse through the very different issues faced by the ecosystems could be repetitive and preachy. Instead he spends his time with the committed local people he meets in each of the three places, and learns from them by undertaking a journey associated with the river. It is this that make the book stand-out, as well as his poetic language and lyricism.
It’s MacFarlane at his best, and one of the highlights of the literary year.
It also begs the question, could MacFarlane find another endangered three rivers, journey there and explore the issues that they face, by way of a second volume?
Macfarlane travels to, and explores three river in particular: Los Cedros, the River of the Cedars, in Ecuador, the Kosasthalaiyar, Cooum, and Adyar, three rivers that merge in Chennai, India, and the Mutehekau Shipu in the north of Quebec.
Few authors write with such determination about our collective responsibility to the environment, but to traipse through the very different issues faced by the ecosystems could be repetitive and preachy. Instead he spends his time with the committed local people he meets in each of the three places, and learns from them by undertaking a journey associated with the river. It is this that make the book stand-out, as well as his poetic language and lyricism.
It’s MacFarlane at his best, and one of the highlights of the literary year.
It also begs the question, could MacFarlane find another endangered three rivers, journey there and explore the issues that they face, by way of a second volume?
August 20, 2025
This is a gorgeously written book - I slightly regret reading it in snatches as I don’t think I ever got into the *flow* properly. But I learnt a lot and it made me want to go canoeing - oh and SAVE THE RIVERS.
June 30, 2025
I have been struggling to articulate my thoughts about Is A River Alive? for a few days now since finishing it because it hit me so profoundly then I found myself recommending it to a friend today, as we were running along the top of a bracken-filled valley, listening to people screeching in the depths as they plunged into one of the river’s hidden pools. My friend commented, as we crossed the river when we reached the top of the valley, that our river was brown (we were very close to its spring in a peat bog to be fair), whereas in Switzerland they have managed to turn around the pollution in their rivers so that they now run clear again and people can enjoy swimming in them without fear of getting ill.
This is exactly what struck me about this book, that some of our rivers are on the cusp of death, but that we have a chance to make a difference, and we should all be speaking up on behalf of our rivers because if we don’t advocate for their rights, capitalism will kill them.
This book is split into three broad sections: a river in an Ecuador cloud forest under threat of pollution from mining companies; a river in India already very polluted but fighting back with the help of people who advocate for it; and a wild river in Quebec that is at risk of damming.
Robert Macfarlane has a poetic - magical, even - way of telling a story, and even manages to make his real-life ‘characters’ so memorable. I’ve loved all his books but especially this one.
The title is an interesting one, because here in the UK we class water (and rivers) as a commodity but many cultures worship their river as an alive, sentient being who brings them life and food. The book talks about a few rivers that have been recognised as entities now, and given legal rights to be protected from harm, and I really hope more rivers can be gifted this right because certainly in the UK with water companies tipping sewage into them, we owe our rivers the courtesy of respecting them enough to keep them clean so that life can thrive in them even if we do not necessarily speak of them as living beings. When you think about it though, rivers are constantly bubbling and moving and bringing life, and without them …
Running through the book are lots of questions about life and death, and it’s certainly given me lots of food for thought. It’s also made me feel equally hopeful and devastated.
This is exactly what struck me about this book, that some of our rivers are on the cusp of death, but that we have a chance to make a difference, and we should all be speaking up on behalf of our rivers because if we don’t advocate for their rights, capitalism will kill them.
This book is split into three broad sections: a river in an Ecuador cloud forest under threat of pollution from mining companies; a river in India already very polluted but fighting back with the help of people who advocate for it; and a wild river in Quebec that is at risk of damming.
Robert Macfarlane has a poetic - magical, even - way of telling a story, and even manages to make his real-life ‘characters’ so memorable. I’ve loved all his books but especially this one.
The title is an interesting one, because here in the UK we class water (and rivers) as a commodity but many cultures worship their river as an alive, sentient being who brings them life and food. The book talks about a few rivers that have been recognised as entities now, and given legal rights to be protected from harm, and I really hope more rivers can be gifted this right because certainly in the UK with water companies tipping sewage into them, we owe our rivers the courtesy of respecting them enough to keep them clean so that life can thrive in them even if we do not necessarily speak of them as living beings. When you think about it though, rivers are constantly bubbling and moving and bringing life, and without them …
Running through the book are lots of questions about life and death, and it’s certainly given me lots of food for thought. It’s also made me feel equally hopeful and devastated.
August 14, 2025
‘’Is a River Alive?’' is revolutionary - a new way of seeing, and saving, our environment, our nonhuman kin, and ourselves. Is a river alive? And does it have ‘’rights?’’ As our understanding of the definition of ‘’life’’ expands, through the startling experiences on these pages, the short answer is yes, rivers are ‘’alive.'' Though they may not seem to qualify for what we traditionally think of as live beings, we come to see otherwise.
‘’All things on the Earth have a spirit and a life, whether they are animate or not.’’ - Rights of Nature resolution on the St. Lawrence River, Canadian House of Commons, May 2022.
Should they have ‘’rights?’' If a corporation, which couldn’t be more dead, can be granted ‘’rights,'’ our fellow nonhuman entities on this planet - plants, animals, lakes, rivers, oceans - on which our survival depends, more than qualify to have rights. And none too soon. Nothing is more essential to life than Earth's waterways.
‘’Our aliveness, as well as all life that lies beyond the human, is at stake.’’ (page 284)
This book is more than a bright new vision. In prose that is almost poetry at times and as alive as his rivers, we embark on an often heart pounding adventure along three great rivers that are under threat of damming, mining and ‘’development.’’ You cannot take this journey and come away unaltered by its mysteries, by the intricate, astonishing life encountered along, and within, the flow of the river. You can no longer think of a river - or a box elder, a mushroom, or a wolf spider - as an ‘’it.’’ It is alive, an integral part of our web of life.
‘’Where does mind stop and world begin? Not at skull and skin, that’s for sure.’’
‘’Everything is connected to everything else…relation is life.’’ (page 100)
In the tradition of the Lakota proverb, ‘’Mitakuye Oyasin - we are all related, two legged, four legged, furred, finned, feathered, those that crawl in the earth and those that grow from it’'- this is a powerful companion to ''Braiding Sweetgrass,'' ''The Serviceberry,'' ''Playground,'' ''The Overstory,'' ''A Buzz in the Meadow,'' ''The Radiant Life of Animals,'' ''The Sea Around Us,'' and other classics of the interplay of humans and nature. ‘’Is a River Alive?’' is a sure step in our evolution toward a sustainable planet, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
richflandersmusic.com
richflanders.substack.com
‘’All things on the Earth have a spirit and a life, whether they are animate or not.’’ - Rights of Nature resolution on the St. Lawrence River, Canadian House of Commons, May 2022.
Should they have ‘’rights?’' If a corporation, which couldn’t be more dead, can be granted ‘’rights,'’ our fellow nonhuman entities on this planet - plants, animals, lakes, rivers, oceans - on which our survival depends, more than qualify to have rights. And none too soon. Nothing is more essential to life than Earth's waterways.
‘’Our aliveness, as well as all life that lies beyond the human, is at stake.’’ (page 284)
This book is more than a bright new vision. In prose that is almost poetry at times and as alive as his rivers, we embark on an often heart pounding adventure along three great rivers that are under threat of damming, mining and ‘’development.’’ You cannot take this journey and come away unaltered by its mysteries, by the intricate, astonishing life encountered along, and within, the flow of the river. You can no longer think of a river - or a box elder, a mushroom, or a wolf spider - as an ‘’it.’’ It is alive, an integral part of our web of life.
‘’Where does mind stop and world begin? Not at skull and skin, that’s for sure.’’
‘’Everything is connected to everything else…relation is life.’’ (page 100)
In the tradition of the Lakota proverb, ‘’Mitakuye Oyasin - we are all related, two legged, four legged, furred, finned, feathered, those that crawl in the earth and those that grow from it’'- this is a powerful companion to ''Braiding Sweetgrass,'' ''The Serviceberry,'' ''Playground,'' ''The Overstory,'' ''A Buzz in the Meadow,'' ''The Radiant Life of Animals,'' ''The Sea Around Us,'' and other classics of the interplay of humans and nature. ‘’Is a River Alive?’' is a sure step in our evolution toward a sustainable planet, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
richflandersmusic.com
richflanders.substack.com
August 1, 2025
A book to be savoured. Robert McFarlane is invited to participate in three projects which relate to rights of nature and specifically the protection of rivers. One in the cloud forest of Ecuador, one in the Chennai area of India and one in northern Quebec. The answer to the book’s primary question is explored in its consequences. The book explores the necessity of articulate protection and the role of writers to convey personal conviction. Love and language collide as McFarlane relates his experiences.
August 2, 2025
Robert Macfarlane knows how to tell a story. I was mesmerized from beginning to end. A book full of good questions and gorgeous descriptions, memorable characters and emotional heft. You will laugh and cry and learn so many fascinating scientific, historical, and cultural particulars your brain will feel like it got a full workout. Please read this book. Please.
July 18, 2025
Started off riveting ended up as a travelogue
July 26, 2025
Last bit of reading for diss, by far the best.
Magnificent!!
Magnificent!!
July 11, 2025
Disappointing, above all. I consider myself supportive of the rights of nature movement, and have read and thought a lot about ethical and legal questions regarding life, ecosystems, and personhood, so I was hoping to get a lot out of this book. Instead…
Macfarlane gives us 3 separate journeys he took to three different rivers, each with a diverse and mostly interesting cast of companions, but only tackles his titular question directly in brief bursts. The experiences themselves are apparently supposed to do most of the talking, and while the storytelling here occasionally soars (a paragraph about paddling down river rapids stands out), too often it feels pretentious and over-written, the dialogue he recounts unrealistically erudite and long-winded (or, if real, borderline insufferable). He never really defines what he means by “alive,” takes his own awe-inspiring experiences as a self-evident case for rivers’ life-force (spirit? divinity?), and more or less takes indigenous spiritual perspectives as fact. Which they may well be! But we don’t really even learn that much specific about those perspectives, just fed a vague pagan/animist/mystical worldview that I am not unsympathetic to but is not really argued for in any meaningful way.
Maybe I was just looking for something that Macfarlane wasn’t interested in giving, and others may like this book. But other than a few brief and suggestive reflections scattered haphazardly throughout, he fails to say anything coherent about in what sense(s) rivers are alive and why it should matter. At its worst self-indulgent travelogue, at its best scratching the surface of something important but not quite getting there, at least not in a way I could follow. I support the conservation and indigenous rights politics of his book, and the challenge to anthropocentrism, just the execution wasn’t for me.
Macfarlane gives us 3 separate journeys he took to three different rivers, each with a diverse and mostly interesting cast of companions, but only tackles his titular question directly in brief bursts. The experiences themselves are apparently supposed to do most of the talking, and while the storytelling here occasionally soars (a paragraph about paddling down river rapids stands out), too often it feels pretentious and over-written, the dialogue he recounts unrealistically erudite and long-winded (or, if real, borderline insufferable). He never really defines what he means by “alive,” takes his own awe-inspiring experiences as a self-evident case for rivers’ life-force (spirit? divinity?), and more or less takes indigenous spiritual perspectives as fact. Which they may well be! But we don’t really even learn that much specific about those perspectives, just fed a vague pagan/animist/mystical worldview that I am not unsympathetic to but is not really argued for in any meaningful way.
Maybe I was just looking for something that Macfarlane wasn’t interested in giving, and others may like this book. But other than a few brief and suggestive reflections scattered haphazardly throughout, he fails to say anything coherent about in what sense(s) rivers are alive and why it should matter. At its worst self-indulgent travelogue, at its best scratching the surface of something important but not quite getting there, at least not in a way I could follow. I support the conservation and indigenous rights politics of his book, and the challenge to anthropocentrism, just the execution wasn’t for me.
June 25, 2025
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.
I find it hard to review non-fiction, but this one has a sort of a plot to it, so I’ll say it’s an immersive narrative following one man’s journey to determine if rivers are deserving of a “personhood” status, what that means, and why it’s important to our future. It also takes place in Canada for some of it, which was a draw for me as well, being Canadian.
This is, of course, a book about environmentalism, but it’s also a bit of a travel memoir and a dive into natural history. The way it’s approached - short chapters of his home in the UK interspersed throughout, then the three sections in Ecuador, India, and Canada, show how rivers all over the world are integral to our survival as a species as they fuel so many other systems (as well as provide us with clean water to drink)!
If you’re really into environmentalism, as I am, this is a great book because it’s clear Macfarlane has an agenda (to show that river systems should be legally protected), but he also has beautiful passages describing the beauty of our natural world.
Along with these aspects, he also has colorful characters (or at least beefs up the interesting natures of the people he meets/travels with), so the story isn’t just a bunch of facts and arguments, but has a real structure to it. The first feel almost like a fantastical quest, the second a city exploration, and the third reminded me of Lost in the Barrens, as it’s essentially a kayak adventure through some of the most challenging and remote terrain in my general area of Canada. The kayak adventure was the most compelling for me, mainly because I live here. I haven’t been that far north in Quebec, but I’ve been north enough to understand what they are talking about.
The prose is just lovely, with phrases like: “A half-foot-long dragonfly slips briefly out of the Jurassic era, then vanishes again” and “Rain-fed, the spring’s stream surges seaward: gravity at work, or something like longing” and “Mist hangs in scarves. The forest froths with sound." It really is evocative and gives a sense of mystery and ethereal beauty to our home.
I’m not even going to get into the argument. Yes, I think rivers and all nature need to be protected. How this is even a question nowadays is beyond me, but apparently those in government and who own most of the world's capital seem oblivious to it (or just don't care).
Anyway, great book.
I find it hard to review non-fiction, but this one has a sort of a plot to it, so I’ll say it’s an immersive narrative following one man’s journey to determine if rivers are deserving of a “personhood” status, what that means, and why it’s important to our future. It also takes place in Canada for some of it, which was a draw for me as well, being Canadian.
This is, of course, a book about environmentalism, but it’s also a bit of a travel memoir and a dive into natural history. The way it’s approached - short chapters of his home in the UK interspersed throughout, then the three sections in Ecuador, India, and Canada, show how rivers all over the world are integral to our survival as a species as they fuel so many other systems (as well as provide us with clean water to drink)!
If you’re really into environmentalism, as I am, this is a great book because it’s clear Macfarlane has an agenda (to show that river systems should be legally protected), but he also has beautiful passages describing the beauty of our natural world.
Along with these aspects, he also has colorful characters (or at least beefs up the interesting natures of the people he meets/travels with), so the story isn’t just a bunch of facts and arguments, but has a real structure to it. The first feel almost like a fantastical quest, the second a city exploration, and the third reminded me of Lost in the Barrens, as it’s essentially a kayak adventure through some of the most challenging and remote terrain in my general area of Canada. The kayak adventure was the most compelling for me, mainly because I live here. I haven’t been that far north in Quebec, but I’ve been north enough to understand what they are talking about.
The prose is just lovely, with phrases like: “A half-foot-long dragonfly slips briefly out of the Jurassic era, then vanishes again” and “Rain-fed, the spring’s stream surges seaward: gravity at work, or something like longing” and “Mist hangs in scarves. The forest froths with sound." It really is evocative and gives a sense of mystery and ethereal beauty to our home.
I’m not even going to get into the argument. Yes, I think rivers and all nature need to be protected. How this is even a question nowadays is beyond me, but apparently those in government and who own most of the world's capital seem oblivious to it (or just don't care).
Anyway, great book.
June 8, 2025
This has Macfarlane's trademark high octane prose and immersive landscapes and vivid character profiles, but was a bit heavy handed on the environmental messaging. As for the rights of nature movement, I’m not sure the book succeeded in giving more than a one-sided overview--a good introductory, magazine article-level overview perhaps, with some impressive players, but with only a nod at complexity. Intelligent, but one-note.
By contrast, I think my favorite of his, Underland, succeeds in imprinting landscapes and images on you in a way that makes you think rather than spending much time rehashing the message, which is probably why it's my favorite. I will certainly remember the magic and poignancy of the cloud forest, the polluted urban wetland, and the muscular northern wilderness in Is a River Alive, but I just wasn't as impressed by the talky bits--while acknowledging that he has set his own standard pretty sky-high.
Also, the title. What is it about this title that rubs me the wrong way? Even with it serving as the central question and touchpoint of the book, my instinct remains that the question-title wasn't the best choice. Although he does go through some grappling about the answer, the answer is neverthless inevitable within the narrative. It might be kind of emblematic for me of what's off-balance about this one.
A note on characters--I'm fascinated by how Macfarlane weaves people so vividly into his narratives, making them as central to the narrative as the landscape. I admire how evidently important his observant and heartfelt friendships are in his explorations and writing, and they add a lot of emotional weight and memorability. At the same time, I was especially struck in this one by how much they are indeed characters, caricatures even: intense, specific, but again, almost one-note. It's hard to criticize something that's rarely done so lyrically and generously in this genre, but I still came away feeling like I was getting an ultra-concentrated, fictionalized version of these people, without the benefit of the kind of dimensionalizing nuance that the best fiction gives its characters. Their dialogue, especially, reads as a tool of the narrative, often essentially indistinguishable from Macfarlane's voice. (I.e., people don't talk like that.) This is a perfectly fair stylistic choice, and nitpicky of me because it serves its purpose quite well overall. But it's perhaps another example of what left me just slightly wanting more.
In any case, I hope Macfarlane's influence and attention to these places aids his friends' efforts to protect them!
By contrast, I think my favorite of his, Underland, succeeds in imprinting landscapes and images on you in a way that makes you think rather than spending much time rehashing the message, which is probably why it's my favorite. I will certainly remember the magic and poignancy of the cloud forest, the polluted urban wetland, and the muscular northern wilderness in Is a River Alive, but I just wasn't as impressed by the talky bits--while acknowledging that he has set his own standard pretty sky-high.
Also, the title. What is it about this title that rubs me the wrong way? Even with it serving as the central question and touchpoint of the book, my instinct remains that the question-title wasn't the best choice. Although he does go through some grappling about the answer, the answer is neverthless inevitable within the narrative. It might be kind of emblematic for me of what's off-balance about this one.
A note on characters--I'm fascinated by how Macfarlane weaves people so vividly into his narratives, making them as central to the narrative as the landscape. I admire how evidently important his observant and heartfelt friendships are in his explorations and writing, and they add a lot of emotional weight and memorability. At the same time, I was especially struck in this one by how much they are indeed characters, caricatures even: intense, specific, but again, almost one-note. It's hard to criticize something that's rarely done so lyrically and generously in this genre, but I still came away feeling like I was getting an ultra-concentrated, fictionalized version of these people, without the benefit of the kind of dimensionalizing nuance that the best fiction gives its characters. Their dialogue, especially, reads as a tool of the narrative, often essentially indistinguishable from Macfarlane's voice. (I.e., people don't talk like that.) This is a perfectly fair stylistic choice, and nitpicky of me because it serves its purpose quite well overall. But it's perhaps another example of what left me just slightly wanting more.
In any case, I hope Macfarlane's influence and attention to these places aids his friends' efforts to protect them!
June 23, 2025
Die Maori fragen, was dein Wasser ist, anstatt zu fragen, woher du kommst. Wir alle haben Wasserwege in uns, auch wenn in ihnen kein Wasser, sondern Blut fließt. Aber sind Flüsse Lebewesen mit eigenem Bewusstsein und Rechten, oder sind sie nur Wege, auf denen Menschen und Waren transportiert werden und die immer mehr bedroht werden?
Um diese Frage zu beantworten, nimmt Robert Macfarlane seine LeserInnen auf eine Reise mit in den Dschungel von Ecuador, wo der Fluss eine fast schon untergeordnete Rolle spielt bei der Suche nach neuen Spezies. Der Kontrast zum nächsten Fluss, den er besucht, könnte nicht größer sein. Wo in Ecuador der Fluss stellenweise in kleines Rinnsal war, das sich durch eine fast unberührte Landschaft bewegte, ist sein indischer Bruder breit, schmutzig und alles andere als einsam. Der dritte Fluss ist wieder ein Kontrast zu den beiden ersten. Der Fluss im kanadischen Quebec hat die starke Stimme von Rita Mestokosho, die für ihn spricht.
Drei Flüsse, drei völlig unterschiedliche Landschaften, aber eine Botschaft: wir können nicht mehr so weitermachen mit den Ressourcen, die wir bekommen haben und immer noch für selbstverständlich halten. Aber wer seine Stimme erhebt, der bringt sich nicht selten in Gefahr, weil er nicht selten gegen den übermächtigen Gegner Mammon angehen muss.
Robert Macfarlane erzählt von den Erlebnissen auf seinen Reisen auch hier ohne den berühmten erhobenen Zeigefinger. Er überlässt es seinen LeserInnen, eigene Schlüsse zu ziehen. Mich hat er auch dieses Mal wieder mit seiner Begeisterung für das, was er erlebt hat, mitgenommen. Er hat sein Auge auch auf die kleinen Dinge, wie das Flüsschen, das nur wenige hundert Meter von seinem Zuhause fließt und das die Geschichten seiner drei großen Brüder miteinander verbindet.
Um diese Frage zu beantworten, nimmt Robert Macfarlane seine LeserInnen auf eine Reise mit in den Dschungel von Ecuador, wo der Fluss eine fast schon untergeordnete Rolle spielt bei der Suche nach neuen Spezies. Der Kontrast zum nächsten Fluss, den er besucht, könnte nicht größer sein. Wo in Ecuador der Fluss stellenweise in kleines Rinnsal war, das sich durch eine fast unberührte Landschaft bewegte, ist sein indischer Bruder breit, schmutzig und alles andere als einsam. Der dritte Fluss ist wieder ein Kontrast zu den beiden ersten. Der Fluss im kanadischen Quebec hat die starke Stimme von Rita Mestokosho, die für ihn spricht.
Drei Flüsse, drei völlig unterschiedliche Landschaften, aber eine Botschaft: wir können nicht mehr so weitermachen mit den Ressourcen, die wir bekommen haben und immer noch für selbstverständlich halten. Aber wer seine Stimme erhebt, der bringt sich nicht selten in Gefahr, weil er nicht selten gegen den übermächtigen Gegner Mammon angehen muss.
Robert Macfarlane erzählt von den Erlebnissen auf seinen Reisen auch hier ohne den berühmten erhobenen Zeigefinger. Er überlässt es seinen LeserInnen, eigene Schlüsse zu ziehen. Mich hat er auch dieses Mal wieder mit seiner Begeisterung für das, was er erlebt hat, mitgenommen. Er hat sein Auge auch auf die kleinen Dinge, wie das Flüsschen, das nur wenige hundert Meter von seinem Zuhause fließt und das die Geschichten seiner drei großen Brüder miteinander verbindet.
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