A review by avapava
After London: or, Wild England by Richard Jefferies

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.25

I read this for university and would not have come across it otherwise. I'm glad I have read it. The book has an interesting premise i.e England/ the Earth being reclaimed by nature. From what I can gather from reading, Jeffries gives no reason for this happening. Although, I won't lie, I skimmed probably too much of the book after realising that Jeffries has an uncanny ability to labour the point. I'm talking pages of description that I did not feel added to the movement of the plot. But here's the thing, the book is meant to be a factual recounting of Felix's journey so I can't even knock it. All I can say is that reading it was a slog. Particularly, the reams of scene-setting for I would say literally, the first half of the book(!!!) gave the impression that the story which reveals Felix's motivations for his journey i.e his love for Aurora, his desire to set up a new kingdom for him and her, was the book's afterthought; or that Jeffries only really thought about this story during the writing process. I mean nothing wrong with that either really but it makes for an unbelievable read and one where I am sort of sitting there reading it like hmmm ok. What I'm saying is, Felix didn't feel like a completely fully formed character with desires and motivations despite the laborious scene-setting and character explanation in the beginning. There were some brilliant parts of the book that were brilliant because of the central, most interesting premise to the book i.e that the ancient world has fallen and made way for a new world that is ironically reflexive of even more ancient people.