San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Illuminating notes unearthed deep underground
We look up more than we look down. Elon Musk just launched a chain of communications satellites that will orbit 342 miles above the earth. Earlier this year, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft transmitted images from Ultima Thule, a knuckle of rock 4 billion miles away. But when it comes to our own planet, we’ve never ventured deeper than 7½ miles, with Russia’s Kola Superdeep Borehole. There’s no terra as incognita as the terra beneath our feet.
British nature writer Robert Macfarlane attempts to correct this neglect with his brilliant new book, “Underland: A Deep Time Journey.”
Few writers come as wellequipped for the subterranean task as Macfarlane. A Cambridge literature professor and intrepid hiker and climber, he has the explorer’s obsession with the natural world and a poet’s passion for literature that probes and praises that world. Over the past 15 years, Macfarlane has published a series of acclaimed works — among them “Mountains of the Mind,” “The Wild Places” and “The Old Ways: A Journey On Foot” — that, in his words, deal with “the relationships between landscape and the human
Underland
heart.”
In “Underland,” that relationship leads Macfarlane to spelunk Somerset, England’s Mendip Hills, whose cavepocked limestone holds the best-preserved Bronze Age burial sites in the world. Then it’s on to Yorkshire, England, where in the depths of a potash mine physicists search for particles to prove the existence of dark matter. And to Paris, whose catacombs are the final resting place of 6 million Parisians,
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Peter Everwine Tribute Bill Broder, Sandra Hoben, Dorianne Laux and Joseph Miller read and discuss Everwine’s work. 4 p.m. Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera. 415-927-0960. www.bookpassage.com
Josh Frank, Paul Myers “Giraffes on Horseback Salad: Salvador Dali, The Marx Brothers, and the Strangest Movie Never Made.” 4 p.m. The Bindery, 1727 Haight St., S.F. 415-863-8688. www.book smith.com and where underground chambers bear names like the Room of Cubes and the Monastery of the Bears.
It’s a tangled journey — part science fiction, part ancient myth — and Macfarlane narrates it elegantly. He’s a precise, tart, luminous writer, whose descriptions throw off sparks: As he and his spelunking guide toss a rope over an underground cliff to rappel down it, they experience the “hiss, thrum, shiver of snakes in the Michael Genhart “Rainbow: A First Book of Pride.” 2 p.m. East Bay Booksellers, 5433 College Ave., Oakland. 510653-9965. www.ebbook sellers.com
Susan Jane Gilman “Donna Has Left the Building.” 3 p.m. Book Passage, One Ferry Building, S.F. 415-835-1020. www.bookpassage.com
Words Off Paper Author panel featuring LInda Joy Myers, Linda Watanabe McFerrin, Claire Hennessey, Meredith May, Eileen Rendahl. 3 p.m. Copperfield’s Books, 999 Grant Ave., Novato. www.copperfieldsbooks.com
Caleb Zigas, Leticia Landa “We Are La Cocina: Recipes in Pursuit of the American Dream.” 3 p.m. Omnivore Books, 3885 Cesar Chavez St., S.F. 415-282-4712. www.omni vorebooks.com
MONDAY
torchlight, whip-slap as falling rope cracks tight against stone.” Unlike many nature writers, he’s interested in people: the hipster adventurers who make Paris’ catacombs their playground, the British mine safety expert who zooms his Ford van at insane speeds through darkened tunnels as if starring in “Fast and Furious 10: Yorkshire Potash Mine.”
It’s also true that toward its middle, “Underland” lags a bit. Macfarlane recognizes the California Book Awards 6 p.m. $5-$10. Commonwealth Club, 110 The Embarcadero, S.F. 415-597-6705. www.com monwealthclub.org
Beatrice Fihn, Eric Scholsser,
Book event
Robert Macfarlane will be in conversation with Rebecca Solnit at 7 p.m. Saturday, June 15, at West Marin School’s Community Gym, 11550 Shoreline Hwy., Point Reyes Station. $35 (includes book). https://tinyurl.com/y4cr6lgj challenges: In a recent interview, he notes that “landscape doesn’t really do plots and it doesn’t really do suspense.” But his story gathers power as he descends into subterranean spaces linked to humanity’s grimmest moments. In Slovenia, a cave-scape bears the scars of World War II, when partisans on both sides were executed by the hundreds, bodies dumped into the limestone chasms. He closes on a Finnish island housing the world’s first spent nuclear fuel repository: Here, nuclear waste will be stored in the bedrock until the end of time, unless time has the last laugh. “In the underland I have seen things I hope I will never forget — and things I wish I had never witnessed,” Macfarlane writes. That seeing, that witnessing, make for a remarkable book.
Peter Fish is a San Francisco writer, editor and teacher. Email: books@sfchronicle.com Ben Rhodes, Alex Wellerstin “Chain Reaction,” gala and talks about the national debate on nuclear strategy. 9 p.m. $250. SFJazz, 201 Franklin St., S.F. ploughshares.org/ chainreaction2019
James Haas “The San Francisco Civic Center.” 6 p.m. $8-$20. Commonwealth Club, 110 The Embarcadero, S.F. 415-597-6705. www.common wealthclub.org
Scott Kupor, Alison van Diggelen “Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It.” 7 p.m. $8-$52. Oshman Family JCC, Schultz Cultural Hall, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto. 415-597-6705. www.commonwealthclub.org Elvia Wilk, Brandon Brown, Trisha Low “Oval.” 7:30 p.m. Booksmith, 1644 Haight St., S.F. 415-863-8688. www.booksmith.com
TUESDAY
Eve Ensler, Lauren Schiller “Transforming Abuse With Apology.” 6:30 p.m. $10-$55. Commonwealth Club, 110 The Embarcadero, S.F. 415-5976705. www.commonwealth club.org