198 ‘I have had such beautiful moments . . .just total serenity’: Don Shirley, quoted in Sebastian Berger, ‘Ghosts of the Abyss: The Story of Don Shirley and Dave Shaw’, Telegraph, 6 March 2008.
199 ‘I have perceived non-existence . . . the oceanic secret’: Natalia Molchanova, ‘The Depth’, trans. Victor Hilkevich
207 ‘Conquistadors of the useless’: Lionel Terray, Conquistadors of the Useless: From the Alps to Annapurna, trans. Geoffrey Sutton (1963; Sheffield: Bâton Wicks, 2000).
Chapter 7: Hollow Land
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222–6 Between 1941 and 1945 the limestone of southern central Europe . . . continues to wound the present: I draw in these pages chiefly on Pamela Ballinger’s outstanding History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); also John Earle, The Price of Patriotism (London: Book Guild, 2005); Pavel Stranj, The Submerged Community, trans. Mark Brady (Trieste: Editoriale Stampa, 1992); Jan Morris’s wonderful Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere (London: Faber and Faber, 2001); also Maja Haderlap, Angel of Oblivion, trans. Tess Lewis (New York: Archipelago, 2016); and the generously shared knowledge of Lucian Comoy, John Stubbs and Stephen Watts, among others.
225 ‘the terrain of memory’: Ballinger, History in Exile, p. 15.
225 ‘autochthonous . . . rights’: Ballinger, History in Exile, p. 252.
226 ‘lieux de mémoire’: Pierre Nora and Charles-Robert Ageron, Les Lieux de Mémoire, 3 vols. (Paris:2009); and John Schindler, Éditions Gallimard, 1993).
229 The shadow past . . . rain through karst: Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces (London: Bloomsbury, 1997), p. 17.
229 I think there is no innocent landscape, that doesn’t exist: Anselm Kiefer, in interview with Jim Cuno, ‘Interviewing Anselm Kiefer’, 13 December 2017
229 Kiefer longs for . . . the earth’s own stigmata: I draw here on conversations about Kiefer, place-guilt and absolution with Kryštof Vosatka. The discussion of ‘occulting landscapes’ in this chapter was also developed in response to ‘Project Cleansweep’, photographer Dara McGrath’s documentation of the sites of displaced violence in Britain, and in conversation with Rob Newton.
229 ‘paralysing horror . . . evident even in that remote place ‘: W. G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn, trans. Michael Hulse (1995; London: Vintage, 2002), p. 3.
230 The violent event persists . . . is blinding: E. Valentine Daniel, ‘Crushed Glass, or, Is There a Counterpoint to Culture? ‘, in Culture/Contexture: Explorations in Anthropology and Literary Studies, ed. E. Valentine Daniel and Jeffrey M. Peck (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), p. 370.
235 A mountain has an inside’: Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain (1977; Edinburgh: Canongate, 2011), p. 16.
238 These Alps became weaponfed peaks. . . the caves of the slopes and valleys: I draw here and elsewhere on Mark Thompson, The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front (New York: Basic Books, 2009); and John Schindler, Isozo (London: Praeger, 2001).
238 ‘elastic geography. . . seeks to challenge, transform or appropriate’: Eyal Weizman, Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation (London: Verso, 2007), pp. 6—7.
239 ‘a complex architectural construction . . . attempts to partition it ‘: Weizman, Hollow Land, p. 15.
239 ‘laboratory of the extreme’: Weizman, Hollow Land, p. 9.
241 Find beauty, be still: W. H. Murray, Mountaineering in Scotland and Undiscovered Scotland (London: Diadem Books, 1979), p. 4.
Third Chamber
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246 You will find on the right . . . Do not even draw nigh this spring: R. Janko, ‘Forgetfulness in the Golden Tablets of Memory’, Classical Quarterly 34:1 (1984), 89–100: 96. More on the Totenpässe can be found in Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston’s Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets (London: Routledge, 2007).
246 ‘coruscations’: J. M. Peebles, The Practical of Spiritualism. Biographical Sketch of Abraham James. Historic Description of his Oil-Well Discoveries in Pleasantville, P.A., through Spirit Direction (Chicago: Horton and Leonard Printers, 1868), p. 77.
247 Early this millennium, on the sweltering north coast of Java . . . ancient poisonous sludge : see for more details on the geology and interpretations of the ‘mud volcano’, Nils Bubandt, ‘Haunted Geologies: Spirits, Stones, and the Necropolitics of the Anthropocene’, in ALDP, G121—G142.
248 but they are no longer . . . in the same order: Kate Brown, ‘Marie Curie’s Fingerprint: Nuclear Spelunking in the Chernobyl Zone’, in ALDP, G33—G50: G34. I am grateful to Kate Brown for allowing me to draw on her remarkable research for this scene.
Chapter 8: Red Dancers
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264 ‘rite of passage . . . mental ordeals’: Hein Bjerck, ‘On the Outer Fringe of the Human World: Phenomenological Perspectives on Anthropomorphic Cave Paintings in Norway’, in Caves in Context: The Cultural Significance of Caves and Rockshelters in Europe, ed. Knut Andreas Bergsvik and Robin Skeates (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2012), p. 60. See also Anders Hesjedal, ‘The Hunters’ Rock Art in Northern Norway: Problems of Chronology and Interpretation’, Norwegian Archaeological Review 27:1 (1994), 1—28.
264 ‘ritual actions . . . the outer fringe of the human world’: Bjerck, ‘On the Outer Fringe’, p. 55.
265 ‘land meets the sea . . . come closest together : ANP, pp. 13 and 29.
265–6 ‘hel-shoes . . . the path from the grave to the world beyond’: ANP, p. 145.
266 Terje Norsted and Bjerck both propose: see Terje Norsted, ‘The Cave Paintings of Norway’, Adoranten (2013), pp. 5–24.
270 ‘thin places ‘: the phrase is attributed to George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community.
273 Time isn’t deep . . . more as drift: Þóra Pétursdóttir, in conversation with me, Oslo, April 2017.
276 ‘a shooting star: Bjerck, ‘On the Outer Fringe’, p. 49.
276 ‘cavescape ‘: Bjerck, ‘On the Outer Fringe’, p. 58.
279 ‘Art is born like a foal that can walk straight away . . . they arrive together’: John Berger, ‘Past Present’, Guardian, 12 October 2002.
280 flashed onto a mammoth . . . And a frieze of other animals thirty feet long’: Jean-Marie Chauvet, quoted by John Berger and Simon McBurney in The Vertical Line: Can You Hear Me, in the Darkness?, Artangel Arts (Strand Tube Station, 1999).
281 ‘in an enormous present . . . everything that surrounds us’: Simon McBurney, ‘Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams: The Real Art Underground’, Guardian, 17 March 2011.
281–2 ‘It was as if time had been abolished . . . the painters were here too ‘: Jean-Marie Chauvet, quoted by Jean Clottes in World Rock Art (Michigan: Getty Conservation Institute, 2002), p. 44; these lines also appear in Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010), dir. Werner Herzog.
283 ‘became known just as everything visible . . . potential of the universe to be otherwise’: Kathryn Yusoff, ‘Geologic Subjects: Nonhuman Origins, Geomorphic Aesthetics, and the Art of Becoming Inhuman’, cultural geographies22:3 (2015), 383—407: 391.
283 ‘I am simply struck . . . the notion of our death appears to us ‘: Georges Bataille, The Cradle of Humanity: Prehistoric Art and Culture, ed. and trans. Stuart Kendall and Michelle Kendall (New York: Zone Books, 2005), p. 85. Quoted by Yusoff in ‘Geologic Subjects’, 392.
Chapter 9: The Edge
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297 a battle for the soul of Norway: see Richard Milne, ‘Oil and the Battle for Norway’s Soul’, Financial Times, 27 July 2017; and also Atlantic (2016), dir. Risteard O’Domhnaill and featuring Bjørnar Nicolaisen.
297 ‘natural resources should be managed . . . safeguarded for future generations’ : the Constitution of Norway, as laid down on 17 May 1814 by the Constituent Assembly at Eidsvoll and subsequently amended, most recently
in May 2018
306 ‘a sheer unobstructed precipice of black shining rock ‘: Edgar Allan Poe, ‘A Descent into the Maelstrom’, in The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings, ed. David Galloway (1841; London: Penguin, 2003), p. 177.
306–7 ‘wilderness of surge . . . the abyss of the whirl’: Poe, ‘A Descent into the Maelstrom’, pp. 178–82.
308 ‘I became possessed . . . ghastly radiance they shot forth ‘: Poe, ‘A Descent into the Maelstrom’, pp. 188–9.
308–9 In 1818 an American army officer . . . potential for resources and habitation: see Duane A. Griffin, ‘Hollow and Habitable within: Symmes’ Theory of Earth’s Internal Structure and Polar Geography’, Physical Geography 25:5 (2004), 382—97.
310 ‘oceans of oil’: Jamie L. Jones, ‘Oil: Viscous Time in the Anthropocene’, Los Angeles Review of Books, 22 March 2016
310 ‘We need new acreage . . . step up our exploration activities’: Mayliss Hauknes, Statoil spokesperson, quoted in ‘Statoil Seeking New Acreage’, Rigzone, 1 October 2016
310 ‘underexplored Cretaceous basins’: ‘Ceduna Sub-Basin’, Karoon Gas Australia Ltd
311 ‘destructive currents of the kind found in the Maelstrom’: Bjørn Gjevig, quoted in Malcolm W. Browne, ‘Deadly Maelstrom’s Secrets Unveiled’, New York Times, 2 September 1997.
312 We have now drilled some 30 million miles . . . hunt for resources: see Reza Negarastani’s extraordinary theory-fiction, Cyclonopaedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials (Melbourne: re.press, 2008).
317 ‘solastalgia . . . existential distress caused by environmental change ‘ : Glenn Albrecht, ‘Solastalgia, a New Concept in Human Health and Identity’, Philosophy Activism Nature 3 (2005), 41—4: 43.
317 ‘Worldwide, there is an increase in ecosystem distress syndromes . . . human distress syndromes’: Glenn Albrecht et al., ‘Solastalgia: The Distress Caused by Environmental Change’, Australian Psychiatry 15:1 (2007), 95—7: 95.
319 ‘monstrous transformer ‘: Graeme Macdonald, ‘“Monstrous Transformer”: Petrofiction and World Literature’, Journal of Postcolonial Writing 53 (2017), 289–302.
320 photographs I have seen recently of hermit crabs . . . Avon night cream: see also D. K. A. Barnes, ‘Remote Islands Reveal Rapid Rise of Southern Hemisphere Sea Debris’, Scientific World Journal 5 (2005), 915–21.
320 ‘empire of things’: Frank Trentmann, Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First (New York: HarperCollins, 2016).
320 ‘a swelling topography of scrapped modernity . . . confronting us with its pestering presence’: Þóra Pétursdóttir and Bjørnar Olsen, ‘Unruly Heritage: An Archaeology of the Anthropocene’ (Tromsø: UiT The Arctic University of Norway, 2017), p. 2
320 ‘What we excrete comes back to consume us’: Don DeLillo, Underworld (New York: Scribner, 1997), p. 791.
320 ‘hyperobjects’: see Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013).
320 ‘viscous’: Morton, Hyperobjects, p. 27.
320 ‘plastiglomerate’: see Patricia L. Corcoran et al., ‘An Anthropogenic Marker Horizon in the Future Rock Record’, GSA Today 24.6 (June 2014), 4–8.
321 ‘New People’: John Wyndham, The Chrysalids (1955; London: Penguin, 2018), p. 158.
Chapter 10: The Blue of Time
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329 On the Yamal peninsula, between the Kara Sea . . . frozen bodies of mammoths: see Noah Sneider’s fine essay ‘Cursed Fields’, Harper’s Magazine (April 2018), 40–51.
329 On the Siachen glacier in the Karakoram . . . slaughtered human bodies: see Rob Nixon, quoting Arundhati Roy, in ‘The Swiftness of Glaciers: Language in a Time of Climate Change’, Aeon Magazine, 19 March 2018
330 ‘preserved for eternity’: L. K. Clark et al., ‘Sanitary Waste Disposal for Navy Camps in Polar Regions’, Journal of the Water Pollution Control Federation 34:12 (1962), 1229.
331 In that region, at this time of history . . . through the world’s surface: see for more on climate change and ‘untimeliness’, Cymene Howe, ‘“Timely”: Theorizing the Contemporary’, 21 January 2016
335 Ice has a social life: see Cymene Howe’s ongoing project Melt: The Social Life of Ice at the Top of the World, which examines cryo-human interrelations and the implications of climate-induced geohydrological change in the Arctic and beyond.
335 ‘The loss of that landscape of ice . . . also a cultural one’: Andrew Solomon, Far and Away: How Travel Can Change the World (London: Scribner, 2016), p. 259.
335 uggianaqtuq: see S. Gearheard, ‘When the Weather is Uggianaqtuq: Inuit Observations of Environmental Changes, Version 1’ (Boulder, Colorado: NSIDC – National Snow and Ice Data Center, 2004)
339–40 The weight on 2,000-year-old ice . . . sequence can be almost impossible to discern: I draw in this discussion on, among other sources, Richard B. Alley, The Two-Mile Time Machine (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 41—58.
340 ‘greyish ghostly bands. . . focused beam of a fibre-optic lamp’: Alley, The Two-Mile Time Machine, p. 50.
346 Sound is a blow delivered by air . . . transmitted to the soul: Plato, Timaeus and Critias, trans. Robin Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 65.
355 Corridors of breath: Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape (1986; New York: Bantam, 1987), p. 152.
363 Sick at Greenland’s scale . . . our ability to encompass it: Elizabeth Kolbert experienced the identical response of nausea when reporting from west Greenland in the same weeks that I was in the east of the country. ‘Again, I was hit, and vaguely sickened, by Greenland’s inhuman scale,’ she writes in her fine essay ‘Greenland is Melting’, New Yorker, 24 October 2016
363 ‘deaden[ed] . . . gangplank of a cattle truck’: Seamus Heaney, ‘Mycenae Lookout’, in The Spirit Level (London: Faber and Faber, 1996), p. 29.
364 ‘thick speech’: Sianne Ngai, Ugly Feelings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), p. 252.
364 ‘interpret or respond’: Ngai, Ugly Feelings, p. 250.
364 ‘back-flowing’: Ngai, Ugly Feelings, p. 249.
Chapter 11: Meltwater
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380 ‘matter out of place’: Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Purity and Taboo (1966; London: Routledge, 2002), p. 44.
380 ‘animate (endowed with life) . . . landscapes they inhabit’: Julie Cruikshank, Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005), p. 3.
380 ‘grammar of animacy ‘: Kimmerer, ‘Speaking of Nature’.
381 ‘denseness. . . that strangeness of the world is the absurd’: Albert Camus, ‘Absurd Walls’, in The Myth ofSisyphus, trans. Justin O’Brien (London: Hamish Hamilton 1973X p. 19.
392 a busy working of nature . . . reckoning of days and years: Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘Sept. 24 1870’, in The Journals and Papers of Gerard Manley Hopkins., ed. Humphry House and Graham Storey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 200.
Chapter 12: The Hiding Place
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398 Deep in the bedrock of Olkiluoto Island . . .: I have been writing about ‘deep time’ since my first book, Mountains of the Mind (London: Granta, 2003). In respect of radiological as well as geological
time, I draw in this chapter and elsewhere on, among other sources, John McPhee, Annals of the Former World (New York: FSG, 1998); Stephen Jay Gould, Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle (Cambridge, M A: Harvard University Press, 1987); Andy Weir, ‘Deep Decay: Into Diachronic Polychromatic Material Fictions’, PARSE 4 (2017)
401 ‘the radiological equivalent of . . . seven trillion doses of lethal radiation ‘: John D’Agata, About a Mountain (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011), p. 35.
405 ‘the numerous strata of a burial mound . . . artefacts have been buried’: Matti Kuusi quoted in Keith Bosley, ‘Introduction’, TK, p. xxi. Bosley’s introduction and translation are both excellent, and I draw especially on the introduction in this paragraph contextualizing the Kalevala.
406 ‘grave . . . demon lair’: TK, p. 202.
406 ‘grievouspain’: TK, p. 206.
406 ‘my guiltless heart . . . to bite, to devour : TK, p. 205.
406 ‘a wind-borne disease . . . carried by chill air: TK, p. 208.
407 ‘Words shall not be hid . . . though the mighty go ‘: TK, p. 213.
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