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The small heart of things: being at home in a beckoning world
In The Small Heart of Things , Julian Hoffman intimately examines the myriad ways in which connections to the natural world can be deepened through an equality of perception, whether it’s a caterpillar carrying its house of leaves, transhumant shepherds ranging high mountain pastures, a quail taking cover on an empty steppe, or a Turkmen family emigrating from Afghanistan to Istanbul. The narrative spans the common—and often contested—ground that supports human and natural communities alike, seeking the unsung stories that sustain us.
Guided by the belief of Rainer Maria Rilke that “everything beckons us to perceive it,” Hoffman explores the area around the Prespa Lakes, the first transboundary park in the Balkans, shared by Greece, Albania, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. From there he travels widely to regions rarely written about, exploring the idea that home is wherever we happen to be if we accord that place our close and patient attention.
The Small Heart of Things is a book about looking and listening. It incorporates travel and natural history writing that interweaves human stories with those of wild creatures. Distinguished by Hoffman’s belief that through awareness, curiosity, and openness we have the potential to forge abiding relationships with a range of places, it illuminates how these many connections can teach us to be at home in the world.
Guided by the belief of Rainer Maria Rilke that “everything beckons us to perceive it,” Hoffman explores the area around the Prespa Lakes, the first transboundary park in the Balkans, shared by Greece, Albania, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. From there he travels widely to regions rarely written about, exploring the idea that home is wherever we happen to be if we accord that place our close and patient attention.
The Small Heart of Things is a book about looking and listening. It incorporates travel and natural history writing that interweaves human stories with those of wild creatures. Distinguished by Hoffman’s belief that through awareness, curiosity, and openness we have the potential to forge abiding relationships with a range of places, it illuminates how these many connections can teach us to be at home in the world.
168 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
About the author
Julian Hoffman
7 books42 followersJulian Hoffman lives beside the Prespa Lakes in northern Greece. The Small Heart of Things was selected by Terry Tempest Williams as the winner of the AWP Award for Creative Nonfiction, described by her as a "tapestry of embodied stories, a book of faith in the natural histories of community." His follow-up book, Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save our Wild Places, was published by Hamish Hamilton and Penguin Books in June, 2019 and was a Highly Commended Finalist for the Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation 2020.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 13, 2013
This is a beautifully lyrical and engaging book. It is a series of meditations upon the twin themes of 'place' and 'perception' which encourages the reader to re-think how our unconscious expectations usually shape our views of the world around us - whether it be the place where we live, or the places we pass through on our travels, there are unexpected connections to be found everywhere. 'The Small Heart of Things' is a refreshing and thoughtful book by a writer with a remarkable eye and ear for carefully crafted thought and language. I highly recommend it. It's a book I'm sure I'll be dipping back into long after this first highly enjoyable reading.
December 20, 2016
For a moment, it promised something interesting, before becoming platitudinous.
This book came highly recommended by Terry Tempest Williams, and that was enough to intrigue me. I've become somewhat allergic to conventional nature writing, but she assured that this was different, merging natural history with the social and cultural to create something more open than the usual paeans to wild places.
Sounded good.
And the beginning seemed to fulfill that promise. Hoffman was open. He was unwilling to say that certain places were better than others, better homes--this counts as radical in the staid confines of nature writing--and early chapters continued this theme. Well, they're not really chapters: the book is more a collection of essays that circle around the meaning of home.
At any rate, these early chapters were focused on the time when he and his wife lived in London. It would be expected in nature writing for the author to disparage London as the antithesis of nature, but Hoffman resisted that urge. He acknowledged that London had been home to numerous waves of immigrants over the centuries, a real, lived-in and sometimes-loved home. And acknowledged as well that there was nature here, though mostly ignored. He ignored a great deal of it, too--the sparrows and finches and pigeons, even as he at least recognized they existed, in order to focus on a few more striking species, including feral parakeets. (He's a birder, and nature for him is most accessible in avian form.)
One might quibble a bit about his focus on these more outstanding species. And there's a sneaking elitism, too: he quotes Rilke about the beckoning world (this provides the subtitle) and pats himself on the book for bothering to notice what so many ignore--but that's ok. He's noticing that there is nature in the city. That there are homes here, and a sense of place.
But then he and his wife tire of their commutes and move to Greece, a choice largely made because of the birds in the area. And the rest of the book becomes routine. He sings the praises of the pastoral life and its more humane rhythms. He loves that there are some birds he rarely sees--because it means the world is wild. He talks of his neighbors--he lives near Albania and Macedonia. He compliments their welcoming nature. The language slips and becomes boringly conventional, like a travel brochure, not like lived experience any longer. Exact phrases are repeated in separate chapters of this very slim book.
According to some of the paratext, the Hoffmans worked a farm when they first moved to Greece, and I guess that's true, but most of the rest of the book (all? I remember no counterexamples, but might have missed something) makes them out to be the traditional heroes of pastoral nature-writing: they are observers. Again and again, they are on holiday, staying in some hotel where they can see new birds. Hoffman is beckoned by the world, and his special astuteness allows him to see what others miss. But the social and cultural world is described in textbook terms--it's only the bird life that actually feels as though it were understood through experience.
The true work of those beckoned by the world is looking at it, not working it. (I imagine coming from London to Greece would have made them fairly well-off.) Hoffman's is the usual very privileged position.
And so, after a promising beginning, it ends where these kinds of books usually end.
This book came highly recommended by Terry Tempest Williams, and that was enough to intrigue me. I've become somewhat allergic to conventional nature writing, but she assured that this was different, merging natural history with the social and cultural to create something more open than the usual paeans to wild places.
Sounded good.
And the beginning seemed to fulfill that promise. Hoffman was open. He was unwilling to say that certain places were better than others, better homes--this counts as radical in the staid confines of nature writing--and early chapters continued this theme. Well, they're not really chapters: the book is more a collection of essays that circle around the meaning of home.
At any rate, these early chapters were focused on the time when he and his wife lived in London. It would be expected in nature writing for the author to disparage London as the antithesis of nature, but Hoffman resisted that urge. He acknowledged that London had been home to numerous waves of immigrants over the centuries, a real, lived-in and sometimes-loved home. And acknowledged as well that there was nature here, though mostly ignored. He ignored a great deal of it, too--the sparrows and finches and pigeons, even as he at least recognized they existed, in order to focus on a few more striking species, including feral parakeets. (He's a birder, and nature for him is most accessible in avian form.)
One might quibble a bit about his focus on these more outstanding species. And there's a sneaking elitism, too: he quotes Rilke about the beckoning world (this provides the subtitle) and pats himself on the book for bothering to notice what so many ignore--but that's ok. He's noticing that there is nature in the city. That there are homes here, and a sense of place.
But then he and his wife tire of their commutes and move to Greece, a choice largely made because of the birds in the area. And the rest of the book becomes routine. He sings the praises of the pastoral life and its more humane rhythms. He loves that there are some birds he rarely sees--because it means the world is wild. He talks of his neighbors--he lives near Albania and Macedonia. He compliments their welcoming nature. The language slips and becomes boringly conventional, like a travel brochure, not like lived experience any longer. Exact phrases are repeated in separate chapters of this very slim book.
According to some of the paratext, the Hoffmans worked a farm when they first moved to Greece, and I guess that's true, but most of the rest of the book (all? I remember no counterexamples, but might have missed something) makes them out to be the traditional heroes of pastoral nature-writing: they are observers. Again and again, they are on holiday, staying in some hotel where they can see new birds. Hoffman is beckoned by the world, and his special astuteness allows him to see what others miss. But the social and cultural world is described in textbook terms--it's only the bird life that actually feels as though it were understood through experience.
The true work of those beckoned by the world is looking at it, not working it. (I imagine coming from London to Greece would have made them fairly well-off.) Hoffman's is the usual very privileged position.
And so, after a promising beginning, it ends where these kinds of books usually end.
March 15, 2014
Finally finished this lovely excursion into landscapes I've never seen and would now dearly love to—none too soon, as I'll be hearing Julian read from his book tonight. (Disclaimer: We are Twitter pals who've never met, kindred spirits, etc.) You will find here a very measured, serious, philosophical approach to nature writing, but also the intimate, domestic voice of someone sharing both his beloved home, and the larger idea of how to be at home no matter where you are. Beyond all else you will find the keenest eye and ear. The world in these pages is never still (or at least never still without being simultaneously in motion), but it is wonderful to experience Julian stilling himself to know it better.
January 22, 2024
beautiful
May 2, 2015
Being home and being at home, place and finding one's place and finding both in nature no matter where you find yourself are some of the themes to this wonderful book. Written as a series of essays that wander about a little much as the author has done I found it hard to put down at times. In fact, I left the last 4 or 5 pages for quite a few days not wanting to finish. I would recommend this book to nature lovers, travel lovers and those searching for their place in the world.
August 12, 2015
I recommend this lyrical little book of meditations on what it is to be alive, in the world at large, as much as in a particular place, to anyone who enjoys beautiful writing and anyone who has ever asked themselves what and where home might be. (That's me for one.)
September 4, 2021
I feel the places he describes so perfectly, so lyrically, so lovely and tied so deeply to the invisible bonds or anchors of places loved.
A found poem, forgive me the edits to make it flow.
We are continually capable of deepening
our acquaintance with an environment, of becoming
intimate with more than one place, of being
at home where we find ourselves.
In an age when the ecological integrity
of our planet is threatened on so many levels,
anything that strengthens those connections,
or makes meaningful our daily arrangement
with the world around us, is a form of resistance,
a kind of love forged with home
that has the potential to be fiercely protective.
Certain places follow us, like shadows.
At times they lengthen and stretch
implausibly tall until they tower
over our lives, or slant decisively
away, as if trying to flee.
Occasionally they appear
not to be there at all-
so exact is the overlay of self and place,
so precise the meridian sun.
Whether seen or not they are
undoubtedly close, tethered by
subtle threads spooling us
forever back. Either in memory
or actuality, even dreams,
to landscapes that articulate
something of our selves
Some days the other shore seems far away.
It rises in the blue distance like a mirage
until it eventually untangles from the haze,
only there if you look long enough,
staring across the lake as though seeking land
in an empty sea. But other days don’t ask
patience of you, the kind of stillness
to see things through. They open willingly,
fortuitously, revealing unforeseen
moments nested within.
As I followed the shoreline tracks of the bears,
I became aware of a different way of thinking.
Walking in the steps of the bears brought me
closer to their world. Something of my own
solidity was suspended and I opened,
however imperfectly, to another way of being.
I later realized how time had dissolved
while we watched the dolphins.
Past and future, and all the weight
they carry, had folded into one clear,
immeasurable moment.
I was aware of feeling an ineffable joy,
and lightness of being.
I wished to breathe deeply
in that vast landscape
awash in light and mystery.
These days and places
are affirmations; they approach
the numinous, the holy.
It was as if the spirit of the place
had become visible, had for a brief
creak of time taken material form.
I stood and watched how the light fell,
flaring the flatlands in a copper-edged glow,
sending silver sparks skimming across the endless sea.
The ancients named them halcyon days, the irrepressible interlude.
Some days outlive others.
They are lit differently in memory-
as resplendently as the squacco heron
at the edge of the pool or the dolphins
glimmering at sea- and they are brushed
with an intensity that seems to suspend
the customary passage of time. I have come
to see them as wrapped like a chrysalis in light;
days that have left me feeling closer to the world,
connected in some intangible way to its rhythms.
Watching the dolphins had reminded me to be more generous
in my seeing, to be aware of small things, the rustles and faint
shadows that accompany possibility, the murmurs at every turn.
I feel an affinity with the limestone…
the place has absorbed me
into its pattern. I’m encircled
by an expanse of dissolving land,
an entrancing work of water worn a
way over ineffable ages beneath
the same passing sun. And over the months,
I’ve understood this landscape’s capacity
to alter my perception. It has opened me
to the unfathomable beauty of distance and
deep time, but also proximity; the things
revealed when we draw near.
The stones sing as the sun begins to fall.
There is a quality to the karst country
light that is mesmeric, spilling over
the grasslands, bathing the ridges
and rolling hills in a deep and reflection
radiance. It is as though it were a relic
luminescence, a memory of when
this plateau was still an ocean;
that in the compacted shells
of the marine creatures that have
surfaced into stone there remains
a trace of what was pelagic about
them, an unalloyed and ethereal
echo of sunlight striking sea.
The forest is dense with time,
and curiously absorbing…
I descend in a dream-which
isn’t ideal when you’re meant
to be paying close attention-
but sometimes the land and
the seasons, the weather
and the light, can do that,
burrowing down toward
a still, reflective point,
a heartwood more essential
than a tree’s. Letting the wild
world in until we’re
tangled up together.
A found poem, forgive me the edits to make it flow.
We are continually capable of deepening
our acquaintance with an environment, of becoming
intimate with more than one place, of being
at home where we find ourselves.
In an age when the ecological integrity
of our planet is threatened on so many levels,
anything that strengthens those connections,
or makes meaningful our daily arrangement
with the world around us, is a form of resistance,
a kind of love forged with home
that has the potential to be fiercely protective.
Certain places follow us, like shadows.
At times they lengthen and stretch
implausibly tall until they tower
over our lives, or slant decisively
away, as if trying to flee.
Occasionally they appear
not to be there at all-
so exact is the overlay of self and place,
so precise the meridian sun.
Whether seen or not they are
undoubtedly close, tethered by
subtle threads spooling us
forever back. Either in memory
or actuality, even dreams,
to landscapes that articulate
something of our selves
Some days the other shore seems far away.
It rises in the blue distance like a mirage
until it eventually untangles from the haze,
only there if you look long enough,
staring across the lake as though seeking land
in an empty sea. But other days don’t ask
patience of you, the kind of stillness
to see things through. They open willingly,
fortuitously, revealing unforeseen
moments nested within.
As I followed the shoreline tracks of the bears,
I became aware of a different way of thinking.
Walking in the steps of the bears brought me
closer to their world. Something of my own
solidity was suspended and I opened,
however imperfectly, to another way of being.
I later realized how time had dissolved
while we watched the dolphins.
Past and future, and all the weight
they carry, had folded into one clear,
immeasurable moment.
I was aware of feeling an ineffable joy,
and lightness of being.
I wished to breathe deeply
in that vast landscape
awash in light and mystery.
These days and places
are affirmations; they approach
the numinous, the holy.
It was as if the spirit of the place
had become visible, had for a brief
creak of time taken material form.
I stood and watched how the light fell,
flaring the flatlands in a copper-edged glow,
sending silver sparks skimming across the endless sea.
The ancients named them halcyon days, the irrepressible interlude.
Some days outlive others.
They are lit differently in memory-
as resplendently as the squacco heron
at the edge of the pool or the dolphins
glimmering at sea- and they are brushed
with an intensity that seems to suspend
the customary passage of time. I have come
to see them as wrapped like a chrysalis in light;
days that have left me feeling closer to the world,
connected in some intangible way to its rhythms.
Watching the dolphins had reminded me to be more generous
in my seeing, to be aware of small things, the rustles and faint
shadows that accompany possibility, the murmurs at every turn.
I feel an affinity with the limestone…
the place has absorbed me
into its pattern. I’m encircled
by an expanse of dissolving land,
an entrancing work of water worn a
way over ineffable ages beneath
the same passing sun. And over the months,
I’ve understood this landscape’s capacity
to alter my perception. It has opened me
to the unfathomable beauty of distance and
deep time, but also proximity; the things
revealed when we draw near.
The stones sing as the sun begins to fall.
There is a quality to the karst country
light that is mesmeric, spilling over
the grasslands, bathing the ridges
and rolling hills in a deep and reflection
radiance. It is as though it were a relic
luminescence, a memory of when
this plateau was still an ocean;
that in the compacted shells
of the marine creatures that have
surfaced into stone there remains
a trace of what was pelagic about
them, an unalloyed and ethereal
echo of sunlight striking sea.
The forest is dense with time,
and curiously absorbing…
I descend in a dream-which
isn’t ideal when you’re meant
to be paying close attention-
but sometimes the land and
the seasons, the weather
and the light, can do that,
burrowing down toward
a still, reflective point,
a heartwood more essential
than a tree’s. Letting the wild
world in until we’re
tangled up together.
July 1, 2017
My friend Julian Hoffman's book is an fascinating collection of essays about the relationships we develop with certain locations, thereby making them into ‘places’, and sometimes even homes. Such relationships are honed through our experiences in these locations: the things we see, the people we meet, the attention we pay. As the book's title implies, it's often the small things that make a location special: an encounter with an animal, a conversation with a stranger, a walk with a friend.
Most of The Small Heart of Things is set in Hoffman's adoptive home in the Prespa Lakes region of the Balkans, sitting astride the borders of Greece, Albania, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. But the book also travels farther afield, with flashbacks to Hoffman's time in London and the North of England, and with excursions to Transylvania, the Bucharest Natural History Museum, Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, and elsewhere. There's even a Skype call to Canada, and a chance meeting with an old friend on a train bound for Romania.
In his essays, Hoffman encounters bear tracks and caterpillars, eagles and salamanders, shepherds and immigrant workers, beavers and moths, Turkmen traders and a mysterious man with a limp. Every one of these encounters, and the many others described in this highly enjoyable book, leave a lasting impression—both on Hoffman, and, by way of him, on us.
This is a book that demonstrates the value of paying attention. Highly recommended.
Most of The Small Heart of Things is set in Hoffman's adoptive home in the Prespa Lakes region of the Balkans, sitting astride the borders of Greece, Albania, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. But the book also travels farther afield, with flashbacks to Hoffman's time in London and the North of England, and with excursions to Transylvania, the Bucharest Natural History Museum, Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, and elsewhere. There's even a Skype call to Canada, and a chance meeting with an old friend on a train bound for Romania.
In his essays, Hoffman encounters bear tracks and caterpillars, eagles and salamanders, shepherds and immigrant workers, beavers and moths, Turkmen traders and a mysterious man with a limp. Every one of these encounters, and the many others described in this highly enjoyable book, leave a lasting impression—both on Hoffman, and, by way of him, on us.
This is a book that demonstrates the value of paying attention. Highly recommended.
March 29, 2019
beautiful.
October 31, 2016
"Life is nothing but a succession of images and impressions racing before from one's mind: fom these some come out strongly, unforgettable, though they may have not been the most significant, but because they hold a crystallised moment of life encapsulated within." Hoffman quotes from Marcelle Caradja's "Memories from the Life of My Father." In "A Winter Moth," Hoffman writes about composing biography and in particular about the life of Aristide Caradja, pianist and moth and butterfly collector. Layers of Caradja's life and his important work roll out in a small essay of great suggestive depths. My other favorite essay "The Distance Between Us," begins with a mysterious hiking encounter and moves into a mediation on "how often we enter the lives of strangers, where we're recollected form time to time without our knowing."
November 5, 2020
Such a lovely collection of observations and musings primarily set around the Prespa Lakes. Being completely unfamiliar with this part of the world I found it fascinating. But even more than the novelty of the subject matter was Julian Hoffman's beautiful descriptions. His musings we also very thought provoking. I took my time by reading only one or two chapters an evening giving myself plenty of time to contemplate. Again, a lovely read.
July 16, 2015
Beautifully observed and expressed, Hoffman's words and the places he describes linger with you even after you finish. As this review notes: "Of greatest value, all of Hoffman’s observations resonate with a genuine care for what is being considered and what can be learned." (http://www.terrain.org/2015/reviews-r...)
March 10, 2014
A clear-eyed walk through landscapes and the evocative places of Prespa, The Small Heart of Things tells us much about nature and our varied, conflicted relationships with nature.
April 21, 2014
Rambly. Sure, that was partly the point of this book, to reflect the ramblings in nature of the author, but it was definitely excessive in a lot of places.
January 31, 2015
Spectacularly beautiful.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews