Long before it became fashionable to show an interest in ecology, John Stewart Collis wrote about the realities of living off the land. He became a farm worker in wartime Britain in the 1940's and his eye for detail and for the beauty of nature is memorable.
However, as happens in The Blithedale Romance there is no sense that nature is an easy bed-fellow. The rigours of living off the land are a reminder of why so many people now choose to live in cities.
It is noticeable that some of the reviewers on Goodreads found it difficult to get in on this book. It describes a world that is now gone forever in Europe, though visitors to less developed regions of the Planet will instantly recognise the sense of place that the writer so vividly evokes.
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