The Last Pool of Darkness - (Seedbank) by Tim Robinson (Paperback)

About the Book

"One of the most remarkable non-fiction projects undertaken in English." --ROBERT MACFARLANE

Book Synopsis

In the second volume of his beloved Connemara trilogy, cartographer Tim Robinson continues to unearth the stories of this rich landscape in Ireland--weaving placelore, etymology, geology, and the meeting of sea and shore into the region's mythologies.

From the northern fiord waters of Killary Harbour to the southern sea-washed islands of Slyne Head, western Connemara awes with a rugged landscape: sloping cliffs, towering mountains, and the ever-present thudding of the Atlantic. And here, within the earth, resides the record of the past; stones with ash-grey centers reveal volcanic episodes, a series of mysteriously arranged quartz boulders reminds us of the ancient secrets held in the soil, and a long-disappeared lake filled in by sand lies beneath a golf course, waiting to be rediscovered.

Mapping more than geography, Tim Robinson charts Connemara's deep relationship to those who have inhabited its surface. The Last Pool of Darkness brims with tales of ghosts, centuries-old land disputes, periods of religious and political upheavals, philosophers entranced by the isolating landscape, poets, mathematicians, artists, fantastical smugglers, the discovery of botanical rarities, trickster fairies, and the delicate balance between humans and nature. Not merely a "certain tract of the Earth's surface" but "an accumulation of connotations," Robinson's Connemara offers readers an opportunity to travel across space and time.

A work of great precision and tenderness, The Last Pool of Darkness is an enchanting addition to the Seedbank series and next chapter in "one of the most remarkable non-fiction projects undertaken in English" (Robert Macfarlane).

Review Quotes

Praise for The Last Pool of Darkness

"Combining detailed descriptions of Connemara's history, folklore, artistry, geology, and nature, Tim Robinson's The Last Pool of Darkness is a sprawling, joyful romp along Ireland's western coastline. [. . .] Told in the gossipy tone of a confidante, there are adventure stories about sea captains, balladeers, priests, farmers, and artists, as well as seances, drownings, unsolved murders, the potato blight, and islands that disappear in the mist. Sweeping and authoritative, The Last Pool of Darkness is an astonishing, immersive view of the people and places of Ireland's Connemara region."--Foreword Review

"[Robinson] is one of the finest of contemporary prose stylists. . . . An astonishing and almost infinitely provocative work."--Irish Times

"The reader of this wonderful book will learn about the natural history, folklore and topography of the area from one of the great polymaths of our time."--Irish Examiner

Praise for Tim Robinson

"Many landscape writers have striven to give their prose the characteristics of the terrain they are describing. Few have succeeded as fully as Tim Robinson."--Robert Macfarlane

"[Robinson's] work is reminiscent of that of some early explorers and geographers in its painstaking exactitude. But instead of bringing back the record of a hitherto unknown terrain, he is resurrecting the ignored or forgotten from under our feet. He attends to wildflowers, heathers, pollens, and to phenomena ranging from the cemeteries of unbaptized babies to the mythology of hares. His scientific rigor is suffused by a marveling poetry."--New York Review of Books

"Visitors to Connemara, that expanse of stony beauty in the west of Ireland, are often struck by its stillness. One of the most eloquent readers of that silence is the Yorkshire-born writer Robinson, whose new collection of essays succeeds in the difficult task of staying true to the verities of a place on to which so many fantasies have been projected. . . . Robinson writes with lapidary precision about a landscape so frequently shrouded in cliché that its unmediated truths are often invisible."--The Guardian

"Robinson is a stylist of exceptional cadence, tact and ingenuity. . . . At their most intricate, measured and exalting, his sentences sound like the sermons of John Donne, or the elaborate essays of Sir Thomas Browne. And yet: there is nothing antiquarian about this style; it may echo the voices of the great writers who have passed before him--Roderick O'Flaherty in the 17th century, Thackeray in the 19th--but Robinson's is a medium woven as much out of modern environmental science, land art and fractal geometry as it is from the sonorous periods of the past."--The Telegraph (UK)

Praise for The Seedbank Series

"Milkweed's Seedbank series is one of the most exciting and visionary projects in contemporary publishing. Taking the long view, these volumes run parallel to the much-hyped books of the moment to demonstrate the possibility and hope inherent in all great literature."--Stephen Sparks, Point Reyes Books

"Through its cultural-linguistic contribution to narrative diversity, Milkweed's Seedbank series is a vital tool in imagining the futures possible for humanity beyond the anthropocene. Bringing works from Greek, K'iche', German, Russian (and more!) whose authors are deeply rooted in their homelands, each voice encountered has resonated with me on a seemingly cellular level--shifting and changing both who I am and can be. I will continue to press these books into the hands of compassionate readers and cannot wait to share the forthcoming titles in the project!"--Erin Pineda from 27th Letter Books

"Milkweed as a publishing house has long been championing literary works both fictitious and true to life centered around culture, nature, and environmentalism. The Seedbank series serves as both a marvelous introduction to the books Milkweed provides and as a collection of essential stories that ought to be on everyone's radar. The words behind these front covers highlight life-changing experiences, knowledge, and ways of life from communities that are seldom otherwise heard from in the publishing world through an authentic cultural lens. What I've read from the Seedbank line is phenomenal, and I look forward to spending time with future works in the series."--Andrew King from Secret Garden Books

About the Author

Tim Robinson (1935-2020) studied mathematics at Cambridge and worked for many years as a teacher and visual artist in Istanbul, Vienna, and London. In 1972 he moved to the Aran Islands and in 1986 his first book, Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage, was published to great acclaim. The second volume, Stones of Aran: Labyrinth, appeared in 1995. His Connemara trilogy began in 2006 with Listening to the Wind, which won the Irish Book Award for Nonfiction, and continued with The Last Pool of Darkness and finally A Little Gaelic Kingdom.