Beth Bonini's Reviews > Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

4.5 stars

At its base, this is not a book about beauty, but about reality. It is about noticing what's going on, and living it. That's what the natural world does: it carries on surviving. Sometimes it flourishes - lays on fat, garlands itself in leaves, makes abundant honey - and sometimes it pares back to the very basics of existence in order to keep living. It doesn't do this once, resentfully, assuming that one day it will get things right and everything will smooth out. It winters in cycles, again and again, forever and ever. For plants and animals, winter is part of the job. The same is true for humans.

Near the very end of this book, the author confesses that when she had conceptualised writing about 'winter' (and the physical/emotional/philosophical state of 'wintering'), she had intended on visiting 'exotic' locations and interviewing people who struggled with and survived 'extreme' winter. I suspect she was referring to temperature, and not winter in its more metaphorical sense. But then, as she admits ruefully, 'life happened': bad health, unhappiness, career shifts, money worries, depression, insecurity. At these nadirs - and there is no escaping them, which is the entire point of this book - a form of hunkering down and hibernation is required. Life has to be pared back to the minimum. We enter survival mode - which can be brutal, or comforting and cosseting. This survival mode, this paring back to essentials, is what the author broadly describes as 'wintering'.

I read this book in January, during the long Coronavirus year of 2020/2021. At the time of writing, London has been in Lockdown for nearly three months with no end in sight. A 'best-case scenario' (that I read in The Times today) suggests we might start emerging from Lockdown in May. Truly, there is the sense of hunkering down, or hibernation, of survival mode. It is frightening to think of the uncertain future, and yet there are times when the future is almost all I can think of. It is very tempting to get into the mindset of: when Lockdown is over, I can begin to (travel), (have fun), (see friends), experience life again. As this book reminds us, life is now. Life is only ever in this moment.

I like this author very much for her vulnerability and honesty. Although this book covers wintering topics related to sociology, myth, nature writing, science and literature, at nearly all times this is a work of memoir. She offers up her own experience - including moments of frailty and mental anguish - to expound on her topic.

Something which will definitely stick with me is a reference to the philosopher Alan Watts and his book The Wisdom of Insecurity.

Watts makes a case that always convinces me, but which I always seem to forget: that life is, by nature, uncontrollable. That we should stop trying to finalise our comfort and security somehow, and instead find a radical acceptance of the endless, unpredictable change that is the very essence of this life.

This struck me as an important thought to hold in my mind, but what really resonated was the author's admission that she can never hold onto this thought for very long. She has to learn it over and over again. As do I. As do most of us, I suspect.

I don't know if I would be particularly drawn to this book in summer - not just the actual season, but also in the sense of when life is going well - but it was absolutely 'the right book at the right time' in January 2021.