I think we have relationships with places like we have relationships with people. Love, hate, complexity, history, baggage, emotion, confusion. This may be the first of some reviews I do of books that explore our relationships with place. Sea Room is a book about a man’s relationship with three islands he owns on the west coast of Scotland, called the Shiants (say “shants”), less than a square mile of rock, grass, beach, seabirds, rats, sheep, and remains of human settlements, dating back hundreds of years.
Makes Bolingbrook seem a bit ho-hum, doesn’t it? But the way Nicolson chronicles these islands makes me feel I have a partner in crime, thinking of this blog and my self-appointed quest to explore the suburb of Bolingbrook as a place with identity, history, and maybe even some mystery. I admit, ocean views, archaeological digs, puffins, shipwrecks, and British history are somewhat more romantic than decaying farms, parking lots, new construction, warehouses, and cornfields. Any traces of ancient history, via the Indians who lived here before Europeans cleared and settled the area, seem to have been erased, although maybe I shouldn’t assume that.
In any case, Adam Nicolson has done a lot more homework than I have. He writes chapters on everything about his islands. The slowest chapter for me was on their geology: how the Shiants arose from the seabeds and tectonic plates, the kind of rock they’re made of. Can’t say I’m ever going to write you an account of the soil and rock underneath the Village of Bolingbrook. He also tells many, many stories about the people who’ve lived on the islands and the surrounding Scottish isles, tracing British history through accounts of early Christian hermits, Viking raids, peasant farmers, the clearances, shipwrecks, tragic deaths, clan warfare, class tensions, and a reclusive 19th century family who lived on the Shiants for decades then left the very same day the family matriarch died.
Not sure I can ever make Bolingbrook as intriguing as the Western Isles, but Adam Nicolson inspires me.
