Book of a Lifetime: The Peregrine by JA Baker

From The Independent archive: Adam Foulds on ‘The Peregrine’ by J A Baker

The project is announced in the opening pages: to follow peregrines in one small area of the Essex coast from autumn through to spring (Getty)

Very little is known about John Alec Baker. Born in 1926, he was a librarian, lived in Essex and wrote two books about its wildlife. We know that he has died although not exactly when. This dim biographical silhouette contrasts with the blazing intensity of the work. The Peregrine is increasingly recognised as one of the masterpieces of 20th-century prose. It’s a book I find deeply restorative and one I often give to friends as a gift. Its power derives in part from its simplicity of form. The project is announced in the opening pages: to follow peregrines in one small area of the Essex coast from autumn through to spring. The motivation seems double, both to pursue a fascination with the birds and to get far away from people, “to let the human taint wash away in emptiness and silence”.

An essay on the peregrine inaugurates the mesmerising process of entering its world (”Like the seafarer, the peregrine lives in a pouring-away world of no attachment, a world of wakes and tilting, of sinking planes of land and water”). Thereafter it takes the form of a diary. He spends day after day out in the landscape, in the changing light, observing, following. His senses sharpen, his noticings grow more acute as he sinks into the animal’s world: “I shut my eyes and tried to crystallise my will into the light-drenched prism of the hawk’s mind.”

(Handout)