The Idea of North

The book also traces a northward journey, describing northern rural England, industrial sites, and the long emptiness of the borders, Scotland and the Highlands. He looks at the region far north of Scotland, then moves to the Northern Netherlands and Scandinavia to explore their identifiable northernness.The last visited place is Iceland, identified by W.H. Auden and Louis McNeice in 1936 as furthest, most remote, most distant, most northerly'. An engaging meditation on solitude, absence and stillness, "The Idea of North" shows north to be a goal rather than a destination, a place of revelation that is always somewhere ultimate and austere.