Ponies At The Edge Of The World: On nature, belonging and finding home

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Catherine Munro’s wondrous book is in a particular genre I adore, when it is done well. And this is. The genre is factual, often about history, the natural world, the arts – but what is special is that the author, however well researched and informative they are, observe their own involvement and engagement with the subject being written about, The Shetland isles and Shetland ponies, the double-down dream, woven with admiration, the narrator's craft, and some healthy, clear-eyed insight. I damn loved it' John Lewis-Stempel, bestselling author of MEADOWLAND

A meditation on connection between humans and animals, and the homes we make in wild places. I was completely immersed in this remote landscape' Katherine May, bestselling author of WINTERING We are almost half way through the year and this has definitely been one of the stand out reads for me so far in 2022. ‘The Ponies at the Edge of the World’ is an ethnography on Shetland’s Shetland Ponies. The book explores themes of belonging, roots and community, tradition, our relationship to the land (and sea) as well as our relationship to animals and their relationship to us. Memories of books read long ago and relationships that ended return to haunt the narrator of this prize-winning Swedish novel when she is laid low with a fever. Often, they’re inextricably linked: a copy of Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy, for instance, is inscribed to her girlfriend, while a waterlogged copy of Birgitta Trotzig’s The Marsh King’s Daughter is all that remains of her friendship with former housemate Niki. The nonlinear narrative renders the protagonist both vivid and obscure – the perfect conduit for this compelling, uncannily precise meditation on transience. Uprooting I had this on my wishlist and then when I did buy it I wondered whether I would take to it. In the event I found it a thought provoking and enjoyable read. Against Munro’s journey to understand the ponies is set her own desire to have a family. When tragedy hits it is the natural world and the animals that inhabit it that provide the comfort and hope she needs to move forward.

Books by Catherine

Intelligent in observation and precise and elegant in her writing, Catherine Munro shows how people and animals live and respond to each other, particularly in island communities like Shetland. She shows great insight into the way both the seasons and the sea's strong winds affect people in places like these' Donald S Murray, author of In a Veil of Mist

The author, an anthropologist, transports you to Shetland with her descriptions of the landscape in beautiful language. I'm not a horse person particularly, but I live close to an area where ponies roam freely so they are commonplace in the environment around me. I hoped that this book would not be exclusively based on the ponies but would be more a memoir style account of the experience living in the Shetland Isles - it is exactly that. There is an enormous sense of place, of the community that welcomed the writer and the nature and landscape around her. I loved the observations of wildlife - otters, seals and birdlife and also the story of the adopted lamb or caddy.Despite vivid descriptions, I found myself Googling areas to gain better understanding of the landscape and locations. Some photos, maps or a few sketches would’ve really helped. The central themes of the book about relationships between people and their 'domestic' animals are absorbing, though I did think they got a little repetitive towards the end. As a birder I noticed some of the ornithological comments were incorrect and would have benefited from sub-editing. I'm not best placed to comment on the experience of miscarriage but that part of the narrative gave me some insight into that and recovering from it. I spend some time each year on Shetland, particularly on Foula which features as a whole chapter of this book, and Out Skerries which is often accessed via Whalsay where most of the other chapters are based. I found the observations about Shetland as a whole and specific islands to be perceptive. Any reader of the book taking to the description of Foula is recommended to visit, it really is as unique as it comes across. This appears to me to be a particularly female approach (though there are of course also wonderful male writers who also engage in this way. Andrew Grieg and Robert MacFarlane spring immediately to mind.