'A beautiful and profound meditation on the way landscape shapes art and life. I was entranced by The White Birch, a book that comes close to encapsulating the vast enigma of Russia in the form of a single tree' Alex Preston, author of Winchelsea and As Kingfishers Catch Fire
The birch. Genus Betula. One of the northern hemisphere's most widespread and easily recognisable trees, and Russia's unofficial national emblem.
From Catherine the Great's garden follies and Tolstoy's favourite chair to the Chernobyl exclusion zone and drunken nights in Moscow, art critic Tom Jeffreys leads us across Russia's diverse land to understand its dramatically shifting identity. As we walk through lost landscapes, discover historic artworks, explore the secret online world of Russian brides, and relive encounters between some of Russia's greatest artists and writers, we uncover a myriad of overlapping meanings surrounding the humble birch tree.
Curious, resonant and idiosyncratic, The White Birch is a unique collection of journeys that grapples with the riddle of Russianness.
'A beautiful and profound meditation on the way landscape shapes art and life. I was entranced by The White Birch, a book that comes close to encapsulating the vast enigma of Russia in the form of a single tree' Alex Preston
The birch. Genus Betula. One of the northern hemisphere's most widespread and easily recognisable trees, and Russia's unofficial national emblem.
From Catherine the Great's garden follies and Tolstoy's favourite chair to the Chernobyl exclusion zone and drunken nights in Moscow, art critic Tom Jeffreys leads us across Russia's diverse land to understand its dramatically shifting identity. As we walk through lost landscapes, discover historic artworks, explore the secret online world of Russian brides, and relive encounters between some of Russia's greatest artists and writers, we uncover a myriad of overlapping meanings surrounding the humble birch tree.
Curious, resonant and idiosyncratic, The White Birch is a unique collection of journeys that grapples with the riddle of Russianness.
'I love this book. Jeffreys admits he doesn't know where he's going at every turn, but trusts his instinct - and his ear for a good story - as he tries to untangle myth from fact . . . This is the great joy of The White Birch' Mark Hooper, Caught by the River
'With elegance, humour, and deep insight . . . The White Birch is a daring, at once sympathetic and critical, experiment in interpreting how national identity is entwined with a tree'
Michael Marder, author of Plant-Thinking and The Chernobyl Herbarium
'The White Birch may be an ostensible study of a single species of tree. But as shown, it's a lot more ambitious. Jeffreys positions himself as an obsessive slavophile and a blundering botanist, rather than a world authority on Russia. Who could be such a thing!? As a result one is very happy to enjoy this self-reflexive journey, some most erudite travel writing about a most fascinating land.'
