... author of The Peregrine, seems to be one of those elusive writers, like B. Traven. But the intrepid Dave Lull has tracked down some information about him:
John Alec Baker
(English writer, 1926-)
Also known as: J. Alec Baker, John Russell Baker, J. A. Baker
Source: Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002.
Entry Updated : 07/16/2001
"Sidelights"
Christopher Wordsworth says of The Peregrine: "This rapt and remarkable
book is the record of a 10 year obsession and a paean to the winter
landscape of East Anglia." Ralph C. Baxter feels that "the genre may be
confusing to define. . . . It probably has to be called the winter
diary of a naturalist--though it is both more and less." Baxter
describes the language as "brutal, hard, Saxon in quality. Yet it is
sharp, crisp, buright, like the fire that Baker perceives glowing in
the breasts of the peregrine falcons (females) and tiercels (males). .
. . The language is perhaps the most poetic prose I have recently read.
. . . It is perhaps Baker's complete readiness to accept the truth of
nature--its uncompromising quality--that makes The Peregrine such a
fantastic book."
"The Hill of Summer," writes Neil Millar, "is not just another nature
book. It is unique, poetic, feeling as well as seeing, built out of a
naturalist's observation and a prose like adolescence: sensitive,
romantic, clear-eyed, gawky, beautiful." Richard Kenneggy notes that
"To read a few pages of The Hill of Summer is like finding there is
still peace on earth."
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Family: Born August 6, 1926, in Chelmsford, Essex, England; son of
Wilfred Samuel (a draftsman) and Pansy (Collis) Baker; married Doreen
Grace Coe, October 6, 1956. c/o William Colins Sons & Co., 14 St. James
Pl., London S.W.1, England. Education: Attended schools in Chelmsford
until seventeen. Politics: None. Religion: Protestant.
AWARDS
Arts Council of Great Britain prose bursary, 1967; Duff Cooper Memorial
Prize, 1968, for The Peregrine.
CAREER
Worked at fourteen "miscellaneous" jobs, 1943-65, including clerk,
schoolteacher, attendant at British Museum Library, and laborer.
WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR:
The Peregrine, Harper, 1967.
The Hill of Summer, Collins, 1969, Harper, 1970.
FURTHER READINGS ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
PERIODICALS
Observer, March 19, 1967;
Times Literary Supplement, June 15, 1967;
Best Sellers, October 1, 1967;
New Yorker, October 28, 1967;
Books and Bookmen, September, 1969;
Christian Science Monitor, February 26, 1970;
Washington Post, March 27, 1970.
SOURCE CITATION
Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2007. Reproduced in Biography
Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
Document Number: H1000004475
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Nice to have some info about him (i just finished The Peregrine, still feel a bit stupefied by how good it is).
ReplyDeleteReads like a glorious dream-like poem; ecologically raw and sharpely accurate...he is the Shakespeare of natural history writing...only Jay Griffiths can claim to come as close today...
ReplyDeleteI hope that you didn't bother to read *The Peregrine*, Frank. I doubt that you would understand it, any more than you would understand, say, Nietzsche.
ReplyDeleteSo, stick to the smug, comfortable little humanism that you extol in a comment on another blog, where you fret about how odd and disturbing Baker must be, since he does not identify wholeheartedly with the human race. Your rush to judgment and narrow-mindedness certainly mark you as a card-carrying member of that species to which you are so proud to belong.
There is new information about J. A.Baker in the recently published:
ReplyDelete'The Peregrine: The Hill of Summer & Diaries',
J. A. Baker (Author), Mark Cocker (Introduction), John Fanshawe (Edit), Colllins, ISBN-10: 0007348622
Some of common myths about Baker are shown to be incorrect. The research of the editor/contributors provides a new insight into the work and the author. Thoroughly recommended.