Observation + Repetition

When I heard Werner Herzog say that J.A. Baker’s The Peregrine is required reading for all students at his Rogue Film School, I had to check it out. What a timely little literary gem — we’re all working from home, schooling from home, and barely traveling. Most of us have been in the same environments with the same people, day after day since March. It’s a dystopian version of Groundhog Day.

In 1967, J.A. Baker created his own kind of ornithological quarantine, spending several years alone, exploring a small part of the English countryside to observe and write about birds, specifically the Peregrine Falcon. His environment was small and fixed, and his subject didn’t change, yet he continually found new ways to observe, and to put those observations into some of the most beautifully constructed sentences I’ve ever read. 

While the book, by design, is incredibly repetitive — Baker ventures out daily (by bike) to look for Peregrines — I was struck by his consistency, and also his unfailing ability to rearrange his words into fresh and unexpected prose. Seriously, how many times can this guy write about the same bird, doing the same thing? But I kept turning pages because the book had transformed into a high wire act — how much longer can he balance on his literary tightrope before he falls?  

Through this process of observation and repetition, Baker completes his high wire act, and eventually becomes one with the Peregrine. And we are reminded of the transformative power of paying close attention, even when we believe nothing is changing.