Sunken Lands, the new book by Gareth E. Rees may be one of those that forms a quandary for bookshop staff – just what shelf should it be placed on? For within its pages it covers a wealth of terrain (mostly of the moist or entirely saturated variety). Is it a folklore and legend book? A travel and history book? Psychogeographical philosophy? Natural History/Conservation? Occulture and Mystery? Part-Memoir? It is a blend of all these things, but it is a smooth fusion rather than hotch-potch. If pushed I would place it on the Environmentalism shelf I think, for its core I feel is Rees’ interest, anxiety and contemplation of the lands lost to the waves, those currently in that flux and those destined to sink beneath the sea. As such it won’t be a book that is favoured by Climate Change deniers (but in that particular demographic there seems to be an intersection of those that would tend to ban books rather than read them). But it is not a dry book, well considering the subject matter, it couldn’t be – but delivers the concerns in wide contemplative arcs. The chapters begin with flood myths and legends of varied cultures and then in an apt rendition of the psychogeographical wandering term ‘drift’ into diverse topics and places. So within its pages we encounter sunken forests and towns, places smote by the wrath of the gods and dwellings that battle whenever heavy rains fall or the waves rise.
We are taken to various places, some accessible still and visited in person by Rees and others that are lost to people but home now to aquatic life and others still whose existence is either folk-memory or from the depths of the imagination. We are taken to the Lowland Hundred of Wales, the ruins of decadent Baiae in the shadow of Neapolitan volcanoes, the lost worlds of Ys, Lemuria, Lyonesse and of course Atlantis. We witness the tragedy of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and of the Pacific islands encroached upon by the rising ocean. For company we travel with such diverse figures as David Bowie, Francis Bacon, Madame Blavatsky, Mark Fisher, numerous indigenous societies, Edgar Cayce, Sun Ra, Lord Krishna, Voodoo Queen Julia Brown, Hawkwind, Aleister Crowley (He whom seems to get everywhere!) and many more beside. Mostly though we are in the company of Rees himself, whose presence is integral in the book for you can tell that this isn’t just something he thought would be interesting to write about, but something that he personally feels very deeply about.

Sunken Lands: A Journey Through Flooded Kingdoms and Lost Worlds

By: Gareth E. Rees

ISBN: 9781783967698

eBook ISBN: 9781783967704

Cover: Hardback

Published: March 21, 2024

Size: 216x138mm

Page Count: 272

Reviewed by Andy Paciorek