Why We’re Drawn Into Darkness

Robert Macfarlane grew up obsessed with climbing mountains and nearly died on several occasions as he scaled some of the world’s high peaks. He found a safer way to indulge his alpine passions, writing about the mystique of mountains. As someone drawn to great heights, it might seem odd to discover where Macfarlane landed in his new book, Underland, burrowing under the earth’s surface into caves, mines, shafts inside glaciers, even the catacombs underneath Paris.

For Macfarlane, one of England’s most celebrated nature writers, the underworld has its own deadly allure. It’s the repository of nuclear waste sites and burial chambers, both a dumping ground and the portal into otherworldly realms. Passing through darkness becomes a precondition for gaining insight.

Armchair traveling isn’t Macfarlane’s style, so he ventures into these subterranean places, often with guides and sometimes at considerable risk. When he first set out on this project, he wasn’t sure he was up to the task of spending all this time underground. So he called an old friend who’s both a climber and caver, and asked him, “Take