it should make you reconsider your opinion jenks, if not youre getting complacent. hes a very lazy writer/thinker
Maybe I should ignore the provocation and move on but I do wonder when you were set up as the high priest of this thread. Maybe we should submit our reading lists to you before we undertake to read a book, in case we enjoy the wrong thing.
I am willing to listen to what you might have to say about poetry and David Jones in particular. But there are limits to what i will listen to you about.
However... successfully stung by being called complacent I will say that the sections in The Old Ways which I think are excellent are the first two chapters on the Icknield Way and The Broomway. I must make a special plea for the latter as it is only a few miles from here and his description of walking into into the sea is rather magical.And i grew up very close to the former and reminded me of childhood summers. I am late to the joys of nature walks and couldn't really read a map properly until about fifteen years ago. I cannot tell the difference between many birds and many trees just remain trees, unnameable. But i have enjoyed the writing of Deakin, Crocker, Maybey, Jarman and others on nature and I am learning.
I like the straightforward idea of The Old Ways, I am less keen on the sections where he visits his old chums but his chapter on Edward Thomas and his final chapter on the mysterious appearance of ancient footsteps on Formby beach encapsulates the metaphoric and literal thrust of the book - walking in footsteps and their disappearances. So it might not be the most remarkable insight but he follows it through all the way - picking up on the ancientness of things, connecting now and then and doing it all through walking.
I don't think he is a lazy writer, he may well be a little too florid for your liking but I think people like Lovecraft are shockingly bad writers but are lauded here. You obviously don't like him but it is not a character deficiency in me to like him.