How to Catch a Mole: And Find Yourself in Nature

How to catch a mole, life as a molecatcher. Written in the season of catching moles, instead of catching moles. I think the only certainty I can give you about this book is that by the end you will know a lot more about moles.

There came a day when professional gardener and molecatcher (and longtime vegetarian; “life is rarely as neat and tidy as we would like”) Marc Hamer decided he had killed his last mole. Finding himself in his twilight years, and being the sort to wander with a stub of pencil in his pocket to capture the words and phrases that conjure themselves in the air around him, Hamer decided to start writing about catching moles instead of spending his time in the execution of his ancient and arcane craft. Combining nature writing, philosophy, and memoir, How to Catch a Mole is a quiet story of a quiet life, and the match of style to substance makes for a gentle and engaging read; would that we all could craft such an extraordinary artefact from our ordinary lives. [Note: I read an ARC and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.]

Hamer begins with a prologue recalling his decision to retire as a molecatcher and then the meat of the narrative commences. Each chapter begins with the continuing story of his last days as a molecatcher, includes some facts and lore about moles, chronicles earlier events from his life (primarily his time as a homeless youth who learned to live close to nature), includes some ink and woodcut type illustrations (by Joe McLaren) and ends with a related poem. Hamer's voice and wisdom are the real delight here (this is no astonishing or action-packed biography) and I'll let him do most of the talking here by way of demonstration. A snippet of one of his poems:

My body is working
my mind is idling
man-shaped, pig-like
I'm snuffling, bent
I've leaving booted footprints
in the crystalline grass
and I want to swim
to hang motionless
alone in a loch
my back tattooed with clouds
with seagulls squeaky
wheeling overhead.

A sample of mole-related facts:

Moles are immensely strong. His massive hands, each of which have two thumbs, are as wide as his head. He has a thick knot of muscle in his neck and shoulders which is as hard as a pebble. I am a working man who lives by the spade and a mole's hands are stronger than mine: a living mole can easily peel my closed fingers apart and escape.

And mole lore:

I have heard stories of moles going deep, of a sexton seeing a mole running across the bottom of an empty grave – it's a story that I have heard several times, but never from anyone who has actually seen it. The world runs on fiction.

And an example of Hamer's nature-derived philosophy:

In quiet moments like this, there is a sense of completeness: nothing else is needed to make them whole and perfect. I start my work, looking down the field. I go quiet inside; the silence seems to pour out, filling any cracks or flaws in the perfection. Once you experience this feeling of simply existing you lose the need to ask why you exist.

And what he has learned at the end of the day:

I do not know what life is, but I know what it does. Molecatching has been a life that has brought me closer to the nature of my own existence, and what it means. It has allowed me to treat the wild outside as a precious home, instead of something one is cast out into. To feel directly connected to the breath of the air that fuels me, to the soil and the sun and the rain that feed me. It has made me fit and healthy and peaceful. That connection with the earth is now part of every cell of my body, but I need to rest.

How to Catch a Mole may not be every reader's cuppa tea, but I found it lovely, wise, and candid; a memoir that feels inevitable in the smooth meshing of its various parts.