Growing up somewhere in the proximity of hills, if not that hilly itself, I find totally flat places somewhat unnerving. I'm not sure I could ever get used to living in rural Lincolnshire or the Fens, for instance.
However, this piece by Noreen Masud not only does a decent job of explaining that feeling of being unnerved - it's to do with vulnerability and exposure, she suggests, because such places "trouble our sense of our own importance, and our confidence about how we interact with our environments" - but also makes a poetic case for their understated beauty and seductive appeal.
I might not be totally convinced, but consider me sufficiently swayed to conclude that Masud's book A Flat Place may well be worthy of further investigation.
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