ABSTRACT
Any pastoral narrative derives a significant part of its relevance from the negative ideal against which its positive ideal is silhouetted. Modern efficiency and commodification of nature, to which the idea of landscape historically emerged as a counterforce, must be identified in a version that is relevant to present life circumstances if a pastoral narrative is to be relevant today. Chapter five takes its departure from the road as the epitome of contemporary everyday landscapes to which today’s pastoral attitude may present an alternative vision. Applying the three previously presented pastoral motives of emergence into appearance, discrepancy and emancipation as narrative tools for analysing three different sites in the vicinity of Oslo, it shows how an organic landscape, a material landscape and an articulated landscape can be presented as contemporary pastoral motifs.
