Going Away To Think 9780874177565, 2008014521

Citation preview

Scott Slovic

Going Away to Think Hi

Engagement, Retreat, and Ecocritical Responsibility

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Boston Public Library Boston, MA 02116

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and

retreat result in “torment''?

1

would modify White's eloquent summary of

the writer's

dilemma by

and

hoping to draw upon each impulse

to save,

Especially

when

inspiration. Like

saying, for myself:

the world

many

is

people,

burning,

I

arise in the in

we need

morning eager

support of the other.

my work.

In the title essay

and

places to turn for solace

often turn to books, such as Terry Tempest

I

Williams’s An Unspoken Hunger and Robert Hass's Twentieth Century

of which have long inspired

to savor

me and

have served, perhaps

from An Unspoken

Pleasures,

obliquely, as

both

models for

Hunger, Williams writes:

We smother the avocado with salsa, hot chiles at noon in

the desert

We look at each other and

smile, eating avocados with sharp silver blades, risking the blood of our tongues repeatedly. ( 79 )

Those

lines

The

imply the inextricability of appetite, community, and danger.

speaker and her companion enjoy a noontime meal of avocados and

salsa,

eaten from the blade of a knife, a smile offered between mouthfuls. What's risked

is

the blood of their

tongues,

Throughout the eighteen brief

their organs of articulation, of language.

essays in Williams's book,

we encounter

the

alternation of passionate sensation and emotionally risky social committedness,

ranging from the

War.

My own

title

piece to “A Patriot’s journal," a response to the 1991 Gulf

essays in this

book and elsewhere

are also, without exception,

derived from varying combinations of excitement and beauty and danger

and

fear.

Sometimes these conditions

are fully evident in the content of the

mangrove lagoon of

narratives, such as a nighttime crocodile survey in the

La Manzanilla or a solitary hike

among

tilting

Douglas

fir

Oregon’s Andrews Experimental forest. Other times the

my work — the

thrill

—

is

more

about the invasion of Iraq by

cerebral,

U S.

more

forces in

“widowmakers”

risk associated

subtle, as in the case

2003 (not

of

a

in

with

speech

collected here), delivered

GOING AWAY TO THINK roomful of pro-war and anti-war

to a

policemen and police dogs.

An Unspoken

revealed in

delicately in the

Former

work

and

Life has flavor,

try to

do

life

as

an

ecocritic.

Robert Hass’s beautiful collection of

U.S. poet laureate

essays. Twentieth Century Pleasures, also hovers in the

world

to engage myself with the

and

as

and

my

I

have

it

art,

in

about the

mind

that,

flesh

strive

“issues,"

order to gain perspective on myself

during the Vietnam War, one of the inventions of American technology

bomb

and lodged

fact that

human

on the

inventions

available,

but

capacity for creation that

I

At other times

have thought about the fact that

1

And

it

seems to

me

then

and technes on the side of death Durable and

half discovered

humans have — and

human

technes,

life

just think

and half invented from the materials the

think that they were also the result of an active and attentive that a poetry' that

makes

fresh

and

resilient

forms

(132-33)

alive.

condition requires coming to terms, in Hass’s words,

with “technes on the side of inventions, or

it.

I

— tragedy, restaurants that stay open late at night, holding hands,

extends the possibilities of being

Appreciating the

could not be found by an X-ray. Often

side of

were probably

the edible artichoke

world makes

in the body,

people just the way the rhythms of poetry do.

that there really are technes life-giving

that contained sharp fragments of plastic which, having torn

some person created

bomb works on

apply

I

invention:

through the

We

as

with a reflection on the horrific and exquisite extremes of

was a small antipersonnel

the

my mind

critical

work. Hass concludes his essay “Listening and Making," devoted to the

magic of poetic

human

back of

and with the world's troubling

itself

strive to disengage myself, to retreat, in

1

has risk— the paradigm

combination of pleasure and danger, operates

Hunger, the I

with uniformed

activists in a hall ringed

life

are not in

and technes on the side of death."

and of themselves

are an inventive, imaginative species

— this

intrinsically

is

Human

good or bad.

our nature. But we can

our minds and our physical energy in sustaining or destructive ways.

has always

seemed

to

me

literary scholarship that

that

most of what we

was named

became an energetic movement

in

in the

1978 by

resilient

6

it

critic

William Rueckert and that

examines have sought,

life.

as

Both the scholarship and the

Hass puts

it,

to

forms" in order to extend “the possibilities of being

I

branch of

United States and internationally during

the 1980s and ’90s, tries to be “on the side of

poetry and prose

call “ecocriticism,” a

It

make

“fresh

and

alive.” Hass’s essay

Savoring, Saving, and Ecocritical Responsibility

collection weaves together personal images

book

on

to

is

combine

social issues

research,

cell

narratives of engagement

ranging from urban sprawl

to

with profiles of admired

stories

commentary on the genre of poetry.

poets and theoretical this

and

global

in

and

my goal

Likewise,

retreat;

pronouncements

the American

West

to stem-

commerce; commentaries on the work of major

environmental writers and

literary scholars;

and more theoretical treatments

of the connections between ecocriticism, environmental

literature,

and public

way of

policy and the use of narrative discourse in environmental writing as a

overcoming the emotionally numbing

I

in

effects

my

mentioned above that

of statistical data.

essay

on biotech chimeras

led

me

to

contemplate the widely shared ambivalence toward the mixing of unalike things in in

my culture. For whatever reason, have actually seldom felt this ambivalence my own life, instead heartily appreciating every opportunity to interact 1

new

with different kinds of people, learn

new of

As an academic administrator (head

foods.

UNRs Center

for

new

languages, see

landscapes, cat

for the better part of a decade

Environmental Arts and Humanities),

I

delighted in

organizing forums for interdisciplinary discussions of scholarly and practical topics, bringing together biologists

geographers.

Much of my own

and photographers, anthropologists and

research has resulted from collaborations with

social scientists, natural scientists, journalists,

and full-time creative

home

the fact of

Assembling

this collection,

nature— my

love for narrative prose as well as analytical

other writers’ work, and

mind both

to pull back

however, brings

my

how important

sense of

and ask big questions and

it

is

writers.

my own

hybrid

commentary about for the

to charge in

life

of the

and grapple with

pressing issues of the day. Life has flavor,

and

places and beautiful

sense of risk

may be

life

has

risks.

My

sense of delight in experiencing

words should be amply less visible,

but

it’s

clear in the following essays.

own

books,

try

Credo

The

implicit in the process of writing (and

speaking publicly) about various emotionally charged issues and even detailed profiles of writers (the

new

in

writing

portraits) for inclusion in the writers’

ing to strike an appropriate balance between appreciation and

analytical discussion.

GOING AWAY TO THINK To those who regard and the

for aesthetes is

problems

come

socially disengaged,

— and

literary criticism the

The

to understand.

textual analysis, restricted stories

tell

to

about

life.

critic

James

own

its

denude

to

it

S.

Hans put

Philosophy

is

about

learn.

ideas. Life

The

in

and

Value(s) of Literature,

of its crucial links to the other systems that

And

Along these

that

is

nature writer

lines,

recalls in Riverwalking

beginning graduate student with a professor

need to

it

issues

discrete space, so to limit our discussions of

and philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore

will

what we

not quarantined in the realm of

is

to articulate our sense of values” (5).

one thing you

for articulating

from striking out to take stands on public

As the

its ‘literariness’ is

combine

a

to argue otherwise. Literature

mechanism

“literary critic”

“literature does not exist in it

hope

I

useless enterprise

through which we’re able to sharpen our understanding of the world's

a lens

vital

and

literary scholarship as a delicate

her encounter as

who admonished

that philosophy

is

her:

“There

not about

and ideas are not the same.” Years

later,

is

life.

Moore

wrote:

I

never doubted him.

never entered life

— or that

I

Shame

my mind

felt in full

I

that a philosophy professor might be

view of

writers

read and admire

and language takes

life

Mas Masumoto, Simon

— from

Ortiz,

).

Moore

its

“set

like

possibility

of definitions. (140—41)

set

herself,

and dozens

The

wrong about philosophy, or about

might have had the power to make a different

My own 1

measure. Stupidity But never doubt

of definitions” from the

from Barry Lopez, David

them. From their serious and

entertaining immersion in both the abstract realm of ideas and politics and the visceral realm of experience. of meditations

The

following essays are an extended series

on and demonstrations of engagement,

responsibility, built

upon

the premise that

life,

retreat,

and

ecocritical

language, and ideas inevitably

intersect.

Biologist for

life

Edward O. Wilson used the term

he ascribes to

all

beings;

“biophilia” to describe the affinity

Abraham Maslow

cast this in a psychological

context, writing about “peak experiences” as “both the sign actualization” (Marshall, Peak Experiences 164); live

deep and suck out

ideas, biophilia

8

I

all

the

Henry David Thoreau “wanted

marrow of life” ( Walden

and peak experience and

and the goal of self'

91).

living deep, are

For me,

all

to

of these

subsumed within the

Savoring, Saving, and Ecocritical Responsibility

twin impulses of life-savoring and life-saving.

book

When June

and explores through

displays

at the

Spartanburg. South Carolina.

in

opening plenary session of the

McKibben

Bill

emphasis on the emotions that propel him through activism: fear, guilt, sadness,

nodded

that evening

When

and

resolve.

their heads, as

essay collection, too, draws

I

I

of writing and

his life

suspect that

many

in the

did, at this familiar catalog

upon these very feelings

placed strong

audience

of moods. This

in fluctuating

combinations.

any of us “go away to think," when we climb into our cars or board an

airplane,

we

re likely to

be silencing the guilty inner voices reminding us about

the implications of “burning dinosaurs" in order to to place. But his lecture,

.

we

.

I

but this guilt develops into resolve

.

try to

Whether we texts,

travel.

the Association for the Study of Literature and

2007 conference of

Environment

are the compulsions this

of reading and

stories

he addressed the large crowd

They

“make our

travel

agree that

a tag

seek to

in

make our

to them.

I

hope

McKibben argued

efforts count,

of self-identifying graffiti:

be inspired to recommit themselves to the

most

as

in

planes or travel mentally through

encounter the stories of engagement and retreat

that matter

if,

ourselves from place

count for something.”

through the sky

we should

something more than

travel

move

they'll

responsive and responsible citizenship.

“

I

make them mean

When others

was here."

in this

book,

I

issues, places, people,

seek to live up to their

hope

they’ll

and writings

own

visions of

Going Away

Think

to

TRAVEL, HOME, AND THE ACADEMIC LIFE

I

how

find myself constantly impressed with

quickly the

mum

sensational world compresses itself into sameness and danity,

structure of every day.

how

easily

Whatever

to revivify experience, to bring

Like

many people

delight in the

life

it

our species etches routine tedium into the

takes,

my mind

to

my

light switch,

when

I

may

well be

.

.

whatever

worth the

artists chief

it

takes

cost.

among them,

love-hate relationship with the office,

find myself often seduced by the lure of

the spell that occurs

life,

academics and

in the world,

of the mind. In

think to myself.

I

my

book-filled

lair,

enter Frandsen Htimanities

1

I

knowing deeply

Room

038, hit the

and then turn on the gleaming white dome of the eMac.

It is

quite

possible to lose entire days staring into the screen of the machine, absorbed in

words and

and

ideas, translating life

life’s

intuitions into text.

Even for a

scholar fondly devoted to the world beyond the words, the temptation to

perch in a semidarkened room staring for

overwhelming, seemingly unavoidable.

many hours

And

yet

at a

sometimes

computer it

is

often

seems not to be

enough.

I

write these words in

rustic casita in

La Manzanilla,

March 2004,

Jalisco,

Earthwatch program coordinated by

sitting

Mexico, where

my Ph

I

on the porch

am

of

my

participating in an

D. student Jerry Keir, director of

Going Away

to

Think

the Great Basin Institute. Halt a dozen volunteers and university students and a similar

week

number of Guadalajara-based

crocodile censuses and studies.

humid

man bodysurf amid

I

squint into the sun as

sea breeze. Families walk past

Dogs wrestle

feet away.

jellyfish

and

on the beach, one hundred

stingrays, oblivious all

day.

the tropical sea as afternoon passes into evening, and

dazzling sun corresponds to I

here

all

tropics

even

this extraordinary

the time, as

seem

difficulty in

my properly bedazzled

I

watch an elderly

of the painful presence

The sun

my

lowers beyond

squint tightens.

mind. “You are not

in

The

Reno

myself.

tell

In truth,

together for the

write these words,

I

and jetsam.

for control of flotsam

of the creatures that have been washing ashore

anymore,"

come

“Mexican Mangroves and Wildlife" and to conduct bird and

to discuss

savoring the

ecologists have

to

many

scene would become ordinary

I

lived

do. In fact, Jerry Keir points out the fact that the

among

induce such torpor

accomplishing

if

his

residents

that he

anticipates

conservation objectives. Neither the locals nor

the ex-patriots can be roused easily to activism on behalf of mangrove swamps,

threatened crocs, or endangered sea

turtles.

But torpor has not yet addled me, reduced

My flight

touched down

in

Manzanillo

arrived here at the beachside camp, until

morning.

it

just

me

to a condition of unawareness.

twenty-four hours ago, and

was so dark that

all

had no inkling of the glinting Tenacatita Bay, the palm-lined

I

thatched -roof hut and trotted to the surf for

academic, this sort of experience

merely the

is

self-satisfied

A V-shaped

how does

this contribute to “thought,” to

me

left

the

work?

pleasures.

And

are these

musings of a privileged traveler?

overhead. There are

above the fracas of the pelicans and

accompanied

I

run. For me, as an

beauty— is one of the ultimate

with

large, black frigate bird,

tail, flies

my morning

when

— arriving in a new place at dusk and waking

to an astonishing world of unfamiliar

question

I

remained mysterious

beaches, or the pelicans and terns diving for fish until dawn,

The

when

noticeably arced wings and

many of these

gulls.

to this week’s program,

its

birds here, circling high

Ornithologist Al Gubanich,

tells

me

who

has

that the frigate birds scavenge

GOING AWAY TO THINK and

make

steal to

from the industry of other

their living, benefiting

sometimes wonder

if

much

academics do

sweep of reality, allowing others

the

to struggle through

pick up the pieces and offer hazy explanations.

months

Several Australia,

I

same

and then descending

frigate birds

the literary world: those

who

to

of the species.

of nature writers in

ago, while speaking at a gathering

found myself referring to

I

thing, hovering over the

life,

The

birds.

wheel” of

literary critics as the “third

provide context and commentary for “texts,”

while others experience the world directly and render that experience in rich

and riveting words. important, and yet

I

it

of engagement and

doesn’t quite

seem enough.

do both personal

essays

close,

and formal,

is

love the telescoping process

I

The

conscious living and detached contemplation.

retreat,

rhythm — coming

attractions of this to

believe the contextualizing perspective of the scholar

going away

— may be what induce me sometimes

analytical “scholarly writing,”

combining the two

in so-called “narrative scholarship.”

parallels the process

of “going away to think” and then coming

Perhaps this rhythm

home

to see the

familiar anew.

My I

reflexive

comparison of academics and

frigate birds

do think some kinds of academic work are exploitative and and

also recognize the idealism justice

— that

can drive intellectual work.

Richard White's well-known

Work

for a Living?” (171)

Literary Critic or to Society? for a living."

I

selflessness

do I

.

essay,

Do You Work for a

I

the warning not to

take to heart the

I

rephrase

Living,

title

in

my

of historian

Contribute Meaningfully

his forceful

agree.

complaint against

And yet

1

self-satisfied, oblivious

mob

below,

the flock of literary critics serves the rest of

Do You

mind: “Are You a

and suffering of others, of different ways of knowing and expressing.

how

I

— and literary critics — “work

and arrogance— would

become complacent and

it

Do You

White — despite

the elegant frigate birds floating free of the

But

— the taste for beauty, elegance, and

actually believe environmentalists

self-righteousness, privilege,

self-serving.

“Are You an Environmentalist or

Sometimes

suspect Richard

only half sincere.

is

its

1

appreciate

of the

When

1

toil

see

find myself wondering

species and, indeed, serv es

the planet. Travel can shake us free from accepted routine and enable us to use

metaphor

I

as a tool

of self-examination and

critique.

Going Away

Name Had a

it

one

occurred to her,

activity

Think

your mother would have forbidden you to do.

down

probably would have been the following. Walk

it

swamp

dusty lightless road in rural Mexico next to a mangrove

Hop aboard And then launch

to

filled

with

and three

crocodiles.

a small metal boat with a local biologist

triends.

out into the steamy darkness, headlamps on, searching the signs of floating dinosaurs.

for red beads in the blackness

Last night

my

colleague Al Gubanich and

I

joined Paulino

Campos and

his

colleague Rudolfo of the conservation group Bosque Tropical on a nighttime

swamp of La

crocodile survey in the white mangrove

over a small wire fence to reach the into the brackish water,

March evening,

even to be out on of this kind would

We

defy'

maintained

this

dots, like cigarette ends.

was not an

dark body of water

a

a

shoved off from the fecal-smelling bank

and paddled our way into the middle of the

Here and there we saw red a cool,

skiff,

We clambered

Manzanilla.

first

lagoon.

At about eight-thirty on

ideal night for crocodile in pitch black night

viewing

— but

with a single animal

the fiercest warning of one’s mother.

calm chatter

as

we

drifted further into the

swamp, staying

center of the water to achieve the best possible view of each bank.

in the

begun the

Eventually, Paulino, who'd

places with Rudolfo and used a

trip in the rear

headlamp to spot

mangroves. Again and again, he exclaimed practiced eyes noticing

marveled

at the

life

where the

with an oar in hand, traded

“crocs’’

hiding in the shoreline

— “There’s a croc!

rest

I

see another’’

— his

of us observed only empty space.

discernment of experienced eyes

in contrast to

We

our novitiate

blindness. Eventually, near the site

velopment of

where

local

people are contemplating the de-

a crocodile farm, Paulino caught sight of a small croc near the

bank, leaned forward from the front of the boat, and grabbed the eight-

month-old animal lily.

We

in his

bare hands as easily as

it

might have snagged

water

a

spent twenty minutes measuring and examining the hapless animal.

was struck by the softness of the saurian skin as if

I

was wearing

a suit

of armor, and yet

— the half-meter juvenile

it felt

like soft leather.

It

I

looked

became

motionless, passive, under our attention. Paulino handed the small croc to each

of the passengers

in

turn and snapped digital pictures of us posing with

pretending to release

it

into the saline soup of the lagoon.

1

it

1c said this is

and

what

GOING AWAY TO THINK he does even when he captures large crocs on the shore to

two and

a half

He

meters in length.

and touch the animals and pose

— animals and

invites local people

reaching up

tourists to

own

to

as hostile,

mysterious monsters lurking in the hidden depths of the mangroves. that, in his

them

for pictures with them. This helps

understand the crocs and to value them rather than thinking of them

come

clear

It's

way, as a conservation biologist, Paulino has thought carefully

about the rhetoric of environmental education.

We

spent two hours in the boat, pushing ever further into the tightening

vice of the mangroves, fighting our

Sometimes the

glint

dangling in

web.

moving

its

way through the jigsaw puzzle of branches.

our headlights caught was only the reflection of a spider I

wondered what other

in the darkness

— snakes,

were awake and

living creatures

insects, wild cats, birds.

Occasionally the

clanking of our oars on the metal boat startled roosting herons,

and flapped loudly

aloft,

unhappy

to be rousted

from their

who squawked

night's rest.

We made our way back to the beach where we had begun our evening journey, pleased to have held a small croc and

intimidating otherness. Al and

companions stayed aboard

slightly closer to appreciating its

clambered out of the boat, while our Mexican

to return

camp with our headlamps

the

I

come

off,

a

it

to

its

little less

hiding place.

afraid

We

walked back to

of the dark.

There's something about the process of coming face-to-face with the exotic, the scary; or the bewildering— of “normalizing the new,” so to speak

emboldens me

to breathe in experience

mangrove crocs

at night has

helped

me

of this

direct

toward

renewed openness

my everyday work and

This morning

I

suspect

I

and

1

found

its

I

1

a

plump

a state of

red fish lying on the sand. it

with

its

it

will feed the

my sandal,

mind

I

can

It is

a jewel

A

Three days

reluctant to infect

beaching. Today

redder- then- red eye.

the beach as if by magic. Soon

'4

the

surroundings.

would have gingerly kicked

at its red skin

among

my mind and senses more suppose my goal is to carry home

end of the week,

myself with whatever disease resulted in

marvel

Floating

took a brief walk along the beach before breakfast.

1

hundred yards from camp, ago,

at the

deeply.

open

to

widely to the experience of La Manzanilla.

some

more

— that

1

pick

it

up and

of life, present on

ever-hungry shorebirds

— willets.

Going Away

Sometimes

night herons, turkey vultures.

on faraway beaches

jewels

meaning

of

I

lives,

travel.

and examine the

takes an encounter with living

it

hidden

and present

in texts

Through my

life as

a writer

in the physical

and

teacher,

we wish

place-conscious scholar. Should

more

learn to live

on

power, and

we have

We

seem

anywhere

poem

sedentary,

“Stay

—a

literal

work was written

in

mind, for Berry,

to

push everyone into

to ourselves

someone who

This may not be

we can

all

this planet, less

are this will be a very is

in

itself.

Or

we

so

we

—

it’s

not limited to any particular culture in the

our

If

about the consequences.

a

is

traveling

life.

I

life

my

United States

as

conscience and leads

and the possible virtues of

choose to take the

a traveling writer

poem

as a

a

prompt

mindfully, with

me

in

I

suspect

mind — and with

and public speaker. The point

sudden immobility but

to

nudge those of us who

more awareness

himself is

not

travel

of the costs of such a

to the planet.

activists

and scholars sometimes joke that

a “biorcgionalist”

around the country urging other people to

travels far

my

pricks

precisely with people like

from the

benefit from

and from the

home.

for such meditations, not as an absolute statement of

more

and

Environmental is

on

condemnation of movement and exploration.

too,

frequently to do so life

Chances

— tomorrow will take care of is

at

to accomplish whatever

Home," Berry

home-rooted

and point of departure prohibition

it

am

use fewer resources and trample

mainstream view of conservation

to consider the virtues of

more

the

do

Berry. “1

else.

In his brief

me

ll

manana attitude

to think. This

certainly as true of the it is

— to

lightly

seem programmed

we

a big

wish to pick up

1

to sustain our species

a devil-may-care attitude

can do something today,

is

the quandary, the anxiety, of the

is

this surprisingly delicate globe.

difficult lesson for us.

world,

of reality.

brilliant red fish

Don't come with me" (199). This, of course,

aggressively

gems and germs

to respark our inquisitiveness about

“You stay home," admonishes poet Wendell

we must

Think

our ordinary neighborhoods. This reawakening to the daily

in

meanings of our part of why

to

truth.

home.

But most bioregionalists understand that

more engagement and

revivify ing

stay

attentiveness to our

experience of movement across the earth.

home

places

GOING AWAY TO THINK The bathroom

my

in

area by vertical rows of slender

beachside casita

bamboo

walled from the sleeping

is

poles nailed side by side.

There

is

plenty

of room between each pole to peer through the wall into the bedroom and

through the front door beyond

that,

out to the beach and the ever-pounding

surf Standing in the bathroom a few minutes ago,

my

past the upright screen of

laptop to the rows of waves beyond,

pouring themselves onto the beach every

The

on.

process

is

found myself looking

I

six

or seven seconds, on and on and

so routine and yet so variable.

No two

waves are quite

and yet the process has occurred uncountable times. Perhaps there

more

beautiful in

all

as well, there

is

alike,

nothing

upon

nothing more routine.

think to myself that the ultimate lesson of this particular journey to tropical

Mexico may not be how teaching in the

to savor the exotic.

— a lesson as automatic as breathing.

waves

I

jellyfish

and spiny

puffers.

The

relation to gravity, wind,

and

me

see

it

Zion National Park

days in

New

I

in

can

I

to

Is

this

do

recall

St.

lesson here was present

dark beachside

pounding surf — the in

it?

my

travels

southern Utah, a

in early

at this

not what we, too, ultimately seek? To

Bonaventure University

England

no

aw akened to run along the surf and dodge

symposium on environmental

senior class of

No — the

a lesson that needs

Water and sand doing w hat they must do

rock.

know what we must do and then

international

is

lesson ot the routinely

utter everydayness of the motion.

Let

That

heard breaking immediately upon arrival

camp and witnessed each day when

at

is

the world than the simple action of waves falling

sandy beaches. Perhaps, I

new waves

of the past year— spring break

late-

March

literature in in upstate

trip to

Okinawa,

New

York

speak

at

an

a talk to the in April, ten

June to participate in the biennial meeting ot the

Association lor the Study ot Literature and Environment, a week in Mississippi in July tor

the thirtieth annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, and

ten days on Australia’s eastern coast in October for the Writers' Muster, followed immediately by at

two days of

Iowa State University, plus various family

DC, mixed

in

|

lectures

trips to Seattle

and meetings

and Washington,

with the work- related wanderings. Each of these journeys has

been delightful and inspiring

16

Watermark Nature

in different ways.

The

drain of falling behind

Going Away

with

my

and editing

teaching, writing,

responsibilities at

home

to

Think

outweighed

is

by the pleasures of interacting with new and old friends and absorbing various landscapes. I

draw my

title

for this cluster of informal meditations

Nabhan’s 2002 book. Coming Home

Although the bulk of he conducted

his

to

Eat The Pleasures and

from Gary Paul of Local

Politics

:

book focuses on the experiment

Foods.

eating that

in local

Tucson, Arizona, in the late 1990s, he actually begins his

in

members

discussion by telling the story of his trip to see family

and the experience of eating

local delicacies

Lebanon

in

with distant relatives

the Bekaa

in

Valley Traveling to experience other people's local places and cultures and ideas triggered Nabhan’s

Much

the

same thing tends

journeys. Place is

built

own experiment

is

to occur as

component

a central

in

my

I

respond to each of

academic

life,

and

my own working

visit

new

fundamentally shaped by

my

I've

me,

found

habit of traveling to

landscapes and talk with literary and scientific colleagues in order to

gain perspective

home

life is

my own

place, for

from the tension between going away and coming home.

that

at

in local living.

on the meaning of

my

life at

home.

My

teaching and writing

are rooted in the specific physical environments of office, house,

nearby mountain ballast or core

trails,

and the experience of these places provides

of meaning that helps

me

to appreciate

and

a kind

of

and understand the

implications of my travels.

When

I

travel,

I

try to

wake up each morning and go running. This

week, Earthwatch participant Bob Lewis, a semiretired dentist from Seattle, said.

“You can take the boy out of Oregon, but you

the boy”

when he saw me

one of the key features of

return from an early

my

traveling regimen.

can’t take

morning I

run.

deprived,

One

and

for geography.

moving

I

now

1

many

run simply

experience places most vividly while oxygen

steadily through

neighborhoods and along

of the frustrating aspects of being

compulsive about rushing to the

These runs are

ran competitively for

years in junior high, high school, and part of college, but for fitness

Oregon out of

office

at

home

is

trails

and beaches.

the tendency to

each morning and staying

things done” that meaningful exercise drops by the wayside.

become

so

late “to get

And

yet using

GOING AWAY TO THINK my body enables

helps

me

me

home

to be at

more

to exist

in this

body— and and

fully in place

being

at

home

in

my body

to think about the implications of

placedness in literature. I

wake up each morning while

traveling

ranging from Naha's winding alleyways in

Ames, Iowa,

to the

three-mile beach.

man-made and

Not only does

the rest of the day, but

it

Okinawa

natural debris

this

me

gives

and explore the neighborhood,

a

and

hear.

I

feel as if

I

I

I

air,

as well as their

who

— a view

the types of trees and birds I

pass through

know

I

are “muscular

enjoy using their bodies on mountains and hiking

minds

it,

with the strain of my leg muscles.

it

once told an interviewer that many of the ecocritics

scholars,” people

attention for

pay close attention to the shape of the

begin to belong to each place as

breathing steadily and knowing

my

view of the layout of the place

land, the direction of the wind, the feel of the

see

washed up on La Manzanilla's

running help to sharpen

unavailable from most meeting rooms.

I

to the cornfields skirting

and classrooms.

in offices

I

realize that

trails

academics in

general are often quite interested in physical fitness, understanding that their

mental

abilities are linked to

quite a bit of time in the

summer running with my

the University of Oregon, and biologists

and

runs. But

it

activity,

me

and

up,

1

spent

his colleagues at

have clear memories of the psychologists and

I

room before noontime

that ecocritics are particularly given to this sort of

and that our actual work

and testing our strength and

From

father

literary scholars gathering in the locker

seems to

Growing

the health of their bodies.

the beginning, as the

is

f railty

enhanced and deepened by getting outside

against the physical features of the landscape.

community of ecocritics began

to gather

under the

auspices of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment and similar organizations, there has been a tendency to significant hikes culture.

I

and climbs and

river trips

recall, for instance, several

during ASLE's

Monadnock

fifth biennial

in

field trips

integral part of

— and often

our academic

days of hectic meetings at Boston University

conference

New Hampshire

— an

make

in

2003, followed by a climb of Mount

with more than a dozen colleagues on the

last

day of the academic meeting, intellectuals continuing their conversations while huffing up the

.8

|

trail in a chilly

June

rain.

Going Away

I

lay

awake most of

Think

night listening to the explosive

last

waves on the nearby beach, frustrated by the disruption of

when

the sounds of night are almost indiscernible, even

we

during the warmer months. Sometimes

bedroom window Here on

to

my

smack of At home

rest.

windows

the

are

open

hear doves cooing outside the

the beach at La Manzanilla there

rhythm

a steady

is

of shushing water withdrawing into the sea followed by the thwack of a new

Campos

wave, shush then thwack, shush then thwack. Paulino the sound of the crashing waves here, but to

sometimes an annoyance. This place to rest and put

my

life

is

in so

me

many ways

its

banes

— not

to

he loves

a beautiful place

—a

good

and work into broader perspective. And yet

caused by the thunderous waves outside the

and

me

they are a disruption, even

the same time there are inconveniences and annoyances

my own

bites, the inability to control

tells

mention

diet as at

would be

this

the frustrations can, and perhaps

casita,

should,

at

the sleepless nights

the mosquito and sand flea

home. Travel has

its

benefits

to distort the truth. But even

be savored

— even

pain, fatigue,

and

aggravation are interesting dimensions of life.

we

“La vida tiene sabor,” says the Coca-Cola billboard

passed en route to

Barra de Navidad yesterday afternoon for a few hours of shopping and lounging in the jellyfish-free surf.

that they

The words

flavor. is

come from

absolutely true

remember

a

I

savor those words as

we

drive, quickly forgetting

corporate advertising campaign. Life has

lose their

— life

consumer context, and

many

has, indeed,

in everything

do,

I

flavors.

flavor, life

occurs to

it

And

this

is

me

has

that this

what

1

try to

even during the sometimes numbing process of

reading freshman papers and discussing familiar pieces of writing with jaded students. Life has flavor,

1

suggest to

my

students. Life has flavor,

I

remind

myself.

In the process of traveling to distant beaches to

of dropping waves and the nasal

hum

lie

of mosquitoes,

I

awake

am

to the whip-crack

saying to myself, “La

vida tiene sabor."

Life has flavor,

and tedium. As I

find

I

and

life

has

risk.

One

of the

meditate on the sound of the waves,

washed ashore each morning,

I

risks

is

complacency

remember

the sea

life

particularly the striking spiny puffer fish.

GOING AWAY TO THINK so different

from the

shells

on Lake Michigan’s shores running here

on the Oregon beaches and the stinking alewives

known

I've

La Manzanilla, I've wrenched

in

morning while

since childhood. Each

my

back by dodging tattered

hsh carcasses and still-breathing puffers. Multicolored, covered with inchlong white spines, with striking white bony beaks, these are clearly out of their element lying insects

and

them up

After

birds.

in a field

porcupine

guide to “reef

To be

on the beach

lives

honest,

meant

are

I

take a

be food for

moment

to look

to inhabit coastal reefs in the

do not know why they've ended

La Manzanilla. But

at

I

will

and learn that they are “black-blotched

life”

They

fish” ( Diodott liturosus).

tropical Indo- Pacific.

on the beach. Soon they

days of observing them,

five

of tropical reefs

fish

it

occurs to

me

that they’ve

their

somehow

allowed themselves to drift free from the reefs of home and become complacent in

the relatively calm waters of Tenacatita Bay

— and then suddenly their benign

environment thrashes them violently onto the sandy beach, where they wash, stunned, to their sunny doom.

Our

species, too,

other organisms.

prone to complacency, perhaps even more so than most

is

We

insulate ourselves

from

risk

— Americans

are particularly

eager to achieve security, to have insurance protecting us from loss of property, loss

of health,

is all

loss

of

Here

life.

in Mexico, the unavailability of true security

too plain. Lloating through the crocodile estuary,

fish leap

watch schools of tiny

momentarily ahead of the boat, knowing that they

crocs and multitudes of long-beaked fishing birds stilts

1

— perched

brella at Barra

in the

nearby

de Navidad,

from one cluster of

trees. Sitting I

reflected

will

soon feed baby

— herons, egrets,

kingfishers,

yesterday beneath the cloth

um-

upon the many hawkers wandering

tourists to the next, selling trinkets, multicolored baskets,

and even donuts and

cakes.

We

marveled

at the

man

with the broad basket of

chocolate-covered donuts, eager to unload calories to bikini-clad vacationers.

A

weathered, dark-skinned woman, seemingly beyond her

sixties,

buckets of arroz con leche and ceviche to prospective customers buying. “That’s a hard

way

to

make

“Imagine feeding your family

|

is

no

— no one was

someone from our group muttered.

like that,” said

one would have no income. There

20

a living,”

lugged heavy

another.

security.

On

a

day with no

sales,

Going Away

But back to the example of the porcupine benign environment suddenly turned

of environmental

specific, local places.

And

and educators sound

This

is,

and activism. Many people today

what’s happening to the planet and to

Jeremiah, seeming to issue exaggerated warnings of

More

often, their fate

that of Cassandra

is

learned from Alan AtKisson’s recent book,

I

perhaps, the core message

they wish to get the word out. Sometimes these writers

like

unrealized catastrophes.

know

Think

— imagine the significance of a

fish

literature, science, education,

can see the future coming. They

story

lethal.

to

— a classical

Believing Cassandra:

they can

see the future, but they are fated not to be heard, not to be believed.

The evening Coast,"

1

before leaving on this trip to Costa Alegre, Mexico’s

was hosting visiting author

Bill

McKibben

in

Reno. His talk was

“Global Warming, Genetic Engineering and Other Questions of

and drew some of its core ideas from

He began which

with

his lecture

God admonishes

universe, for after

all

a brief Bible lesson,

Job to

only

remember

God

fundamental natural processes. of times

in

his beautiful

“Happy

Human

titled Scale’’

book The Comforting Whirlwind.

summarizing the Book of

Job, in

scheme

of the

his small place in the

can determine the tides of the sea and other Bill

then rehearsed, as

he’s

done hundreds

the past decade, the facts and figures of global climate change,

convincingly demonstrating the fundamental changes occurring in our planet’s

atmosphere and down on earth

much carbon

as well, chiefly the result

of our releasing so

into the air through the use of fossil fuels. Next,

Bill

explained

the field of “germ-line” genetic engineering, a process by which contemporary scientists

have been able to mold (without a great deal of control) the minute

genetic codes of

we can now

life.

reply to

He concluded

God

dimensions of nature. wielding this power inhospitable to our likely that in the

for drinking

and

compensate for ideas

make him

own

by suggesting

that, unlike Job,

that we, too, are able to affect the large

We

may

his lecture

have that power.

And

yet the consequences of

well be to create a planetary

continued existence.

coming decades, there agriculture,

this shortage.

will

It

environment deeply

seems, for instance, entirely

be a profound shortage of water

and desalination of seawater

As

Bill

and small

McKibben

will

not be able to

stated the other evening, these

sad and worried, and he travels to give lectures in order to

make

GOING AWAY TO THINK his listeners “sad,” too.

This elicited a nervous laugh from the

Nevada Museum of Art.

the

Could

sad?

this really

Why

would

full

auditorium

at

a speaker

wish to make his audience

summon

an explicit prognostication

be so?

After other questioners were unable to

about the future of life on earth from the speaker,

a final

questioner struck

home

by reminding McKibben of his ten-year-old daughter. “What sort of life to you expect for her?" the very

and

unclear

A

asked from the audience. “I’m afraid her

was the answer.

difficult,” it's

man

who

will

make

“We

it

through

— which species will

carrying a circular net folded over his

left

with a quick motion of his right hand.

He

water

beyond the

just

surf,

waiting friend,

This, too,

a ready

is

hoping for

who

a

fish into

metaphor, take.

I

under the

own

left,

and

1

my constant

it

in

the water

sink into the

become entangled. Then

fish to

of one’s net into the sea of

1

much

And

casita,

as the fiock

here

my

sit,

I

reality,

of pelicans

perched

at

circles

my yellow

shielded from the rising sun by

scan the view, friends

1

watch the neighboring

and Earthwatch colleagues

thatched-roof structure) to

daily search for ideas

my

right.

I

and words, the substance of

am my

life.

Before me, the sea

boy has moved on has

fish,

listen to

palapa (the walhless,

reminded of

gray shorts,

continue to watch as the young fisherman scans

on the porch of a simple

to the

can see glints of silver

a literal casting

the thatched roof of palm fronds.

encampment

through.”

carries a red plastic grocery bag, laden with their catch.

worthwhile

table

in

it

the folds of the net and wades ashore to

the coast, also seeking nourishment.

wooden

and

casts his net, crouches to help

the surface of the bay in search of more

down

shirtless

make

forearm that he casts into the sea

and waits for the

he gathers a dozen wriggling his

He

fish.

be

are approaching an ecological bottleneck,

boy wades into the surf before me,

that indicate a school of

life will

become

glassy

is

placid here

in search of richer waters.

and

reflects the sky’s

on the Happy Coast. The

There are no

wispy clouds.

And

tourists.

fishing

The water

then suddenly the

next wave crashes ashore, and somewhere along the curves of Tenacatita Bay,

22

Going Away

porcupine

and

fish

jellies

to

Think

from the benign environment of the bay onto

are cast

the hostile sand. I

come

to this place for a

change of scenery

No

perspective on the familiar scenery of home. planet,

can never forget where

I

the fact that the place to the places

still

've

passed through before.

have gone away from thinking.

There

teacher and writer, until

as

I

fly

few days of

and now

work

at

I

visit,

and

fundamentally

senses are sharpened,

and now

in

my

snowy

at the

my memory

am

I

foothills

motivating

my

view

is

ready to return home,

of the

Sierra.

fish, as

I

But the

my

continued efforts

—

reflect

as

next journey

pull

of home and away

Earthwatch

have been

trip

filled

I

on the

pull of last

with learning and adventure,

time to return to the eastern slopes of the Sierra, to the quiet

mountain nights with no surf pounding nearby, I

this

back from Manzanillo to Los Angeles and then to Reno. The

this

it’s

My

to think,

home

Always the push and

home

moment is connected

on

travel

1

be no crashing waves, no gasping porcupine

will

pound ashore

will

matter where

deepened.

home

gaze from the windows of

waves

an enlivened

also for

normally dwell, the other places

inhabit at any given

my consciousness

broadened, I

I

I

I

and

yes,

home (tomorrow

to the

dining-room table where

be a day of grading student papers), and to

will

the office lined with thousands of books and networked via phone, fax, and email to the rest of the world. Despite the fact that “off-line”

Susie

during

know

all

this

week on Costa Alegre

was going

well),

have

I

felt in

with the concrete details of place than

mind

at

home. Yesterday’s

pristine Pacific beach near the

a

from one

call

home

to let

many ways more deeply engaged in

my

hurried, abstract

life

of the

pineapple and trail-mix snack enjoyed on a

Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve. After loading the

trailer,

Dave Collins from Immersion Adventures

drove a bumpy, dusty back road to the

of students, professors,

do

have been almost wholly

itinerary began with a six-kilometer kayaking trip

on the Rio Cuixmala, including

eight kayaks back on his

I

(apart

I

trail

crew

village

leaders,

and

of Talacatita, where our bunch retiree volunteers

donned

fins,

masks, and snorkels and spent an hour bobbing in the sea, observing fluorescent

I

23

GOING AWAY TO THINK tropical fish near the fringing coral reef.

mouth of Rjo Cuixmala, and gazing downward

along the beach at the reef life, our only task as possible.

To pay

and write about to

my

itself would

practice the mindful condition

my

classrooms and I

office.

I

so often speak

Without such an opportunity

think about abstractly, these processes would

— and

eventually cease to happen

work

To

the mental processes

live

I

would cease

grind to a frustrated

to believe in them.

it

was

finally

turn to offer a formal presentation to the Earthwatch group. At four

tanned and sweaty after the day’s seafood

I'd

eaten at our late lunch,

and Environmentalism group to

tall

in

activity, full I

lectured

my own

P.M.,

from the beachside Mexican

on “Art and Activism: Literature

the United States and Mexico.’’

asleep and feared that

my

fear

I

halt.

Indeed, following yesterday’s trip to Cuixmala and Tanacatita,

my

at the

— my only task— was to be as fully present in these places

attention.

in

While birding from the kayaks, walking

voice

I

expected the

would be drowned out by

the pounding surf near the walffless, thatch-roofed palapa at our La Manzanilla

camp. But

just the

opposite occurred.

words are powerful, that there

I

introduced

a physical

is

my

three

premises— that

world surrounding us of ultimate

importance and meaning, and that words are not merely mental toys but also tools of activism.

I

read and

commented on

Ofelia Zepeda’s “It

Going

Is

(emphasizing the idea that poetry emerges from ordinary experience

Rain’’

and values attentiveness) and John Daniel’s “Ourselves" (showing how intensified use of language elevates the ordinary into the magical,

our appreciation, combating complacency). Then

Campos

Paulino Stone’),

City

j

is s

).

I

deepening

asked crocodile biologist

University of Guadalajara undergraduate Diana to read

(“Grey Whale

“Poema de Amor en

We

careful,

to read Octavio Paz's “Viento, Agua, Piedra" (“Wind, Water,

Aridjis’s “Ballena Gris’

A rid

to

la

”),

Homero

and ornithologist Sara Huerta

Ciudad de Mexico

talked about Paz’s use of poetry as a

(“Love

medium

Poem

in

to read

Mexico

for contemplating

profound, timeless concepts of nature’s interconnectedness and Arid activist use of

poetry to combat

whale calving waters

and the logging

in

in the

air

is's j

pollution in Mexico City destruction of gray

Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve near Baja California,

Michoacan that threatens monarch butterfly wintering

areas.

Despite a day of physical exertion and parching sun, the group was alert and

24

I

Going Away

lively.

to

Think

Seventy-seven-year-old Oyvind Frock, one of the Earthwatch volunteers,

raised his

hand

end of the session and read

at the

poem he had

a

the lecture about the week's experiences in La Manzanilla. of nature

written during

The

discussion

and language and science and Mexico's future was energetic and

emotional over dinner.

As my

friends

made

their

way one by one

return to the casita and climb under the mosquito netting, pull

of

travel

and home with new

intensity.

el

felt

I

1

prepared to the push and

regretted the fact that

1

my

be leaving the group the following day to return to following a morning of birding in Barranca

and

to their tents

office

I

would

and classroom,

Choncho, an afternoon adventure

capturing and measuring crocodiles, and a sweaty dash to the Manzanillo airport.

And

yet

1

realized, too, that

1

could

— that

needed

I

to

— take away from

La Manzanilla a commitment to reengage myself with the specificities of Reno. Naturalist

Ann Zwinger once wrote

that traveling by plane offers her a splendid

sense of isolation for writing, and especially

editing,

a sense

aluminum tube" hurtling through

“blessedly impersonal

the daily realities of home (“What’s a Nice Girl” 288 ).

and share

my

And

to “go

come

away

I

understood that

to think”

space, undistracted by

know what Ann means

yet as

I

glanced away from

this

freedom

an extraordinary

is

is

an

privilege.

illusion.

It is

The opportunity and with

a gift,

this gift

inevitable responsibilities.

This sense of

my work

way of contributing

something more than

as

positively to society

and

any distinctions

among these

do so with an appetite

a

—

processes and attitudes.

for joy

way

to “pay the bills”

to the planet

every day. Life and work, self-interest and altruism

I

in a

laptop to appreciate the metabird's-eye view of the Sea of Cortes en route

to Los Angeles,

a

of momentary freedom.

this feeling

I

of being enclosed

I

— as

— preoccupies

me

have trouble recognizing

When

1

go away to think,

and an earnest hope to do work that others may

find helpful.

Sunday morning, back home in Reno, Nevada. After a run through the pour

neighborhood

hills,

with the dogs.

A week

I

projects to do. Today,

I

ago,

cup of coffee and walk down to our

a I

would have

restlessly

rustic

backyard

toured the yard, looking for

look for a plastic chair and find one resembling the shape

GOING AWAY TO THINK of those

at the

a seat tor ten 1

La Manzanilla beach camp.

I

then find a spot in the sun and take

minutes, gazing at the mountains, listening intently to birdsong.

recognize the coo of the mourning doves, the bubbly cackle of the California

quail.

I

hear chatter from

many

small birds and feel an urge to grab

guides from the house and identify birds lazily as

what birders

With my

among

call

“LBjs”

(little

"habit of attention’’ (as

I

've

brown

home (Thoreau

1906,

jobbies).

Thoreau put

computer, and return to work.

351).

And

field

always been content to categorize

it

in his journal)

sharpened

the beaches, mangrove estuaries, and arid hillsides of Jalisco,

back into

my

then

I

come

inside,

I

settle

boot up the

3

Ecocriticism STORYTELLING, VALUES, COMMUNICATION, CONTACT

In

1993-94,

I

spent eleven months in japan, serving as a

kind of temporary “nature writing guru” students

months of

writing.” After spiels

on

night)

“literature

of mountains,

is

traveling

never heard of “ecocriticism

and

came

and environment” (my lecturing voice invaded

to be a

budding new movement

rice fields, temples, skyscrapers,

I

nature writing by way of any scholarly approach

texts that

seem

”

1

and

or “nature

or,

of the

on those

my

islands

introductory

literary scholarship, this

means

either the study of

conversely, the scrutiny of

and human-nature relationships

(at first glance) oblivious

my dreams at

both Japanese and

and haiku. In

generally defined “ecocriticism”: “the term

ecological implications

in

in this field

on nature writing and environmentally conscious

how

scholars

lecturing, after countless introductory

and the distribution of examples of nature writing

English, there

talks

who had

among

in any literary text,

nonhuman

enthusiasm for the study of 'literature and environment’

in

even

world. This

new

the United States

is

not only a reaction to the impressive aesthetic achievement of American nature writing, but an indication of

of the importance and description of this I

field,

contemporary

fragility

society’s

growing consciousness

of the nonhuman world.” That’s

my

general

but there are several other basic ideas strategies that,

think, are essential for ecocritics to keep in mind, essential to the vitality

meaningfulness of what we’re doing.

and

GOING AWAY TO THINK STORYTELLING

Ecocritics should

tell

strategy tor literary analysis. itself,

should use narrative

stories,

The purpose

as a

constant or intermittent

not to compete with the literature

is

but simply to illuminate and appreciate the context of reading

embrace the

literary text as

in the world."

We

language that

somehow contributes

must not reduce our scholarship

game, devoid of smells and

tastes,

— that

is,

to

to our lives “out

to an arid, hyperintellectual

devoid of actual experience. Encounter

the world and literature together, then report about the conjunctions, the intersecting patterns. Analyze

your

tell

own

stories

and explain

literature throtigh storytelling

and then, subsequently, show how contact with the world

shapes your responses to

Kent Ryden’s Mapping

texts.

See John Elder’s Imagining

the Invisible Landscape

American Nature Writing (1992).

(1985) and

the Earth

(1993) for examples of intermittent

“narrative scholarship." I’ve experimented with in

— or

it

at the

end of Seeking Awareness

2

VALUES

For several years I’ve pondered a bold claim that Glen Love Nature: Toward an Ecological Literary' Criticism." this thought,

transforming Love’s assertion into

most important function of literattire today to a full consideration of

its

I

often begin

a qiiestion:

to redirect

is

made

in

“Revaluing

my courses with

could

human

it

be that “the

consciousness

place in a threatened natural world" (2.13)? This

seems to throw "scholarly poise and neutrality” out the window. But to

me more and more

these days that literature

is,

indeed,

it

much more

occurs

than an

intellectual toy, created for the pleasure of clever, brit “irresponsible,” critics

who

resist

and

literature itself are,

valties

how

and

taking stances

attitudes.

on what's happening

on the most fundamental

We

is

issue of

28

and directs readers

meaningful important to them.

values— this

|

is

level,

associated with

human

should, as critics and teachers of literature, consider

literary expression challenges

world

in the world. Literary scholarship

the proper

We

to decide

can't afford to shy

domain of

literary studies

what

in the

away from the

(and such

fields

Ecocriticism

as

philosophy and religious studies), and

should be

a crucial part

one reason why the humanities

it's

of university programs

in

environmental studies.

COMMUNICATION Try not to waste words and paper. directly

— communicate.

If you

So much

have something to say say

literary scholarship

apparently not intended for a real audience.

I

that

who

clarity

clearly

and

unreadable garbage,

think ecocritics, of

ought to challenge themselves to use language with of us

is

it

all

people,

and elegance. Those

study nature writing have some of the world’s best models (writing

communicates)

in front

of us day after

day.

CONTACT

In the visit

summer of 1994. two

Japanese nature-writing scholars arranged for

Masanobu Fukuoka,

the author

Introduction to Natural Farming, in the

mountains

eighty-four-year-old farmer philosopher

of The One'Straw outside of

Revolution:

An

Matsuyama on the southern

island of Shikoku. After spending a

hours walking around Fukuoka-san's junglelike orchards, a primitive hut.

While drinking the

farming and nature. Then our entire

visit.

I

tea,

we

it

we went

few

to have tea in

listened to Fukuoka-san talk about

asked him something

Did he think

me to

I

had been wondering during

might be possible for academia to contribute

anything to our understanding of nature and the relationship between nature

and culture? (What did he think about these three had come to

visit

my question or that he found

it

Then Fukuoka-san's if

if

( uguisu

a

me and

whispered,

“He means,

simple mind.” In other words, those of us

might be able to contribute to

we remember

thought he simply hadn’t heard

in Japanese) calling outside the hut.

assistant leaned over to

you have

at universities

I

unimportant. But everyone stopped talking and,

sure enough, there was a nightingale

possible

who

him?) Fukuoka-san seemed to look right past me, and then he

said (in Japanese), “Listen to the bird sing."

is

literature professors

to pay attention to nature

society’s

itself, if

it

who work

understanding of nature

we

don't lose ourselves in

GOING AWAY TO THINK A

lectures, theories, texts, laboratories.

our colleagues literature

in

powerful admonition: ecocritics (and

other environmental disciplines) need contact not just with

and not

with each other, but with the physical world.

just

NOTES

1.

Lawrence Buell has proposed

The Future

in

(2005) that such terms

and Literary Imagination

practices” that constitutes the field (10).

wave” ecocriticism, and of

his

American Culture (1995)

own

is

describing the “concourse of discrepant

also distinguishes

would

fall

in the

United States and Beyond

characterized by “a growing diversification of critical

(

my

Future 138). See

“Ecocriticism on and after 9

method and

fit

Formation

into the latter,

a broadening of focus

and wilderness

movement

in a

more

11.”

for further focus

on

I

compile

this collection

(2006). Since

1

first

wrote

to

Vallombrosa:

From Vermont

this briei position

two important monographs.

Jrotn Nature in the City

(2004).

of narrative scholarship to his

My

Life:

A

|

(1998) and Peak

and Need (2003). and John Tallmadge has elegantly

Teacher's Path

on the academic profession and the (1997) and The Cincinnati Arch: Learning

former student, Corey Lee Lewis, has applied the strategies

work on place-based teaching and scholarship

Exploring the Literature and Natural History of the California Crest

?o

Mountains

paper on ecocriticism, Ian Marshall has published

stories together with larger reflections

literature of place in Meeting the Tree oj

the

of George Perkins Marsh

Story Line: Exploring the Literature of the Appalachian Trail

Experiences: Walking Meditations on Literature, Nature,

woven personal

to Italy in the Footsteps

of essays

the Earth: Poetry

of Nature (1996) with the learned and compelling narratives of Reading

of Home (1998) and Pilgrimage

8,

this “sociocentric direction."

Splendid examples of narrative scholarship abound as

the Vision

socioccntric

discussion of “environmental justice ecocriticism" in chapter

2007. John Elder followed his preliminary narrative experiments in Imagining

and

the

toward engagement with a broader range of landscapes and genres and a greater internal

direction"

in

(2001) would

as nature writing, nature poetry,

debate over environmental commitment that has taken the

2.

between “first-wave" and “second-

into the former category, while his Writing for an Endangered

from an original concentration on such genres fiction

in

The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau. Nature Writing, and

World: Literature, Culture and Environment

which

He

“environmental criticism" and "literary-

as

environmental studies” might be more accurate

Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis

of

(200s)

in Reading the Trail:

4

Seeking the Language of Solid

Ground

REFLECTIONS ON ECOCRITICISM AND NARRATIVE

Seldom does the

fallen

climber survive to

his or her

tell

own

tale.

Years ago, overburdened by a backpack distracted by

my

professional role as textual

physical world, stepped off a

mountain

critic,

ignored

I

and nearly

wall,

full

lost

of books and

my my

place in the life

my

and

voice as a scholar. Ecocritics, in forgetting the worldly context of their reading,

of their thinking, do so

at

the peril of their

context, without grounding in the world,

At the end in

on wilderness protection

a

United States for

Nobuhiro

Tokyo

prolific

means next

to nothing.

United Nations World Heritage

Mountains

do

Japan for Audubon magazine. Three of us

Mike Yamashita, and

this excursion. Translator

Sato,

Site, to

1

in

writer Rick Bass, photographer

us in

language. Language without

of July 1995. a group of eight traveled to the Shirakami

northwestern Honshu,

editor

own

I

— had

a story

— nature

come from

the

and nature writer Bruce Allen,

and environmental journalist Shigeyuki Okajima joined

for the flight north to

Aomori.

Our guides were Makoto Nebuka,

a

outdoor writer and the principal defender of the Shirakami wilderness,

and one of

his

mountain-man

friends,

known

to us only as “Narita-san."

We

were an alUmale group. Hisako Tanaka, an editor for the popular Japanese nature magazine called Shinra, had flown up separately from Tokyo just to interview Rick during the limo ride to the trailhead; she hiked with us for an

hour on

a

paved path to see a few picturesque waterfalls, but when the

rest

of

GOING AWAY TO THINK and began dragging ourselves on hands and knees up

us left the

trail

overgrown

ridge, she

We

a sheer,

smiled and waved good-bye.

hadn’t expected such rugged conditions. For three days in the virgin

beech forests of Shirakami,

we worked our way up

called “chicatabi” with rubber cushions

rivers in special hiking shoes

and metal spikes on the bottom, climbed

small waterfalls, and crawled up steep mountainsides with scraggly trees and

bamboolike sasa

were

trail-less,

grass,

interwoven with poison

except for occasional deer paths.

with the other writers on the to

document

trip

and the

as

ivy,

I

handholds. These forests

found myself preoccupied of Mike, the photographer,

efforts

the place and the people while struggling to keep up with

Nebuka-san's steady pace. The expedition was

like a hall

of mirrors

— everyone

watching, interviewing, taking photographs or videos, keeping a notebook. I

was fascinated with

Rick’s ability to take notes

on

pad even

a pocket-sized

while wobbling across rivers or while pausing on a taxing slope. Occasionally,

he would say something aloud

many images of light.

“So

like,

Sunlight, bright-

colored frogs, light on water, light through leaves” or “The strands of the story

break apart and reweave themselves

and now Nebuka-san himself reflects Rick's

is

travel,

emerging

comments more than

At the end of our second day

— first bears,

lip

photographs

just as

— two

down

the route.

I

my turn

began to get dark; we clambered

I

32

feet

down.

We

paused there for

took notes about his note taking, and

— as our guides deliberated. The guides figured we could inch our to a possible campsite.

and along the sheer slope

to

one

side,

to go.

I

then

Back and forth they crawled, scouting out

continued watching Rick and bantering with the others.

on the

|

grass, following

ourselves looking over the dribbling

hundred

— Rick took notes and

it

was the second person to follow the guides,

myself by holding slender sasa stalks and using grassy lip

notebook

itself.

dense thicket of sasa

a

we found

across the top of the waterfall

climb

was

until

of a narrow waterfall

another half hour

way

trail,

My own

mountains, after ten hours of grueling

in the

and fought our way downhill through an apparent animal

as the center."

the place

our guides became disoriented

then the Shirakami Preserve,

my

try

Then

it

ing to secure

spiked shoes to grip the

side of the waterfall. Mike, the Audubon photographer,

was

right

Seeking the Language ofSolid

behind me.

Just as

stepped out from the ledge where

I

Ground

of us had been resting,

all

Shigeyuki Okajima, the Everest climber and environmental journalist, shouted,

"Watch

out, Scott!

stepped out,

felt

It’s

slippy,

very slippy!” Smiling at Shige’s Japanese English,

the earth give

way beneath my

feet,

and realized

bending tree trunk, hanging over the edge of the nearly

Without

a pack,

sixty

might have been able to

1

my back, much

pounds strapped to

down toward

the end of the tree.

the drop-off was.

I

1

pull

myself up to

of it useless paper.

hadn't even glanced

looked toward Shige,

who was now

And

then

cliff

arms outstretched and hands digging into the

I

might

slid faster

I

and

faster,

felt

but

cliff.

I

had

myself sliding

to see

how

big

shouting, “No, no. no!”

across jagged rocks, later,

my

shirt sleeves ripping

felt

I

final, fatal

my boots

me and when drop through

and

legs scraping

— and then silence and dizziness. A

Mike came tumbling sideways down the same section of cliff that

had descended, pulled down by the weight of

and moaning

seeking any possible

not knowing what lay beneath

empty' space. Suddenly, the noise changed and

1

safety,

down

dirt,

out from the wall and into some kind of

sail

moment

vertical

was suddenly sliding rapidly down the grassy upper portion of the

I

handhold.

1

was clinging

1

to a tiny,

1

as

his

camera equipment, grunting

he splashed into two feet of water, just inches away from me.

Soon the water turned

red,

absorbing the blood from

somewhere beneath

a cut

my jeans.

We had fallen eighty feet and landed on a ten-foot ledge in

the middle of the

Up

above,

Rick and the other members of the party were sure one of us had been

killed.

narrow

When

waterfall, barely missing the final, vertical portion

they realized

we were

“Lean back, lean back.

we stood on

If

that ledge.

you

able to stand faint, you'll fall

“Were

on our own,

of the

flick

fall.

shouted down,

forward and drown." For an hour

really fucked now.”

Mike moaned.

Finally,

one

of our guides, the nimble, muscular Narita-san, emerged and stood with us on the ledge, having clambered up from the bottom of the

we had

a

After verifying that

miraculously avoided serious injury, he fixed a rope to the rock wall and

belayed us hour.

cliff.

Then

down through

the rest of the waterfall. This process took another

Narita climbed up to the other hikers, roped

detour for them around the waterfall.

When

them

all

up,

and found

our entire party of eight was

GOING AWAY TO THINK reunited at the base of the if

we were

the others

cliff,

ghosts, not quite believing that

mountain and

seemed

to treat

we had stepped

Mike and me

off the side of the

lived.

During the

of our two-week stay

rest

in japan,

1

watched Rick, Mike, and

Nebuka-san take photographs of clear-cutting and road building

World Heritage

the

Historical

as

Museum

Site;

I

just outside

listened to Rack interview a bear biologist at the

of Hokkaido;

accompanied him

I

Memorial

to the Peace

Park in Hiroshima and to the orange shrine in the Inland Sea at Miyajima; and

we gave

several presentations together

and then

his reading

my

demoralized about

The

nature writer.”

of fiction or

— first

essays.

my

contextualizing

At times during

comments

this trip,

felt

I

role as “literary' scholar” tagging along with an “actual

phrase that kept coming to mind was “third wheel.”

was the third wheel during our

travels,

I

and perhaps ecocritics are the “third

wheels of the environmental writing community.” Rick had genuine work to accomplish

—

literature

translator.

Meanwhile,

seemed

mind my

I

to

remembered

I

And

to write.

Bruce Allen played a crucial role

stood back and watched Rick watch the world.

presence, but

a discussion

I

nobody quite understood had had

a year earlier

it,

It

doesn’t

of them

seem quite

are, "Well,

I

right to

tell

writers,

with Terry Tempest

come back

keen to communicate

communicate quite

course, without the help of literary scholars. So I

“What do you most

as

help people understand your work.” Writers like Rick

Bass and Terry Tempest Williams can

again,

Nobody

either.

Williams. “So what exactly do you do as an ecocritic?" she asked. do?"

what

to the ideas of contextualization

is

well

on

their

own, of

our role then? Again and

and

synthesis. Ecocritics, to

do something genuinely meaningful — something more than propping up

own

their

careers by producing endless unread and unreadable commentaries about

perfectly lucid

and even eloquent

deeper, and perhaps

in their

more

literary texts

explicit explanation

own

of how and what environmental

specific narratives. Crucial to this ecocritical process

things (ideas, texts, authors) together

awareness of

who and where we

the world and

34

— must offer readers a broader,

communicates than the writers do themselves, immersed

literature

in

as

I

why we

are.

and putting them

Our awareness,

re writing. Storytelling,

as

they are

of pulling

in perspective

literally,

is

our

of where we stand

combined with

clear exposition,

Seeking the Language ofSolid

Ground

produces the most engaging and trenchant scholarly discourse. Nature writers themselves realize

Daniel, Barry Lopez, David

Sharman Apt

Pyle,

quick look at the work of Wendell Berry, John

this, as a

Mas Masumoto. Gary

Paul Nabhan, Robert Michael

Russell, Scott Russell Sanders,

Ann

Zwinger, and

many

others will show. Ecocritics should take a hint. Ecocriticism without narrative is

like

stepping off the face of a mountain

—

it's

the disoriented language of free

fall.

In the previous chapter,

my

related

I

story of visiting the elderly farmer

and theorist of alternative agriculture and environmental Fukuoka, on his jungle farm back

in 1994.

When

he urged me,

tea,

I

felt

he was confirming

my own

memories and

when we

texts

retreat to our offices

and speculations.

admonition, offered over tea

in the

I

sipped

we move through

and work our way through

find myself extending this powerful

steamy summer mountains of Shikoku, to

the language that literary scholars, and especially those of us “ecocritics,” use to illuminate

we

belief in the importance of attending

to our actual lives, our existence in the physical world, as

the world and also

Masanobu

cryptically, to

hut where

listen to the uguisu 1 the nightingale singing outside the

our

ethics,

and contextualize the

who

literature

we

call

ourselves

study.

To the

extent that our scholarship emerges from our experiences in and concern for the physical world of nature and the complexities of our social interactions,

we

must seek an appropriately grounded language. The language of stories, charged with emotion and sensation,

may be our

best bet.

NOTE

I.

Although funded by Audubon,

the magazine.

Rick

Bass’s

commissioned

Instead, the essay “Into the Shirakamis”

Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature

and Environment 5.2

(Summer

article

was published 1998): 69

96.

never appeared in

in

the journal ISLE:

5

“Be Prepared for the Worst” LOVE, ANTICIPATED LOSS, AND

ENVIRONMENTAL VALUATION

2 0 0 0

“I live for

Beautiful

autumn,” wrote John Nichols

Days

of

Autumn. “All year long

cool beautiful days to come, and It is

the most

alive,

in a letter to

her husband in 1849 (qtd.

“Be prepared for the worst.”

“I

operates in each of these expressions.

of readiness

life

now

ago

Last

bones”

past.

(3). “I

Graulich 168).

autumn.” The same paradox

does

it

mean

a decline or

to exist in a state

an absence, not yet the frailty of

just

born and

dying?

to hold it.

my

hanging on from breath to breath, the subtle beat of a heart

8,

1994

“Be prepared for the worst

of

for

What

The

memories of Octobers

How do we ever know the true delicacy of existence,

SEPTEMBER

is

live

in

sorrow,” wrote Harriet Beecher

in

— to be prepared — for something,

experienced? a

my

1982

have reveries of those

the most heartbreakingly real season in

write as though there were no sorrow like

Stowe

I

in

I

am

never prepared for the worst.

and love and experience. To make

When

a family

and then

did the making occur? In the dark sometime

— hugging

and thrusting.

It all

I

want

to exist as part

— ages

seems so vague now. Then,

What ago,

months

after sufficient

gestation, this: the stain of water, the late-night drive, the waiting in the

“Be Preparedfor the Worst”

room with

surgical prep until she

he

requisite measuring.

The

of

hair, skin I,

am

the comaker,

mechanic spinning new

warmth, no

And

love, in his touch.

stretches,

and records

tires,

hold hands

— and then, here

finally invited to

and

We

exposed.

fertility

wrinkled and red, sprawled

pediatrician, in his white coat, pokes

a bicycle

life,

ball

taken away for the emptying, the delivery

is

shock of black

is:

brown

the

in the

nursery for

meet the new

wobbles the

cannot yet bring myself to hold

I

life.

legs like

numbers. There

his

here

it is,

is

this

no

new

so present to me.

1997

“Be prepared for the worst.”

it— simply manuals,

keep on

I

“Regret has very

Regret.

my

little

book

shelf a

called Regret. That’s

respect for rule books, etiquette

of commandments, or economic models,” writes Janet Landman.

lists

“Like other emotions (as well as other psychological processes in general),” she continues, regret

depends

on

less

Anything that one cares about or that

may produce

regret.

Inasmuch

as

conflicts with one’s values or falls

norms and

attempt to formulate universal propositions .

.

.

The

only certainty

on personal values and norms.

universal, objective assessments than

is

that

values lack universality,

what

as to

below one’s standards it

would be

foolish to

a “proper" occasion for regret.

is

one of the incorrigible costs of caring about something ...

is

vulnerability to the experience of regret. (168)

Just think

of

it

vulnerability' to

that

way— that

the cost of caring

1

in

my

When

office,

1

he’s

find myself

my

web of private I

love to hike

wondering what

and when I’m inside

Jacinto,

imagine

in a

my opportunity to do that?

hit the trail

love, then,

according

and concerns, makes us susceptible to doubts

and second guesses. Were caught sacrificing

we

wishing things otherwise. Whatever

to our individual attractions

vulnerability to regret,

is

at the

temyear-old son,

is

I

dubiety.

and

I

If

I

do

this,

love to study, so

am

I

when

might be reading or writing back

computer

I

skateboarding

dream of the mountains. in front

of our house,

I

dreaming about the great shows he could be watching on TV or the

funny designs he could be making

in his hair,

now

blue and black.

What

today might forestall the loss of something dearly loved tomorrow?

action

GOING AWAY TO THINK But the other side of regret the

wake of a future

decision,

may be

mere probability

its

this idea. “Anticipated regret”

when we imagine

that

it,

anticipate

in

it.

Hold onto

inspires us to care.

what was or could have been. I’m

nostalgia for

talking about nostalgia experienced, paradoxically, before actual loss.

There’s another book on

shell called Teaming for Yesterday:

Fred Davis reminds us that "Nostalgia

Nostalgia.

home, and (i).

my

algia,

a painful condition

— thus,

“That art thrives on nostalgia and

is

Irom the Greek

it is

But that

of the

all

difficult to explain,”

arts

.

are forever

.

would seem incontestable.

the past

We

“captures exactly" the

way we

felt

that, simultaneously,

it

much to shape

does

rummaging through need only

reflect

perhaps, as

feel

the apparently lost beauties of

on the character of our aesthetic the picture “reminds us of” or

story, the song,

then or “makes us

that

own

is

somehow

sad for

some

lovely time

and place we

right, a

mood

it

is

not only a feeling

magically evoked by the art object but also a distinctive modality

kind of code or patterning of symbolic elements, which by some obscure

mimetic isomorphism comes, much or

is,

never see again." So frequently and uniformly does nostalgic sentiment seem to infuse

mood

in its

home”

a painful yearning to return

our aesthetic experience that we can rightly begin to suspect that nostalgia or

to return

he writes. Furthermore, he elaborates:

on how often the poem, the

experience,

shall

.

Sociology oj

nostos,

the form and provide the substance of our nostalgic experience

evident as

A

as in

language

itself to serve as a substitute for the feeling

aims to arouse. (73)

Davis argues that an audience will respond to certain nostalgic patterns music,

and

art,

literature

for this feeling because

we

even when there

is

no “immediate or

reason”

have, by living in a particular culture, “through long

associative exposure assimilated the aesthetic

code that evokes the emotion”

(82). Store this idea, too: the ubiquity ol nostalgic in

‘real’

in

elements

in art. particularly

environmental literature of the past century and increasingly

in

the years

approaching the millennium.

"Be prepared for the worst vaguest of

I

am

trying to put

emotions— complacency, numbness,

shock.

The

my

finger

heart

on the

wrung

dry,

passion turned inside out, experience not yet imagined or simply beyond the

mind’s reach. “Yah, yah, we've heard

awaken

38

in

|

the darkness

on

a cold

fall

it all

before and nothing ever happens.”

night and walk

stiffly

to the living

room

I

to

“Be Prepared for the Worst”

meditate with

some dim

myself

evidence of

of paper.

a piece

light

and then

wooden

on the

side in

my

several

fragmentary rainbow

a

I

give

handwriting

stuck on the inside. There's a laminated drawing

that the ten-year-old has made: a floating Martin Luther King

touching

floor.

crossdegged on the couch, surrounded by

“Jacinto lunch" written

wad of pink, chewed gum

a

sit

feet shuffle across the

skateboarding magazines, a school backpack, boxer shorts, a

life:

brown paper bag with and

My

cartoonish. Chagall-like

jr.

head nearly

— bands of red, blue, yellow, orange — and birds — white with orange beaks floating A brown

beside, above,

and below the human

tattooed on

reaches up from the bottom of the page toward the suspended

it

civil rights leader.

me and my

sleeplessness.

on — minutes' long on distant

Signs of

sighs.

life

figure.

— a vast,

encompassing

The house seems Then

hand with

nothing.

to breathe

The

faint

"still life”

when

a

peace sign

that includes

the heater

sounds of nighttime

creaking of furniture and door jambs.

streets, the restless

Jacinto breathing in another

room now and

traffic

can hear

I

then, and Analinda rustles the

When

sheets in the other room, missing something.

comes

can't hear

I

them,

1

take

it

for granted that they’re there, alive, dreaming.

“Be prepared for the worst.” imagine

this? I've

walked the

Park,

What

is

the “worst"?

How

can

we

been to Hiroshima, seen the empty, eerie Peace Memorial

halls

and

galleries

display hanging shreds of skin

of the

museum

and flaming

to cringe at dioramas that

buildings.

One hundred

thousand

souls erased in a flash of light, an entire planet enshrouded for half a century

now

in the possibility' of nuclear apocalypse.

In the I

But does this register

in

my mind?

minds of my neighbors? Every day?

have also been to an even darker place, the basement sanctum of a distant

children’s hospital, a windowless realm of whispers

come

He

soon.

phone. So

I

isn’t

went

doing very

and shadows. “You must

well,” Analinda’s voice

to the hospital

paid attention to daily

about student papers, fretted over the disruption of

Analinda

in a

had trembled on the

dark storage room, her breasts

still

Pablo would never drink. Fifty feet away, in a

my

traffic,

schedule.

thought

There

sat

dripping milk that month-old

windowed room of quarantine,

the innocent lay naked again, strapped to a white bed, covered with tape and

I

39

GOING AWAY TO THINK and drugs.

tubes, eyes heavy lidded with fear

didn’t

1

know

my arm and

machine already breathed for him. Young Dr. Anglin took

me

to a

room within view of

Pablo's distress.

A

doctor

"We re doing

“Be prepared for the worst.” Every morning now

window and

new

see a

the continuation of

me

that

am

1

still

Rose, the

vision imply

my

everything— after one

— vanished.

But sometimes,

while Analinda and Jacinto sleep, while the house alternately purrs

like tonight,

come

I

to

sit

by myself and

stopped breathing: 5:20 a

m.,

moment. Analinda's phone

Come now

look out the

every flex of

step,

here, three years after

small black-haired, machine-breathing organism

creaks,

can,” the

take to the streets in running shoes, then soon to

I

of Keystone Canyon, and every aching

trails

body, assures

life.

my

Subtle sounds outside

day.

I

Mount

clouds reshaping themselves over

sky,

pink promise of another brilliant

and

we

all

"But be prepared for the worst.”

said.

the rocky

brought

of X-rays showed tiny

series

lungs increasingly white with spreading infection.

but a

at the time,

it

October

call:

to say good-bye.”

1

stay with Jacinto. Pablo's dying

reflect

on the moment when innocence

1994.

18,

I

recall the

“Scott, you’ve got to

hours before that

come now.

He’s dying.

recall

my

and

need to go .” The predawn drive to Austin,

I

call to a friend:

“Sharon, please

come

the breathless walk to the bowels of pediatric intensive care, the nurse increasing the medication

— “So

he will

feel

— and

nothing”

the monitors going

flat.

The

nurse methodically, delicately removes the tape and tubes, then swaddles tiny Pablo as 1

if

the infant

numb

are too

is

truly

to cry or to

newborn, hands him to

know

if

we

sitting Analinda.

“Touch your son,”

are in fact crying.

“Touch him and say good-bye.”

Analinda

says.

we hand

the body to the nurse and walk unsteadily through a

“I can't.”

1

She and

reply.

As

if in a

dream,

room of silent,

unstaring doctors and nurses toward the still-dark parking garage, where

can do

is

I

am

cannot avoid.

|

is

thinking of myself and what

my emotions and

40

we

hug and breathe.

"Be prepared for the worst’’ in fact

all

hold

my

Expecting the

a phrase that it

has

meant

in

speak to you,

I

my own

breath in anticipation of what

worst

is

not the same as

accepting

1

life

when

to steel

do not want but

the worst. There

is

“Be Preparedfor the Worst”

an

air

of inevitability to the words “be prepared for the worst,” and

of unavoidable

an ardent

failure inspires in us

— perhaps

childlike

this sense

— desire

for

another chance, for an alternative future. But what

is

human

that leads

it

others, of broad abstractions?

beings to think

of

first

on “Grief and

In his introductory essay

Headhunter's Rage,” from Culture and

Truth:

then of

themselves,

The Remaking of Social

a

the

Analysis,

anthropologist and cultural theorist Renato Rosaldo talks about his fieldwork

among

the Ilongot headhunters in the Philippines during the 1960s and 1970s,

own

incorporating an account of his

experience with grief and rage following

when

the accidental death of his wife, Michelle Rosaldo, in 1981,

she

fell

off a

sixty-five-foot cliff into a rushing river while doing field research. Later in the

chapter, Rosaldo reflects

on

his use

of this

story:

My use of personal experience serves as a vehicle for making the quality and intensity of the rage in Ilongot grief

more

readily accessible to readers than certain

more detached modes of

composition. At the same time, by invoking personal experience as an analytical category' one risks easy dismissal.

Unsympathetic readers could reduce

or a mere report on introduction

is

my

discovery of the anger possible

both and more.

anthropological method,

it

An

act

of mourning,

my

my own

report of loss and bereavement. To

three years ago requires

me

going on with

life,

but which

for myself

and for

a public

with Analinda and Jacinto,

death together

— “You

tell

I

is

mean

I

yet

we have never been

my

a critical analysis

of

processes,

infant son's death

something that

1

would

I've so far tried to

ignore while

my

subconscious

turning and turning

in a

way

wife and son.

in

that

The

I

cannot begin to discuss

three of us shared Pablo's

won't be a big brother anymore?” cried seven-

year-old Jacinto on the steps of the Ronald

him about the seriousness of

this

can articulate the experience of Pablo's death

audience

my

and

Frankly',

the motives and techniques of

the story of

— something

in fact

mind, waiting for expression.

bereavement

number of distinguishable

to think directly about

otherwise sublimate and repress

an act of mourning

(1 1)

may wonder about

readers

in

a personal report,

simultaneously encompasses a

no one of which cancels out the others.

Likewise,

this introduction to

McDonald house when we

Pablo's condition, the night before he died

told

— and

able to share our subsequent grief, fearing perhaps that

41

GOING AWAY TO THINK open grieving would prevent us from

we could never

a collapse into sadness that

of Pablo’s dying,

am,

I

daily functioning,

So when

recover.

in part, trying to explore

would

what has

in

result in such I

my

tell

the story

life

been the

ultimate experience of lost hope, lost innocence, in order to understand the

poignancy of warning and the subsequent confirmation of the anticipated event.

“How do we

experience pain?"

I

am

asking myself

we be

transform into numbness? And, once numbed, can

And what

are the implications of post-traumatic

A

And how

numbness

What

does pain

restored to feeling? for the language of is

an extended

discussion of the rhetoric of environmental warning, considering

why warning

environmental warning?

is

follows

mode of contemporary writing about

such a pervasive

to explain

cascade of questions.

why such warnings

nature and attempting

are so difficult to heed.

2000

“Be prepared for the worst." of

loss after

feeling or

Is

the “worst" the end of something or the

something ends or disappears?

— the lack of of enervation — that the

is

Something,” published

Nick Adams and

result

think of Hemingway’s short story “The

Marjorie is

— break

up.

The

more numbness. What

Love, innocence, a relationship between

— says

is

mid- 1920s, a post-World War

in the

his girl

numbness and the

I

complacency

it

engagement, the suffering painlessness

worst that can happen to us?

so vague

Or

feeling

I

End of

story in which

cause of the breakup

is

is

the something that ends?

two people? The word “something"

it all.

1997

"Be prepared are

doomed

.

.” .

for what?

When? The warning

to look for concrete, specific causes

for literature, the philosophy of the anecdotal

McKibben

explains in The Age

|

and

and

of Missing Information

speed information technologies dooms us to miss

42

often comes too

,

effects.

imagistic.

late.

Thus our

And

We love

yet, as Bill

our devotion to new high-

much of what

occurs in the

“Be Prepared for the Worst"

world: “[T]he worst disasters," he writes,

sneak past the cameras. Consider

the wicked, miserable poverty that traps so .

much of the country and

[T]hey happen on time scales that defy

. .

and thereby

slowly,

the decay of the global environment and

.

.

.

“move much more

the planet.

television's relentless dailiness"

(156-57). In the daylight, the circle

to world.

The

my

of

to

me

of daily experience when the sun of Pablo's death and of takes

on metaphorical

warning that we,

and

my

private nightmare of

sometimes returns acutely

as

specifically, to

is

regard the

meditation

last

reflect

I

memory

— and

generality

lingers, the

memory

haunting

memory

this

on David Quammen’s recent

phenomenon of extinction oj the

Dutchman Volquard

as

we would

Quammen

Dodo,

credible eyewitness report of the rare

Mauritius by the

numb

beings, tend to think about death too concretely

of an individual organism. In The Song of the

washes into the

But the

out.

significance as

which

family's loss three years ago,

at night,

last night’s

human

community

attention widens, from self to

dodo

tells

the death

the story

bird on the island of

Iversen in the year 1662. But he then

follows this narrative with a critique of the anecdotal approach to extinction, to

environmental

The

loss:

vividness of the Iversen episode

extinction

— the extinction

last individual.

may be

That

final

of

is

somewhat

Raphus cucullatus or any

species

—

death reflects only a proximate cause.

quite different. By the time the death of its last individual

has already lost too

many

compounded woes.

Its

battles in the

war

for survival.

evolutionary adaptability

moribund. Sheer chance, among other

factors,

is

is

The

misleading.

It

is

crux of the matter of

not

The

who

or what

kills

the

ultimate cause, or causes,

becomes imminent,

a species

has been swept into a vortex of

largely gone. Ecologically,

working against

it.

The

it

toilet

has

of

its

become destiny

has been flushed. (274)

Response to an abstract threat

— to

the language of warning or to a vaguely

perceived physical threat in the world

me

in this essay.

Beyond the

veil

waning days of the millennium, the ultimate dodos

— the

— this

of extinction is

is

the issue that most concerns

literature, so

the idea that

we

abundant

ourselves.

Homo

in these

sapiens

,

arc

arrogant, self-destructive, sapient dodos careening

toward oblivion, unable or unwilling to change our culture in order to stave off

GOING AWAY TO THINK our

own

extinction and yet

of remorse

full

of individual members of

at the loss

our kind and indifferent to the dire prognostications of our sages.

What

How

is it

human

in

nature that makes

we “be prepared

can

so difficult for us to heed a warning?

it

for the worst”

when most of

most of the time,

us,

ignore threats that are too abstract or too slow and widespread to be perceived

human

by the individual

observer? As Donald Worster reminds us in Natures

Thomas Malthus formulated

Economy,

“his tragic ratios” in the late eighteenth

century to show that “population must eventually overrun the supply of food, bringing intense competition for wages to meet rising prices, and finally misery

and starvation to those 'unhappy persons who,

drawn

in the great lottery

of

life,

have

a blank’” (150). Vast patterns, recognized in population statistics, food

production data, and economic and employment figures

— not

to

mention

Malthus's inherent pessimism and caution with regard to providential ecological

views

— enabled

the author to formulate the Essay on

essay that Charles

would

surely

fall

Darwin could read

Population Control or Race

more

specific to

growth

amusement and appreciation but

on deaf ears among the general

Paul Ehrlich issued his

later,

for

to

own

Oblivion >

the Principle of Population,

— with

that

two centuries

public. Nearly

on population — The

essay

an

Population Bomb:

data and warnings and advice

much

our time, arguing that the current trend of rampant population

will likely

continue “to

logical conclusion:

its

mass starvation. The

rich

minimum of

three

are going to get richer," he explained in 1968: but the more numerous poor are going to get poorer.

and one-hali million

compared

to the

action to save

will starve to

numbers

effect

well,” first

in a talk

death this year, mostly children. But this

late to help.

he gave

It is

And

it

is

a

mere handful

too late to take

It is

in

the nature of warnings to have a delayed

also the nature

Reno

in

October

of

human

beings, as Ehrlich

1997, “not to take dictation

not to heed admonishments and commands. Thirty years after the

publication of The Population Bomb,

we

the book's population predictions have global

so.

is

people. (17)

on massive problems.

mentioned

these poor, a

that will be starving in a decade or

many of those

Mass starvation, too

Of

human

44

I

live in a

come

world

true.

in

which many of

Ehrlich anticipated a

population of $.6s billion in 1995; the actual population was

“Be PreparedJor the Worst"

Ehrlich predicted an overpopulated world beset by gangsters and

5.7 billion.

war and environmental degradation. What he did not the “brownlash"

Movement and

phenomenon of the 1980s and

Coming Age

of

Paul and

1990s, the so-called Wise Use

the rash of books like Ronald Bailey’s EcoScam: The

of Ecological Apocalypse (1993) and

was

predict, though,

Gregg Easterbrook's A Moment

False Prophets

on the Earth The :

Environmental Optimism (1995).

Anne

pooh-pooh

Ehrlich responded to this widespread effort to

environmental warnings such Flow Anti' Environmental

as theirs

Rltetoric Threatens

by publishing

Our

Betrayal ofScience and Reason:

“The time has come,” they

Future.

state in the introduction,

book about

to write a

problems.

We

call

"green" policies.

being made to minimize the seriousness of environmental

efforts

these attempts the “brownlash” because the) help to fuel a backlash against -

The brownlash

has been generated by a diverse group of individuals and

organizations, doubtless often with differing motives and backgrounds.

brownlashers by w hat they

say,

not by

who

have successfully sow cd seeds of doubt f

large

about the

reality

they are.

among

journalists, policy makers, as

its

It's

well

models

crucial dialogue

and good to in

on how

as

messages, they

and the public

at

we

try'

to set the record

proper interpretation. By exposing and

refuting the misinformation disseminated by the brownlash,

ground the

them

overpopulation, global climate

change, ozone depletion, and losses of biodiversity. In writing this book,

and

classify

With strong and appealing

and importance of such phenomena

straight with respect to environmental science

We

we hope

to return to higher

to sustain society’s essential environmental services. (1-2)

“set the record straight,” to use the latest data

and

analytical

proposing new approaches for agriculture and environmental science,

and to expose the dangers of new

“fables”

about population and climate and

toxic waste. But, the Ehrlichs ask in the title of

1996 book,

“How Can Good

Science

one of the chapters of

Become Good

Policy?”

“One

their

especially

unpalatable consequence of the brownlash’s attempts to disseminate erroneous information," they write,

is

the

undue influence

its

rhetoric has

on public

policy.

Brownlashers

only policy makers but also the public at large that their view scientifically justified position

propaganda

is

is

try to

the right one

convince not a

moderate,

on environmental matters. But we have seen that much of the

seriously at variance with informed scientific opinion

on many

critical issues.

GOING AWAY TO THINK How

can decision makers and the general public be

made more aware of

the actual findings

of environmental science, and thus of the increasingly grave threats posed by environmental deterioration? (203)

The

chapter from Betrayal of Science and Reason proceeds to urge environmental

scientists to

devote their energy to public education, not merely to technical

And

research.

there

is

a

human

the scale of the

— from

of thirteen topics

list

how

"how

the environment”

enterprise critically affects

consideration of "risk assessment:

discussion of

to deal with uncertainty”

— that

to

the

Ehrlichs themselves routinely include in university courses and public lectures

(206). But

how

can the mere presentation of such information overcome the

massive unmindfulness of the public and the seeds of skepticism sown recently

by the brownlash movement? People do not want to be afraid of what's coming, to be

made aware

of the dire circumstances of the present.

And

our minds have

developed various strategies to slough off fearful information. More potent perhaps than fear as a means of triggering concern and caring

the emotion

is

of regret, the sense that we’ve squandered something important or that such

squandering

is

imminent. Yet even regret wrestles with

complacency and peace of mind, and our impulse healthy concern at the slightest invitation, even

a childlike desire for

as a species

if

is

abandon

to

such an invitation comes

without evidence, without substantiation.

1999

Can you baby of

feel

it

slipping yet?

dies; a single family

lost

innocence.

A

is

The

lyric intensity of

—a

order to voice his revelation of what

it

narrative changes into something broader,

to lose

by perceiving and hooking into

reader, to accept

my

happened,

just as surely as

own sweet child. And

loss,

perhaps even to “explain

46

|

yet

I

it

something

lover's

and

real.

hand or

single

a cloud

to narrative in dear.

a larger pattern.

as credible

you can clasp your

your

under

more encompassing — an

stabilize the self

of Pablo’s death

live

human being— turns

means

A

family’s story’?

torn apart and must learn to

single scholar

tale

one

I

But the effort to

want you.

This experience tousle the hair of

find myself compelled to explain the feeling

away.”

of

"Be Preparedfor the Worst"

Can you

feel

the lyric intensity of the narrative voice slipping into the “1

white noise of equivocation and explanation, of “academic discourse”? write as though there were no sorrow like

Stowe

On

to her

husband

the contrary

I

my

of

loss.

sorrow," wrote Harriet Beecher

write as though every sorrow were like

— inevitable — sorrow

my

sorrow, as

whom

Melody Graulich, from

Amy

on

this

“reminded that

is

a

context of the universal experience of easy

it

is

comfort

to take

immutability of a big pattern.

but to worry. Numbness,

My

sense,

I

own

literature,”

mighty comforting thing” (169).

loss.

my

family,

What

1

purpose

in this

I,

and our story

is

too,

in the

find disquieting, in fact,

in context, in abstraction, in

is

literature,

Tan; the scholar, embedding her

find comfort in the process of locating myself,

how

American women’s

theme within her commentary on “mourning

a literary tradition

tales

taken the Stowe passage, notes

narratives in

"

from Charlotte Perkins Gilman to variation

I’ve

if

were somehow indicated

emotional response to Pablo’s death. In her survey of women’s

the great frequency of “lost child

is

of her baby boy Charley.

in 1849, following the death

the entire planet's potential in

my

exploration

everywhere, accessible

is

— and

the apparent

not to soothe, it is

as inviting

as sleep.

2000 “Be prepared for the worst.” Commentators such

as Edith

Efron would disparage

such a statement as “apocalypticism” and would accuse the speaker of being

an alarmist crank. In her 1984 book. The Controls

What We Know

How

Environmental

Politics

about Cancer, Efron exhorts the public not to accept the scientists" as Rachel

warnings of such “leading apocalyptic Barry

Apocalyptics:

Carson, Paul Ehrlich,

Commoner, Rene Dubos, and George Wald. Don't be prepared

worst, she argues, don't take a cautious view toward

human

for the

selfishness

consumptiveness, but be ready to do battle with scientific ideologues

who

and

allow

their moral visions to interfere with empirical truth. Rachel Carson, complains

Efron, “was

imbued with

a

profoundly ecological perspective and bore

animus against modern technology. denunciation of the life-destroying

.

.

.

a

deep

The bulk of [Silent Spring] was a passionate

evils of

modern

industrial technology” (33).

GOING AWAY TO THINK Ehrlich

is

characterized as a purveyor of “ecological totalitarianism" whose books

“played a powerful role in feeding the apocalyptic fever which was building in

He almost

the country

single-handedly launched the 'Zero Population Growth'

movement and convinced many to have children. 'Man,' above

We

find ourselves

Whom

shall

we

— the

all,

was

laypeople

Who

believer’

upper middle

in the

enemy"

Ehrlich’s

— faced

free

is

class that

it

was immoral

(35).

with claims and counterclaims.

of ideology?

Where

we

can

turn for

the empirical foundation of our evolving environmental values? Edith Efron

concludes her book with a scientists

right-minded, nonapocalyptic

for honest,

call

and journalists to come forward:

Just as the public grasped the apocalyptic abstraction that “chemicals”

“nature” was benign, so will their

own economic

“environmental cancer.

way

a

grasp that the scientists

system are not to be trusted.

which

religiouS'political parable

regulating industry

it

.

is

on the

fair)' tale,

cardsharp shuffles cards, while

were the

critical scientists

who knew

it

evil

and that

them

against

dropped on the Carsonian

meaning Americans have ever been given

the only

basis of a

hid nature and pitted

A bomb has been

While the Biologist

.

who

were

State

while

it

was concocting

a pseudo-science

.

.

.

and

was manipulating theory and data the

was suffocating American minds with myth

that this was happening

for

and where was the watchdog press

.

.

.

where

(423)

So much venom, so much self-righteousness, on many sides of the environmental discussion.

The

layperson

— including the

for neutral science, for there

environmental values

is

no such

— how values

literary artist

thing.

— has

nowhere

to turn

We must begin to study, then, how

in general

— are

received and constructed,

so as to better account for this process in considering the conflicting arguments

presented by the inevitable defenders and debate. In both private decision

we

critics

who

will participate in

making and the formulation of public

struggle today, in an age of relativism

and

any

policy,

social constructivism, to locate

guideposts of “truth.” Furthermore, although the news reports indicate that

we

live in

an increasingly violent and volatile

understand what

become

it

means

to be in danger.

muted, abstract phenomenon,

a

economic

irritant or as a

all

Danger

likely to reveal itself

|

most

part,

only as a vague

— a flooding river,

We are losing our ability to process warnings

kinds, including environmental warnings, driven as

48

us no longer

has, for the

sudden, unexpected physical threat

an avalanche, a sidewalk mugging. of

many of

society,

we

are into

becoming

Be Prepared for

ideologically intransigent interpreters of science

the

Worst”

and complacent recipients of

doomsday messages. Even clever restatements of Rachel Carson’s “Fable for Tomorrow” and Paul Ehrlich's vision of a war-torn, resource-scarce

world

fall

of the Cherokee Appalachian writer Marilou Awiakta's

Nature Sends

Pink

a

Slip."

from her 1993 collection

Wisdom:

Homo

To:

Sapiens

Re. Termination

My business

is

The bottom

line

producing

life.

is

you are not cost-effective workers.

Over

the millennia,

clarified

Your It

a

1

have repeatedly

my management

failure to

comply

is

goals

well

and

objectives.

documented.

stems from your inability to be

team

player:

you interact badly with co-workers •

contaminate the workplace

•

sabotage the machinery

•

hold up production

•

consume

In short,

you are

Within the I

profits

last

a disloyal species.

decade

have given you three warnings: •

made

•

shaken up your

•

utilized plague to cut back personnel

Your

the workplace too hot for you

home

office

failure to take appropriate action

has locked these warnings into the Phase-Out in termination.

Mode, which

will result

No appeal.

(88)

upon deaf ears. Think

poem

called

Selu: Seeking the

“Mother

Corn* Mother’s

GOING AWAY TO THINK The poem acknowledges

warming, major earthquakes, and virus epidemics such

disasters” as global

AIDS and Ebola— to toward their place

such pronounced "natural

the failure of warnings

humanity with

instill

— our place — in

a

more

as

cautious, respectful attitude

the world. So what might the impact of a

mere poem be? Chastisement seems not

to work, as

ample evidence shows.

Information, even from the most authoritative sources, seems to be a lightning

rod for skepticism. Even scientific discussions, even academic debates, function

like

assassination, least in the

courtroom

kowtowing

poem

melodrama:

witness,

presented above, ironic

—

humor— with Mother

own moral

collective “I told

Nature using

the rhetorical strategy of choice. But

is

environmental writers these days seem able to do

minute

character

counterwitness,

to research funding agencies. In Awiakta’s case, at

standard corporate language

establish their

now

many

more than seek

little

to

certainty, as if preparing ultimately to voice a last'

you so"

if

their subtle

— and not so subtle — apocalyptic

statements become physically manifest decades from now. optimistically (as in Awiakta’s

admonishments. They serve

poem), such warnings

as practical

offer

Or

perhaps,

more

more than moral

maps, showing combinations of values'

formation strategies and conservative, sustainable behaviors and employing

new vocabularies of warning in order

to pierce

minds paralyzed by dont-worry-

be-happy rhetoric and ears numbed by too many wants, ultimately, to be lost and disoriented, so

and

at peace, that

every thing,

we

knowing

Do you voice?

policy

slipping

feel at this

literature,

want

to

we pretend

we

are at

home

— we relax in our era of mind-made

away

yet, the lyrical intensity'

of the narrative

moment?

beware: what follows is

that

No one

is real.

very

is

the emotional

vacuum of

the language that holds sway in the hails of power.

poems and engaging

who decide how

try a

it

and economics. This

Provocative

If you

that nothing

feel

What do you

Readers of

are morally centered

shrill predictions.

narratives

seldom occupy the minds of those

to dispose of natural resources,

who determine what

to protect.

understand how the rule makers think, why they do what they do,

sample of their language.

Try to hold onto your emotional sharpness

SO

|

as

you enter the discourse of

”

“Be Preparedfor the Worst

and Contingent Valuation.

steady-state economics this

atmosphere. Think about what

it is

that

you

Try' to

be

and not

to

know

In contemplating the vast

it.

“My mind,

of death, John Daniel once wrote,

in

love.

“Be prepared for the worst.” The worst thing of lost

human being

a

like

may be

all

to be

and ubiquitous abstraction

my

hands,

best suited to

is

the grasping of smaller things, things that happen close in front of me, things

can see and turn slowly

memory and

in

(“Some Mortal Speculations" of the academic world, confession.

My

199).

1

see again, in imagination's second light”

Although

I

blithely use the abstract language

resonate emotionally to the soundness of Daniel's

I

mind, too

— like

all

human minds,

to small, concrete specifics than to the

suspect

I

—

is

management of large, systemic

Literary artists work, of course, in the realm of vivid particulars, literature relish the particular, while

better suited

maneuvering

patterns.

and readers of

to extrapolate

more general

patterns of the imagination, patterns of the social and natural realms, patterns

of the individual mind. Environmental writers such Bass, T.

as

Marilou Awiakta, Rick

Coraghessan Boyle, William Kittrcdge, Barry Lopez, Scott Russell

Sanders, and Terry Tempest Williams operate routinely in the

mode

of the

evocative parable, not simply dictating moral reform, but guiding audiences afflicted

with moral relativism and cliched, knee-jerk, moral polarization to

rethink their fundamental values, their needs and fears and desires. in a

time of rapidly shifting physical conditions and

to reshape worldviews

and

ethical

We

live

our

ability

schemes to match the physical and

social

yet, tragically,

changes has atrophied. As Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich suggest in their

1989 volume New World New Mind: Moving Toward Conscious

We don't

perceive the world as

extract of reality

so

it

and

it is,

because our nervous system evolved to select only a small

to ignore the rest.

would be uneconomical

We

never experience

exactly

the

same

situation twice,

to take in every occurrence. Instead of conveying everything

about the world, our nervous system

The phenomenon of

Evolution,

is

valuation

“impressed” only by dramatic

— the

actual

process

changes. (3)

of forging values

—

is

perhaps the most important aspect of our relationship to the natural world that environmental literature can help us to understand.

What's more,

this

GOING AWAY TO THINK literature actually functions as a sort

of cultural antenna, sensitizing us to

significant changes in our physical surroundings that

normal, hurried obliviousness of daily

Think of such Negro

life

most of us — due

to the

— would otherwise ignore.

narratives of values transformation as Barry Lopez’s story

from

in the Kitchen,”

Field Notes,

"The

or Terry' Tempest Williams’s parable of

the transformation from obedience to social resistance in Refuge. Such tales are valuable not only tor their specific narrative strategies, but for their suggestions

about

how

whether

the process of values formation occurs as a result of experience,

Terrarium

Think of Scott

or imagined.

real

which helps us to appreciate the

,

Russell Sanders’s speculative novel.

act of historical projection as a

means

of imagining

— and constructively questioning— the trajectory of technological

Or

Rick Bass's Winter and The Book of Taak, meditations on the private

progress.

and

between

political relationship

which alienation becomes

love.

and

self

place, studies of the process

by

William Kittredge’s work, increasingly, recants

not only the old mythology of the American West as an agricultural paradise, but the traditional notion of environmental adversaries his

body of work exhibits

identity

and

whole,

as a

in steady flux, pressing continually to revise

recast values, seeking to locate the self within

environmental

changing

social

and

realities.

So, let best, worst.

mind

a

— taken

me

say

it

again.

"Be prepared for the worst.” Better, worse,

By using such words, we presuppose that the speaker and

his

or

her listener possess an active, shared system of values and perhaps, on a deeper level,

an understanding of the evaluative process

— something

known among

economists, psychologists, and policy types as “valuation.” But there

consensus

among

the experts on

is

Economy: Toward

values are or should be

Herman Daly

argue emphatically that

as

linked to moral value. In his classic essay, a Political

Growth,’’ however, Daly

is

little

how environmental

framed or formed. Economists such

economic value

is

Economy

forced to

“The Steady-State

of Biophysical Equilibrium and Moral

call

into question the very possibility' of

using actual societal values as a guide in developing environmental policy. “Is it

realistic

in

our

secular, 'pluralistic' society to

consensus?" he asks:

S2

|

expect any kind of moral

"Be Preparedfor the Worst"

Where

is

this

moral consensus to come from? Not from a spineless relativism or from the

hallucinatory psychic

epiphenomena

that

seem

complex systems. Let us

to haunt

state

it

directly in the strongest terms. Ultimately, the possibility ot moral consensus presupposes a

dogmatic

belief in objective value. If values are subjective, or

artifacts,

then there

a consensus

is

nothing objective to which appeal can be made or around which

might be formed.

.

.

.

sophisticated self-analytical society.

nor

that,

once

clarified,

thought to be merely cultural

it

Only

real objective values

can

command

consensus

We have no guarantee that objective value can

would be accorded the consensus

it

be

clarified,

merits. But without faith in the

existence of an objective hierarchy of value and in our ability at least vaguely to perceive

must

On

as physical research

policy questions

what grounds

is

must be based on dogmatic

must presuppose the

are meaningless terms, then

all

policy

reality’ is

it.

we

determinism into an unchosen, and

resign ourselves to being driven by technological

perhaps unbearable, future.

in a

technical determinism to be resisted? Just

faith that nature

is

orderly, so research into

of an ordered hierarchy of value.

nonsense. (357

If better

or worse

$ 8)

Daly proposes the following “revised utilitarian rule” to govern technological

development and the use of natural resources:

“All

present people take priority

over future numbers, but the existence ol more future people takes priority over the

trivial

wants of the present.” The goal of this rule

economize the long-run

capacity'

is

to

of the earth to support

“maximize

life at a

life, ...

to

sufficient level

of individual wealth" (361). Edith Efron would run shrieking from the room

upon hearing need not

fear.

this insanely antigrowth,

antimachine values statement. But she

In reality most environmental policy decisions today are

still

in

the hands of resource harvesters and processors, consulting economists, and politically sensitized policy

foundation, nor

Even among

is

wonks. There

is

no consensus on

a shared moral

there consensus on methodologies for values elicitation.

specialists

in

environmental valuation, there

profound

is

known

disagreement. Witness the current brouhaha over the methodology

Contingent Valuation (or cv), the favored strategy among contemporary

as

natural- resource economists,

which “posits

a

hypothetical

market for an

unpriced good and asks individuals to state the dollar value they place on a

proposed change

in

its

quantity, quality', or access”

Psychologists involved in the debate over for

cv argue

(Gregory

et

that while “there

al.

is

a

177).

need

monetary assessments of environmental damages and that an evaluation

GOING AWAY TO THINK approach based on an individual's expressed preferences purpose,

.

.

human

(178). In other words,

Who

Sound or Yucca Mountain? Which one of us the Tongass National Forest? Sure,

if

but there

is

no way

we were brazen enough

we could

is

to attach

going to buy Prince William

is

thinking about making a bid on

enormous

pull

we had

dollar figures out of

moral right to

a

value to extraordinary parts of the world. Critics of the

methods

are

monetary

for us to gauge the actual value of these places,

to believe that

increasingly that “improved

CV methods

demands upon respondents"

know how

beings do not

value to goods that have no real market.

air,

appropriate tor this

the measures of monetary value used in current

.

flawed because they impose unrealistic cognitive

thin

is

for valuing

affix

even

monetary

CV methodology argue

non-market natural resources

can be found by paying closer attention to the multidimensional nature of

environmental values and to the constructive nature of (ibid

).

This

is

From 1995

where environmental to

2004,

I

literature

fits

human

preferences”

into the scheme.

collaborated with anthropologist Terre Satterfield on a

National Science Foundation-sponsored study which posits that nature writers sense and articulate society’s long-held and emerging environmental values

and prod readers to reexamine biases and physical

and

beliefs

no longer

in

congruence with

social reality. Satterfield’s research proposal asserts that “nature

writers are lay ethicists

who more

than any other group have manifested and

articulated nonmonetary, non-utilitarian expressions of values.

Most nature

writers have spent considerable reflective time considering the essence of

environmental values and the narrative expression of those values” (c-8).

remain to be explored, however, are the

What

specific rhetorical strategies that writers

use to express their perceptions of environmental values and the processes

by which

this literature

the language

language

Bird “the ,

of

among

words

can contribute to the discourse of law and

the people changes,” says Charles Wilkinson in The Eagle

in the

law books will change.

to balance out a vocabulary

benefit analyses. precisely the

policy. “If

The

other task

is

aim of environmental

One

task

now dominated

to enrich existing writers: to cut

is

to

add new kinds

by board feet and cost-

words” (15-16). This

is

through the gray bureaucratic

language of the courtroom, the corporate boardroom, and the federal office

S4

I

"Be Prepared for the Worst"

building and transfuse

it

doesn't merely open old

with love and

wounds and

grief,

with

when what you

Think about can

flail

the

life

it

moment

cherish this

And

now.

if

you

will, a

be no more.

will

now, one breath

and grope and plead

to fight.

Or

believe that

later,

time sooner or

it

love?

gone. You

is

child.

Or you

can

to change. Prepare yourself for loss or prepare yourself

These are the potent messages

human

that

for the preservation of your favorite forest, for

prepare yourself for loss

writing about

way

What do you

of your husband or your wife or your lover or your

accommodate yourself

in a

reinforce old prejudices.

“Be prepared for the worst. ” Imagine, later

But to do so

life.

order to stimulate yourself to

in

become ubiquitous

that have

Round River

section

in postindustrial

Aldo Leopold issued the

culture and the natural world.

following statement in the

fight.

appended

A

to

Sand County

Almanac in 1953:

One

of the penalties of an ecological education

Much of the damage harden

his shell

inflicted

on land

is

one

that

is

lives

alone

quite invisible to laymen.

in a

An

world of wounds.

must either

ecologist

and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or

he must be the doctor

who

sees the

marks of death

in a

community

that believes itself well

and

does not want to be told otherwise. (197)

Paul

and Anne Ehrlich used the phrase

of a recent book, thinking

specifically

contemporary society and urging active.

However,

1

sense, chastening

the

community of

meant

as the

endangerment of humans and other

scholars to be politically

to use “ecologist" in a

does not want to hear.

“Be prepared for the worst"

is

the phrase

of beauty.

We know

we imagine

more

inclusive

species to defy the rhetorical abyss of

it

The sweet

title

scientific ecologists in

what

relish.

working

people sensitive to the deterioration of the planet and

warning discourse and

we

world of wounds"

about the role of

this

believe Leopold all

“a

tell

society

sadness of future remorse it’s

coming— loss and

its

is

we

despise and the phrase

one of the defining emotions

emotional attachment

ourselves to be innocent, inculpable. Perhaps

ourselves to be impervious to the effects of

— and yet

we even imagine

loss, as if this life

and

this

world

GOING AWAY TO THINK game world of

exist in the

personal a

lives,

illusion

its

among

artists

loss in

our

and audiences

to aestheticize loss

is

and

correspondences in the physical world. This process creates an

of permanence that exists

in

poignant tension with back-of-the-mind

awareness of dead infants and poisoned as the

human

experience

and we experience the annual reminder of autumn, but there

disconcerting impulse

to forget

We

the imagination.

rivers.

museum-making impulse of nostalgic

One

might refer to

art.

Renato Rosaldo coins the term “imperialist nostalgia” order to describe the

tendency

this

phenomenon of “mourning

for

in Culture and Truth in

what one has destroyed.”

This notion applies to a variety of nostalgic (and destructive) relationships,

from the

cultural to the environmental. “Imperialist nostalgia revolves

around

a

paradox,” writes Rosaldo:

A

person

kills

somebody, and then mourns the victim. In more attenuated form, someone

deliberately alters a

form of life, and then

prior to the intervention.

regrets that things have not

At one more remove, people destroy

they worship nature. In any of

its

remained

as

they were

their environment,

and then

versions, imperialist nostalgia uses a pose of “innocent

yearning" both to capture people's imaginations and to conceal

its

complicity with often brutal

domination. (69-70)

In acknowledging the use of the discourse of warning rhetoric of nostalgia

remember anonymous

— as a trope

environmental

in

yet,

literature,

in particular the it is

culprits (the "they did

with

this caveat in

emotional tug of nostalgia

it”

excuse) and transforming moral outrage it

sad and beautiful" dismissal).

mind, we can nonetheless appreciate the potent

as

one of the most vigorous and useful

in the literature of social reform. In recent years, the nostalgic fact,

undergone

a subtle transformation that

may

help to prevent

escapist deflections evident in imperialist nostalgia. For an

change,

we have only

to compare, in brief,

trope has, in

some

of the

example of

this

Last Beautiful Days of Autumn

(1982)

Bass’s The BookofTaak (1996).

Eighteen years ago,

paean to autumn

S6

strategies

two particular examples of nostalgic

environmental writing, John Nichols's The

and Rick

important to

the potential dangers of displacing responsibility' from the self to

into passive aesthetic pleasure (the “isn't

And

— and

|

in

Nichols published his photographic and essayistic

northern

New

Mexico, a rhapsodic volume sharpened by

Be Prepared

the elegiac

title

inflated prose. last beautiful

The

subject matter of this

work

is

— the rich, intense conclusion of a season of decline. “Sometimes

issue of personal mortality. states in his epilogue,

and mortality are

loss

without

how

wonder:

will

and that of

life

1

die?” Nichols

possibilities

and

loss are inextricable.

One

writers, though,

is

mood

it

of the

of the important questions

how

to use the discourse of

merely allowing nostalgic language, as Fred Davis puts

as a substitute for the feeling or

at

— outdoor nature and indoor sex — as

crucially intertwined. Certainly, the language

contemporary environmental

for

I

also addresses the midlife

and then he proceeds to consider the

the same time to celebrate the sensual

life

playful,

not merely autumn, but “the

By both implication and direct discussion, the book

physical

Worst”

and subject matter and by the author's penchant for

days of autumn"

if sensuality

for the

aims to arouse”

it,

“to serve

book

(73). Nichols’s

opens with the following paragraph: I

autumn. All year long

live for

memories of Octobers

my

bones.

1

of the

down

is

the

this lean valley.

last alfalfa cutting.

sniffing arctic odors,

country season

when

make me

most

alive,

the most heartbreakingly real season in

1

snow

sweep

flurries that

adore the harvest smells around me, ot ripe and rotting

Nervous horses with

feel like singing.

And

I

their heads raised, flared nostrils tautly

long for the gorgeous death of that high-

— only moments ago bursting with resplendent foliage

smirrh across jagged

create

hillsides. ( 3 )

Despite the vague political implications here in Nichols’s

first

the mountains pulse with a pellucid varnish of winter whiteness, and the

spears of a million bare aspens a soft gray

It

love the chilly winds and dying leaves and the

intermittently fruit,

past.

have reveries of those cool beautiful days to come, and

1

— implications

that are amplified

other books of nature writing such as ifMountains Die (1979), (1990), and Keep

On

the

— this passage and

Mesa (1986), The Sky’s

the Limit

most of Last

Days operates as a personal, nostalgic reverie involving the

Beautiful

It

Simple (1994)

seasonal changes of nature. Issues of environmental and cultural preservation

haunt the background of the narrative, but Nichols’s principal aim seems to be the creation of a verbal and photographic analogue to the experience of an

autumn

in Taos. I'm

not sure

if

Renato Rosaldo would

imperialist celebration of an occupied landscape by a

but he would in the pastel

likely

criticize this

book

as

an

Euro-American author,

observe that activism and responsibility-taking are hidden

language of nostalgia.

GOING AWAY TO THINK By contrast,

Bass’s The Book of Tank, with

its

genre-challenging combination

of personal reverie and activist plea, seems to display a promising rhetorical

compromise between the

warning language and the

traditional use of nostalgic

cutting-edge language of contemporary social analysis, language that strives to

accommodate the

speaker’s share in the forces of destruction. "Nostalgia at play

with domination”

is

what Rosaldo

calls this

instructive, in conclusion, to present the as to contrast

I

shiver, as

I

valley

it’s

shivering because

— places and things

There

is

I

winter I’m

my windowless unheated

in

so

know, which the valley

sanctuary you go

a place, a

inhabiting of that place, you feel magic. There's no other

That's what

This book

I

is

literary writer,

like to chase,

not

it's

know your

end, to

openly,

nakedly,

another world. You are not in control

It's

so

oj Taak,

this.

I'm shivering because I’m

opening section of The Book

It is

with Nichols's introduction:

it

write

paradoxical discourse (87).

word or

like that.

a sin, to ask

new

— and

a

or,

energy,

new understanding.

for

no way known

it

secrets

my

of

— the Yaak — has entrusted to me. I

suppose, poetry, that

upon emerging from

move toward:

It’s

revealing the earned

writing fiction,

to, in

rat-shed of a writing cabin.

is

in

the writing of and the

it.

You’ve touched mystery.

to explain

it.

that feeling, that place.

It

does try to escape.

sourcebook, a handbook, a weapon of the heart. To a

something of the reader, rather than to

agenda, from the very

rather than discovering

start,

and

give; it

to

know

the

along the way, or at

the end itself

My valley essays

is

— these

help protect a these things us

on

my valley

fire

please to act to save

Best, the

faint secrets could

—

it’s all

It

I

has been on

know how

fire for

to do.

live in that valley.

our acquisitive culture,

in

— having advertised

want the

it

burning.

and the people who

valley,

— that

is

into us the notion that

now

acquisitive sorts

we want

— those

don’t

know

know

if

a

book can

book can harm

that a

where they want

that big business has us

things and lots of them, and that

most Unique, the Ten Least Known — that

draw

I

I

over twenty years. These

who come

we

a revelation of this valley’s wild

to the valley to take something,

rather than give.

come

It is

not a place to

It is

a place to save

to.

— a place

to exercise

our strength and compassion

— that last

that the advertisers have not yet been able to breed, or condition, out of us.

There are many moments of lyrical, private

.

. .

little bit

(xiii-xiv)

reverie in The Book of Taak, passages

where Bass celebrates "the blood-rhythms of wilderness which remain

S8

|

in us”

"Be Prepared for the Worst”

(13)

and “the rare

things, the delicious things' of his valley (58). But unlike the

resigned tone, the air of inevitability, that permeates The Last Beautiful Days

Autumn, Bass’s The Book

oj

and functions

— like many of his recent magazine articles and Fiber — both explores the artist-activist dilemma

Taak

recent essay story

like the

as a hybrid, fragilely

most prominent idea

of

balanced combination of art and plea.

in this work, apart

The

from the unmistakable message that

logging and development are threatening the Yaak and other remote places

American West,

in the

suspend storytelling

from the polarizing

in

is

the notion of the

artist's sacrifice, his

he admits on the

its

final

essential character,

its

and even

to snap

a

changing place that

1

and

I

am

afraid

— risking the result of numbness.

and logging both

The

of failing

believe the simplest in

will

page of the book:

.

to

become

my neighbors, my friends

and yet most inflammatory

and

belief

so taut as to

become

.

I’m not afraid of failing at a short story— at a work of fiction. But valley;

in

wildness. “Fact has replaced poetry,"

and — despite tny knowing better— desire has been allowed brittle,

far

yet,

of politicized language that Edith Efron detects

environmental discourse, Bass pursues the dream of nevertheless retain

And

passionate pursuit of a political end.

effect

decision to

I

am

afraid

of failing the

my community.

of all: that we can have wilderness

the Yaak Valley. (188)

very artfulness of literature becomes endangered

when

the writer presses

the outer boundary of nostalgia, screeching along the border of language where the story of potential loss becomes a plea. of Taak, what he’s hoping

beauty for wild beauty.

An

for,

is

What

Bass

is

imagining in The Book

an aesthetic trade: words for place,

exchange that might, eventually, inspire

artistic

a political

reorganization that will enable art and action, wilderness and logging, to coexist.

Human

emergence and

experience must, in loss,

and

its

entirety,

for this reason the

encompass both

mood and

life

and death,

language of nostalgia are

central to the artist’s efforts to convey the poignancy of experience. But as face the environmental predicaments of a to be

marked by ever-deepening

crisis

new millennium,

a

we

millennium surely

and despair and emotional numbness,

the primary challenge for literary artists and for interpreters of literature

may

be to understand the evolving discourse of warning and nostalgia, of love and loss.

GOING AWAY TO THINK 1999

Enough of

this.

Enough of

this gray,

and

narrative thread by now,

academic

chatter. You've surely lost the

find myself drifting into the solace of abstraction,

I

using the sidestep of analogy and generalization to ease the lingering pain of loss.

The

pain of Pablo’s death

breathing

— becomes

muted

almost imperceptible pain

“Academic

This

chatter.”

Pablo’s story with the

as

we

is

— the

I

felt at

distract myself

I

all

pain

he stopped

by thinking of the gradual,

we consider

feel as

moment

the

what Analinda would

the slow rot of the planet.

my

call

phenomenon of environmental

effort to

my

loss,

compare

linking of a

personal story with a discussion of the language of environmental valuation.

She and

never talk about Pablo, and these days

I

about larger matters,

we seldom

either. Pablo’s ashes rest in a blue plastic

an orange, covered bowl;

we have never removed

drawn by Analinda

by

a small, red heart

on

a shelf in the downstairs storage

all

my

push

at the

1

fear,

moves ever deeper

am

box,

time of our move,

in turn,

the one

if

who

I

is

much

place too

power of words faith in

words.

to

Or

if

she wishes

perform such magic.

if,

I

from her perspective,

inactive, disengaged, silently despairing.

I

wonder

if

we

all

we experience

lives.

1

to prevent Jacinto

from

unarticulated sadness of this essay in

we

— she becomes a sleepwalker, a bearer

What know most fearfully is this: we, Analinda and we can

unnoticed

into the hollow depths of a despair

have different ways of recognizing and responding to the losses during our

marked only

sits

— she becomes the loss she once experienced, and even

to shed this sadness, she doubts the

I

The

its

room.

she can neither recognize nor overcome

wonder,

envelope within

feelings into an extended, metaphorical discussion of the loss

share. Analinda,

of sadness

with each other

the ceramic container from

cardboard box since our move to Nevada four years ago.

1

talk

my

head,

with him, talking.

1

living his entire life

loss.

As

I

a

warm

day,

together,

beneath

work through the

find myself driving through the

It is

I

must do what

— or within — the

final

passage of this

mountains north of Reno

and the windows of our car are down — we

are bathed in the smell of sage. "Jacinto,”

6o

|

I

begin, out of the blue.

"

There

is

something

I'd like

to talk to

you

“Be Prepared for the Worst"

about.

does the

something

related to

It's

I

'm writing.

memory of Pablo make you

“When

I

“Do you

think of Pablo,” he says,

Do you

ever think of Pablo?

How

feel?”

“I feel sad."

think about Pablo very much?”

“All the time."

“What do you remember about him?" “I

remember how good

he was.

I

remember

it

felt to

hold him in

my arms.

I

remember how

cute

the feel of his soft skin, his hair.”

“Do you remember

the last time you were with him, the last time you saw

him or touched him?” Jacinto pauses. “No.

time

I

was with him.

.

I

.

.

remember him

in general, but

But

about him,

this talking

it

I

can't think of the last

makes him

clearer in

my

mind.”

NOTE

Jacinto

is

Analinda and

now twenty-one 1

are

years old. trying to figure out

no longer married.

house, awaiting a ceremonial release

how

to

make

his

way

in the

world

Pablo’s ashes remain in a bowl, in a box, at Analinda’s

we do not know how

to perform.

6 Authenticity,

Occupancy

and Credibility AND THE RHETORIC OF PROTECTING PLACE

RICK BASS

In the early 1980s, the state

license plate

and

and Joshua

trees.

on motor

vehicles:

it’s

white with blue lettering

images of bighorn sheep, craggy mountains,

faint local

The funny

of Nevada switched to a new

thing

is

how

residents of the state

who own

the

previous simple blue license plate with white letters have, almost universally, kept

those old plates, switching them from car to car as they update their personal transportation. There’s something intriguing about this desire to demonstrate longevity, to state proudly

Johnny-come-lately." for

little I

more than

It’s

through one's license

plate,

“I’m a longtimer, not a

strange to think that people who've lived in that place

a decade can

notice a similar tendency

presume

to

be longtime residents.

whenever I'm with

new group of students

at the

are made; invariably, a

few people

a

group of strangers, such

as a

beginning of the semester, and self-introductions will

announce, “I'm

Linda such-and-such, and I'm a native Nevadan.” next best thing: long residency

—

is

a special

almost no stable Euro-American population

It's

Tom

as if nativeness

badge of honor a

so-and-so, or I’m

— or the

in a state that

had

century ago (Las Vegas, with well

over a million residents now, had a population of approximately forty in 1900)

and where you're more various mining

likely to pass

booms and

busts,

ghost towns, depopulated remnants of

than bustling, living communities when you

drive the six hundred miles or so from the northern

southern. So you'll have to forgive

me

end of the

state to the

for being so interested in this issue of

Authenticity, Occupancy,

occupancy and authenticity, thirteen years now.

we

re outsiders.

My

writing, too.

this

question of belonging. I've lived in Reno for

A newcomer

This

is

in

Nevada

is

in

good company but we know

an interesting dimension of western environmental

goal here

is

to probe this literary

and

way and then by examining the work of Rick

general

and Credibility

cultural issue, first in a Bass,

one of the major

contemporary environmental writers of the American West.

what

occupy

new

a

genuine

a

me

particularly interests

is

“authentic”

this

comes

to

and imaginatively and experientially toward

— relationship

with his

adopted home. Hence the

new home, and

he speaks and writes

strives for a credible rhetorical stance as

of

Bass's case,

the process by which the author

place, gropes verbally

— or

In

tripartite title

authenticity credibility. Bass's processes of

of

ultimately

in

protection

this essay:

occupancy,

becoming an authentic, credible

inhabitant and spokesperson for his part of the American West represents a process recognizable in the lives and

work

of various contemporary “immigrant

western writers," such as Barbara Kingsolver (originally from Kentucky, but

now

long associated with Tucson, Arizona), John Daniel (from Washington,

DC, but now known Sojourner (raised a

in

adopted

for writing about his

New

York

State,

now

state,

Oregon), and Mary

residing in Flagstaff), to

name only

come

recently to

few examples.

Many contemporary American environmental

writers have

think of themselves not merely as “nature writers” (with “nature” coding for

“nonhuman”), but rather as

as

“community

an act of exploring and reforming

who

writers,” artists

relationships in

regard their

the broadest sense of that

word, encompassing both the human and the nonhuman. For writers

American West, however, community

is

a

lives in

in the

vexed and complicated concept.

Unlike authors such as Robert Finch on Cape

who

work

Cod

or Scott Russell Sanders,

Bloomington, Indiana, western writers find themselves particularly

compelled to come to terms with mobility and transience and new residency

in

order to explain their roles as people speaking for and about such communities as the

Yaak Valley

The Ea^le

Bird:

West have stability

in

Mapping

less

Montana and Finn Rock, Oregon. Charles Wilkinson, a

New West

(1992), points out that

cohesiveness than any region

and sense of community found,

in

“Communities

the country.

in

in the

Our towns

lack the

New

England

for example, in villages in

I

63

.

GOING AWAY TO THINK and the Midwest. To quote Anglos,

Nelson Limerick [...], ‘Indians, Hispanics,

Patricia

workers, politicians,

people,

business

Asians,

blacks,

natives,

and newcomers, we share the same region and

history,

its

to be introduced’” (135-36). Yet Wilkinson, after several pages of

community fragmentation and

the tendency toward the West, shifts into a

more optimistic

bureaucrats,

we

but

wait

documenting

violent social conflict in

assertion as his chapter, called

"Toward

an Ethic of Place,” continues: Still,

we can

ameliorate these problems.

We

common

communities, communities bound together by the this region the likes

of which exists nowhere

We need to develop an ethic of place.

more

deserve and can achieve

else

It is

on

earth.

stable, tight-knit

love of this miraculous land, of

We can do much

better.

premised on a sense of place, the recognition that

our species thrives on the subtle, intangible, but soul-deep mix of landscape, smells, sounds, history, neighbors,

and friends that constitute

a place, a

homeland.

An

ethic of place respects

equally the people of a region and the land, animals, vegetation, water, and

economy

to be a shared

that

the

modest incomes.

accessible to those with

community value and ought

the environment and

members of

is

It

recognizes

and that they need and deserve

that westerners revere their physical surroundings

productive

air.

to manifest itself in a

An

a stable,

ethic of place ought

dogged determination

to treat

people as equals, to recognize both as sacred, and to insure that

its

community not

just search for

but

insist

upon

solutions to

fulfill

all

that ethic.

(138-39)

I

quote

at length

because

I

find

it

devoted to regional environmental law and

policy,

should argue so forcefully,

so eloquently, for precisely the "ethic of place" that so

the

West

could, in

I

are also seeking to articulate

’m sure,

some

name

a

number

cases incessantly

as the defining features

have been so stalwart

in recent

our relationship to the land relative terms,

newcomers

literary artists in

and advocate. Most readers of

who

this

routinely

book

— and

themselves to evoking the "soul -deep mix

of landscape, smells, sounds, history, neighbors,

mentions

many

of favorite western writers

— devote

book

intriguing that a law professor, in a

and friends” that Wilkinson

of "place." Perhaps the reason western writers

decades as supporters of the process of rethinking is

that

many

of these writers are themselves, in

to the places they write about

— and

the recentness

of their arrival contributes both to the vigor of their engagement with fresh landscapes and, sometimes, to the palpable sense of insecurity they express

64

|

Authenticity, Occupancy,

when they

find themselves speaking in defense of these

new homelands. But

newcomer's innocence and uneasiness, there

spite of this

of responsibility and commitment

— the

way dozens of western environmental the places they inhabit and

— this

This zeal

and Credibility

is

in

a striking attitude

zealous devotion of converts

writers depict and explore

and

— in

the

fight for

visit.

intensity

— has

inspired

many of

these writers to seek new,

surprising audiences for their work. Indeed, the earlier

domains of

expression have exploded in recent years as various writers

Williams, Robert Michael Pyle, David

—Terry

Quammen, Gary Nabhan,

Barry Lopez, and Gary Snyder, for example

literary

Tempest

Rick Bass,

— have pushed their preoccupations

with natural history and environmental conservation, sometimes aggressively

apropos and sometimes arcane, into such unlikely fora Beautiful

work

is

nothing short of

— a revolution in how Americans consider what

it

means

and the

revolution

The

as the pages of House

of Congress.

halls

goal of this

to inhabit

the planet, to occupy this globe in an authentic, meaningful, ethical way.

revolution in what

we

regard as the proper place of literary language.

the naive idealism and the passionate excitement of the

and excitement that emerge even among western Williams,

who come from

and

ideas.

and

a

A

few years

writers, like Terry

idealism

Tempest

old western families- have inspired these authors

ago,

I

note that read, “Here

for their

words

received from Terry a package of journal articles is

an example of

how our work

is

infiltrating

reviews and legal briefs regarding public policy” To me, this implies a

form of

More on

literary arts.

Quammen,

me

in a

the firmest of

how humans as possible

—a

this later.

law

new

nascent inhabitation of legal discourse by the

A

few weeks after Terry’s packet arrived, David

the Bozeman, Montana, science journalist, included the following

statement to [A]mong

occupancy”

“literary

a

Somehow,

newcomer — an

most impenetrable minds and pages and buildings

to target the

And

long e-mail message:

my

professional convictions

interact with landscape

and

NOT

who wants

to influence

strive to reach as large

an audience

that a writer

and nature should

preach to the converted. That means, for me, flavoring

entertainment'value, wrapping

amuse and engage

is

a large

my

convictions subversively within

unconverted audience, and placing

my work

with

packages that might

my work whenever

possible in

publications that reach the great unwashed.

I

6s

GOING AWAY TO THINK I

see a pervasive uncertainty in western environmental writing regarding sense

of place and attachment to place and

1

see a parallel uncertainty about the

“place” of literature in our culture, about the potential social ramifications of

environmental

literature.

What

is

“authentic” literature?

5

Where does

literary

expression properly belong, and where does our society need story and image to defy discourse conventions?

emerge

in the stories

writers, Rick Bass?

5

5

How

do regional conflations and uncertainties

and essays of one ol the West’s most

How

do

issues

prolific

contemporary

of occupancy and authenticity pertain to

his

efforts to protect wild places?

1

Readers may sense

in

western literature a certain defensiveness or an eager

disclaiming of indigenousness. Bass, for instance, begins his

Yaak Valley

first

book. Winter: Notes from Montana (1991), by scrambling to authenticate his prior contact with a Yaak-like place: “I'd been in the mountains before" reads the

opening

of

book about

this

winter

his first

in

northwestern Montana

Barry Lopez, for his part, opens a 1995 essay entitled “Occupancy” by

(1).

stating, is

line

“Sandra and

I

arrived in the spring of 1970,” both confessing that he

not native to the McKenzie River Valley in Oregon, where he resides, and

suggesting that by western standards, he and his wife had been around awhile.

Alison Hawthorne Denting, in her 1994 essay collection Temporary Homelands, explicitly avoids “1

of transience;

any claims to long-term residency, instead making

wanted

to write an honest

a virtue

book about my relationship with

nature,” she states, not to offer theories or prescriptions for what that relationship ought to be.

understand the

places, events,

and ideas

in

my own

wanted

to

experience that seem most significant

in

.

.

.

I

shaping that relationship, and to explore the quality of reflection that certain loved places

seem

We

to induce.

live in a

1

his

book,

finally, is

about one thing

— reconstructing an intimacy with nature.

time of radical loss— loss of space, places,

tribes,

and

species. Loss

of a sense of

belonging in and to a place. Loss of continuity and coherence.” (xiii-xiv)

At the outset of

his

1998 book About This

another language, to

from the

why

familiar.

live

Life,

Lopez urges

a

young writer “to learn

with people other than her own, to separate herself

Then, when she returns, she

will

be better able to understand

she loves the familiar, and will give us a fresh sense of

are to share these things

66

|

(14)- In a sense

Lopez

is

how

fortunate

we

offering the advice that he

Authenticity\ Occupancy, and Credibility

would give to

to a

become

younger version of himself,

“a writer

who

travels.”

a blueprint for

someone

aspiring

This transient sensibility not only reinforces

one's attachment to the familiar, as he states, but constantly breaks the crusts

of

conformity the ruts of complacency, against which environmental

social

writers, particularly in the West, are

only to gain

new adventures and

disorientation, to force one's

prone to

militate. Travel itself

is

a

way not

collect experience, but to ritualize loss

mind

and

new maps of meaning. The mind

to create

thus destabilized and invigorated tends to see through established structures

and patterns, even upon returning home. Let ticity”

me

backtrack a bit and talk about the words “occupancy” and “authen-

“Occupancy,” suggests the old dictionary

my

in

office,

implies not just

physical presence in a particular place or building, but ownership

— even

legal

possession

— of an object or a dwelling. “Authenticity,” on the other hand, implies

reliability,

genuineness, and

writing in the

West

particular place or

validity.

Much of the contemporary environmental

aims, in part, to validate the author as spokesperson for a

community often

straining to

overcome the

the author's newness and relative lack of legal or financial place or community. Even

many of

more

interesting, though,

these writers encounter

with particular places while

when

is

historical fact

commitment

of

to the

the moral paradox that

they seek to assert their engagement

— more or less — avoiding the ethical faux pas, from

the stereotypical “green” perspective, of land ownership and resource extraction (see John

Hanson

Mitchell’s Trespassing:

Despite the fact that plots of land

many western

An Inquiry into the Private Ownership oj sooner or

writers,

and build houses — as Bass and

Lopez has done alongside Oregon's McKenzie

as

has

done on the western slope of the

spirit

Sierra

come

to purchase

have done

in the Yaak.

later,

his family

Land).

River,

Nevada— this

and is

as

Gary Snyder

often done in the

of creating “temporary homelands,” to borrow Alison Deming’s locution.

These writers don’t view themselves where they

live,

is

and controllers of the places

but rather as coinhabitants just passing through. Either that,

or as Snyder put

“occupancy”

as possessors

it

in a

1996 Jim

Lehrer

News Hour interview, the goal of such

to live an ecologically responsible

life,

a life

preservation of land and community, that one would maintain to be present for the next ten

thousand

years.

devoted to the if

one expected

GOING AWAY TO THINK One of the great, and occupancy

brief articulations

in recent

of the moral dubiousness of “ownership

western environmental writing appears in the

essay of William Kittredge’s 1987 collection Owning

The

teaching mythology

agricultural ownership.

magically

rural

tame

it

The

The

in

It All:

American West

the

story begins with a vast innocent continent, natural and almost

people

come from

the East, and they take the land from

for agricultural purposes, bringing civilization: a notion

story

is

a pastoral story of

is

capable of inspiring us to reverence and awe, and yet savage, a wilderness.

alive,

good

we grew up with

title

as old as invading armies,

conquest; a rationale for violence

So what's the point of

and

at heart

it is

its

native inhabitants, and

of how to

live

embodied

a racist, sexist, imperialist

— against other people and against nature.

criticizing this

A

in law.

mythology of

(62-63)

mythology of agricultural ownership or

any of the other western mythologies that have guided not only Kittredge’s generation, which

of westerners

came of age

as well?

1

What

is

in the

1930s and 1940s, but younger generations

the goal of a

book

like

Owning It All?

Kittredge extends his criticism of the prevailing, traditional land ethic in the

West

as follows, indicating the practical goals

that of other In the

new

(his

own

writing and

contemporary authors):

American West we

story to inhabit.

society based

of literature

are struggling to revise our

Laws control our

lives,

dominant mythology, and

and they are designed

on values learned irom mythology. Only

to preserve a

after re- imagining our

to find a

model of

myths can we

coherently remodel our laws, and hope to keep our society in a realistic relationship to what is

actual. (64)

We've got

a

What

takes priority, law or story,

and imagination? Kittredge, not

surprisingly, argues that the

chicken-and-egg scenario here.

government or

art

imagination forges the cultural values that, in turn, lead to law and public policy I

believe the point of his critique of the

dominant mythology of ownership and

exploitation in the West, a critique that could surely be applied to any other

region of the country,

is

to exhort himself

and

his fellow writers to

the responsibility they bear in evoking their

of

social reform. Authenticity, in this context,

language revolution

68

|

is

one of the keys

lives,

understand

their places, their visions

means taking

responsibility.

A

to achieving a revolution in environmental

Authenticity, Occupancy,

among

policy. “If the

language

The Eagle

“the language in the law books will change."

One feet

task

Bird,

is

to

forester

comment

How

fall

shall

The other

analyses.

task

is

a

now dominated by board

vocabulary

to enrich existing words.

hear a

we

should

When enough

westerners understand that concept, law and

into line. (15-16)

westerners in general. Americans more generally

throughout the world

as well, begin to consider

an answer to

this

still,

and people

concepts and words such as

“productivity " and “value" from the perspective of voles?

A

When we

that timber harvesting will “sustain the productivity of the land.”

ask. “Productivity for voles?”

policy will

the people changes,” Charles Wilkinson writes in

add new kinds of words to balance out

and cost-benefit

and Credibility

We

by reading Terry Tempest Williams’s “A

can begin to see

Man

of Questions:

Tribute to Wallace Stegner," published in the 1997 issue of the University

of Utah's Journal

Hoch and

oj Land, Resources,

& Environmental

Law; by

examining how David

Will Carrington Heath begin their 1997 article “Tracking the

ADC: Ranchers' Boon. Taxpayers’ Burden,

Wildlife's

Bane”

in

the journal

Animal Law by quoting the entirety of Williams's short essay “Redemption”;

and by acknowledging Williams’s decision

to print her cryptic, mythicized

narrative “Bloodlines" in the small anthology, Testimony, which she and Stephen

Trimble distributed to

members of

all

These writings by Williams

are,

the U.S.

House and Senate

in 1995.

on the whole, oblique and exploratory,

full

of

questions rather than answers, poetry rather than measurements, uncertainty rather than certainty.

When

Terre Satterfield and

1

conducted an interview

April of 1998 with the ethnobotanist and nature writer told us he regards story as “a

understanding because

it

zone of tension,”

a

Gary

Paul

in

Nabhan, he

form of language that

facilitates

obstructs easy, linear thinking. This interview and

eleven others, plus samples of narrative and poetic expressions of environmental values,

appeared

Authentic

in the

2004 book

occupancy

in

geography and our language

the as

What’s Nature Worth

American

zones of tension. More and more western

writers, including the various people I've

that

it is

teachers

their responsibility—

West requires accepting our

mentioned

in this essay, are realizing

and by extension the responsibility of critics and

— to find ways of getting their language not only to occupy the minds of

GOING AWAY TO THINK academics in classrooms and conference hotels, but also to

and courtrooms and corporate boardrooms

we

— and

this

law journals

live in

what's happening as

is

speak.

As we speak, one of the major authors of the West continues lilt

his voice in

an effort to protect wild places and wild species in

to

this region,

but he does so from a stance of contingency and uncertainty, from a personal

viewpoint

constantly

that

questions

raises

Although Rick Bass has now

lived in the

of belonging and

Yaak Valley

corner of Montana for the past twenty-one of his are far

more

likely to refer to

and although

writer,"

his

him

as a

fifty years,

“Montana

books are not placed

in the far

occupancy

northwestern

although people

writer" than as a “southern

authors"

in the “Mississippi

section at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, Bass remains an artist for

whom

the southern experience and,

more

specifically,

are deeply generative. His environmental activism his life only after the

unmistakable

in his

remain evident

move

to

Montana, and yet

in

Remapping Southern

Brinkmeyer explains

Literature :

at length

how

]r.

affiliation," so to speak,

with Michael Kowalewski

the West:

of the American West and Robert H. Brinkmeyer

New

Essays on the Literature

reclaiming him as a southern

Contemporary Southern Writers and

Bass's

reconciling himself to his southern past. Regarding the 1991

.

.

.

interests me, however,

not merely a flight “into a

own

society

is

new world

a process of gaining better, fiercer

American

in a

from and Winter, the

wholeheartedly embraces the American dream of leaving

history behind, of fleeing west into a

What

volume

is,

“In a hopeful and unironic dismissal of the past, rare in Southern

writing, Bass

(81).

the West.

view of western wilderness

sense, part of the author’s continuing process of releasing himself

critic states:

of

a notable part

southern origins remain

work. Doubts about Bass's “regional

claiming him as a western author in Reading

author

became

his

in the recent scholarly literature,

southern landscapes,

new world of possibility and

potentiality"

the fact that Bass's westward migration of possibility

is

and potentiality” but rather

moral purchase on the interaction between

and the natural world — by gaining

a fresh, firm grip

on

his

relationship to the physical world, the author aspires to create for himself

an authentic, believable voice. By moving geographically to the outer edge

70

Authenticity, Occupancy,

of American culture

— not

only from South to West, but from city to remote

mountains — Bass assumes the potent

rhetorical role that

Elegant Jeremiahs, attributes to the “sage."

As Landow puts wisdom speaker

the style, tone, and general presentation of the

often

anonymous voice

society'

speaking

its

and Credibility

resides at a societal

essential beliefs

and

cultural center;

George

Landow,

P.

in

it,

derive from the fact that his it

purports to be the voice of

and assumptions. In contrast, the

and general

style, tone,

presentation of the sage derive from the fact that his voice resides at the periphery;

it is

.

.

.

an

eccentric voice, one off center. (23)

work combines the

In a strange and interesting way, Rick Bass's

and acceptability of the “wisdom speaker" with the sage.

who

He

familiarity

radical aggressiveness

someone

writes from the standpoint of a husband and a father and

loves his family

and

his

home. But he

also writes as

of the

someone who

loves

One

animals and wild, uncomfortable, and even ugly (to humans) places.

of

the central themes of Rick Bass’s work, both his fiction and his nonfiction,

beginning with the 1985 work The Deer

Pasture

and continuing to the present,

the desire to find, to experience, to appreciate a “wild home.” This

an oxymoron with every characters

—

day.

it’s

a tension,

Look through

his

work, and

of energetic joy and hunkering down it

These are what

They a

be possible to find I

of course,

an incompatibility, one of several that Bass you’ll see again

— or the author’s various personae — both

Where might

is,

in

and

home”?

relishing wild,

How

might

lives

again, various

quest of a safe haven to

a “wild

is

it

manic call

feats

“home."

be possible?

take to be the questions at the core of this writer’s work.

are questions that address the intellectual and physical process by which

nonwesterner

strives to attach himself

not to a blandly homogeneous western

suburb, but to an authentic western landscape

— to a place that has not yet been

absorbed into mainstream American culture.

When

I

interviewed Bass in 1993 for the journal Weber Studies

reprinted in Alan Weltzien's book The Literary Art and Activism

was one particular section of that conversation

that's

mind because of the weirdness of what

And

if it

were actually true

Bass said.

— an

interview

Rick Bass

of

— there

always stuck out

because

I

in

my

had to wonder

— even possible. We were discussing his writing about the

Yaak (remember, he’d lived there only

six years

or so at the time, and his books

GOING AWAY TO THINK about the Yaak, starting with Winter

and

years),

I

asked

if

he was concerned that by publicizing the Yaak he might

of Winnebagos into

lure hordes yet, that his

had been out for no more than two

in 1991,

remote, rugged part of the world

his

writing might inspire the hordes to clamor for

new

— or worse

roads into the

Kootenai region of northwest Montana and southeast British Columbia. So asked

if all

of place, not

a “kind

He Oh

of this celebratory writing about the Yaak uses

It’s

perfect place for

brain— what me, but

ugly.

it

me

no

it’s

(34).

beacon for

a horning

visit. It’s

it’s

just

what

me

got clearcuts and

an ugly place to

It’s

are those things called?

fits

visit

—

— the loops and coils.

.

.

.

it

it's

home, but

rains a lot

and you

an okay place to

it’s

my warped

because

can't It's

a

mind, the twisted contours of

Anyways,

it fits, it’s

a

good

fit

for

never forgotten his idea that there might be a single, perfect place for a

— the

right place for the right mind.

how the clearcuts and

rain

much

from someone trying very hard to

as for

anyone

else,

why he came

possibility, this particular place to

myth of the

perfect

make

I

It

justify

occurs to

me

and explain,

to choose, with the

his

try to imagine,

and the lack of vistas somehow

the “loops and coils” of this one man’s brain.

a statement

come from,

The

his brief,

the interlaced pastures and dense

century,

from the Orinoco Basin

and one of

his

main goals was

in

first

a

a sort of

derogatory description

where

he'd

woods of Mississippi.

German explorer Alexander von Humboldt

globe in the late 1700s and through the

is

for himself

home. He’s articulating

home. To me, though, even

distinguished

that this

whole world

of the Yaak in the above statement sounds a lot like a description of just

live.

it’s

probably wouldn’t be for anyone else in the world. (34)

perhaps overditerally,

as

vistas.

to live because

particular individual

“fit"

mean,

I

not a place people want to go

it’s

see anything, there are

I've

homing beacon"

this particular area as

responded:

goodness, yeah.

ugly,

as a

I

traversed the

several decades of the nineteenth

South America to the steppes of

Siberia,

to study the “geographical isomorphisms," the

extraordinary physical similarities,

among

certain kinds of places in vastly

different parts of the world: for instance, the llanos of

South America, the

Great Plains of North America, the steppes of Russia, and the grasslands of South Africa.

72

I

I

think

it’s

plausible to argue that, for Rick Bass, the Yaak

Authenticity. Occupancy,

Montana

Valley of northwest

is

and Credibility

more mountainous)

a wild (and

replica

of the

overly populated and domesticated landscape of Mississippi, and Mississippi

represented a

less

he grew up with

wedded

somewhat

urban,

hillier

Houston. Far from being simply a “Montana author," truly

in

to the distinctiveness of the intermountain West, Bass

writer and a western writer

Houston, the Texas

Hill

— someone

whose

of Mississippi and

forests

lighted out for a wilder version of his southern

in

offer a brief recap

taste for place

a southern

was formed

of

Alabama— who

world and

home.

Bass’s geographical

where he developed much of

storytelling.

movements, he

his affinity for

lived primarily

and Logan Canyon captivated him, and he decided

He graduated

with a degree

job in Jackson, Mississippi.

The

in

way while he was

was immersed an

Taak.

Thomas

with

He

In the

summer of

to attend college at in

Utah

1980 and took

a

J.

in the

who had

Lyon

at

Utah

backwoods of east'Central

studied nature writing and

began writing

State,

in a

living in the Jackson area in the early 1980s, so he

in the Mississippi

artist.

— Logan

job in petroleum prospecting involved a lot

Mississippi and northern Alabama. Bass,

serious

both the natural

Utah State

petroleum geology

of desk work but also some tramping around

literary nonfiction

trips to

In the midseventies, as a high-school senior, Bass

visited Logan, Utah, in order to take a scholarship test at

State.

in

eventually

Houston, Texas, while growing up, with regular November hunting

Gillespie County,

as

is

Country two hundred miles west of Houston, and the

mixed pine and hardwood

To

woods and bayous

version of the

landscape as he worked to reimagine himself

relates this process in the

1987, Bass

and

1999 Credo book. Brown Dog

his then-girlfriend Elizabeth

a Mississippian, got in his old truck, together with their

drove west and north until they found a place that short of the Canadian border. This

is all

oj the

Hughes,

two hound dogs, and

felt right

— they stopped just

described in the 1991 book. Winter.

For four years, they lived as caretakers at the Fix Ranch in the Yaak Valley, before buying land in 1991 and building their house on

money brought

in

by selling

it.

More

recently, using

his personal papers to the natural history special

collection at Texas Tech University (where his papers

Fopez, William Kittredge, David

Quammen,

now

join those

of Barry

Pattiann Rogers, and other major

environmental writers), Bass has bought additional land surrounding the

lot

GOING AWAY TO THINK purchased

development

in the area.

Bass’s early

books

— The Deer Pasture,

arc mostly about his family’s Hill

Houston, and

and

fictional

one

we

in the nonfiction,

dreaming of another. Often

place, while

Heart, Oil Notes,

to the

Country hunting

self-realization, as if his true self will left

Wild

emerge

how much

behind — people, landscapes, wild experiences. His

Pasture,

take

him

to quit his job

form of nostalgic

he misses what he's

first

book, 198s The Deer

move from Logan, Utah,

begins in precisely this vein, as he recounts his

to Jackson, Mississippi, with friends

Alabama, and

see Bass physically located

this takes the

in

and The Watch

lease (“the deer pasture"),

actual adventures in Mississippi,

North Carolina. Repeatedly, in

himself and his family from expected land

in 1991, further insolating

and family placing odds on how long

and move back to the mountains.

“When

1

left

it

will

school

for Jackson," he writes,

I

was able to

stuff everything

owned

I

in the

back of my

little

Rabbit.

It

was

a sad feeling, very

frightening, actually, leaving the security of the mountains, traveling downhill like that, out of

the crispness of the high country and into the hot torpor of the flatlands, but

being able to contain myself and

feeling,

go forty-two miles on a gallon of gas. Whistling

When Country], to stay

It

pasture that was.

Or

was

was glad

and

a pretty one,

upon awakening

rather,

Much of

I

so completely filled

in, it

my possessions

believe

I

even

in

was also

a

good

one small orange car that would

hummed

a little as

I

drove.

in the dark.

got to Jackson,

I

I

all

it

where

I

in

until

had brought the

I

1

found

my hotel room

a tiny

little

cedar tree [from the Texas Hill

one-room

cell

of an efficiency' apartment

with the sappy, sprightly clean smell of the deer

the morning, for the

first

few seconds

I

would forget where

I

wasn’t, (x)

Bass’s writing,

both the early southern- focused books and the more

recent volumes centered in Montana, exhibits the particular form of place-

writing that

Lawrence Buell has

called

“the aesthetics of the not-there’’

(1995, 68). In other words, Bass has an intriguing tendency to describe one place in

terms

of,

or in relation

same thing in

to,

another. Buell argues that

Walden, using elements

Thoreau does much the

from exotic European landscapes and other

parts of the world to characterize the local features of Concord. In Bass’s case,

though,

would

I

say the purpose of such landscape juxtapositions, couplings,

and transpositions

74

I

is

to evoke a sense of yearning, a restless urge to find his true

and Credibility

Authenticity, Occupancy,

place in the world and possibly his truest

he savored the smells of

So.

self.

upon

arriving in Mississippi,

potted Hill Country cedar, which reminded him

his

of Texas. Eventually he planted his tree “in the center of the City Hall flower garden, right beneath the statue of the preface to The Deer visiting the cedar tree

Pasture, he'd

— “I

.

.

Andrew

(xi).

As he recounts

spend lunch and coffee breaks

close

my

Quite

a

.

Jackson"

in Mississippi

eyes and take deep, satisfied breaths;

smells so good,” he says

(xi).

identityTorming process

— of the “not-there."

in

powerful display of the aesthetics

it

— the

For me, some of the most memorable early pieces of Bass’s writing also exhibit this powerful yearning to be

“The Shortest Route

to the Heart,”

“The Shortest Route

to the

mountain wildness without essay Bass, then

still

way

to the

Mountains”

is

about

The

city.

the Heart.

can experience

August

Since he doesn't have enough time to go to

Hot

not seeking just a specific place

“The Shortest Route

in the

world, a specific

calls “wild."

Mountains"

is

Synonyms

and sensation.

that Bass begins to

experience “wild” things before he’s gone far from Jackson and before he's ordinary, fastTood civilization. a strawberry milkshake.

The

left

essay opens with a rapturous description of

“The trouble with buying

a strawberry

the Lake Providence, Louisiana, Sonic Drive-In on the

left side

going north through the Delta, north to Hot Springs, Arkansas, got to tag the bottom with your straw and then

want

the

clear in this collection,

richness, energy, freedom,

to the

all

Springs, Arkansas, taking the

As gradually becomes

would be intensity passion,

irony of

Robbers. Rock Swifts,

how you

geography, but a certain quality of experience that he for “wild”

essays called

in Jackson, Mississippi, tells the story of an

“shortest route to the mountains.” is

Camp

from the 1987 book Wild to

mountain West, he heads north

though, the author

These are the

actually getting to true western mountains. In this

working

escape from the steamy

else.

Mountains" and “On

to the

and Other Things Wild

somewhere

come up

a

milkshake from

of Highway 65 is

that

you have

good inch or so

if you

to get anything, the reason being that the Lake Providence Sonic uses real

strawberries and lots of

them

in their shakes" (15).

The

first

three paragraphs

rhapsodize about such a milkshake, the joy of this experience accented by the

withering heat and humidity of the Mississippi Delta in August. several pages of this brief essay offer vivid details of the

The

northward

next

drive, as

7S

GOING AWAY TO THINK the narrator stays in his

The

the air conditioner on. at

piece ends with the speaker anticipating his arrival

been enjoyed through the sensations of the

entail has already

the milkshake and the other sensations of the drive. This

trip itself

up and

rolled

the following day, but the shortest route to the mountains

Hot Springs

and what they

windows

pleased to have the

car, sinfully

Thoreauvian “home-cosmography,” relishing the

local as if

it

is

sheer

were the longed-

for exotic.

Sometimes, though,

it's

not enough to stay nearby— the actual, authentic

mountains are required. This

and Other Things Wild

New

time for

he

this,”

Jackson, Mississippi,

is

to the Pecos Wilderness

itself,

“On Camp Robbers”

in the

in the

One

is

tells us.

the best place for

me

mountains and the aspen for

to

a brief

make

New

left:

but there’s this one small

a living, .

.

.

That’s

why

— to

I’m here

Fourth of July vacation. (38)

struck by the calmness, the nonfranticness of the prose, which belies the

New

frenzied journey from Mississippi to the

elides the

mountains. “I’ve been waiting

problem. There are no mountains. There aren’t even any aspen. drink

thirty-

Mexico, in 1981. Unlike “Shortest Route,”

and opens with the narrator already

a long

Robbers, Rock Swifts,

which recounts the story of Bass's

which focuses on the richness of the drive drive

“On Camp

from Jackson, Mississippi,

west of Las Vegas,

just

the point of

to the Heart,”

six-hour, round-trip drive

Area

is

Mexico mountains are placed

"After

I

woke

scarcely believing

and headed up

I

toward where

1

in

hot

humid

hoped the trailhead

to write

never seen before,

he's

pack, yawned, consulted I

a ridge

again. Predictably,

landscape he's just

in relief against the

my luck — just yesterday was

would be” (40). He continues mountains

my

shouldered

Mexico and back

as if he’s

flat

my

topo map,

Mississippi! —

to Hermit's

Peak

about the mountains, even these

come home

to a long-lost favorite

place:

On my way through

the aspen

and suddenly,

well

all

is

I

snack on the

last

of the sausage and biscuits (sweet madeleine!)

Job pressures are gone, as are worries that

or feel the rough wild texture of the mountains on the palms of

home

again, for a couple of days anyway.

of the best part of the

76

I

trip;

I

The

sausage and biscuit

I

rriy is

might never see aspen hands again.

I

am

back

always the real beginning

always save one for this purpose. Every thing before that

last

Authenticity, Occupancy,

Grandmother's homemade

biscuit

and Credibility

Getting There; everything afterward

is

is

There

Itself.

(40-41)

The

Proustian reference

What

for Bass's imagination. least

momentarily,

— sweet madeleine — reinforces the power of nostalgia

at least

has been lost or

left

behind, and then regained, at

by way of a surrogate or a symbol, takes on a richness

of meaning not possessed by objects, places, or relationships newly acquired.

The Deer

Pasture thus assumes a mythic elusiveness for Bass, as a place loved

magically for a brief period of time each autumn, in the

company of his

family, in

pursuit of natural experiences (not just through hunting) and the primal bonds

of story, and then

this place

The mountain West, when, giving

in to

is

left

behind w hen the family returns to Houston.

experienced in Logan, Utah,

first

young-adult responsibility, he takes

and drives “downhill''

to the office in the city in the

But nostalgia can work in opposite directions.

is

lost to the

author

his first job in Mississippi

humid

When

I

flatlands.

refer to ideas such as

“geographical isomorphisms'' or “the aesthetics of the not-there," I'm not just

thinking of

how

Bass, in his southern writings, looks for traces

of mountain

wildness in the South or describes certain aspects of the South with language

he associates with the non-South or even uses the South

which to celebrate the yearnedTor mountain West. What’s about Bass's part of the

experience

life

and work

is

how he and

— clear-cut, rainy, and

of southern landscapes.

move

also fascinating

Elizabeth have chosen to live in a

mountain West that resembles certain aspects of relatively vista-less

descriptions of the Yaak could, with

the

as a foil against

to

Montana

One

— and, further,

minor tweaking, sound

how

Bass’s

like descriptions

of Bass’s most evocative and eloquent essays since

1987

in

their southern

is

the piece he wrote in 1993 for the Nature

Conservancy’s anthology of writings on favorite, endangered places, Heart

which appeared

the Land,

in 1995; the essay, called

“On Willow

of

Creek," waxes

and

nostalgically about the Texas Hill

Country and mourns, both

metonymically the death of

mother, which occurred shortly before he

traveled

down

to Texas to

Willow Creek,”

make

a

Bass's

work on the essay Three

Bass’s collection

explicitly

years after he wrote

of essays, The Book of Yaak, came out.

“On

One could

thorough study of southern-esque descriptions of Montana landscapes

77

GOING AWAY TO THINK volume, but when

in this

to find a passage in

it

book, where the Yaak

“The Value of a

called is

if

not to the Hill Country. Bass writes:

cycle of dying trees giving birth to living ones

and the

— we re

up

have a future.

will

of individual trees

familiar with this, iamiliar with

way

that the richness, or tithing, of

and sometimes crawl — through the jungle

walk

hands and knees

— noticing the ways

other places

light into

like to

I

my

examining the world on

here,

all

the suppleness, ot diversity, guarantees that an ecosystem, or any other

flexibility,

kind of system,

beginning of the

Place,” near the

the necessity of rot, and diversity, in an ecosystem: the rot,

took only few minutes

it

celebrated in terms that could just as easily be applied

Houston,

to Mississippi, or

The

picked up the essay recently

I

watching the pistonlike

they block light from

some

places

watching the way, when the weaker trees

tall,

to

become

fern-beds, soil-mulch, lichen pads.

imagine that each different

like to

even

diversity'

in the

manner

in

giant larch having a taste to the

tree, after

It’s

not a thing

that they

fall

all

the

sometimes

way

we can measure

to the

yet.

but

has fallen, gives off a different quality' of rot

it

which nutrients are released to the

soil,

and

and funnel or focus

help prop up and brace those around them. Other times the fallen trees crash

ground

rise

soil

The slow

I

a

of a

rot

perhaps, of bread; the faster disintegration of ice-snapped

The

saplings tasting like sugar, or honey.

forest feasting

on

its

own

diversity',

with grace and

mystery lying thick everywhere, (n)

When

I

Buzbee

read this passage about the Yaak, in the title story

of

Bass's

man who's disappeared

year-old

I

find myself thinking of the character

1989 collection The Watch,

into the piney

a seventy- seven-

woods and swampy bottomlands

of central Mississippi. Although there are few sustained natural descriptions the one

I

’ve

given from The Book

oj Yaak,

"The Watch” to fecundity and rot I

can

other set

in the

this

landscape

as a

references in the story

both the land and the

is

woods and bayous of

why, whenever

myself hesitating

So,

many

human

these two texts, one located in the mountains of

tell

suppose

in

there are

lie’s

slightly,

1

refer to "the

knowing

ask,

how does

defender of wilderness

Montana and

come from

Montana

imagination.

the

the

same pen.

writer Rick Bass,”

I

I

find

that wherever Bass might be living, whatever

writing about, he’s also

one might

Mississippi,

like

still

“a

southern author.”

Bass seek to gain moral and political credibility

in

the mountain

West when he continues

to

write in a "southern voice,” from a “southern sensibility,” intuitively relying

upon the

78

"aesthetics of the not-there ”?

I

I

began

this essay

by emphasizing the

Authenticity, Occupancy,

and Credibility

extraordinary and sometimes comical value placed on long-term occupancy in

western states such as Nevada. Implicit in any discussion

native or longtime resident possesses

newcomer regarding any

issue

more authority more

home,

states are relative

to develop a sense of attachment

might have dwelled,

physically, for only a period

than a decade. For the

first

credibility than the

of public debate. However, the

most residents of the western mountain to be at

the idea that a

is

decade or so of

reality

is

that

newcomers, straining

and caring

in places

where we

of months and seldom for more

his life in

Montana,

representation of the West was particularly notable for

Bass's

upon the

reliance

its

literal*)'

“aesthetics of the not-there,” a trope that can be understood as an effort to

the strange familiar, the not-home home. This

in

is,

make

other words, a technique

for bootstrapping oneself into a condition of belonging.

More

recently,

some

surprising

new

rhetorical shifts have occurred in Bass's

work. These shifts have contributed to the author's authentic, pleasing voice

and vision and,

same

at the

time, have

made

conservation efforts even more

his

credible and convincing than before. Bass’s two presentations at the Society’s June a

1999 millennial extravaganza.

Fire

&

Grit,

Orion

mark the emergence of

newly detached and philosophical Rick Bass and the return of the charmingly

antic storyteller

become 1990s.

whose comedic submerged

increasingly

The

essay

sensibility evident early in activist angst

in the Yaak,

in

The Watch, had

and frustration by the mid-

“The Community of Glaciers'' recounts

of a small “pro-roadless group"

on

Bass's

which resulted

work on behalf in the author's

shocking dismissal from the volunteer steering committee of the Yaak Valley Forest Council by a vote of thirty-nine to three. “Wearier, writes, “I have retreated to the far perimeters of the

place

not smarter," he

community

for now.

The

where everyone wants me, the place where perhaps even the landscape

wants me, and I

if

perhaps even the place where, when

hell,

— though

myself want to be

it

does not

feel that

way

is

said

and done,

to me.”

The

essay pro-

all

ceeds to contemplate the processes by which social change and glacial erosion occur, especially the concept of glacial slowness

mean

to dismiss our

only to remind us will

little fires,

all

never end, and

in

nor our

and imperceptibility.

fiery hearts."

“I

he concludes:

“1

do not

mean

that our lives, our values, are a constant struggle that

which there can never be

a clear ‘victory/

only daily

GOING AWAY TO THINK challenge

.

(unpublished manuscript). This sounds

.

now

statement of a wilderness warrior the desperately fierce

whoops and

taken in context, ‘"The

from the

retired

and

Fiber.

than

And

yet,

Glaciers” can be seen as an effort to

retrench and gain perspective, a gathering up of

The day

world-weary

battlefield rather

pleas of The Book of Yaak

Community of

next phase of the artist-activist’s

like the

wisdom and

resolve for the

life.

before he presented “The

Community of Glaciers”

&

at Fire

Grit,

Bass read a hilarious, self-mocking essay called “Bear Spray Stories,” subtly

up

setting

time

audience for the more sober critique of

get sprayed,

I

happens,

it

his

I

1

have to laugh.

myself

tell

it

It’s like,

how dumb

activist hubris.

can

I

“Every

get? But each time

won’t happen again: that there’s no way

I 'll

make

that mistake twice,” he writes (unpublished manuscript). Beneath the guise of a series

of slapstick

stories, Bass

seems to be stating

funny, painful, uncontrollable, and sometimes

always

and

work out

as

we want

or expect, but

it’s

all

a

powerful message:

life is

too predictable. Things don't

important to keep

striving, loving,

believing.

These two recent essays to have

made

in his

illustrate a surprising

discovery that Bass seems

quest for an authentic, credible literary voice, a voice that

might gain him leverage

in the landscape debates

more

of the American West.

He

has discovered that

beyond and beneath

are certain familiar

and possibly universal human passions and concerns. “The

a

Community' of Glaciers” and “Bear Spray

specific regional authenticity

Stories”

seem

to

acknowledge and

accept the author’s lingering and perhaps insurmountable outsiderness in

doing so they tap into the sense of unbelonging that many of

particularly his western readers, are likely to feel.

— and

Bass’s readers,

Although Bass certainly would

not have wished to be voted out of the Yaak Valley Forest Council any more

than he would intentionally squirt himself with pepper of alienation and ineptitude have, the inadvertent

means of achieving

inspire future readers

“Nevada a

is

in the

and

hands of a

brilliant storyteller,

a kind of authentic

listeners to take

up the

cry,

humanity

become

that will

“Don't hack the Yaak,”

not a wasteland," and various other slogans and phrases that indicate

growing ethic of responsible occupancy

80

spray, these experiences

in the

American West.

Authenticity, Occupancy,

As

touched up an earlier draft of

I

this essay in

and Credibility

August 2002,

a

note arrived from Rick Bass, packaged with a form letter from him to members

of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment and a detailed letter

from the Yaak Valley Forest Council, urging recipients

to various senators

and

on behalf of the Yaak note.

“Our

and ask them

U.S. Forest Service officials

Valley.

“Same old

story,"

Even

letters against their dollars.

to speak out

he writes in his informal cover

demanding wilderness

a short note

designation for Yaak roadless lands would be great."

YVFC have teamed up

suggest that Bass and the

to write letters

The other

materials

again, this time providing

maps, reports, photographs, and computer-acccssible videos and audio feeds to

make

the “public process" of evaluating wilderness in the Yaak available to

make

students and teachers across the United States, to school curricula. his rural

The YVFC

outsider,

seems, has once again been embraced by

it

community, and the writer and the pro-roadless and pro-sustainable

logging group are working to

known

make

their place, a

remote western

to the outside world a decade ago, familiar to

throughout the country, to give them a

tame America.

On

another

level,

little taste

effort to achieve true occupancy,

and Elizabeth chose

as their

some

a literary

in

an increasingly

participating in this process of activism and

part of Bass’s continuing

is

deep and permanent occupancy,

home back

of these help-protect-the-Yaak

valley scarcely

more and more people

of wildness

public education, side by side with his neighbors,

become

the process part of

letters,

in 1987. Bass has

now

in the place

written so

dozens of them, that they’ve

genre unto themselves

— missives

readers as angry and frantic and postured

that

he

many

virtually

once may have struck

now come

across as measured,

calm, and credible.

As

1

began to touch up

special interest in

Nevada

this essay,

one of

literature, told

to go through an elaborate telephone

me

my

colleagues, a professor with a

she had recently figured out

menu system

at the state

get herself new blue-and-white replica license plates.

“

It’s

dmv

in

native, too, well

up

in

me.

I

called the

DMV

I

order to

part of my continuing

process of becoming a native Nevadan." said the native Californian.

western anxiety of unbelonging was piqued, and

how

felt a

desire to

My own

become

a

myself and gathered information

GOING AWAY TO THINK about

how

phone menu and order my own

to use the

mere one-time

one kind of attachment school,

told him, “Hey,

I

for the car.

year

Won’t

to place. I

When

figured out

that be cool?

how

The DMV

cheap enough price for

like a

picked up

I

1982" plates, for a

my

fifteen-year-old son at

to get blue-and-white license plates is

requiring us to get

new

plates this

— might as well turn our car into a ‘native Nevadan.

“Why would

you want to do

the yellow sunset

need

that.

— those are cool.

Dad?" said

The

special license plates to prove that

The

application for replica old-time

and there the

Seemed

fee of twenty-six dollars.

“circa

new

two, so

it

will stay. Later that

sunset plates.

it

might

as well

The

week

I

"The new

Jacinto.

Why

old plates are ugly, boring.

we belong Nevada

plates with

do we

here?”

on

license plates sits

visited the

DMV

and asked

my

desk,

lor a set of

old car will be driven mostly by Jacinto in a year or

have the plates he wants.

He seems content with

his

own

sense of belonging in Reno, in Nevada, and doesn't need blue license plates to authenticate, to legitimize, his residency here. For less easily, less surely.

newcomers

own

I

sense of tenuousness and transience.

I

think

I ’ll

belonging comes

is

a

The

toward place confirms

only true antidote

I

my

know for the

walk through sage and rabbitbrush, through vanilla-

smelling Jeffrey pines, collecting the dust of here and feet.

part,

enjoy reading western literature, and especially work by

to the region, because the ambivalence

angst of unbelonging

my

take such a walk right now.

now on my

sandal-clad

7

Mexico City Declaration

2000)

(21 January

STORY OF NONCONSENSUS

A

If

new millennium had somehow dawned on an

only the

made

earth

we

magically fresh. Instead,

passed that long'

awaited midnight on the same planet, tattered with the abuse

of the

last century.

At

least in places

of privilege the party seems to rage on,

with soaring stock markets and swelling trade, but there's a frantic edge to the euphoria. Another decade, another century, another millennium of this?

sense not

The litany

— we sense that the party'

is

drawing to

a close.

reasons for our foreboding are familiar— perhaps too familiar.

of unsolved environmental threats

without feeling

in

is

known

so well

our bones their enormity.

We

that

we can

list

The them

Soil erodes; aquifers dry; forests

and burn; species and cultures vanish; incomes diverge, undermining

fall

possibilities for

human

solidarity;

Each of these

the last decade, and now, looming over them,

No

is

crises has

the

new

grown more severe

fact

of global warming.

longer mere theory, climatic upheaval already takes a bitter

the warmest year on record, their

homes by

the seasons

flood and

shift;

300

fire.

million of our fellow

in

toll

— in

1998,

humans were driven from

Polar ice shrinks, sea levels creep ever higher, even

the world turns ever

more

unstable,

its

glorious complexity

daily reduced.

The catalog of our perils makes them seem

separate, a checklist of crises to be

cured with particular doses of expertise. Instead, they are the symptoms of one species

demanding too much of the world. They

arc

signals,

heralding the very

GOING AWAY TO THINK of an environmental collapse so systemic

real possibility

it

could undermine the

very basis of our civilization.

We

do not

lack for the tools to address these problems. Engineers offer us

alternative technologies

we

from windmills to

fuel cells;

how

economists show us

could bring their costs within the reach of the entire world, developing

Our

as well as developed.

how we

could

and solutions.

achievement— international

Web

lets

few examples of

real

and reverence; the World Wide

rally self-restraint

us spread both alarms

on

religious thinkers increasingly offer counsel

We

even have

treaties protecting the

a

ozone

layer or the breeding

grounds of whales, the growing resistance to unrestrained genetic engineering, the falling fertility rates that promise an end to unchecked population growth.

By and will

large,

though,

we muster

not until

we have not the

interrupted business as usual

same sense of moral urgency

— and

that animated the

fight against apartheid or totalitarianism, the battle for civil rights or equality. In our age this

wished away.

It is

is

women's

the mandator)' fight, the one that can’t be ducked or

a fight for

people and for

we

an intact planet that can support dignified

lives,

creation. Survival will require imagination above

for

all

else

— if the rich world cannot conceive some goal other than endless economic we

expansion,

all

bump from one

will

crisis to

all

the next, ever poorer in spirit and

surroundings. “Globalization"

one of our

is

rallying cries,

trenchment, and orthodoxy our daily

communication

more

cultures?

If

hand, from

rapidly than ever

us be heard

think

at

new

With unprecedented

tools

of

phones to the Internet, we send information

tribes?

for contact, for

Have we ourselves learned

new

to listen to other

language, for the open-mindedness to

thoughts.

we do blunder

hand, then

speech

specialization, en-

from one corner of the planet to another. But can any of

beyond our own

We yearn

cell

reality.

and yet

blithely on, or wait until

we commit

a

some catastrophe

crime against the future. That

is

forces our

no mere

figure of

— those who oversee and justify the continued devastation of the natural

world should be no

less

morally and legally culpable than the sadistic generals of

our shabbiest wars. They preempt for generations yet to come the wonders we

84

1

Mexico City Declaration

(21 January

2000)

have known: the great migrations, the deepest woods, the consoling company of

our fellow creatures.

And

at the

scientists,

we

same time we commit crimes

against the past.

are heirs to the achievements of our civilization

—

As writers and long, halting,

its

bloody trek toward understanding and toward human freedom. But carelessness raises the possibility that those struggles will have

most important legacy

instead, our

felled trees, catalogs

meant

now our

little,

be clouds of carbon dioxide, ranks of

will

of extinct animals.

Although we represent only a minute fraction of the Earth’s human

we hope

to inspire others to gather

and commitment.

We

are, like

and

we pledge

earnestly, the business-as-usual that

That and

resistance will take

uncivil speech.

And

it

reflect, to offer

its

that while vigor; if

space.

it is

we

We

inspiration

disobedience

from many sources — clouds of

reefs.

proceed with the understanding that we

many more. The

all

at once.

us,

crop, clever alchemists

We proceed with the faith

We proceed with

millennial party'

But this

will

is

“manifesto” in January

is

need to be rude and

the example of

and with the confidence that we

work of real celebration

may be coming

will

many others who

be joined by many,

to a close, but the hard sweet

only just beginning.

McKibben and

only part of the

story. Bill

2000 during the

International

I

drafted this

PEN-UNESCO Symposium

“The Earth 2000 La Tierra Ano 2000,” which was organized by

Homero and Mexico

Betty Aridjis and took place at the

City. Actually,

my laptop

Museum

when asked by Homero and

statement to be presented lent

of the dying

art, civil

take a step back, the rest of creation will step forward to bless that

come before

called

resist, creatively

too late to prevent our troubles, nature nonetheless retains some

loud and humble

have

fish

and

must soon end.

monarchs on the wing, small farmers planting another of the new technologies, dying

in the habits

ourselves to

many forms — research and

draws

voices,

expressions of vision

modern humans, complicit

all

systems that drive this destruction. But

and

that

at a press

to Bill overnight,

conference

of Natural History in

Betty to prepare a

at the

writers

summary

end of the conference,

and he returned the following morning with

I

a

GOING AWAY TO THINK lyrical first draft

of this document, which

splicing additional perspectives

I

then massaged throughout the day,

from the week’s

lectures into the small essay

that I’ve presented above.

The from

gathering had brought together fourteen writers and a dozen scientists

a variety

of disciplines and countries, ranging from Mexico to Sweden,

from the United

South Africa.

States to

and

Bill

had

1

produce an

tried to

overarching statement about the “findings'” of the meeting that could be released

new millennium, but we found

to the public at the beginning of the

be certain ideological

developing nations

and complications that prevented us from speaking

rifts

in a single, unified voice

there to

— in

(chiefly,

particular,

Mexico)

felt

some of the

that social

social scientists

and environmental

from

justice

should be foregrounded, while natural scientists and some of the American writers felt that

important

problems.

social

would have

common

impending ecological

at least

It

disasters

trumped (and

might seem that participants

been able to come together on

actually caused)

in this

a handful of

conference

common

issues,

concerns about the state of the world. But ultimately our differences

in perspective

overcame our shared

zeal for social justice

and environmental

protection. So, its

what exactly happened during the drafting of

presentation to the media and

its

appearance

was written? The diverse participants from South African

essayist,

painter,

in the

this

document

in print at the

that blocked

time

when

it

Mexico City conference ranged

and antiapartheid dissident Breyten

Breytenbach to British cetologist Sidney Holt. Nobel laureate Sherwood

Rowland, the American chemist who helped to explain the physical basis for global warming, launched the week's presentations, sociologist

and former United Nations

official

and prominent Mexican

Lourdes Arizpe gave a stirring

presentation on the implications of poverty and social

stratification

for

environmental protection. The entire week was a smorgasbord of diverse

and

disciplinary

cultural perspectives with a balanced representation of papers

from the natural sciences and the humanities, complemented with several lectures

water

on public

policy,

such as Jerome Delli

Priscoli’s talk

on international

policy.

After an

86

|

initial

draft of the manifesto

— this

is

what the conference organizers

Mexico City Declaration

called

it.

what they asked us

to write

(21 January

2000)

on behalf of the assembled speakers

— was

shared with the group a few days before the week's end. several scholars

immediately agreed to sign on. several luminaries desired to abstain because they inappropriate as public figures to attach themselves to any sort of strident

felt it

and

political statement,

few conference participants vociferously complained

a

about the document, essentially halting the entire process of coming up with a unified statement about the

conference loomed

outcomes of

end of the week,

at the

the expected signatories to the details

of the

essay.

1

That

resistance will take

And

it

draws

lere's the

a

The

press

statement had been drafted, and

passage that was especially problematic: research and

art. civil

disobedience and uncivil speech.

from many sources — clouds of monarchs on the wing, small

farmers planting another crop, clever alchemists of the

dying

The

document were squabbling about the tone and

many forms

inspiration

its

this high-profile meeting.

new

technologies, dying fish of the

reefs.

public figures

and so forth) allied itself

felt

among

(government consultants, famous

us

uncomfortable attaching themselves to

and

us were

The

uncivil speech.”

the potential for disobedience and

monarch

document

that

with “resistance" and seemed to acknowledge and lend credibility

to “civil disobedience

among

a

scientists,

incivility,

activists

when

among

necessary.

adamant about the importance of endangered

butterflies to

organisms of the

us insisted

The

scientists

species,

sea, as celebrated causes, as

on

from

sources of

inspiration to spur conservationist efforts. But the socially conscious scholars

refused to place the cause of peasant farmers on par with environmental causes

and concerns, refused even

new energy and vision

and

to place

them

in the

biological technologies felt their

same manifesto. Shamans of

work was

inspiration, while ecologists had difficulty

high-tech solutions to global problems that, in

many

a crucial source

of

stomaching the value of

cases,

were the product of

technology.

At the eleventh hour, I

just before the

were sent with our laptop to

Natural History while the in the

a

workroom

final lectures

auditorium. Across the

scheduled press conference, in

another part of the

Bill

and

Museum

of

of the symposium were being presented

room from where we

tinkered with our draft.

GOING AWAY TO THINK Lourdes Arizpe and in

Homero Arid

Spanish and English.

Finally,

is j

worked on

we

a counterdraft of the manifesto

reentered the lecture hail with our two

versions of the manifesto and shared printed copies with our colleagues, hoping to find

that

some common ground and make an announcement

was too much to hope

When members

to the world. But

for.

of the press entered the dark lecture

hail

(normally a

planetarium) and the glaring lights shined on the assembled scholars and writers from throughout the world,

speak,

common

no

we had no

unified voice with which to

message ot commitment and resolve, no solutions to the

world's grave problems of injustice and degraded habitat.

Homero, our

leader,

addressed the press in his passionate, quavering voice, describing the purpose of the week's conference, applauding the efforts of the participating speakers, and

apologizing for our failure to

come up with

follow everything he said in Spanish, so little bit

it's

I

couldn’t

possible, too, that he slipped in a

of the countermanifesto that he and Lourdes had composed.

But the upshot of this experience

and

the promised manifesto.

artists still

is

that the world’s environmental scholars

have a long way to go

in

achieving effective cooperation, in

learning to establish alliances and negotiate functional compromises, with an

eye toward long-term goals. As

I

'll

explain in the next chapter, in the context ot

the relationship between environmental justice ecocriticism and other branches

of environmental expression,

I

believe

we must

learn to look for common ground

and take

special care not to pick useless fights, to the

interests,

all

88

|

of our causes.

detriment of

all

of our

8 Ecocriticism on and After

September

On

September

II

2001,

II,

Houston, Texas, where

weeks in

at

ecocriticism

earlier to

I

was

I

'd

my apartment

sitting in

moved from Reno, Nevada,

spend the

fall

My

stay in

three

semester teaching courses

and contemporary southwestern environmental

Rice University.

in

Houston was part of

my

literature

usual effort to

environmental literature and ecocriticism available to students

make

who might

not

would

at a

ordinarily have an opportunity to encounter these subjects, as they

place like the University of Nevada. I

was

my Houston

sitting in

apartment on the morning of September

II,

working on an essay about contemporary Oregon nature writer John Daniel that

would be included

reflecting

on

his

in his

book

Milkweed Editions' Credo

for

Wordsworthian “spots of time" echoes

in various

poems. Talk

about spots of time, about memorable moments, distinct from the It

was around ten o’clock

from Nevada and been attacked.”

said.

On

in the

“Turn on the

tv— we’ve

in flames, the

eventually the collapse of the buildings. ecocritical project for the rest

writing in general

life.

wife, Susie, called

been attacked, the

U S.

has

repeated images of one airplane

and then another smashing into the towers, the

my

rest of

the television were the astonishing and horrifying images

of the World Trade Towers

to

my

morning, and suddenly

Series,

It

of the

— felt irrelevant at that

was,

fireballs, I

must

the falling glass, and,

say, difficult to

day. Ecocriticism

return

— environmental

moment. The world would never be

GOING AWAY TO THINK quite the

same

for any of us

who

experienced the shock of that day, even

if

we

were not directly impacted by the violence. 1

had no

classes to teach at Rice

day

a strange, scary

too.

United

in the

Nobody really had a clear

attack.

I

’m not sure

air traffic

— no

in the

United

or three days after the

and perhaps

States,

attack

initial

my

continue to meet with

mental literature

The

downtown

— we

the terrorist attacks; this

on the nth were

had

my

In

is

a

book

September

— including

southwestern literature Bless

set in rural

timeless

New

Mexico

called

away

anymore.

life

Me, Ultima,

There

an

to live lives of

to the village after

to be content with simple village

of the messages seems to be that world events can reach

New

Mexico. this

and suggest that even nature writers and

cannot remove themselves from the context— the frightening,

ecocritics

unwanted context — of a world

my assessment

of the

and

of terrorism

field since

social unrest.

This

is

the gist of

2001 — that the puncturing of pastoral

David Gessner's phrase, has affected not only nature writing

the ecocritical response to literature.

have led to the events of September

90

is

rural village, the seasonal

and eventually return

1

changed and hardened, unable

would extrapolate from

to use

1940s and

but the narrator Antonio’s older brothers are

World War

even the outposts of rural I

life.

whereby the characters attempt

human dramas,

One

week of

of a young boy growing up and emerging from childhood

to fight in

several years,

of 9 12

we were

class,

in the

did

I

environ-

Me, Ultima during the

engagement with the natural patterns of their

changes, and local

II,

morning

class the

innocence into an awareness of the traumas and tragedies of Bless

other

skyscrapers, mainly offices of

business of discussing literature

talking about Rudolfo Anaya's 1972 novel

eerie motif in

in

my apartment.

Rice students

— continued.

’50s, telling the story

the

of terrorism. All

acts

But, amici the scary strangeness of the days following

14.

nth

planes in the skies above Houston, except for military'

companies, several miles from

and again on 9

in the world,

idea of the extent of the activities of the

the air space above the

jets patrolling

and perhaps elsewhere

was clear yet that these events were

it

The two

ominously quiet

oil

States,

was halted for several days

countries, too.

major

on Tuesday, the nth of September. That was

|

11

The and

vicious frustrations that

to the

retreat,

itself,

seem

but to

ongoing battles of words and

Ecocriticism on

bombs

Middle East and elsewhere

in the

have not disappeared.

necessary for

It is

work through, the

issues that led to 9

unrelated to 9

Ecocritics

11.

and

a historical

political

attack, a cluster

The main

the narrative

opposing

is

the

on the Orion Bless

tells his

way

in

and

within two weeks or so of the 9

fact,

Me, Ultima

story

Web is

at

11

a

site.

young Hispanic boy named

about the age of

up through high school or

which Antonio, or “Tony,”

before

six (just so.

The

crux of

torn between various

is

of cowboys and

forces, his father’s family

in

by distinguished environmental

1 1

Society’s

Antonio Marez, who begins the narrative and

social struggles related

and environmental writers do not do their work

vacuum — in

character of

starting school)

thinking people to worry about, to

all

of eloquent responses to 9

writers was published

11

have not evaporated,

in recent years

and to other

1 1

and After September

mother’s family of

his

farmers, the childhood innocence of his rural village and the lure of the world

beyond the the

village,

Roman

and particularly the divergent worldviews represented by

Catholic Church and the pantheistic, animistic beliefs of Native

American people. Tony

struggles to

mesh the various influences on

create a meaningful identity for himself ideologies.

The

novel’s narrative style

is

No

for another.

worldview or

Although

in

notable for

set of beliefs

my

classes

is

its

destroyed

gentle,

it

seems to me,

offer

about

in the

how we

While the United of 9

1 1

stands

wake of 9

should

States

feel

II,

is

how

accommodating sensitivity

its

order to make room literature

in

in the

fiction,

government immediately responded

is

who

that

world today.

to the terrorism

hate America and

we must

try to

all

that

it

be sensitive to

— and we must teach ourselves to be

tolerant and not allow rage, fear, and frustration to well up into hatred.

“environmental literature” and “ecocriticism”

sensitivity toward, appreciation of, “the other." lines

tend to

1

contemporary

about conflicting ideologies

the message of Anaya's writing

call

and

that the novel also has important lessons to

divergent and even conflicting worldviews

what we

to

indigenous sense of place

represented

by vowing to crush and erase the people for,

in

on environmental

use Anaya’s novel primarily as an example of

(including ethnobiological knowledge)

life,

composed of seemingly contradictory

approach toward so many contrasting perspectives— for

diplomacy

his

is

Much of

about cultivating

Think, for instance, of the

on the opening pages of Barbara Kingsolvcr's post'9

11

essay collection

GOING AWAY TO THINK

become I

can

lost in the

feel

how

nearby mountains:

[the parents’] hearts slowly change as the sediments of this impossible loss

and turn their insides

precipitate out of ordinary air

become

to the fluttering panic of trapped birds, they

cage— here my own

The

heart takes up that tremble as

U.S. administration expressed its

I

And

to stone.

sure there

imagining the

sit

then suddenly moving

is still

some way out of

this

story. (1)

pent-up rage and fear by bombing

Afghanistan “back to the Stone Age," while writers to

child who’s

where she imagines the parents of an Iranian

Small Wonder (2002),

like

rural

Kingsolver sought

empathize with people on the other side of the planet, to appreciate the

universal

human

could argue that

many other examples of environmental

Wonder and

like Small

One

feelings of “the others."

Bless

Me, Ultima,

literature,

is

a

rather important text for us to be thinking about during these worrisome days. I

have suggested that ecocriticism and environmental literature must exist

in a social context,

and

communicating must

this

means

that these activities

exist in the context of, with

the events of 9/11 and their aftermath

and ways of thinking and

cognizance or awareness

of,

— despite this, writers continue to explore

the nuances of their personal experience of the natural world and the broader scientific

and

social implications

ecocritics have

gone on with

engaged with issues of

work

Although

as if

to

II.

my

has always been

It

enhance

my own

1 1

were

II

my own life was

not radically revised 9

9

their

human work

since 9

still

just

explicitly

may seem

to be

goal to use the insights

my

and that of 1

1,

course reading

the fact that Americans are not alone

doing

an ordinary day on the calendar.

rather startlingly interrupted by the attacks,

sensitivity

my

some of them

And

and globalization (perhaps one

research and teaching to

my

II,

attacks), while others

and environmental concerns. Since 9 urgency to include on

behavior in relation to nature.

social justice, warfare,

of the inspirations for the 9 ecocritical

of

I

accommodate

have

discussion of

and eloquence of literature

students to important social

have perhaps

lists

I

felt

somewhat more

works that show an awareness of 1

have made

a special point of incorporating discussion of kingsolver’s essays

from Small

on the

planet. For instance,

Wonder and selections from Arundhati Roy's Power

92

|

Politics

into

my undergraduate

Ecocriticism on

and After September

humanities courses, hoping to use the writers insights to provoke

my

n

students’

appreciation of the tendencies of American culture and the actions of the U.S.

government that may be contributing

to international tensions.

I

believe both

ecocriticism and environmental writing are, intrinsically, ways of thinking

through issues that are important for order to

before 9 It is

and sustainably on the

live well

and scholarship 11

not

human

in

We

society

We

planet.

need more of both

need

2001 and continues

my purpose

kind of writing

this

order to fathom the implications of social

in

strife that existed

to exist today.

in this essay to offer a survey

of ecocriticism since 2001.

Others have already offered helpful overviews of that kind: for instance, Kate Rigby’s “Ecocriticism" in Julian Wolfreys's Introducing Criticism at the

(2002), Peter Barry’s chapter on ecocriticism

Greg Garrard’s Criticism

Ecocriticism

(2004), Lawrence

(2005), and Ursula Heise’s pmla

to Ecocriticism

ecocriticism,

”

(2006). But

and perhaps

1

do believe

Beginning Theory

in

article,

a kind

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide

of “sea change" occurred

.

we began

(2002),

branches of humanities scholarship,

in all

to receive

more

Century

Buell’s The Future of Environmental

wake of the events of 2001 From my vantage point noticed that

21st

as the editor

of

in

in

the

ISLE,

I

more urgently

politically aggressive,

expressed scholarly submissions. Perhaps the most explicit of these, an essay that actually articulated a new, succinct definition of ecocriticism,

Gomides’s

article

“Putting a

Case of The Burning 9

II

The

— definition field

Season, a

New

Definition of Ecocriticism to the Test:

Film (Mal)Adaptation” (2006).

of the discipline he asserts goes

like

audiences to

live

human

this:

“Ecocriticism:

art

which

raise

interactions with nature, while also motivating

within a limit that

emphasis here on the

The

The new— post'

of enquiry that analyzes and promotes works of

moral questions about

was Camilo

will

explicit raising

be binding over generations”

(16).

The

of “moral questions" and the use of textual

analysis to inspire audiences to “live within a limit that will be binding over

generations” suggests interesting assumptions about the power of scholarship and the appropriate scope of academic I

work (including both research and

respect the passion of such a definition, while

about enforcing such

a precise

notion of this

1

field.

teaching).

also feel certain reservations

My own

approach has always

GOING AWAY TO THINK been to

literature

toward

wide

cast a

net, to

welcome and support any and

and other kinds of texts. But

more hard-edged,

a

I

all

have noticed the

“green readings” of

field shift since 9/11

socially conscious approach.

This way of reading, one might argue, already existed (before 9 we’ve

now come

Adamson, Mei Mei Evans, and Rachel and promote

collection that helped to codify'

was published Nonetheless,

2002 and was

in

this

underway when 9

already well

Stein, a

approach to scholarship,

an interesting way, the occurrence of the 9

in

what

to call “environmental justice ecocriticism." The Environmental

edited by Joni

Justice Reader,

11) in

1 1

took place.

attacks

II

and the

almost contemporaneous emergence of environmental justice ecocriticism

would prove

to be fortuitous for ecocritics suddenly looking to infuse their

writing and teaching lives with ideas relevant to the state of the world.

To some

extent,

I

already sensitive to

would

argue, the majority of ecocritics prior to 9

and supportive of the ideas foregrounded

in

11

were

environmental

justice. T.

V

from The

Environmental Justice Reader, does an excellent job of identify ing

Reed, in his essay “Toward an Environmental Justice Ecocriticism”

and

distinguishing several of the major strands of ecocriticism, which he labels

"Conservation Ecocriticism," “Ecological Ecocriticism," “Biocentric Deep Ecological Ecocriticism,”

“Eco-feminist Ecocriticism,” and “Environmental Justice

what kind of ecocriticism

Ecocriticism.” I'm actually not sure

practicing throughout

my

career, as

I

I've

belong the 9

in several

11

Anaya’s

most of

Me, Ultima in

American Indian

my

interest in placedness

classify' as

colleagues and students,

I

of these categories, including environmental

attacks occurred in 2001, Bless

my

been primarily what Reed would

ecocritic,” although, like

Literature,

my

1

have been

tend not to identify myself consciously

with any of these categories. Perhaps because of

and movement.

I

happened

undergraduate

an “ecological actually feel justice.

to be teaching not only

class at Rice,

I

When

Rudolfo

but Joni Adamson's

Environmental Justice, and Ecocriticism

in

my

graduate

seminar on ecocriticism. I

strongly appreciate the kinds of critical questions

mental justice ecocriticism, such

How

Reed

links to environ-

as:

can literature and criticism further efforts of the environmental justice

movement

to

bring attention to ways in which environmental degradation and hazards unequally affect

94

Ecocriticism on

poor people and people of color?

How

has racism domestically and internationally enabled

What

greater environmental irresponsibility?

by the poor, by people of color

I

believe

in

the United States and by cultures outside

mental writers would also support the

of our

issues I

are the different traditions in nature writing

most people who think of themselves

important questions, even

own

if

u

and After September

we

(149)

and or environ'

of investigation suggested by these

lines

don't

as ecocritics

it?

make

all

these questions the central

research, teaching, or storytelling. For this reason, though,

found myself both inspired and dismayed by Reed's powerful essay when

read

in

it

2002, disappointed chiefly by the apparent hierarchy of

new environmental

conscious ecocriticisms, with the

being promoted

justice

socially

emphasis clearly

more important and morally acceptable than

as

the others.

Immediately after pronouncing the centra! questions of environmental ecocriticism,

Reed

Russell Sanders,

vilifies

whose

—

I

don't think this

is

Word

essay “Speaking a

too strong a word

“pre-sumptuousness of the

the essay, which in essence literature as

and is

un-

if

condemns

not antinatural."

socially conscious

title

virtually

dimensions of

Reed ignores the eloquent

gospel of ecology has

become an

all

Don

guts, as

has

it

truly does.

become

of contemporary American to celebrate the ecological

DeLillo’s novel White Noise, which

But

in castigating

Quarterly Review in 1987,

intellectual

commonplace. But

We

do not

.

.

.

( Ecocriticism

it

literature,

is

web

wiser,

not yet an emotional or a video screen

passing through our

our experience of nature

in ecological perspective laces

us,

how

feel

to situate the lives of characters

the

and

Reader 194)

To my mind, Sanders’s statement sums up some of the environmental

full

wTich concludes:

of our technological boxes, to make us

ache and tug of that organic web passing through

— in nature.

Sanders for a

window

the organic

Thus, any writer w ho sees the world

a hard problem: how, despite the perfection

therefore of readers

feel

While our theories of nature have become

shallower.

Reed points

matched by the content of

one. For most of us, most of the time, nature appears framed in a

or inside the borders of a photograph

— Scott

insights of the article, first published for the

mainstream readers of the Michigan The

is

He proceeds then

criticized mildly in Sanders's essay.

page,

[which]

justice

for Nature'' appears in the

discipline’s foundational anthology. The Ecocriticism Reader (1996).

to the

I

from before

9/11

and

after,

essential goals ol

from

all

social strata.

GOING AWAY TO THINK from within the United

and abroad.

States

ardently support the mission

I

of the environmental justice movement, both within literary studies and beyond.

And

yet

do not support the jactionalizing of social and environmental

I

consciousness. Rather than simply taking the Sanders essay a step further or

work

highlighting and correcting certain aspects of Sanders’s

more

through other modes of

explicitly stated

baby with the bathwater. This

is,

2003 volume of witty

Phillips’s

Literature in America,

Ecocriticism

I

must

that tend to be

Reed

analysis,

tosses out the

the grave failure, too, of

say,

Dana

slander. The Truth oj Ecology Nature, Culture, and :

and Michael

Cohen's 2004

P.

under Critique,” the

latter

rant, “Blues in the

Green:

of which was, strangely enough,

published in the journal Environmental History rather than in a literary journal,

where the author could have approached urged them to consider manifestoes aside

new

that

(is

directions. Rants, whining,

what

international relations in post- 9

11

new emphasis on

this

focus

Environment: Between Nature and Culture, coedited B.

the preceding

political

is

urgency and

Caribbean Literature and the

by Elizabeth M. DeLoughrey,

Handley and published

frameworks of

that operates within the

in

ecocriticism and environmental writing.

of the impressive examples of

Renee K. Gosson, and George

and

and self-promoting

been doing myself

I’ve

paragraphs?), there has been a striking

One

his colleagues diplomatically

social justice

without blaming or denouncing scholars working

in

2005,

in

a project

and postcolonial critique other branches of literary

scholarship. In articulating the aims of their collection, the editors state simply:

Although North American is

devoid of

human

history'

ecocritics often describe an

and

subjects preclude that luxury

labor, the colonization

and beg the question

as to

idealized natural landscape that

and forced relocation of Caribbean

what might be considered a natural

landscape. Against the popular grain of U.S. ecocritical studies,

we

the historical and racial violence of the Caribbean

to understanding literary'

representations of

its

geography.

is

integral

As Wilson Harris reminds

argue that addressing

us. this is “a

landscape saturated

by traumas of conquest." (2)

Enough to

said.

This

an important

ecocritics.

96

|

is

the sort of scholarly approach that wall lure converts

mode

ot reading rather than splintering the

community of

Ecocriticism on

know of no

I

ecocriticism and

little

and After September

environmental literature

u

— aside

from David Gessner's “The Punctured Pastoral” and Susan Hanson’s “Home'

Home

land Security: Safe at implications of 9

but

1 1,

it’s

United States or elsewhere

in the

World” — that has

possible that scholars and nature writers in the

the story of his

own

9

come

will increasingly

phenomenon of globalization

the broader

explicitly explored the

and

to terms with that event

in future

work. Gessner’s piece

tells

experience, beginning with the story of his hike in

11

the Colorado Rockies the day of the attack and exploring his efforts to return to

normalcy back home on Cape

Cod

in the

following months. His entire

as a nature writer in rural, coastal Massachusetts,

“retreat” in a “place apart”

He

recalls,

life,

had been one of pastoral

from the pressures and concerns of urban America.

“Perhaps, after the horror of the deed, that was the immediate

message we took away from September

1

1.

Welcome

There

to the world.

is

no place

apart” (172). After 9/1 1, the nature writer wonders:

was heading for the

new world? How could I

even the metaphorical

hills,

I

hills, a

cowardly retreat

in

the face of this

spend another year observing and writing about ospreys or

suspected very few nature writers were working

in Israel, for instance.

to write of titmice or the migratory pattern of the

What

use was

semipalmated plover? Wasn't

snails? it

now

time to

this a

think only of war and politics? (173)

So Gessner’s immediate response to the

was to

scholars,

nature

— was

feel that his

irrelevant

subtle message in

impossible, he

Bless

vocation

crisis, like

that of

many

writers and

— observing, contemplating, and describing

and even somehow irresponsible. Like Anaya with

his

Me, Ultima that retreat from the throes of the world

now understood

that “there

is

no world

apart.”

As time

is

passed,

however, Gessner came to realize that distance and detachment were crucial to achieving a deeper understanding of the meaning of 9 Pastoral” he explains

how

his post' 9

wanderings

11

sense of humility, the vulnerability of

life,

in

1 1.

walking out by the

was that

'

I

bluff.

don’t know'

is

One

I

“The Punctured

nature reinforced his

and the need sometimes

modestly empowered by doing small, constructive things. to crisis with creativity,” he writes, “but

In

found

I

was

“It's

to feel

hard to respond

a little better at

it

when

of the things living by the bluff had taught

often the best answer, at least

initially,

me

to the questions

GOING AWAY TO THINK the world poses.

needed to rebuild on the foundation of

I

Not only does nature provide innumerable mysteries

(175).

human

(forcing the honest

observer into an inevitable stance of uncertainty), but

and death — mortal a safe place,

we

frailty

— plain at every turn.

Gessner

we have

realization

tried so desperately to

and the migrating monarch

Audubon

is

makes

life

writes: "In this lack

of

butterflies he

Wellfleet

own

his

had observed

and preposterous enterprise"

Society’s

a reality of life

on

earth,

bury under layers of control” (176). This

reminds him of the strange unity between

in their great

also

it

joined not just the citizens of the rest of the world, but the

other species that populate this planet. Vulnerability a fact

this uncertainty”

Colorado, "engaged

in

News from

(177).

sense of frailty

the Massachusetts

Bay Wildlife Sanctuary that

hypothermic

a

loggerhead turtle (a “threatened" species) he and his wife had recently rescued

on the beach near a slight sense

when

me

to take things

down

moment

that

Reading Gessner’s thoughtful

to an individual level:

my

glimmer of hope,

essay,

of

this literature

was

some

influence”

which approaches the implications

me

and environmental writing, where

useful in times like ours

"it

one person saving

actions could have

so explicitly and gracefully, propels

11

criticism

study

likely survive provides a

of the power to have a positive effect on the world. “In a time

turtle, feeling for a

(179).

of 9

home would

the daily environmental news was overwhelming,” states Gessner,

heartening for

one

their

my

daily fare of eco-

find that similar

I

— abound in this work.

back to

themes — so

Writing about nature

intrinsically prepares us to

— and the

weather the challenges and

complications of the world.

Susan Hanson’s approach

World”

more oblique than

is

in

“Homeland

Home

in the

and the content

clearly

Security: Safe at

Gessner’s, but the

title

evoke the global context of the changes brought about by 9

1

1.

In this essay the

narrator "walk[s] along the bare caliche road, as [her] sandals crunch across the gravel,

drowning out the mid-September songs of

of the reference to the month, that the speaker

meaning of the phrase “mid-September”

What

ensues

is

|

fully

One

senses, because

conscious of the ominous

American readers following 2001.

Hanson’s delicate marveling

dangerous and lovable world. She writes:

98

for

is

birds.”

at the fact

of her

own

life in

a

Ecocriticism on

It is

morning when suddenly

struck by lightning.

I

am

me

occurs to

it

fact that I

skin.

morning

a I

’m

My body is

mid-September when

Why does

alive.

my hand

hold out I

in

[s/c]

where

The humble,

in the

I

think

post-9

wonder why

I

seem so ordinary

my middle

on

not being

finger

I

am

not

where

so seldom marvel at the

and space?

tendons rippling underneath the

accidentally burned

I

it

as a child, the

of the many

lyrical

2004

collection Icons

— two

things essential to any of us trying to write about nature

n

world.

First,

and

of Loss

ignore

the fact that

suffering.

There

Though

in the

we

live in a

the focus here

down

the rural

world of danger, is

on the dangers

briefly:

terrorist threats?

are malevolent forces at

two important

and Grace, achieves

the story of this simple walk

Should we be concerned about possible

evil

I

to be occupying time

of nature, the topic of terrorism does come up

is

am

gripped the pruning shears too long. (136)

I

unpredictability, terror,

There

that

it is

veins, see the knuckles,

road in central Texas does not

danger’s not real

I

u

intact.

richly accessible narrative voice here, typical

stories in her

things,

it

and see the

see the tiny scar there

callous

unexplained,

not falling into a crevice and disappearing into the earth

bursting into flames or whirling into space. It is

that, for reasons

and After September

work

Only the very naive would

to destroy the things

say the

we hold

dear.

world There are cruelty and anger and misuse of power. There are

arrogance, intolerance, and greed (141)

Nonetheless, the narrator

is

determined not to

Perhaps the ultimate tragedy of 9

world were inculcated with always experienced

fear,

a sense

documentary

that

American

by fear” (141)

and much of the

attacks. True,

fear

we have

and insecurity

passes for civilization

— see,

Moore's discussion of fear and American culture

in

for

the

film Bowling Jor Columbine.

and danger, Hanson does not allow such

preoccupation to usurp her fundamental love of

literary gesture in the final brief

to third person,

man.” In the

culture

of fear following the

much of what

But, though conscious of fear a

is

and some have even argued that

arc underlying motivations for instance, Michael

11

“live a life fed

paragraphs of her

life.

essay,

She makes

a curious

switching from

first

making the narrator an anonymous “everywoman” or “every-

willful loving

of herself and the world

— a celebratory perspective

GOING AWAY TO THINK that acknowledges darkness

— Hanson

second major achievement of this Walking along

rough caliche road

a

in

essay.

a gravel bar, staring in

stones in the river

tell her.

gently

fall

becoming

it

into the flow of the river. Let a part of the current as

the losing of

it

set

you

amazement

up and hold

it

it

it

at

it

woman

is

by the mental image

jolted

her empty hands. This

tightly;

be carried away

goes. Let

consider to be the

I

Here’s what she writes:

mid-September, a

of herself alone on

Pick

accomplishes what

turn

it

over and over;

like sand.

Let

it

is

your

the

life,

let it go.

Let

it

disappear from sight,

not matter any longer that you have lost

Let

it.

free.

Walking with the wind against her back, with the sun on the side of her face and the sound of crunching gravel underneath her feet, the

She knows that the world

body

feels as

knows, safe

The

it

at

dangerous, that

travels across the earth.

life is

is

grounded

in this

time and

in this place.

dangerous, but she also loves the way her

Holding both hope and

fear in her heart, she

of

this essay

try to achieve as

do

we

wonderful job of describing the state of mind

a

toil in

the field of ecocriticism and environmental

writing in the world today, trying to hold “both hope and fear" in our hearts.

could not

live,

we could not work

events like the 9 harder, to engage

11

as well,

without either the hope or the

We

fear.

In

— the fact that we live in a world where attacks could occur — offers motivation to care more, to try

a peculiar way, the explicit locus

feel

she

is,

home. (144)

final lines

many of us

is

woman

more

fully

of fear

with the world’s

injustices.

But without loving the

of our bodies passing across the earth, what would be the point?

Hope toward

in the dark. Life’s flavors

life

its risks.

Human

imagination, tipping

or tipping toward death. Saving, savoring. This

criticism in the

100

and

wake of 9

11.

is

the state of eco-

9

Gated Mountains

2002, having spent the better part of

In July

the office catching up on paperwork, to a taste of

impromptu

I

Nevada wilderness. I’m not

sound of mountain water,

my

Tired of

home

raced

I

But

I

to pick

had

walked with

my

just fifteen

’m talking about

sage, bitterbrush,

rock, serenaded by the

minutes from downtown Reno.

sunless office, eager for the bracing smell of the mountains,

walk somewhere area.

and multicolored

up

my

I

wife and our dogs. Susie had been thinking about a

in the direction

in

in

talking about an

proximate wilderness, about the possibility of a hike through Jeffrey pines,

Saturday

decided to treat myself

jaunt to one of the state's remote mountain ranges.

mountain mahogany,

a

mind another

of Mount

Rose— perhaps

the

Thomas Creek

where

familiar hiking area, a place

I’ve

often

graduate students from the University of Nevada’s Literature

and Environment Program.

I

pictured the striking ochre and gray

cliffs

of

Hunter Creek Canyon, the many shades of green tracing the route of the creek from the Mount Rose Wilderness Area down to the Truckee I

arrived in

Reno

in 1995 to teach in

unr’s English Department.

primary attractions of the move was the opportunity to to live

in

the mountains.

I

River.

One of the

live

near mountains,

had been working for several years

in the Texas Hill

Country, just southwest of Austin, and was starved for genuine alpine climate

and

vistas.

It

didn't take long to discover the popular

Steamboat Ditch

frail

and

the Hunter Creek Trail, both of which were accessed via an informal parking

GOING AWAY TO THINK lot in the

River,

these

new

fnniper Ridge housing development, just south of the Truckee

two or three miles west of Virginia trails

Street in

downtown Reno. Both of

had obviously been used by Reno hikers and runners for many

The Steamboat Ditch

was

Trail

But almost immediately

it

a favorite location for

was clear that

mountain bikers

would be

access

trail

Me Mansion

west-facing ridge. This

nothing new in Reno. All over the

spectacular wild places

Hidden

is

a serious

the

access to

city,

threatened by metastasizing urban sprawl. There’s

is

Valley State Park

as well.

Me Mansion cropped up on

issue in juniper Ridge, as

after

years.

on the eastern

side of the

Peavine Mountain to

city,

the north (just a few minutes from the

unr campus),

Creek and Whites Creek

and Steamboat Ditch Hunter Creek to

the west. areas,

to the south,

Wise urban planning would preserve public

much

as Boulder,

Rocky Mountain

Galena Park and Thomas

access to these beautiful

Colorado, has created Chautauqua Park in the nearby

The

foothills.

public parks remain open; but, increasingly,

Reno's traditional places of outdoor recreation, including the Hunter Creek

and Hunter Lake

on the verge of

Trails, are

new

private viewsheds for wealthy

inaccessibility.

from spending

a sabbatical

our research and lecturing

becoming

are

1

arrivals.

So the Saturday afternoon hike on Hunter Creek be a kind of experiment. Susie and

They

I,

my son

and

Trail in July

Jacinto,

2002 would

had recently returned

semester in Brisbane, Australia. In addition to activities in Australia,

we’d traveled

much of

the

eastern and central regions of that vast country, hiking both rugged and highly engineered

Snowy Mountains

dodging lightning on Mount Rosciuszko

trails,

of

New

South Wales and shivering

in the

in

the

foggy highlands

of Tasmania’s Cradle Mountain.

We'd been impressed by the enlightened national governments to create parks

same

and, at the

time, to set aside

efforts of Australia's state

and promote public access

many

in Australia

including the maintenance of lovely

and the Flatirons people,

it

102

in Boulder.

Even

and animals. In some ways,

reminded Susie of her native Colorado, trails in

the Front Range near Denver

in Brisbane, a city of

was possible to leave behind the

|

to wild places

pristine wild areas as trail-less habitat

for the country’s extraordinarily diverse plants

our outdoor experiences

and

city noises

and

more than

vistas while

a million

on Mount

Gated Mountains

Coot-tha or

more

in the

distant parts of the Brisbane Forest Park or

North Stradbroke Island and Moreton often found myself thinking of my trails for hiking,

people,

I

Wandering around

Island.

on nearby

Australia.

the

many

running, and biking in the Cascades, just to the east. Like

many

hometown of Eugene, Oregon, and

my own

tend to hold up

standard of beauty and

joy,

favorite childhood places as a kind of fixed

thinking,

“T his

is

what the world should be

like."

chose Hunter Creek Trail as an experiment in “urban wilderness

I

knowing

access,"

I

soon

as

as

we began

trail

the short drive from our house to the

would be completed even before we stepped

trailhead that the experiment

out of the car to begin walking and knowing, too, that the results would not be pleasant.

We

drove west along the south side of the Truckee River and after a few

minutes turned hill I

a

minute

left

further,

d never noticed

several years

past the faux gate at the entrance to Juniper Ridge.

I

’ve

and then

this

name

a right

turn onto a street

before, but

it

Up

the

named “Mountaingate

seemed ominously appropriate. For

been tracking the progress of the extraordinarily ugly and

pretentious mansions of the nouveau riche up this ridgeline, facing the Steam-

boat Ditch to the west and Hunter Creek Canyon and

Area

to the south.

Rocky

lots,

Mount Rose Wilderness

scattered with cheatgrass and sagebrush, were

being replaced, one by one, by bloated stucco castles and greener grass than could be found

in nature.

Sure enough, when

we

arrived at the lot that had served as the public parking

empty

area for the past seven years (and probably longer), there was no

During the past

six

months, yet another

had been erected,

castle

almost complete.

We

monument

American West. The gating

to the privatization of wilderness access in the

Mount Rose Wilderness

a

down

of

now

Area, at least from this popular access point, was

drove

lot.

the block and found a surreptitious route

between two mansions, then slipped through with the dogs and made our way to the

Hunter Creek

Trail.

But

it

felt as if

we were doing something

trespassing in order to get to public land. At the felt like

my

an act of necessary defiance.

blood boiling

as

we

hiked.

1

It

was

a

thought of the

same

warm man

greener-than-green “mountaingate” lawn when

time, our simple walk

July afternoon, I

illegal,

and

I

had seen standing on

we drove

by, his

felt

his

arms proudly

I

103

GOING AWAY TO THINK crossed, watching his

dog take

seemed

a shit. His stance

place, this grass, this dog, this shit, this entire valley

view.

No

say the

riffraff

allowed.”

same thing

I

wanted

to say to him,

to the civic leaders

who had

I

“Up

own

to say, “I

own

this

the Hunter Creek

yours!”

And

wanted

I

allowed Reno, and

still

to

allow

Reno, to be sold out to distant developers (often located in California and the

Midwest, according to scuttlebutt)

money

of this place, only for the

livability

As

who

have no concern for the beauty and

a scholar of environmental literature,

I

know

and philosophical views of wilderness that have percolated academic

My

circles

bookshelves

during recent years and for at

home and

from

that can be extracted

many

many

the in

it.

historical

both public and

decades, even centuries.

loaded

at the university are

down with

such

statements.

Every morning when

and when

I

kick

I

look at distant

Mount Rose from my bedroom window

up the dust on any mountain

trail in

Reno or elsewhere,

I

think

of Wallace Stegner’s elegant proposal, from his so-called “Wilderness Letter" of the early 1960s, that wilderness I

think, too, of

we need mere

the “geography of hope."

is

Edward Abbey's provocative

wilderness even

if

we never go

existence, or the thought of

angled,

it,

human-made environments.

claim,

from

Desert Solitaire, that

there (or never can go there), for

gives us a

form of refuge from our

remember supporting

I

its

right-

this claim years

New England, when the memory of wild places in the West helped to sustain me as wrote my dissertation in stuffy offices on the Brown campus. Western wilderness, the idea of filled my dreams and inspired my pen. ago, as a graduate student in

1

it,

And

then

I

moved

to

Nevada

in 1995, just as

“The Trouble with Wilderness” Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature)

in

and

William Cronon was publishing

venues suitable for academics for the general public

(

The

(

Uncommon

New York

Times).

Cronon’s work problematized the concept of wilderness, revealed

its

constructedness and

and road

builders

artificiality,

and loggers and miners

and despoil land that has not

104

I

and made to

it

easier for developers

buy (or rent

for a long time

at

social

bargain-basement prices)

been what "romantic

idealists”

Gated Mountains

'wilderness."

call

While Cronon’s

also a practical fiasco. offices

As

Sometimes

and chatter to each I

ideas

it’s

may have

simply best for academics to stay

walked the Hunter Creek

on that

Trail

July

day in 2002, blood boiling,

Pyle's phrase “the extinction

experience" from his book The Thunder Tree, published in 1993.

High Line Canal from the Aurora, Colorado, of

we

argues that in

in their

other.

found myself remembering Robert Michael

I

intellectual merit, they are

are increasingly

of

Remembering the

his childhood, Pyle eloquently

removed from the more-than-human world

our daily experience of urban America.

He

argues that

many

routes to self'

understanding and ecological awareness are traveled not by abstract thinking, but by ordinary, daily experience, by using our senses to

We

touch the world.

need urban wildlands, says

in

our

The

lives.

trail, is

As

my

one of the

a scholar

and

we tend

a teacher,

to

park or a nearby

in a city

many people

like

I,

my

in

1

can find

I

the Sierra

to the

Nevada

small wildernesses this access frays

Ruby Mountains or

range, is

I

have always

one of the

spend much of

it.

also love being outside,

am

I

look at the world from a glorious distance. Although

wander over

city,

environments, referring

in built

beyond our making. But

seek access to the world wherever

to

mourn

often talk about nature with students and

1

conduct our discussions

abstractly to the world I

and what’s

are

significant crises of our time.

time indoors. Even though

colleagues,

who we

“extinction" of wild experience, even the moderate

forms of wild experience that one can have tain

and

Pyle, in order to have access to

the experience of the world and in order to appreciate

important

see, smell, hear,

felt

to the

not content merely to occasionally find time

more remote reaches of

that access to the

special blessings

and vanishes due

I

and

of living

Reno

area’s

in this place.

to the greed of corporate developers

As and

the shortsightedness of city planners and officials (and perhaps even the local electorate),

I

find myself brooding over our collective “extinction of

experience."

Here and If

in

Nevada we have another “gated mountain”

to

make our blood

to threaten us with “extinction of experience" in an even

people throughout the United States

know nothing

else

more

boil

literal sense.

about Nevada, most

I

105

GOING AWAY TO THINK have

now

heard of Yucca Mountain, a place that, according to the Bush

Jr.

administration, will solve the nation’s energy worries by storing seventy-seven

thousand tons of high-level radioactive waste and enabling nuclear power plants to continue operating

Mountain were located

and producing more waste ad infinitum. about any other American

in just

state,

recognized as a beautiful place, even a sacred place. Because state with

more than three hundred mountain

on the Nevada Test

in the

it’s

Yucca

would be

located in a

and because

it's

located

of the federal land that constitutes more than

Site (part

8 o percent of Nevada),

ranges,

it's

it

If

relatively easy for a

White House with

its

hands

pockets of the nuclear industry to run a farce of a review process,

launch a national publicity campaign loaded with logical and scientific and

and ram approval of the nuclear-waste repository through

ethical tallacies,

Congress.

Who

will ever

know

How many people will ever see topography? How many people know

the difference?

firsthand the beauty of this mesalike

about the twenty species of reptiles that

Yucca Mountain Las Vegas

on

becoming

and other military it

a secret place.

It’s

there?

located one hundred miles north of

gated, Test Site land, just as wilderness areas in the

are increasingly

does things

is

live

inaccessible to recreational visitors, Yucca

locales in the state are places

doesn’t

want scrutinized by the

administration. Yucca

Mountain

to the nuclear-waste

conundrum. To

where the

federal

Reno

area

Mountain

government

public. For the current federal

signifies a safe, politically

expedient solution

citizens of Nevada,

Yucca Mountain

the culmination of a greedy, shortsighted, and scientifically unin-

signifies

formed (or incomplete) energy

industry,

working

in

cahoots with a corrupt,

self-serving administration. Increasingly, if the predicted waste-transportation

accidents occur, citizens throughout the nation will perspectives of Nevadans

— and they’ll

government that stamped wrote

in

its

remember

Mountain should

wall carry tens

read,

'We

it

re

to share the critical

was the Bush- Cheney site.

Rebecca Solnit

Francisco Chronicle that "the

bumpers

of thousands of loads of nuclear waste to Yucca

gambling with the inheritance of our children

and grandchildren and countless generations

106

that

approval on this repository

an August 2002 editorial for the San

of the trucks that

come

after them."’

Yucca Mountain

Gated Mountains

is

Nevada mountain

a “gated"

gambling 1

that gives

new meaning

to our reputation as a

state.

watch

a

covey of California

chicks, gather seeds

from

my

quail, a

few grownups and

We

backyard.

and we can view the world from behind

a

brood of nervous

can wait for nature to

glass.

Or we

come

to us,

can organize ourselves, as

individuals and as communities, to speak out for access, for the opportunity to

experience our place in the world.

ment to

And

for a responsive, responsible govern-

that does not perceive wilderness, particularly desert, as “a

throw used razor

official

quoted

blades,” in the

in Terry

good place

words of an Atomic Energy Commission

Tempest Williams's

Refuge (242).

Should we be content with mountaingate mansions gating access to proximate wilderness in

we powerless

Reno,

in

Nevada,

in

the American West? Are

to act for preservation of trail access in our part of the world?

Should we allow Nevada's wild mountains to become synonymous with “nuclear waste"?

We should ask ourselves these questions. And we should

officials,

let

our elected

and our mountaingate neighbors, know that the public needs and

demands

access to nearby wild places, to the world's beauty.

And

that we'd

prefer not to have our mountains hollowed out and filled with radioactive

garbage.

NOTES

1.

The department of

construction in

Regional Parks and

2008 of the Michael

dedicated by the owner will provide

D.

Open

Thompson

trail access,

Space for Washoe County has planned

trailhead for the

parking,

Hunter Creek

and restroom

facilities at

Trail

the end of

Woodchuck, off Plateau Road.

I

Land

107

10

Animals and Humans IN

APPRECIATION OF RANDY MALAMUD'S

POETIC ANIMALS AND ANIMAL SOULS

The human experience of

the world

and through, on every possible

is

by animality

level,

relationships with other animal beings

our

own animal ways of feeling and

2003

civilization,

and particularly

to

American

and psychological flaws inherent

nonhuman

in

animals. Although this

a powerfully aggressive

throws

own

readers, to

in his

eloquent

a challenge to

Western

acknowledge the

ethical

is

a

work

ot literary criticism,

it

begins with

moral assertion, noting that “from the beginning

God

The

make

(3).

task of his project

is

to

more conscious of this unconscionable arrogance — this hubris — in and

lives

our

our attitudes toward and interactions with

authorizes an ecologically perverse hubris” readers

down

— by

on the planet and by

Randy Malamud,

sensing.

study. Poetic Animals and Animal Souls,

permeated through

to reveal the dire implications

their

of our arrogance toward animals

and, by implication, toward the rest of nature and toward people different

from

ourselves.

critique

It

Malamud

may not be popular

one

justice scholars

— at

all

also hears its

lines

make

this

human and nonhuman

circles to say this,

upon premises

is

it is

|

an attack on

oi priority and exclusivity.

concern piercingly

animals

level,

plain:

"The

Malamuds

relationship between

codified in social culture as hierarchical and

fundamentally impermeable: we are in here, they are out there"

108

but the harsh

from ecofeminist scholars and environmental

most fundamental and universal

cultural structures built

opening

some

toward our views of animals mirrors (or echoes) the

directs

criticisms that

in

(1).

Animals and

Malamuds book Reading; and part essay

on the

some of

2,

is

divided into two parts: part

I,

An

Humans

Ecocritical Ethics of

Poetic Animals. By beginning with an extended, multipart

of our reading of

ethical aspects

new

the central concerns of the

literature,

Malamud adheres

to

held of ecological literary criticism,

which many scholars have recently argued

movement

essentially a scholarly

is

devoted to advancing particular ethical concerns about the state of the world

and the

state

humans

fall

of

Much of

society.

the opening part of the

book explores how

short of truly “knowing” other animals, despite our fervent efforts.

human

Zoos, for instance, seem to indicate

devotion to the preservation and

understanding of other species. However, for Malamud, zoos merely salve society’s guilt

appetites, a few,

.

“toward environmental pillaging

. .

.

.

.

that supports our consumptive

justifying the small-scale extrication

token exotic animals”

(5).

Like so

from the plundered biota

many human

actions, the “saving” of

endangered animals from their natural habitats and their placement

and

artificial

tive

conscience but does

landscapes for our little

own

viewing convenience

is

easy

in cages

on our

collec-

to correct the destructive force our kind exerts

in the world.

So what could be better than zoos? Although he acknowledges the inevitable limitations of

human

imagination in understanding realms of experience

beyond our own, Malamud claims ultimately our intellectual aspirations”

(7)

to be a believer in the “powers of

and argues that “The empathizing imagination

can be enlisted to enhance the awareness of sentient, cognitive, ethical, and

emotional

affinities

between people and animals" (9).

to factor in

— despite

philosopher

Thomas Nagel

This

is

where

literature begins

the tendencies of writers and others to sees as

“anthropomorphic

commit what

fallacies” (7), the artistic

imagination also provides crucial gestures of affinity beyond the oppressive

Malamud

attitudes of a particular culture.

Deleuze and Felix Guattari

in

relies

upon formulations

of Gilles

suggesting that the “empathetic imagination"

operating in certain examples of literary and visual art “connects us with other species in a meaningful way.” Early in his study, the critic points out several

poetic examples to illustrate the dynamic and even transgressive tendencies

of the best animal poetry, such

as

Mexican writer Jose Emilio Pacheco’s

“empowered, exuberant, hyper- animated”

lyric

titled

“Investigation on the

I

109

GOING AWAY TO THINK human

Subject of the Bat" (8), Gary Snyder's propulsion of the the experience of being a bird in “Straight Creek

— Great

reader toward

Burn," and Pattiann

Rogers's appreciation of the specific and multifarious significances of animals in her

and his

work “Abundance and

analytical discussions,

pronouncement

in

Part

Malamud maintains

at the

his ethical, theoretical,

a passionate wittiness, such as

same blackbird twice"

of Malamud’s book

I

Throughout

the context of Rogers’s poem: “As Hcreclitus might have

one can never look

said,

Satisfaction.”

(16).

ultimately not only a

is

pronouncement on

behalf of the mysterious and authentic autonomy of animals, but a defense of

and especially poetry He

literature,

value,

and not

just

on cerebral or

writes: “I will

propose a defense of

intellectual merits, but as a springboard for

ethical replenishment: a platform for real-world

of engaging with nature" (19). ethical evolution, we’re

tendencies

— and

bound

literary

The

basic

improvements of our modes

argument suggests that without an

to continue

our current destructive societal

without good literature that acknowledges and celebrates

we

animals with “authenticity, complexity, and nobility" (27),

ll

be gravely

challenged in our capacity' to assume a healthy ethical stance toward other beings.

done

Of course,

full justice

animal literature

to our brethren

argues, in surveying the history of

on

is

nothing new, but writers have seldom

this planet,

according to Malamud.

American writing about animals,

He

that authors

ranging from Theodore Roosevelt to Mary Oliver have generally accepted the idea of

“human power over animals” and have operated from

at least implicitly, that

“The animal subject

pleasure" (28). Leavening his

Western

civilization

and

noun implicates himself

unashamed — and

specific writers, in

exists for

the

flaws

He

our pleasure and

well deserved

champion of

all

him

critic

to

hope

no

|

me

demonstrably undesirable”

to accomplish?

(35).

as

of

plural pro-

an evolving animal

species apart

writes, for instance, “1 read books, try not to

seem

our

he observes, and his intermittent

from our own.

do too much harm

ecosystem, and hope to change, for at least a few people, that

at

— critique

Malamud’s first-person

confessions, along with the wit of his prose, reveal

advocate, not as a supersensitized

the perspective,

some

to the

cultural attitudes

What more

could a

literary'

Animals and Humans

The

final

section of part

I,

“An Ecocritical Aesthetic

Malamud’s notion of an “advocacy methodology”

built

Ethic,”

upon the

central

premises of Marxist and feminist criticism and assuming three things: oppression of the subject (“the proletariat, that exploitation

must be understood

women

.

.

out

lays

the

(i)

here, animals”); (2)

.

in a historical context;

and

(3) that this

understanding must lead to an evolution of consciousness and, in turn, to better treatment of those

who

have been oppressed (43).

assume that Malamud

to

humans

champion of the

as

his

is

same

and, at the

is,

It

would be easy

paradoxically, seeking both to bash his fellow

time, to stand apart

from the

authors

and

poems

particular

Rather, he seeks to spur his readers to

transcend

rest of us in serving

planet's voiceless species. But he takes pains to claim that

not a holier-than-thou project, nor does he

particular

for readers

as

mean

restricted,

his criticisms

personal

of

attacks.

become aware of— and then work

to

— the unspoken “cultural conspiracy” in our treatment of animals and

animal habitats (48).

The second major

part of his

book probes

in detail the specific “poetic

animals” offered by such twentieth -century and contemporary writers as Jose

Emilio Pacheco, Marianne Moore, Stevie Smith, Philip Larkin, Gary Snyder,

Seamus Heaney, and Pattiann Rogers. He begins

this half

of the book, though,

with a provocative chapter on “Meso-American Spirituality and Animal Coessences,” foregrounding the traditional Central souls’

— the

idea that a person’s soul

animal counterpart, or co-essence" is

is

(51).

American concept of “'animal

implicitly connected with an external

The purpose of offering

this

concept

to provide a possible alternative to the limited, reifying view of animals

that typically operates in

Western

societies,

although the

critic also feels

necessary to apologize to readers for the possible perception that he

is

being

culturally imperialistic even in investigating ideas of animals in Central

North America

in

pursuit of admirable alternatives to his

own

it

and

culture’s

limited perspectives, hoping that the realization of his goals— an “enlightened

coexistence”

between humans and other animals (63)

intercultural exercise” (53). is

to try reading selected

will

Malamud’s methodology, he explains

“justify at

this

one point,

examples of poetically imagined animals through the

GOING AWAY TO THINK “lens”

of the concept of animal souls

(63).

He

appropriately tentative about

is

of different cultures onto each other, but he

this projection

the spiritual and ethical ambitiousness of his project

also

is

this

is

disarming

in

not the business

of literary analysis being performed merely for career advancement.

The

book builds toward the

entire

Rogers’s four- page

with

which

Itself,”’

Honey

as

poem “Animals and reprinted in

is

Malamud’s

this manuscript,

critic's

final

full

People: ‘The

discovered Pattiann Rogers’s

scholarly prose, except that she had said

than he (182).

What

it

fate. ...

particularly

moves Malamud about Rogers’s

we

actually act is

life

force,

souls”

from

traditional

Meso-American

to

his

own

scholarly voice

do the poet proud. At

a

—

is

ecocriticism

more

of rampant

social

power brokers.

our connection to

specifically

the is

podium

our

urge in the being

trying to find

its

Animals and Animal Souls breathes

as usual.

to Pattiann Rogers

passionate and imaginative

proper place

and ecological trauma and brazen,

Poetic

beyond business

|

life

life,

time when literary criticism in general

of humanities scholarship, taking exciting

112

our ambivalent

cultures.

Malamud humbly yields

end of the book,

enough

in

what Malamud means when he adopts the concept of “animal

Despite the fact that at the

and think, working

and

inspiration to live" (183). This realization of our deepest is

human treatment

our blood, and their fate

In our compulsions concerning animals,

adoration of animals, Rogers finds our very

of animals

humbly,

“more concisely and immensely more

toward her ultimate revelation that “Their blood our

felt,

to articulate in his

her prescient juxtaposition of ideal

is

in Conflict

Eating Bread and

work and

what he was trying

of and attitudes toward animals and the ways

is

Heart

pronouncement. Having already completed most of

Malamud

“Animals and People”

Human

from Rogers's 1997 work

that she had said in her poetry precisely

effectively”

climactic discussion of Pattiann

in a

— like world

callous plays ol global

new

life

and productive

into the practice risks,

going well

Chimeric Opinions XENOTRANSPLANTATION AND THE CONCEPT OF "MIXING"

People

come from

economy here

far

and wide to take

Reno.

Our

visitors

who

risks in

has long been dependent

on

perceive this as a place where they can get away with things that are

beyond the pale elsewhere — first

divorced. Although

it's

illegal

in

it

Reno and

was prizefighting, then getting Las Vegas, you can

pay for

sex elsewhere in Nevada.

And,

heading toward the

there are plenty of opportunities to try “loose slots”

or

make

state,

as the billboards advertise

a killing at the casino

especially the University of in genetic

engineering that

gaming

tables.

More

on

still

the highways

recently,

Nevada — has achieved notoriety

now

all

Reno — and

for the research

takes place in the College of Agriculture,

Biotechnology, and Natural Resources. All of these activities, from betting on

boxing to experimenting with recombinant DNA, involve going out on financial or biological limbs, sometimes both at once. I

a

've

taught environmental literature at the University of Nevada, Reno, for

decade now, and

it's

never been a secret that

my

colleagues and students in

the “College of Ag” were “doing research with animals.” Barney Nelson, first

graduate assistant at the Center for Environmental Arts and Humanities,

lived in a cottage six

my

on the grounds of the

university's agricultural research facility,

miles east of campus, near the sage-covered slopes of

Hidden

Valley State

driving past grazing cattle and sheep on

my way

out to meet

Park.

I

remember

with Barney

— they looked

like regular cattle

and sheep to me. Until the bio-

ii?

GOING AWAY TO THINK news

tech studies hit the national “agricultural research” focused

come

it’s

way of growing organs

human donors from which

human and animal

had always assumed that

human stem

livestock.

Now

cells in their re-

that could eventually be transplanted

the cells originally came. This mixing ol

bodies has created organisms that journalists are calling

“chimeras,” bringing to

mind mythological monsters,

researcher Dr. Esmail Zanjani nificant

I

on better ways of raising healthy

to light that scientists are implanting

search animals as a to the

2004,

in

amounts of human

insists,

“They're

sheep. But they have sig-

still

cells in their different

freaks of nature. Lead

organs.”

UNR campus

Despite the clamor in the national media, the

has been

surprisingly silent about this ethically touchy line of research. Local concerns

have focused in recent months on an ag professor’s claims about improper

and mistreatment of research animals (not due

disposal of dead animals

to

the actual research processes, but because of insufficient access to drinking

water)

— these

claims have recently been supported by findings of the U.S.

Department of Agriculture.

More our

interesting, perhaps,

own

thinking.

It

is

occurs to

what the stem-cell research teaches us about

me

that

beyond the medical implications of

stem-cell work, this line of investigation

phenomenon of mixing. miscegenation I

— with

an elaborate inquiry’ into the

In cultural circles, this idea has long "

intermarriage or “mixed blood

Marmon

routinely teach Leslie

which encourages readers Tayo, the book’s hero,

is

is

a

climactic revelation occurs

man

of

In

my

various courses,

novel Ceremony (1977),

Silko’s celebrated

to appreciate the value of

been associated with

change and convergence.

mixed Anglo Laguna Pueblo blood. Tayo's

when he

realizes that the

world has “no boundaries,

only transitions.” However, despite our cultural metaphors of melting pots and

myths of

salad bowls, our

elsewhere I

—

still

diversity’

and cooperation, Americans — like people

adhere viscerally to a belief

think, too, of Animal Heart (2004),

xenotransplantation,

in

in segregated

Brenda Peterson's recent novel about

which one of her characters

Hawaiian undersea photographer)

sameness.

(a

mixed-blood Scottish-

suffers a heart attack while diving and, in

an emergency transplantation procedure, receives the heart of a baboon.

do know what science

114

I

is

capable of

doing— and how

little

we

“I

think about the

Chimeric Opinions

And

consequences,” says another character (92). “animal heart” recipient,

tells his sister,

of nature” (98). Despite the

initial

“Here

I

Marshall McGreggor, the

am, a miracle of science, a freak

shock and abhorrence Peterson's characters

express upon learning of this trans-species mixing, the story unfolds in a that complicates

and deepens the emotional and

ethical issues. Patience

way and

uncertainty win out over knee-jerk revulsion. as

Still.

write these notes,

I

I

find myself watching a pair of robins outside

the window.

The brown-breasted female

of blue eggs,

as the

from the lawn

male (who looks much

perches on her nest, warming a trio like his

mate) dashes back and forth

to the nest, placing insects into the female's

mouth. This

is

how

nature seems to work. “Birds of a feather fiock together,” as Aristotle famously

put

it.

And

appear to work better

yet. cultures

colonial era bridity are

— when

good

— especially

in a globalized, post-

diverse people can get along together.

things, aren’t they?

1

I

recall

Harmony and

Gloria Anzaldua’s mestizo paean

Borderlands La Frontera (1987), eloquently articulating the virtues

of cultural and

many

Like

of

GM

of “mestizaje,”

linguistic and. yes, biological mixing.

people,

1

ambivalence, a mix of resistance and support,

feel

toward bioengineering of effects

hy-

all

kinds,

due

to uncertainties about the health

foods, the corporate patenting of seeds, the demonstrated value

of engineered crops

as

an alternative to massive use of pesticides

in

order to

feed the world's hungry people, and the hopeful medical possibilities of current stem-cell work.

I

compelled to learn more about the

feel

ethical concerns associated with this

and the

scientific implications

work rather than leaping toward

reflexive opinions.

I'm also fascinated by what the stem-cell work might teach us about the

psychology of mixing. Could has simply

ramped up the

have come together?

1

In

it

be that the creation of human-sheep chimeras

stakes that have always been at risk their powerful

study

when

New World New

“others”

Mind: Moving

Toward Conscious Evolution (1989), Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich argue that

human

survival in a

changing world requires new ways of thinking, new ways of

overcoming some of our genetically programmed responses

to the world.

“

Birds

of a feather flock together” may be an appropriate way for robins to behave.

I

ns

GOING AWAY TO THINK but imagine the grave social implications of such a marital policy in a multicultural

recombinant for a

community.

DNA and

“new mind”

But

to

stem-cell research, and

for sure.

when

I

it

possibilities

makes sense

in

for us to strive

“new world” of technological mixing.

this

know

technical

today’s

stem-cell research, perhaps

match

don’t really

I

Likewise, given

When

I

UNR

read news accounts of the

scan the university

Web site to get a sense of what

biotech graduate students are working on. I'm struck by the casual enthusiasm these researchers express about the ethically and biologically risky

engaged

in.

In our culture,

we tend

criticism of complex, uncertain Culture Stopping America’s :

how

work

they're

to be blithely absolute in our support for or

phenomena.

War of Words (1998),

In her oft-cited

book The Argument

Deborah Tannen explains

linguist

ancient and pervasive our “adversarial approach to knowledge”

is.

She

urges readers to progress “from debate to dialogue.”

These

days, as

drive past BT sheep at

I

neither horror nor

joy.

I

home on

wonder what they mean.

I

the

Nevada

wonder what

range,

I

to think.

feel

My

opinions about these animals, about this entire line of research, are as chimeric as the cells

beneath the wool. Perhaps we should

we should engage

1

16

|

in

open-minded

all

try to learn

more, perhaps

dialogue, before rushing to argue.

12

The

Story of Climate

Change

SCIENCE, NARRATIVE, AND SOCIAL ACTION

really appreciate the invitation to

I

morning, and

come and speak

especially appreciate the effort that Kirsten

I

and Kayla have put into organizing today’s felt

1

was “preaching to the

actual choir

me

— so this

is

here this

choir.”

but

a treat for me.

I

I’ve

never had

should say

it’s

a

service.'

I

Ve often

chance to preach to an

especially meaningful for

to address a religious gathering in light of the recent criticisms that have

been directed toward the American religious community, particularly toward the apocalyptic sects that

2004

elections.

seem

to have

Some of you may have

Moyers ’s December

1

speech

when he

Global Environmental Citizen Award, realization that “the delusional

have “come office

and

in

in

is

had such an influence

in the

November

seen printed versions of journalist

Bill

received the Harvard Medical School’s

which he expressed the frightening

in

no longer marginal,” that

from the fringe” and “now

sit in

the seat of

really

kooky ideas

power

in the oval

Congress.” Moyers describes an article by the journalist Glenn

Scherer that explains

how many of our

fellow citizens feel about the world

these days:

Why care

about the earth when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought about by

ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible?

climate change

converting from

and

fishes

when you and oil

to solar

can whip up

a

few

Why

yours will be rescued in the rapture?

when

the

care about global

And why

same God who performed the miracle

billion barrels

of light crude with a

Word?

care about

of the loaves

GOING AWAY TO THINK So in

this

is

our society share

find

—

I

have to

be wacky, ignorant,

to

it

my own work of language

numbers of people

the perspective on the world that increasing

and

lazy,

as a literary scholar

— through

the risk of seeming ungenerous, that

say, at

scary.

And

it is

in this

context that

how

devoted to exploring

I

I

do

the refined use

and Kirsten

literature (like the beautiful poetry Kayla

have read this morning) and also journalism and science writing and political discourse and the

common

we

language

use every day

understand better our relationship to the psychological needs, and

rest ot the planet,

what we might do

and imbalances that

injustices

— might

in

enable us to

our physical and

order to correct some of the

are occurring throughout the

world

as a result

of human actions. 1

have only

really

two years

would be

it

to think about the issue of global

we do

at this

point in history in order to

You might wonder,

in

live

context. Well, to me, language

— and

is

also essential to the

our

in

statistical (or quantitative)

blow

1 1

8

|

its

when

— and

the

discoveries

What

and help

like

phenomena

me would

— in

this

bother kind of

ideas that are so

as global

can't be entirely

— some

scientific

warming.

aware of how

left

community concentrates to the public in purely

and the general public simply

with

is

r

might say “controlled"

and theories

officials

what were

to

warming?

ways and through inaccessible technical jargon,

too easy for government

off these ideas

apocalypse.”

we

thinking are being shaped

primarily on communicating

all

lives

communication of the evolving scientific

by certain terminologies. Also,

becomes

social action.

communicating these values. Language

close attention to language,

own ways of

for the next

important in exploring and even

deeply necessary to our understanding of such

Without paying

good thing

specifically literature

crucially

our sense of personal values and

a

meaningful

why someone

particular,

emphasizing the role of language

is

right to the

let

warming and

correct vast and complicated problems such as global

shaping

me get

few minutes to speak here today, so

Your congregation has decided that

point.

can

a

it

to

the “road to environmental

The Story of Climate Change

"GLOBAL WARMING" OR "climate CHANGE"? ISSUES OF SCIENTIFIC

ACCURACY AND RHETORICAL POTENCY

Let’s talk first

as

phenomenon of

actual

his

phrase

itself,

embedded

our popular vocabtilary, doesn’t quite describe the complexity of the

in

it is

about the phrase “global warming." T

happening

in

global climate change. According to the science, what's

the world

not simply a process of warming temperatures

is

throughout the planet. Yes, temperatures are rising on the whole

— but

other

weather patterns have also been noticed. Both warming and cooling are occurring, and sometimes from year to year an alternation of the two, with an overall trend

What

toward warming.

scientists actually

seem

to be observing

and predicating are very slow and subtle warming trends and of weather patterns

volatility

droughts.

How

It

you read works

Works and

climate see

If

is

Why

It

is,

it is

but

general

like

— tremendous

We

visible. it’s

storms and devastating

Arthur Upgrcn and Jurgen Stock's Weather

published

Matters,

as variable as

what the weather

in

also increased

in

2000. you begin

to realize that

can walk out the door each day and

much harder

to notice subtle climatic changes over time

for us, without careful attention,

— and

changes

in

the chemical

composition of the planet's atmosphere can be discerned only through special scientific

measurements.

When members

phrase like “global warming"

day here a

in

Reno — or

in

of the public walk around with a

heads while

in their

Washington,

DC — and

week, people start to think, “Those crazy

it’s

snowing

several feet in a

then freezing fog settles

Global warming

scientists!

hoax, another example of the failed predictions of ecological nerds.” to

me

Reno two weeks

ago),

makes

and drive their gas-guzzling it

makes sense

it

that

much

seems

scientific

easier for people to

for us to talk about the

and popular

(like

shoveling

snow

in

downplay science

cars with clear consciences. For rhetorical reasons,

change” rather than “global warming’’

of the

It

just a

that otir tendency to latch onto certain popular phrases, phrases that

can be controverted by powerful personal experiences

think

is

in for

worrisome implications of “climate

— but, that said,

literature

still

I

I

should admit that

much

uses the term “global warming."

However, some of you may have read Michael Crichton’s new novel. of Fear (2004), in which he caricatures environmentalists as fear

State

mongers who

I

119

GOING AWAY TO THINK will

go to almost any lengths

order to frighten the public and secure funding

in

to support their activist agendas. Crichton’s activists use paramilitary tactics

storms

American Southwest, and

in the

rockslides in Southeast Asia

of

ice in Antarctica,

attempts to fracture the continental

in their

scientific findings that

—

all

in the

seed vicious

undersea

instigate tsunami-causing

name of public

and

relations

discount the theory of global warming.

in

defiance

One

of the

nerf

central characters in the novel, Nicholas Drake, the villainous leader of

(the National Environmental Resource Fund), declares out of frustration,

“I hate

You

global warming.

can't raise a

global warming.

.

.

.

dime with

Or

It’s

it,

a

goddamn

it

...

is

. .

[

doesn’t work.

] t

little

.

.

.

That’s

I

some warming might be

trudging through the snow, hoping for a

“So what you need

.

especially in winter. Every' time

else they decide

To which Drake’s PR

disaster.

it

a

my

point.

all

about

snows people forget

good thing

after

all

They’re

global warming." (295)

John Henley, responds,

advisor,

to structure the information so that

whatever kind of weather occurs,

always confirms your message. That’s the virtue of shifting the focus to abrupt climate

change.

It

enables you to use everything that happens. There will always be floods, and freezing

storms, and cyclones, and hurricanes. These events will always get headlines and airtime. in

every instance, you can claim

it is

an example of abrupt climate change caused by global

warming. So the message gets reinforced. The urgency

The

environmentalists in

ant, arrogant,

In

and

State of Fear

most environmental

is

come

deceitful, as perpetrators

concluding “Author's

his

And

increased." (314)

across as self-interested, ignor-

of a vast pseudoscientific hoax.

Message,” Crichton states:

principles’

conclude that

“I

(such as sustainable development or the

precautionary principle) have the effect of preserving the economic advantages of the

West and thus constitute modern imperialism toward the developing

world.

It is

a nice

way

of saying,

yours, because you’ll cause too

Renner,

who

leads Crichton's

'We got ours and we

much band

pollution’” (571).

don’t

want you

The MIT

to get

professor John

and philanthropists

in a fight

to thwart environmental extremism, calmly cites scientific articles

and guns

down ELF (Environmental a clandestine

U S.

Throughout the

120

|

of lawyers

Liberation Front) terrorists, working on behalf of

government agency

to preserve the

American way of

novel, Crichton provides footnotes citing articles

life.

from such

The Story ofClimate Change

periodicals as the Journal

when

suggesting that

Society,

his characters

and help him

comments

in his

— usually this

information

And

The part,

convert to Kenner’s

“Author's Message" seem so neutral and, in a way,

in

many ways,

model

actual

MIT

is,

a rhetorically impressive

professor Richard Lindzen, whose in

liberal

work

work. be, in

(more

cited several times

is

as

debunking of global

John Kenner character seems to

for Crichton's

than any other individual author)

derived

is

even some of the author's

to lure progressive readers to appreciate his narrative

warming. This

the

scientific claims, several

in the novel actually

to stop the elf extremists.

American Meteorological

Kenner— contradict

Unable to rebut the professor’s

science.

of the moderate environmentalists side

Bulletin of the

warming and climate change,

theories of global

from actual

and the

of Glaciology

the novel’s extensive bibliography.

I

recall

Ross Gelbspan's rather detailed portrayal of Lindzen in the 1997 treatment of climate issues, The Heat

home

in 1995:

Is

On, in which he recounts visiting the professor at his

“Both he and

his wife are exceedingly gracious

and hospitable

people. In contrast to his often tortured scientific pronouncements, social I

and

political expressions to

be

lucid, succinct,

I

found

his

and unambiguous. Indeed,

found him to be one of the most ideologically extreme individuals

I

have ever

interviewed" (52). Just as journalist Gelbspan sees through Richard Lindzen’s gracious hospitality and ascertains the role of his ideological extremism in his

contributions to national climate policy, Crichton’s novel climate issues the final in the

to

I

believe

it's

important for readers of

— and, indeed, any other fictional or nonfictional writings about

— to

word on

realize that this

an engaging and lucid story does not represent

complex, elusive, and still-unfolding phenomenon.

context of our discussion of the

remember Crichton's

rhetoric

of climate change,

Still,

important

it is

forceful critique of the rubric of “climate change” as

an alternative to “global warming."

The

novelist has clearly anticipated this

rhetorical gesture.

The

year before Crichton's

State oj Fear

was published,

British essayist

Mark

Lynas produced a similarly forceful statement, High Tide The Truth about Our :

Climate

Crisis,

from the opposite perspective, emphasizing the

urgency of the

current situation and the need to reduce carbon emissions in order to mitigate

humans’ damaging impact on climate. Although much of Lynas’s study

I

121

(like

GOING AWAY TO THINK Crichton’s novel)

information, he

richly

work

scientific citations

he does

(as

is

whether enough of us

will realise

our

peril

example, demonstrating a collective myopia which

is

as illogical as

it is

before

White House and

its

in

it

becomes

America

selfish.

and corporate self-interest— Exxon, Enron and Halliburton come

the Bush

in the preface),

act.

Some may never be able to face up to it. The current political leadership

politics

and experiential

uses caricature as a rhetorical tool. Lynas asserts:

only remaining question

too late to

documented with

not above resorting to mockery

is

just as Crichton’s

The

is

to

A

is

a clear

confusion of

mind— surrounds

policy decisions irom Dick Cheney’s “Energy Task Force' to

the President’s repudiation of Kyoto. Like the townspeople of Pompeii

who

laughed and

turned their backs on the threatening volcano. President Bush and his Administration have

met the

warming challenge with responses ranging from obfuscation

global

outright denial. Their worldview is

“we need more

essential,”

the

new paradigm

“And therefore

it

is

cars.”

founded on various assumptions such

“we must

drill all

our

oil,” all

travels

through Asia and the South

is

not a novel, but

it

does offer a strong narrative thread, as he Pacific to the Peruvian

Alaska, offering evidence of climate change and travelogue, backed

up by

data. All

of

this

the form of a challenge: “If you can see

some

your choice too

all

is

its

you want

this

to

of Fear and High

Tide,

coastal

implications in the form of

presented up front to readers

and

still

remain

— but do not claim to be a leader

State

Andes and

”

will

judge you

ignorance then that

in

(xix).

the rhetorical

in

remain unmoved, then

of your humanity, and history

essential part

for your lack of compassion. If

examples of

runs their argument.

it,"

can’t be true.” (xviii-xix)

work

lost

“economic growth

of which conflict utterly with

that climate change represents. “I don’t believe

Lynas’s

you have

as

to pretence to

is

Between the extreme

and

ideological lines are

clearly drawn.

Apart from Crichton's persuasive nay-saying and Lynas’s insistent yea-saying, there

is

a significant tradition

of environmental journalism,

history, literature,

and popular-science writing that describes the process of climate change, the uncertain ecological impact of this

human comfort and

impact on

developing policies

in a

country

phenomenon

survival),

and the

like ours, that

(including the possible political

does so

much

complications of to contribute to

the emission of so-called "greenhouse gases” and yet refuses to sign the Kyoto

122

|

The Story ofClimate Change

Protocol,

which would help us to reduce our damaging behavior.

this material in a class

Population,” in which

human

UNR

occasionally teach at

I

we

how

stud)'

“The

called

use a lot of

I

Literature of

various authors approach such topics as

overpopulation, extinction and biodiversity, and climate change

contemporary environmental topics that seem implicitly to require quantitative scientific discourse.

What we

of addressing such topics

possibility

will

and complicated Let

me

as climate

the

tell

historian Gale Christianson

Tear Story oj Global Warming.

term “global warming”

is

1

is it

possible to

of something

as abstract

my

limited time.

1999 work

s

toward warming

going back to the dawn of

presents,

shows that

is

this large-scale

warming trend

consists of occasional cooling occurrences (even mini- Ice Ages). particularly useful about the

book

Greenhouse

extended history of climate change, making recent faddish concept ideologues.

among

is

it

how

today’s scientists

view of global climate change, of Nature.

making sort

we

is

journalist Bill

for this

not simply a

McKibbcn’s

McKibben

excels

phenomenon. Instead

a sky-is-falling-and-weVe-all-going-to-die sort

of

of argument (of the

see in Hollywood's recent The Day After Tomorrow), he writes eloquently

of the introduction to the tenth anniversary edition of the

that

the sadness that drove ours, the blessed a less

find

In addition to offering a well-informed, yet

moving philosophical context

in the final lines

book

I

takes a broad historical

engagingly presented, overview of atmospheric chemistry, at offering a

What

and alarmist environmental

would recommend

1

actually

the author shows the

clear that this

Along with Christianson’s book, which

1989 work. The End

highly

I

called Greenhouse: The 200*

that the long-term planetary trend

industrialization in Europe,

First,

should say that the reason Christianson uses the

but the history he

temperatures,

the

change?

run through a few quick examples in

recommend

story

is

be intellectually and

emotionally meaningful to general readers. How, one might ask, use narrative language for this purpose, to

abstract,

investigate in that class

ways that

in

— major

me to write this book

in

the

first

hunk of rock and sky and biology

complex and more violent

place;

its

place has not really lifted. This

that

we were born

onto,

home of

becomes each day

rhythms of season and storm shifted and shattered.

12

}

GOING AWAY TO THINK We

didn’t create this world, but

we

are busy decreating

waxes and wanes; but they look down on

Something

to.

mountain, nitrogen

—

than

less

it

used

to.

sea, city, forest; of fish it

Mckibben adopts greenhouse

effect

Still

means something

in

moment on

our short

than we can find

approaches, such as

rises; still

the

different than

moon it

used

cruel, lovely globe

of

and wolf and bug and man; of carbon and hydrogen and

more philosophical approach

a

the sun

This buzzing, blooming, mysterious,

become unbalanced

has

a planet that

it.

State oj Fear

in

most other

and The Day

it.

It’s

mostly us now. (xxv)

warming and the

to global

journalistic

and ’’infotainment"

After Tomorrow.

Because he back-

pedals from narrow, argumentative assertions, he invites readers to contemplate implications of different future paths for civilization

and for the

planet.

Unlike some of the more defiant and breathlessly frantic commentators on global warming, his

1

own

Mckibben

behavior.

He writes:

have no great desire to limit

it

on our grandchildren.

unheated cabin. to climb back

down

It it

moral pronouncements to the sphere of

limits his

I’d

my way

of

If

life.

be willing. As

it

is,

thought we could put off the decision,

I

I

have no plans to

took ten thousand years to get where

down. But

this

are,

it

will take a

when people decide

could be the epoch

the path we’ve been taking— when

we

live in a cave,

we make

foist

or even an

few generations

at least to

go no further

not only the necessary' technological

adjustments to preserve the world from overheating but also the necessary mental adjustments to ensure that

choose, for

it

we

ll

never again put our good ahead of every thing

offers at least a shred

While Mckibben

skirts

of hope for

overarching,

opting— w hich he does elsewhere, issue

This

is

the path

I

meaningful world. (213-14)

accusatory styles of argumentation,

too, as in his

of reproductive responsibility

other climate commentators have

a living, eternal,

else’s.

1998 book. Maybe One, about the

— for stories of personal choice and humility,

also, in

the interest of scholarly detachment,

shied away from direct assertions of cultural responsibility. 2

A particularly distinguished effort to put the climate debates into perspective is

Andrew

Age

Ross’s 1991 study Strange Weather: Culture, Science and Technology

of Limits, in

which he points out the curious timing of the popularization

of global-warming theory “as

in the

in the late

twentieth century, just

in

time to serve

an added ingredient for the rich stew of popular millenarianism” (199).

He

explains the cultural paradigm shift that brought climate issues to the forefront

124

|

The Story ofClimate Change

of environmental debates challenges rather than the It is

in the

coming

perhaps no coincidence that

for the liberal

manner

this

threat

is

new

often described in terms usually reserved

on

is

demonized

economy. As one climatologist put

our climatic income." Nor

this interference shitted

changes and

social

scientific information:

market economy, and that human intervention

to learn to live according to

of

as the result

to light of

new

as “state intervention” in that

burden tor

1980s

is it

it,

in

“we

same

the still

have

a surprise to find the moralizing

to humanity' as a whole, further Christianized by the

language of retribution and penitence. As another commentator put

it,

warming must

global

be seen as “the wages of industrialization." Certain elements of the new world-view that

is

being constructed to accommodate the global warming theory resemble pre-enlightenment conceptions of Nature as a providential interpreter of humanity' for

its

In a section

sins with the visiting

of his study

human

affairs,

repaying the whole of

of meteorological scourges. (198)

titled "Science as Culture,”

Ross offers a

of two weather- related novels, Zora Neale Hurston's Their

God and Saul Bellow’s Henderson

the

Rain King,

telling analysis

Were Watching

Eyes

showing how each

reveals the

"knowledge power relationship” between native understanding of nature and white science (216). From Ross's perspective, the represents a

power play on the part of Western

other way's of understanding nature.

He

rise

of global climate theory

science, further marginalizing

explains that these novels

about the relations between cultural power and climatic prediction do not seem to be part of the same interpretive system it

as. say,

the eminently scientific theory' of global warming, and yet

could be argued that the only difference

of rationality'. Global warming

is

that they appeal to differently organized systems

theory' claims universal scientific truth for itself, against

which

climatic interpretations like those of the Seminoles [in Thetr Eyes] or the Wariri [in Henderson] are seen as local belief-systems, or, at best, cthnometeorolog)’. (217)

Although

this

approach to

telling “the story

obscure the basic questions about whether global climate and, if

so,

of climate change” may seem to

human

actions are affecting the

what the implications of these

effects

may

be, this

kind of analysis helps readers to step back and understand the historical and ideological contexts in

which knowledge, even natural science,

Especially in the case of a

phenomenon such

as climate

claims and counterclaims, citations and countercitations,

developed.

is

change, so vexed with it

seems important

I

125

for

GOING AWAY TO THINK people throughout the world to grope for a kind of skeptical open-mindedness,

not settling for once-and-for-all

beliefs,

but rather assembling and reassembl-

ing information in pursuit of reliable, practical understanding.

The

year 2004,

book Red Sky

at

when

appeared, also saw the publication of the

State of Fear

Morning: America and the Crisis oj the Global Environment, by James

Gustave Speth, dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

The new

wrinkle

in the

climate story provided by Speth's

work was

its

central

locus on environmental issues— not just climate— from a global perspective.

Although he draws on considerable information from focuses primarily

I

hope

this short

on

issues

book will be

a

of public

wake-up call

community, who may believe that

all

scientific sources,

policy, asserting:

to those of us, including

many in

the environmental

the international negotiations, treaties, and other

agreements ot the past two decades have prepared us to deal with global environmental

They

haven't.

working. a

new

The

The

Speth

threats.

current system oi international efforts to help the environment simply

design makes sure

it

won't work, and the

statistics

keep getting worse.

We

isn't

need

design, (xi-xii)

Despite publications to the contrary

(like

those cited copiously in

State of Fear)

Speth unequivocally adheres to the validity of climate change. Fie opens

his

section on “Global Climate Disruption and Energy Policy,” stating, “For the past quarter -century, the international scientific

been sounding ever-louder warnings that sustained natural and

community and others have

earth's climate, the climate that has

human communities throughout

threatened by atmospheric pollution"

(ss)-

Urging

history,

is

now seriously

a multifaceted

remediation

strategy that includes reducing carbon emissions (by improving efficient use

of energy and shifting away trom carbon-intensive

fuels)

and adopting high-

tech chemical processes for carbon sequestration (keeping carbon dioxide

from being released into the

earth’s atmosphere),

Speth focuses the core ot his

discussion on the importance ot improving what he calls “global environmental

governance,” meaning the cooperation ot governments and for-profit and notfor-profit organizations throughout industrialized

and developing

societies.

Far from adopting the haughty, first-world attitude toward the concerns

of developing nations criticized in Crichton’s “Author’s Message,” Speth

126

The Story of Climate Change

acknowledges that one of the reasons for past

failures in global

been the reluctance of the “wealthy North” to deal in a

way

that recognizes their aspirations

many competing claims

the

with “the South

special challenges” (108).

.

.

.

Among

to “truth" in the literature of climate change, Speth’s

work — despite the somewhat un inflammatory, and

and

fairly

governance has

theatrical title

— comes

cooperation more forcefully

realistic, calling for global

and precisely than most other writing on

across as serious, sober,

He

this issue.

also

acknowledges

the importance of finding the right language for the slippery and contentious

environmental concerns we

way of discussing

now

sec

around the planet: “A new vocabulary or

the issue can help this along.

to undertake such a redefinition I

face

No group

could be better suited

and new articulation than the young people

on campuses across the country.

I

hope that they can lead

grand challenges of today have the same immediacy

as the local

making the

in

environmental

threats of the 1970s" (200).

One

of the major themes

question of

whom

people wearing

we

in the literature

we, as readers, should

literal

of global climate change

trust.

Do we

is

the

simply assume that the

or figurative lab coats deserve our passive trust? Should

believe the technocrats?

Or

should

we

say, as

many people

do, that since

those scientists can't agree about the precise processes or implications of climate change,

we

don't have to do anything about

to be the attitude of the

it

ourselves? (This seems

Bush administration, inspired

devotion to growing the economy and supporting the

no small part by

in

oil industry.)

ample writing about the technical phenomenon of climate change by

There

We Can’t Afford to Lose

3 :

is

scientists

such as Stanford’s Stephen Schneider, author of the 1996 work. Laboratory The Planetary Gamble

a

Earth:

In the public eye, however, Schneider’s

sometimes bland and sometimes inflammatory descriptions of climate change and as

its

implications have been effectively blunted and countered by works such

Gregg Easterbrook's voluminous and apparently authoritative work from

around the same era (the mid'l990s), A Moment Environmental Optimism. Easterbrook has chapters

warming and concludes,

the 1996

book

on

:

global cooling

conveniently, that nature does as

cannot predict or control in

on the Earth The Coming Age of

its

behavior— so why panic?

Betrayal of Science and Reason,

it

pleases

Paul

and global

and humans

and Anne Ehrlich,

point out that Easterbrook’s

I

127

GOING AWAY TO THINK work “contains so many

among

industry

serious errors that

scientists trying to correct

work of Easterbrook and other nay-saying

own

Ehrlichs, in their

has

it

spawned

them" (40)

a virtual cottage

— they

refer to the

writers as “brownlashing."

And

the

chapter devoted to “Fables about the Atmosphere and

Climate,” lend their voices to rebutting Easterbrook as well. Ross Gelbspan, in

“The

a fascinating chapter called

book The Heat in 1997),

Is

On: The Climate

Battle for the Control of Reality"

Crisis, the

Cover

up, the Prescription (also

from

his

published

points out that the preponderance of scientific evidence shows that

climate change

a real

is

from government,

phenomenon and one

industry,

and the

that warrants serious attention

public, but, as he puts

it,

the tiny group of dissenting scientists have been given prominent public visibility and

congressional influence out of .

.

.

all

proportion to their standing

By keeping the discussion focused on whether there

dissidents until

really

is

in

the scientific community.

a problem, these

dozen or so

— contradicting the consensus view held by 2,500 of the world’s top scientists-

now prevented

discussion about

how

have

to address the problem. (40)

Obviously, science doesn't advance merely through a democratic process, with

And

the majority necessarily outweighing the dissenting voices.

obviously,

dissent and discussion are important in any academic and social arena. But

Gelbspan expresses concern that the small group of are doing industry- funded research

and seem

individuals" (52), are able to deflect the vast

other

members of

the scientific

to

scientists,

many of whom

be “ideologically extreme

amount of data

community and

collected by

the arguments

mounted

by environmentally attuned politicians.

A

somewhat

different approach to the issue of trustworthiness in telling the

story of climate change

This book

tells

is

offered in Susan Gaines’s

the story of a young, female Latin

2001

novel. Carbon Dreams.

American

scientist

whose

research in the field of paleoclimatology (the study of ancient climates through the gathering of core samples from the ocean floor) leads her unintentionally into the public controversy regarding global

novel

is

warming and climate change. The

not simply an indirect way of espousing the politically controversial

idea of global warming.

It

also explores the

predicament of

a scientist

merely wishes to understand the planet's natural history and

128

|

tries to

who avoid

The

Stor)’

ofClimate Change

extrapolating from her findings in statements about today’s environmental issues.

But

other scientists get

wind of her findings and, she

the data in support of their

own

political goals, so she

believes, misinterpret

become

forced to

is

involved in the public discussion despite her wishes. Gaines's novel explores the

of science

role

in

contemporary society and,

change by showing how none of us, sit

back passively and ignore the

scientists

in a sense, tells the story

and nonscientists

political implications

Fictional paleoclimatologist Dr. Cristina Teresa

of climate can simply

alike,

of our actions or inaction.

Arenas

the

is all

more

credible

for her reluctance to join the fray of scientists scrambling for power, publicity,

and money (“funding”) by

insisting

upon the relevance

of arcane research to

headline topics of the day. Arenas, to her credit, claims:

The

science doesn’t take sides.

communicate with the

when

I

don’t.

I

can’t

science just

press then that

make knowledge

imagine or dream or even is.

The

feel

is

true.

is

what

absolute, I

I

is

whatever

it

and

is,

have to communicate.

when

it isn't.

It

I

if

I’m going to

can’t say

doesn't matter what

can only repeat what the data

says,

I

I

know,

might

what the science

(334-35)

Gaines’s character, despite her reluctance, gradually

comes

to realize that the

public and the press hunger to understand what’s going on with the earth's

atmosphere, and her research on ancient core samples from the ocean floor

might hold certain subtle clues to the relationship between carbon dioxide

and climate. But her and

empiricism

authority'

cautious

and persuasiveness are earned through

conclusions,

not

through

faithful

games or

rhetorical

flamboyant leaps of logic.

Those

interested in reading fiction relevant to climate change, such as Carbon

Dreams and

State

of Fear, might also want to go back and reread John Steinbeck’s

1939 The Grapes of Wrath with the climate change issue entirely it

as a

new

spin

in

mind — it puts an

on that novel about the 1930s Dust Bowl when you think

book about how people

of

struggle to survive in a landscape radically altered

by drought (to give the novel additional context, you can read environmental historian Donald Worster’s fine book. Dust

it

together with

Bowl: The Southern

Plains in the 1930s)

Both of these books, Steinbeck’s and Worster's, are discussed

in the recent

I

129

GOING AWAY TO THINK article,

“After

Tomorrow: The

Peril

of Ignoring Global Warming," by Columbia

University earth scientist Peter DeMenocal. in

DeMenocaTs

article

is

his discussion

A

particularly important passage

of how other cultures have been affected

by previous “megadroughts.” In particular, he refers to the

Maya had

Central America, writing: “The

and

their cultural achievements

Mayan

culture of

thrived for nearly two thousand years

were comparable

many ways

in

to those of

any modern G'8 nation.” Nonetheless, he continues, “this thriving civilization collapsed at the peak of

and 950

its

cultural

and

and the decline coincided

A.D.,

gripped the region” (20).

Much of the

scientific

development, between 750

precisely with a 150-year drought that

scientific

and

political discussion

about

climate change in recent decades has focused on the question of whether or

not

human

activity has

in climatic shifts.

now adhere

caused changes in the earth’s atmosphere, resulting

DeMenocal points

to the notion that

century and that

occurred

much

at this point to reverse the

to advocate

readers to

warming

it’s

call

like

the

scientists

warming

unlikely we, as a species, can

process. But this does not lead

continued denial, continued avoidance of

makers and the public. Instead,

most

humans have produced much of

that’s

in the past

out, echoing Speth, that

this issue

among

do

him

policy

many of his scientific colleagues, he urges his

for “serious discussion

on immediate implementatioivof

political

solutions to reduce emissions and increase adaptive capacity” (23). What’s at issue

here

is

not simply short-term economic prosperity in industrialized

nations, but the long-term survival of our species

on

a planet that may,

through

drought or freezing, become devastatingly inhospitable.

ASKING "WHY" QUESTIONS, PAYING ATTENTION,

AND MAKING

A

conclude with a

I’d like to

what we do — how change

—

DIFFERENCE

is

a

we might do

this

form of in

last

word about why people

intellectual activism.

And

our community with regard to this

comment from

issue.

his

I

like

climate

word about what

also a practical

Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological Imagination,

|

humanities do

kind of work, in the context of an issue

thinking about Donald Worster’s

130

in the

often find myself

1993 book. The Wealth of

where he

said:

The Stor)’ ofClimate Change

Why are we in a state of crisis with described that

crisis

with impressive precision

sources ot that carbon societies.

in

But having done

or where they

come

the global environment? Scientists of .

.

.

They can pinpoint with amazing

detail the

the tailpipes and smokestacks of the industrialized, automobilized all

that, the scientists

still

cannot

tell

from, or what the moral forces are that

why cattle ranchers are cutting down and burning the government has been

many disciplines have

us why

we have

those societies,

made them. They cannot

Brazilian rain forest, or

why

explain

the Brazilian

them. They cannot explain why we humans

ineffective in stopping

will

push tens of millions of species toward extinction over the next twenty years, or why that

seems irrelevant to most of the world’s

prospect of ecological holocaust

still

those “why” questions are rooted

in culture,

We

which

is

to say, in ethical beliefs.

how

are facing a global crisis today, not because of

because of

how our ethical

our impact on nature ethical systems

and using that understanding

scholars, anthropologists,

but even more, to

.

.

All

.

.

ecosystems function but rather

systems function Getting through the

as precisely as possible,

.

leaders.

it

crisis requires

understanding

requires understanding those

reform them. Historians, along with literary

and philosophers, cannot do the reforming, of course, but they can

help with the understanding. (26-27)

It

seems to

beliefs

me

that a better understanding of

live as

we do and

the ways in which our lifestyles match or contradict

our deepest values. Obviously,

we do

Why

is

in research in the field

on

this planet?

which

I

.

.

and the

earlier,

[American] domestic

life”

West — it seems strange

the

all

most of

if

we

don’t insist

when

we

re

for

is

other

lifestyle

and

concerned about the issue

of the survival of our species

book

called Weather,

the main energy

consumer

Reno — and throughout the

upon the adoption

in

arid

of passive solar

possible the use of geothermal heating as

new housing developments,

amount of energy needed

And what

Stock, the authors of the

(189). In cities like

that

much? What

us use our cars so

larger, related issue

suggest that “Heat

architectural principles (and well) in

that

we recommend

Upgren and

mentioned

it

of alternative energy?

infrastructural changes can .

context of climate change, our dependency

more governmental and corporate investment

to advocate for

of climate change

in the

transportation and other energy needs seems to require

fossil fuel for

further examination.

can

personal and cultural

— our values — are formed will enable us to do a better job of considering

why we upon

how our

the use of which could radically reduce

domestic purposes

authors of Weather quote the Ehrlichs’ statement that

in

our communities.

I

he

GOING AWAY TO THINK while on the one hand,

we applaud

the grassroots efforts on behalf of environmental protection

we

(such as curbside recycling, ecotourism, and enthusiasm for things “organic"),

but fear that

these useful but utterly insufficient steps

may also help

to distract attention from the

Society needs to recognize that to be sustainable, the

issues.

with rules set by Earth's ecosystems

The same people who

(i

in

basic

harmony

88)

are willing to recycle their cans, bottles,

not give up their snowmobiles and SUVs, or their

will

much more

economy must operate

— and needs to act accordingly,

can't help

and newspapers or coaEheated

oil-

homes. feel as if I've barely

I

my comments

scratched the surface of this huge topic, but

made

here have

it

hope

I

clear there’s a lot of interesting literary

and

of climate change— work that

will

journalistic material to read in the area

provide important background information about the greenhouse concept and the implications of our society

's

inaction

on

between vast environmental topics and our

this issue, will

I

am

to

know

for other

me

communities

like

climate change

in this

in

will

point

order to lessen our

to close by saying

that congregations like yours are

about and act on issues

and

lives as individuals,

out significant ways for us to alter our daily behavior impacts on the Earth’s atmosphere. Allow

make connections

how impressed

committing themselves to think

— you’re providing a positive model

country and throughout the world.

NOTES

This sermon was presented to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Northern Nevada

1.

in

Reno on 30 January 2005. Mckibben’s more recent writing about climate change

2. Bill

Year

One

of the Next Earth," collected

Unnatural Disaster.

The End

of

An

in the

2006 volume

is

available in his powerful essay

In Katrinas Wake: Portraits

of Lossfrom an

elegant journalistic treatment of climate change that brings the science of

Nature fully

up

to date

Climate Change, also published in

is

Elizabeth Kolbert’s

Field Notesfrom a Catastrophe:

Man, Nature, and

2006.

Perhaps the single most effective effort to convince the general public of the urgency of global

warming climate change

is

Davis Guggenheim’s

2006 documentary. An

featuring former vice president Al Gore, which received an

The compelling Powerpoint

Academy Award

Inconvenient Truth:

132

|

in

February 2007.

presentation and narrative digressions in the documentary are

extended by numerous additional images and informative explanations

An

Inconvenient Truth,

The Planetary Emergency of Global Wanning and What

in

Gore’s

We Can Do

2006

About

It.

book.

For his

The Story’ ofClimate Change

tireless

work

to

communicate the

significance of global

warming (not only

the film and

in

book

versions of An Inconvenient Truth, but in hundreds of lectures, articles, and interviews delivered on this subject),

Gore shared the 2007 Nobel Peace

Climate Change.

believe that the essential rhetorical strategy in

I

the telescoping strategy that

McKibben used

An

so effectively in The End

movement back and

various other publications: the

on

Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel Inconvenient Truth of

Nature

and Maybe One and

between intimate personal

forth

resembles

stories

and

broad, impersonal information For me, one of the best examples of this occurs in the apparent digression (in the film and the book) that

Gore

“My

titles

previous section concludes with a quotation attributed to in Egypt.”

The

vivid portrait

Mark Twain: “Denial

and

also discusses the

smoking habit she started

at the age

book’s

ain't just a river

following story about Gore’s sister Nancy develops her personality in a

fact that scientific

early 1960s)

The

Sister" in the book.

warm and

of thirteen (despite the

warnings about the harmfulness of cigarette smoking began to appear

and her eventual death by lung cancer. Most of the portrait of “My

irrelevant to the global

warming focus of

the

book

(just as the

seems to digress from the global-warming Powerpoint

lecture).

corresponding But the

final

the

in

seems

Sister”

clip in the film

paragraph of this

chapter shifts dramatically back to global warming: “just as the scientists of 1964 clearly told us that

smoking

kills

people by causing lung cancer and other diseases, the best scientists of the 21st

century are telling us ever more urgently that the global warming pollution Earth’s

atmosphere

at grave risk.

is

harming the

And once

again,

we

we re pumping

and putting the future of human

planet's climate

are taking our time

— too

technical

phenomenon of global warming corresponds

to

civilization

much time — in connecting

(259). Al Gore’s powerful use of story to convey ideas about the apparently abstract

what

I

into

the dots’

and highly

discuss in chapter 14, "Seeking a

Discourse of Environmental Sensitivity in a World of Data.” 3.

See Joan Hamilton’s cover story “Danger Ahead" from the September October 2005 issue

of Stanford Magazine about the work of Schneider and change, including

some such

as

Hoover

don’t argue that we’re having global warming, but it

Stanford University colleagues on climate

who

economist Thomas Gale Moore,

Institute

the current era of confusion and controversy,

his

says, “I

find the effects are going to be small" (53). In

I

seems that almost any perspective can be uttered

with blithe impunity -economists can quarrel with climate scientists, ministers with geologists.

And

the public

is left

to scratch

its

collective chin

.

.

.

while driving the family

SUV down

to

the gas tank again.

I

H3

fill

up

13

About Your Cannot Hear

There’s Something

Voice

I

ENVIRONMENTAL LITERATURE, PUBLIC POLICY, AND ECOCRITICISM

“I’m sorry, Ms. Williams, there’s something about your voice I

cannot hear." There’s something about your voice

hear.

to nattire writer Terry

I

cannot

This was Utah congressman Jim Hanson speaking

Tempest Williams

after she

had presented her essay

“Bloodlines" as testimony during a public hearing in southern Utah regarding

wilderness preservation in that part of the state in the mid-1990s. that there are certain kinds of voices

unheard, and perhaps unbearable, values and policy

is

idea

modes of discourse — that

— certain

are

public discussions of environmental

in

what inspired me

The

to join

up with Canadian anthropologist

Terre Satterfield to work on the book that became What’s Nature Worth > NarraEnvironmental Values,

tive Expressions of

and is

stories

embedded

sometimes

in

which was published

of the most potent literary creations

But what does such achievement mean

we

if

we

Bill

McKibben

We

are

and throughout

doomed

history'.

to lose the places artistic

coming decades

and

and scholarly

to see our

what American environmental

own

journalist

has called “the ecological bottleneck”?

must find

economics,

widely recognized as some

What do any

are fated in the

species contort itself to pass through

now

in recent years

species that have inspired such eloquence? if

2004. The images

“nature writing," “environmental literature,” or what

called "the literature of place" are

achievements mean

in

law,

a way,

1

believe, to help those toiling in the realms

of

politics,

and public policy move beyond the constraining discourse of

There's

Something About Your Voice

Cannot Hear

I

those fields and appreciate the values-rich language of story and image. As

Charles Wilkinson argues in The

Eagle Bird,

it is

crucial to “change the language

of the law in order to change the terms of debate" regarding species, habitat,

and natural resources bloodless.

... is

to

wring every

It

in the

American West. He laments

that “legal language

seems that attorneys are imbued with an absolute compulsion

last

drop of emotion, passion,

love,

and

of every single

grief out

we must

sentence" (io). Somehow, this professor of law maintains, a

way

He If

deepen and enrich the language used by the public — and by public

to

officials

find

— when

talking and writing about our relation to the natural world.

states:

the language

task

is

to

among

add new kinds of words to balance out

and cost-benefit

comment

the people changes, the language in the law books will change.

analyses.

task

is

now dominated by board

vocabulary

to enrich existing words.

When we

will fall into line.

When

feet

hear a forester

we should

that timber harvesting will “sustain the productivity of the land,”

Productivity' for voles?”

The

The other

a

One

ask.

enough westerners understand that concept, law and policy

(15-16)

process of transforming our

official

legal,

economic, and governmental

language from that of bloodless contractual arrangements to empathetic stories that

might enable us to imagine the issue of forest productivity from

the perspective of a vole (a small, mouselike

ambition and verbal acrobatics. This

is,

mammal)

monumental

will require

and has perhaps always been, the

ultimate ambition of writers and critics exploring nature and culture, at least in the is

United

States.

a conceit, but

I

Barry Lopez famously remarked

in Antaeus,

literature,

foundation for the reorganization of American

but that

political

it

suppose

I

this

one day produce

a

might also provide

a

believe this area of writing will not only

major and lasting body of American

“

thought" (Contribution

297). Environmentally oriented literary scholars have been tracking this trans'

formative process

in

such works

as

Daniel G. Payne’s

American Nature Writing and Environmental Conserving Words:

How

Politics

Voices in the Wilderness:

(1996) and Daniel

American Nature Writers Shaped

(2004). What’s Nature Worth seeks to contribute

J.

Philippon’s

the Environmental

in a different way,

Movement

spurring the

process of merging literary images and stories with the discourse of public

GOING AWAY TO THINK policy by presenting interviews with twelve leading environmental writers

about the connection between story and environmental values, providing brief samples of their work that

example

in a

framework

illustrate this

that should be accessible to economists, lawyers,

many environmental

policy specialists. Although

work

to

others are opting for

more

and

writers and ecocritics prefer

media of

for social reform through the gradual, subtle

and scholarly publication, classroom

literary talks,

connection, and contextualizing each

instruction,

direct approaches

traditional

and occasional public

— writing to public officials,

joining the boards of activist organizations, and preaching to audiences other

than the choir.

me

Allow environmental

and discuss two central

to backtrack a bit

literature:

how

world, and also

how this

Word is

mentioned

I

in

chapter

8,

its

Scott Russell Sanders’s 1987 essay "Speaking a

of what literature needs to do

the ecological implications of our presence

laments the tendency ignore

fiction, to

in

on the

nonhuman

nature.

He

calls

survival of our species. Sanders writes:

human

realm

is

reflects the surface of

how

planet.

)

acknowledge

In this essay,

he

its

neglect of questions and issues crucial to the current

profoundly

experience, no matter

to get us to

such writing "pathological” for

and longtime

it

Secrets oj the Universe

popular contemporary American writing, especially

reality, its

accurately

book

if it's

avoidance of

However

in the

value.

for Nature” (collected several years later in his

a key articulation

the

own embeddedness

writing enables us to develop and clarify and articulate

our feelings about the world’s meaning,

As

of

pay deeper attention to

this writing guides us to

our physical senses and enables us to appreciate our

facets

false,

oblivious

our times,

[literature] that

and therefore pathological.

we may be toward

nature,

No

we

never looks beyond

matter

how urban our

are nonetheless animals,

two-legged sacks of meat and blood and bone dependent on the whole living planet for our survival.

Our

outbreathings

our bodies decay.

Of

ecology has become an

As Sanders

still

flow through the pores of trees, our food

course, of course: intellectual

we

all

nod our heads

commonplace. But

suggests, the great difficulty

it is

in

still

agreement.

grows

The

in dirt,

gospel of

not yet an emotional one. (226)

encountered by writers

who

tend to be

attuned to their personal experience of the world and the implications of that

136

|

There's

experience

is

how

be more interested has

little

communicate

to in

direct experience of the

where

States,

(sometimes

neighbors

metaphor

human

as

many

tear

first,

may

live in a fairly typical

1

large houses cover entire

— they drive

as four or five garages per house).

home from

how

for

they

after they drive

more or

less,

This

in.

is

enclosed within

constructions. Encouraging such people to think of the ecological

an uphill challenge. But

is

contemporary writers and

artists

believe

senses

seldom see

I

work, electronically open their garages,

live their entire lives,

implications of their lives

I

I

in reading, and, second,

world.

and then close the garage doors by remote control a

Cannot

and the most prominent features of many homes are the multiple garages

for cars

my

nonhuman

United

in the

I

their ideas to a readership that,

watching television or film than

suburban neighborhood lots

Something About Tour Voice

more

we need fully

literature

and

nonetheless

— or

intensely.

art

We

our ecological awareness and learn to

endings.

They

feel for us,

generally

— to

help us use our

need to overcome the abstractness of live

presence in the world. Writers in general

of so-called environmental writers

many

a challenge that

compelled to take on.

feel

more

it's

through such awareness, to feel our

— and

— serve

find this particularly true

I

as extensions

own

of our

nerve

they exhort us to feel more intensely, more

and they demonstrate the processes of sensation

in a

way

that

fully,

we can then

enact more consciously. Lamenting the inferiority and human-centeredness of

many

sophisticated, academic readers of literature,

Environmental Imagination,

world, never back to

“Must

it?" (il).

Lawrence Buell asks

literature always lead us

away from the

in

The

physical

Close attention to environmental literature and

art

draws us inevitably into the realm of sensory ecology— an appreciation of

our

own

“How

presence in the physical world and our connections with other beings. sense-luscious the world

in the preface to

go through our

A

is,"

Natural History of the Senses (xv).

lives

thinking

this,

aware of

moment by moment to the rest of the not all of the people we call environmental

us

as a vivid, visceral reality.

the Senses

Read Australian

How many

how our

world?

It’s

writers to

overcome the idea of ecological connectedness it

Ackerman

writes essayist and poet Diane

as

of us actually

senses are connecting

the purpose of most

do

just that

— to help us

an arid abstraction and to

essayist Eric Rolls’s

A

if

feel

Celebration of

(1998), for instance, or japanese-American farmer and nature writer

I

1

37

GOING AWAY TO THINK David Mas Masumoto’s 2003 book of nonfiction, Four

Read

Things Worth Savoring.

1970

novelist James Dickey’s

how

an allegory of sensory awareness, showing

Seasons in Five Senses:

classic. Deliverance, for

several characters

overcome

the ennui and alienation of their suburban lives by experiencing the vivid

beauty

— and the pain — of a direct encounter with wild nature.

Fiction

oiten a particularly good genre in which to present narratives that

is

are readily perceived not only as specific stories but as allegories that mirror readers’ experiences.

There are many

fine

examples of environmental

how engagement

that function allegorically to demonstrate

through our senses might conscious, meaningful

lives.

novel, The River Why, in

learn that

One

revitalize us

example

fine

which the narrator

is

is

with the world

and enable us

it

useful

a fishing

with nature. Another

is

and meaningful

prodigy

who comes

Flow often [have

The

idea that

quickly build

I

J

felt

“The world

that bite in a

we can begin with

upon such experience

of large-scale ecological processes

scholar Mitchell to Perceive

is

is

holy?

rest

of the planet.

Maybe

so.

enmeshed

But

it

in

has teeth

(361).

personal sensory experience and then

order to develop a better understanding

in

well explained in environmental education

(2002).

Bringing the Biosphere Home: Learning

Thomashow

use our senses to explore connections between our

world and the

but to

fish,

novel Dirt Music, in which the

slamming gust of wind”

Thomashow’s recent book

Global Environmental Change

to

to have such interactions with

Tim Winton’s 2001

the reality of nature, realizing,

more

David James Duncan’s 1983

character Luther Fox “goes bush" and finds himself profoundly

too.

to live

important for him not only to know how to catch

it is

appreciate why he finds fish,

somehow

fiction

He

argues that

own

it's

suggests that

we can

specific places in the

crucial,

if

we

re to

know

what's happening in the world during this time of significant changes, for us to think in

place

terms of relationship

and other

places,

our

moment

Thomashow’s points

Several of

— particularly, in history

the relationship between our

and other times, past and

specifically tie in

future.

with the role of literature

in

helping people to “bring the biosphere home,” to understand the big picture of the “biosphere” (the planet to

“home” (where we

methods of

i?8

|

his

own

and

its

are at any given

atmosphere) by way of close attention

moment). Here

is

practice of “biospheric perception”:

his

explanation of the

There’s

First.

I

emphasize the importance of routine experience.

adventures, you have

all

Biospheric perception

a practice

is

around, and notice the

you can

travel a considerable

the narrative experience.

and conversations,

in

of your daily

you can engage

sky,

in

wherever you may

moments

the landscape, and other

and

to reconsider life

be. In the

time and

where you

arc,

I

accentuate

probe the stories that emerge from childhood memories,

I

have

moments

forms. In just a few

conceptual distance through the biosphere. Second.

places, different views you've

travels,

how your

had of the same spot through many

perceptions change by presence or absence. Imagination and

may not

often work together to conjure impressions that you

attain in

knowing your

encourage you to carefully observe what you observe

is

a

community

practice,

memory

any other way. Third.

proclivities

and

the things that you see as well as the gaps, and using good teachers to help you in

biospheric perception

years,

something you engage

interests,

this.

Fourth,

with other people.

in

takes lots of folks pointing things out to each other to reap the deepest insights. Fifth.

emphasize the importance of global change science for your observations.

The biosphere

is

I

and ecological strengths and weaknesses,

assessing your insights, figuring out your perceptual

It

affairs

conjunction with imaginative forays. To perceive the biosphere requires

comparing times and understanding

In the course

Cannot Hear

I

the material you need for interpreting global environmental change.

space between your busy tasks, you can take a few a look

Something About Your Voice

as a

means

to provide balance

not necessarily what you project

it

to be.

and It

I

ballast

involves

processes and patterns that are empirically derived. Finally,

wind through

I

omenology impressions.

I

refer to the great insights that can

To

practice biospheric perception you

your sensor)' awareness. By existential

and concepts that we can never

fully

I

be derived from one's direct sensory-

must aspire

to

probe the

potential of

full

convey the impression that we are investigating ideas

understand. (16-17)

All of these cognitive processes via story

phenomenological and existential passage. By phen-

a shifting

— attention

to routine experience, articulation

and image, exploration of memory and imagination, precisely focused

sensory attention, engagement with other people, absorption of formal entific theories

and

and information, and the asking of deeper phenomenological

existential questions

overt,

— characterize the standard elements, both subtle and

of so-called environmental writing, environmental

So

far

I’ve

been discussing

readers to pay attention to the world. literary

sci-

literature.

how environmental

One

writers guide

of the crucial questions about

accounts of such sensory experiences of nature

is

how

they will affect

1 I

39

GOING AWAY TO THINK how

readers and, further,

such writing might eventually have an impact on

environmental laws and policies and on the daily behavior, even the conscious

and unconscious worldviews, of other members of

Remember

the passage with which

statement by Congressman Jim Hanson

tombstone voice

I

— “I’m

1

—

society.

began it

this

may someday be

Ms. Williams, but there

sorry,

essay,

the oft-quoted

printed on his

something about your

is

cannot hear.” Comfortable with and accustomed to the discourse of

law and economics, but policy context,

less

so with the language of story, at least in a public-

Hanson could not

Williams’s narrative

— they

pick up the usable, values-related aspects of

somehow eluded

his hearing, his

comprehension.

Here are the opening brief paragraphs of Williams's two-page statement: There

is

a

woman who

is

a tailor.

performing alterations, taking

in a

She

lives in

in the

this

woman was

face of her assailant.

What

violence she lost her voice. She was unable to cry for help. in Satterfield

and

Slovic,

pieces of thread inches.

few inches there, basting

in

raped,

she

He

thrown down

knew was

left

face-first

this: in that act

of

her violated and raw. (Qtd.

80-81)

The woman responds and leaving symbolic

a

and makes her livelihood

stitch.

San Rafael Swell,

on the sand. She never saw the

River, Utah,

few inches here, letting out

hems, then finishing them with a feather

While hiking alone

Green

to her experience by returning to the site of her attack “fetishes''

here and there in the desert: “The

and placed them

delicately

Twelve inches. They appeared

on the

woman

desert. Six inches.

as a loose stitched

Three

seam upon the

Eventually she approaches a particularly magical place that has been

cut

land.''

named

“the birthing rock” by Native people. Here,

The woman is

picks

up an obsidian chip that has been worked by ancient hands; the flaked edge

razor sharp. She holds

her

own

lifeline

places her

it

between her

fingers like a pencil,

from beginning to end. The crescent

palm on the boulder and screams.

opens her

moon below

her

left

hand and

thumb

traces

turns red. She

(81)

This story has no simple, explicit message about environmental policy or wilderness preservation, but in suggests that

human

The woman

character,

140

life is

its

richly

emotive and imaginative language

it

deeply associated with specific places on the planet.

when

attacked in a beloved landscape, must restore

There's

Something About Tour Voice

I

her attachment to that landscape by using thread and scissors her craft

— to stitch

empowerment,

Cannot Hear

— the

tools of

herself back into place. She has lost her voice, her sense of

in the initial attack,

but

when

she guides the sharpened, pencil'

stone across her hand and imprints her blood upon the land, her voice,

like

her scream, her sense of power and pain return. For the What’s Nature Worth

depth interviews with

project, Terre Satterfield

dozen distinguished

a

and

I

conducted

in-

environmental writers,

U.S.

ranging from Native American authors such as Simon Ortiz and Ofelia Zepeda to

former rancher William Kittredge and celebrated ethnobiologist Gary Paul

Nabhan.

who

It

was our goal

devote their

of nature.

We

specifically to use these writers as “lay ethicists,” as

using language as a

lives to

view such writers not

as

academic

“environmental ethics,” but as storytellers the value

We

— the

way of understanding

meaning, the importance

people

the value

specialists in the field called

who work

— of their

every day to understand experiences in the world.

asked them questions about their approaches to writing stories, essays, and

poems.

We

asked them to reflect on

medium of

in the

story.

We

how

information might be packaged with'

asked them whether they wrote to convey their

values to audiences or to explore, for themselves, the value of particular

experiences or phenomena.

We

asked them to speculate about the broader

impact of narrative discourse that conveys a sense of environmental

social

values.

In

the lengthy introduction and

the contextualizing essays at the be'

ginning of each chapter, Terre Satterfield and

environmental -values research

how environmental

in the

that

most

law and policy tend to rely almost exclusively on economic

part, as a set

may have

explain the current state of

United States and Canada and discuss

processes for determining the value of natural for the

I

value, or

phenomena

of “resources” rather than

meaning, beyond

as a

(thinking of nature,

realm of phenomena

human economic

purposes).

The

primary method for determining the value of resources, particularly when certain kinds of degradation have occurred and compensation is

an economic tool

known

as

must be provided,

“cv” (or contingent valuation), which involves

the positing of a hypothetical market for whatever

is

being assessed

—

if

you

were going to purchase the Great Barrier Reef, for instance, how much would

I

141

GOING AWAY TO THINK you pay for thin

air,

Put together a cluster of such evaluations, basically pulled trom

it?

and, voila, there you have

it:

the value of the Great Barrier Reef

project emerges from a fundamental distrust ot merely

Our

economic means of

— shared by many people in the public — that certain important facets

determining environmental values, our feeling arts

and humanities and

general

in the

of human values are getting

out of the economic processes, the economic

left

equations. These aspects of our values systems cannot easily be reduced to

numbers — to

dollar

amounts or

ratings.

communicate such meanings, such

values,

intuitive appreciation for certain places or

In our interview with Terry

Often the only way we can is

initially

by telling stories that express our

phenomena.

Tempest Williams, the author suggested

that

the tension between the language of story and the language of law, economics,

and policy

is

modes of

the various

manipulate

not necessarily a bad thing. She argued against neatly merging

this

expression.

don't think you can manufacture or

"I

connection,” she said. “Stories arise out of the

that’s

where the power

given

moment.

I

mean

of the heat, and that

is

lies.

You

can't

know what

story

is

moment and

appropriate for any

the stories are born out of an organic necessity, out

the source ot their potency” (67-68). According to

Williams, formal ideologies and mindless, inherited language start to break

down when

narrative language

is

introduced into policy discussions. Williams

hopes, through her work, to help our culture

and

stillness

more

and slowness,” believing that

sustainable decisions about

how

“fall in

this will

to live

love again with language

enable us to make better,

on the planet

(69).

“I’m sorry, Ms. Williams, there's something about your voice hear.” Despite the inability ot

one impatient

politician to “hear” the

I

cannot message

— narrative discourse, steeped homes — plays a vital role in the

ot a nature writer's story, this kind ot language in values lives

born ot

specific landscapes, specific

of everyday people around the world. Laypeople,

officials,

when asked

experience and hope. help

make such

142

artists,

and government

what's really important to them, often turn to tales ot

One

ot the crucial roles ot ecocritical scholarship

tales audible in the halls

of power.

is

to

14

Seeking a Discourse of

Environmental Sensitivity

in

World of Data

a

THE DIVIDE BETWEEN LITERATURE AND SCIENCE

American

In

We

tion.

in facts

drowning

are

about

in data,

my own

are

and

culture,

up

we

today in a condition of inunda-

live

to our necks in fragments

figures

of information,

and the prognostications of experts — we

and we don't know what

to do. I'm speaking in particular

country, the United States, and about such countries as

and japan that

I

know

especially well; but

most

relevant to the experience of people living in

my comments

suspect

I

Germany will

be

industrialized, technology-

oriented societies. Scott Russell Sanders vividly describes the current situation in “Telling

For

all

my

of

about

talk

the Holy”:

stories,

the hard data?

proof?

Where

it

and when

snarls

Even someone

very

statistics.

7

as firm in

Not even

bares

its

raises its hackles

fangs and barks. fair)’ tale

lab,

when

are

where’s the

we can

live

made myth

O’Connor admitted

a storyteller in these times

we

Where

I

by stories— by hearing, by reading, and especially by making

her vocation as Flannery

that

whenever

Where, oh where, are the numbers

when

satisfy

by statements, and

scientists can bear a steady diet of

comes home from the say,

still

watchdog, straight out of

statements and statements not quite as

much doubt

she will often

a talking

it

me

be nagged by the yapping of doubt. Hasn’t science

embarrassment about being

I

is

inside

about the sacred

talk

— for this

tries to live

likely to

as satisfying as

I

are the equations? the formulas?

Anyone who them — is

watchdog of reason

conviction, the

obsolete?

feeling “a certain

stories are considered not quite

ing as I

am

statistics.’’

certain

we cannot

live

by

numbers. After Ruth [Sanders’s wife]

often talk over the day’s experiments as

we

are fixing dinner, and

the results have been confusing, that she and her colleagues haven’t

14?

GOING AWAY TO THINK The

yet figured out a plausible story for the data.

up

to knowledge,

want

1

when

relationship between information

what

we might

information and what further,

little bit

it

what

the

this

is

another way

meaning or import of scattered pieces of “an integrated worldview”? To push this a

call

seems significant to ponder the relationship between such

worldview and daily behavior. about the world that

will

I

wonder,

too,

what so-called experts can

us

and work toward keeping the planet

lives

inhabitable for our species. Perhaps

most importantly

following question: how should

we be

like?

1

find myself asking the

communicating with each in order to express

our thoughts and feelings about the world

mental sensitivity” look

tell

a

impress us and offer acceptable guidance and perhaps

enable or inspire us to change our

asking these days

add

First,

and meaning? To phrase

the relationship between the

is

sense, only

they are embodied in narrative. (156-57)

begin by asking several basic questions.

to

make

data themselves only

These

— what would a “discourse of environ-

are the kinds of questions

find myself

I

— they are the questions of a literary scholar who feels himself

to be living in a threatened world. I

suspect that

all

of us come from various cultures that appear to believe

numbers, that trust quantitative information truth,” while

United to,

come under

anything nonquantifiable tends to

States,

what does

people want to it

cost?

we want

at a given

our

if

lives

as a relatively firm version

We re

know

“the

bottom

line.”

What

in

of “the

suspicion. In the

does

it all

add up

ready to pull out our wallets and pay for whatever

moment, and

yet

re likely to fight to avoid

achieve our purposes.

that’s what's called for to

realizing that changing our lives

we

may

be

We

have

the cost of certain things

changing difficulty’

we

profess

to want.

We

believe in

numbers

in

my

we do not

culture, but

numbers any better than people elsewhere

in

the world.

really

understand

Perhaps

it's

the

very alienness of numerical information that seems authoritative and impressive

— trustworthy.

We've tended

planet in the hands of people distributors

who make

the engineers

•44

I

who

to put

who can

our

lives

and the well-being of the

speak a quantitative language: the food

sure the shelves in our supermarkets are well stocked;

design our automobiles and the roads

we

drive on; the

Seeking a Discourse of Environmental Sensitivity

who

deliver our babies

and care

the technicians

who hook up our

telephone and cable

physicians

we

notice things aren't going quite right:

live

and even brisk winter winds

knocks us off e-mail for

when we re

for us

smog hangs

can't clear the

air;

a

TV

to this technology; a glance out the

window

power outage

where we

at the office

excessive attachment

home shows

at

Sometimes

service.

in the valley

weekend and underscores our

a

not feeling well;

the steady creep

of urban development up the side of a nearby mountain, making population

phenomenon. Vaguely troubled by these experiences, we

growth

a visible

ponder

their implications,

what

sort of corrections

try to

might be needed, and then,

overwhelmed, we suspend our worries and rationalize that “the experts have everything under control."

We

reimmerse ourselves

in the daily activities that

we can manage. “Truth" inheres

in

numbers, and people

of numbers appear to know what's going on

American writers have offered fetish

of ours.

One

of quantification

is

what

this

Annie

Dillard's

decade or

we

so,

on the phenomenon Being. In

the past year.

about a brief passage from that book. "There

a lot

now

in

China," writes Dillard. “To get a feel

— in

all

your

singularity,

importance,

— and multiply by 1,198,500,000. See? Nothing to

can perform such a simple act of multiplication? “Nothing to

Dillard.

that

1999 book. For the Time

means, simply take yourself

complexity, and love

Who

in the world. In the past

several powerful investigations of this numerical

are 1,198,500,000 people alive for

speak (and write) the language

of the particularly potent meditations

found myself thinking

I’ve

who

Simply do the math.

It

would be

difficult to state

struggle to understand big numbers,

changes

it,”

(47).

jokes

graphically

whether these numbers describe

quantities of things or the kinds of vast processes slow, barely perceptible systemic

more

it"

— either sudden cataclysms or

— that we're told are occurring in

the

natural world. I

shift

my

attention from

Annie

Dillard's teasing, philosophical treatment

of the meaning of numbers to examples of our efforts to process the

environmental news.

A good

illustration

of what happens when we

respond to quantitative information about the environment comes

Tempest Williams’s statement pages of the January February

in the

2000

“Getting

issue

of

It

Sierra

Right"

in

symposium

latest

try to

Terry in the

magazine. I'm singling out

I

14s

GOING AWAY TO THINK a passage that emphasizes

what

common response to information “When hear all of the statistics,”

take to be a

I

presented in an abstract or numerical form.

I

writes Williams,

we

the losses

are incurring, the truth and weight of issues like genetically manipulated foods, a

the loss of diversity of species and land, the control wielded

population of 6 billion and

rising,

by global corporations,

become mute, my

I

My human

abstracted into despair.

frame cannot accommodate

and turn inward, turn

apathetic, impotent,

move me away from what

I

crushed by information that becomes

spirit

work

listless,

local experience,

on the good,

Utah

are doing, or

that her neighbors in small-town southern

communities are doing, to restore and protect

immediate environments, I'm afraid that It

become

perceive to be the true state of the world. (Pope 4s)

that people in other specific

in the dark.

I

to pleasure, to distraction, to anything that will

Although Williams suggests focusing on her own constructive

all

it

can make us

feel better for

this sense of solace

the

moment, but

is

their

like whistling

seems simply to

it

avoid the bigger issues, to defer or deflect them. In an essay called

The Book

oj Taak,

“The Blood Root of Art," published

Montana author Rick Bass

in his

1996 volume

gets right to the heart of this

“The numbers are important, and yet they are not everything.

discussion, stating:

For whatever reasons, images often strike us more powerfully, more deeply

than numbers.

We

seem unable

to hold the

We

nearly as long as those of images.

math”

(87).

emotions aroused by numbers for

quickly

grow numb

This perception, intuited by the Montana nature writer,

what contemporary corroborating

in

social scientists, chiefiy psychologists

their research

numbers

statistics

pages

are always out there" (87),

about

later,

throughout

roads,

forests,

and horrible

but

1

—

I

had

a

got tired of

and economists, are

and he proceeds to

and logging

in

bunch of them

them

about the possible inadequacy of solid

precisely

art,

right

for

values. “Still," Bass continues,

the

though, he switches tactics and writes, this essay

is

and the

on framing and processing information

making decisions and determining attitudes and "the

to the facts

Northwest.

Pacific “I

meant

lined up,

away” (90).

offer a page

to use

of

Two

numbers

all

of them perverse

The

writer then frets

of language, for the

communication of

information that might have the power to sway government and corporate

officials

away from the excessive harvesting of natural resources, the destruction

146

1

Seeking a Discourse of Environmental Sensitivity

of wild places and nearby communities. tor this

But

whole essay

numbers, a landslide of numbers,

to be

cannot tolerate them,

I

winter day, that cries out for words” in

all

people, even in the scientists and economists

words”

— and

for images

and

— in

language”

is

me, this short

believe there

I

whose

is

the

“quantification,” that “cries out

call

One

of emotion.

to explore the function of language

helping

space

a

is

daily currency

stories, for the discourse

the central concerns of this essay chiefly, “literary

we

like brittle talus.

a space in

is

In truth,

( 93).

system of measurement, the worldview for

There

at present.

“meant

had, once again,” he states,

“1

us, scientists

and laypeople

of

— and,

alike, to

appreciate the meaning of our environmental quandaries.

Many

people

in

contemporary, industrialized societies accept without

question the special form of veracity that seems to attach this

is

the result of cultural determination, not

In his fascinating book. The Measure 1250-1600, historian Alfred

measurement

;

rarefied, absolute insight.

Quantification and Western Society,

W. Crosby documents the emergence of quantitative

forceful

as a

of Reality

some

numbers, but

itself to

thirteenth-century Europe.

— perhaps

“What

shall

the predominant

we

— gauge

of truth in

devotion to breaking

call this

down

things and energies and practices and perceptions into uniform parts and

counting them?" asks Crosby: Reduction ism?

Yes, but that

developments Niccolo should be

tilted

is

a

baggy category;

Tartaglia’s

upward

answer

went

does not help us to place in relation to other

in the 1530s to the

to fire a ball the farthest.

weight with equal charges of powder, one first

it

at

He

fired

reality;

push aside

its

from

30 and the other

11,232 Veronese feet, the second 11,832. This

out for physical

question of

is

at

how much

a culverin

two

it

balls

of equal

45 degrees of elevation.

quantification. This

darling curls, and take

cannon

a

is

how we

by the nape of the neck.

(1

The

reach 1

12)

Despite the compelling power of quantification, despite our sense of the usefulness of numbers, there persists an underlying skepticism toward a

medium of communication and

with a tinge of bitterness, that

we

a

gauge of

W. H. Auden once

live in societies “to

which can be weighed and measured 12).

reality;

is

a

numbers

as

stated,

which the study of that

consuming

love" (qtd. in Crosby-

Rick Bass and Terry Tempest Williams express their

own

frustration at

the limitations and impenetrabilities of numerical discourse in the context of

contemporary American environmental discussions.

I

147

GOING AWAY TO THINK Yet another eloquent statement of this notion Nature of Economies, the extraordinary

comes

foreword to The

in the

2000 book by Toronto

social theorist jane

about the intersections between industry,

Jacobs. Jacobs presents her thoughts

economics, and the sciences of biology, evolutionary theory, ecology,

politics,

form of eight

geology, and meteorology in the

fictional dialogues.

But

first

she

explains her project as follows: Theories and other abstractions are powerful tools only mythological giant Antaeus was powerful.

The aim

earth, his strength rapidly ebbed.

rarefied

When

in the limited

Antaeus was not

in

realities,

meaning

processes of development, growth, and stability that govern economic

numbers themselves,

of

form of “abstraction.” They remove

are a

and leave us with

that

“data.”

Some people would

far

and improved decision making.

life, (ix)

Still

“feeling"

possibility

of information we're given

— we

determine what's important, to drive, or

whether

can't sort out

how

to drive at

to behave

all,

from experience

of rational thinking

.

.

.

about the implications

our values and attitudes and

how

to vote,

what kind of car

what

to eat,

relatively narrative

economic theories with biophysical

to wear.

While Jane

medium of

dialogue, to

what

theories,

much of the important

contemporary environmental writing takes the Antaeus paradigm even rooting

theories and

all

numbers

in the

realm of recognizable

ence by telling stories of the authors' (or characters')

What’s

at stake here?

Why does

to appreciate the virtue of

this

lives in

so.

the world.

matter so much? Perhaps the best way

Survivors of Hiroshima

148

|

and

in

is

to consider

I’m reminded of Robert Jay Lifton's notion of

“psychic numbing," an idea elaborated in his distinguished 1967 Life:

further,

human expert

merging “data” with emotive discourse

the implications of not doing

’m

whether we should have children or take

special steps to avoid having children,

book aims, through the

I

others would argue that without emotion,

as a species are incapable of thinking effectively

associate

universal natural

argue that the removal of emotion

from any body of information enhances the

Jacobs’s

to bring

from being the concrete core

is

we

is

premises of the particular branch of environmental writing that

exploring here reality,

intimate contact with

of the talkative characters in this book

economic abstractions into contact with earthy

One of the

sense that the Greek

many

book Death

in

essays since then. In a 199s article called

Seeking a Discourse of Environmental Sensitivity

“The Age of Numbing," Lifton and coauthor Greg Mitchell define “psychic numbing"

as "a

diminished capacity or inclination to

Hiroshima survivors remember witnessing suffering

— nothing less

simply ceased to

human

the time of the

than a sea of death around them

They spoke of

feel.

at

feel."

“a paralysis

— but

They explain

bomb

that

scenes of

terrible

found very quickly that they

of the mind.” of becoming “insensitive to

death,” of being “temporarily without feeling." This useful defense

mechanism prevents

mind from being overwhelmed and perhaps destroyed by the dreadful and unmanageable

the

images confronting

it

(58)

Apathetic responses to the daunting unprocessability of environmental statistics are,

beings

I

come

believe,

to feel

comparable to the

when

self- protective

numbness

faced with an extraordinary physical

that

human

such as the

crisis,

experience of a nuclear explosion. “Psychic numbing," as originally articulated in Death

in Life, is

a survival

mechanism,

a

way of dealing with trauma.

But, as

Lifton and Mitchell speculate,

Over

time, the boundaries of

of our devastating

numbing can

blur.

weapon, we are more able

By closing ourselves off from the human costs to

do the same when confronted with other

instances of collective suffering— the 1994 genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda, for example.

We

can become increasingly insensitive to the physical violence around

institutionalized violence of poverty

even extend to everyday forms of

too, that

we

bomb

the

and homelessness. The tendency toward numbing can

human

interaction. (59)

Although Lifton and Mitchell argue of the atomic

us, as well as to

it is

our habit of ignoring the phenomenon

that spurs the “tendency toward numbing,"

I

would

suggest,

arc inundated with information about devastating losses, from

Turkey to the extinction of species

earthquake victims

in

and numbing seems

to be the automatic

in

North America,

and widespread psychological response.

Faced with the ubiquity of suffering, presented to us by way of nerveless numerical discourse and the glaring graphicness of contemporary journalistic photography, what hope do

we have of surmounting

numbness and our corresponding

the deadening effects of

failure to act in positive, constructive

ways?

Sven Birkerts’s 1999 essay “American Nostalgias" builds implicitly upon Bill

McKibben’s 1992 book The Age of Missing

Information

and observes some of

1

149

GOING AWAY TO THINK the fundamental shifts of consciousness that occurred during the twentieth

“We

century and continue to intensify.

unmediated sense of reality,” Birkerts to

one that

We once knew

.

.

shifted

the brute realities of

.

.

The

.

world was determined

terrain,

communication. For the

it

real

we

communication. The new

reality' is

beyond where we’ve been,

human to

put

“We need

it,

significantly cut off

be

told.

— goaded

from

28)

new worldviews and new

to be provoked,

many essential ways by

beings with a sense of vivid

a plodding, intransigent species, truth

it

and premised on instantaneous

are substituting the virtual. (27

take to impress

in

now we know

by the time required for various processes,

nature, largely unaffected by weather, global in reference,

us

a simple, direct,

writes,

original

nature— by weather, by

intervals of longdistance

What does

from

the world with our senses, or at one remove, and

increasingly as a field of data.

and the

.

complexly mediated, saturated with information and with the possibility of

is

information.

have

reality, to

sensitivities?

bring

We

are

As Henry David Thoreau once

like

we

oxen, as

are, into a trot"

(Walden 108).

Neurologist Robert Ornstein and population biologist Paul Ehrlich use

more academic phrasing

We

don’t perceive the world as

extract of

so

in their

it

reality'

and

it is,

1989 book New World New Mind, explaining:

because our nervous system evolved to select only a small

would be uneconomical

the same situation twice,

to take in every' occurrence. Instead

of conveying everything

about the world, our nervous system spotlight

makes us

irony of the

experience,

is

is

never experience

“impressed” only by dramatic

sensitive to the beginnings

the changes, whether gigantic or

The

We

exactly

to ignore the rest.

that

tiny, in

physicality within the

This internal

and endings of almost every event more than

the middle. (3)

human tendency we yearn

changes.

to generalize,

for specificity

to

make

caricatures of

and uniqueness. Our nostalgia

contemporary sea of abstract information,

for

to use Sven

Berkerts’s notion, belies the even deeper biological tendency to ignore the specific

most by

and look

for a broader pattern.

efficiently described

social

and physical

with numbers. This concept

scientists

Yet even for scientists,

Broad patterns of experience can be

human

is

readily

understood

and almost universally deplored by as they are,

it

is

difficult

to

all

others.

overcome the

impressiveness of the representative case. As Ornstein and Ehrlich state,

ISO

|

“One

Seeking a Discourse of Environmental Sensitivit)’

or two dramatic events can have a striking influence; statistics can be easily ignored.

Tversky

It is

call

the

phenomenon

that psychologists Daniel

representativeness”

(i

1

3)

Kahneman and Amos

This psychological tendency seems to

.

result

from our ancestors' need to respond to immediate, nearby

in the

here-and-now or

threats, to live

perish.

Ornstein and Ehrlich proceed to offer a pragmatic explanation of

human of our

the individual survive than

who

beyond

of adaptation. True,

this level

in the distant past

reacted powerfully to sudden danger was

more

someone who “pondered the evidence more calmly”

(1

1

likely to 3)

.

threat— perhaps the potential danger of a large predator— proved to be the consequences of responding would

not responding.

many

instances,

Threats

in

whole are In the

The world today fail

the

false,

presenting to us a host of worries that, in

is

at

all:

society' as a

anyone who can exploit the parochial focus of the old mind.

especially susceptible to

that focus leads to the vulnerability to terrorism, to brutality' spreading

of watching violence

politicians

If

be minor compared with those of

our world have changed, but not our responses to them. Individuals and

modern world

as a result

still

any alarms

to trigger

the

pronouncement about the consequences

brain evolved, and a chilling

failure to evolve

how

in

movies and on

who look good and sound good and

television,

thus

make

and

to the election

us feel good. But

its

of incompetent

focus also leads to

the slighting of the hazards of acid rain, CO, buildup, desertification, and other unprecedented perils

approaching too gradually to trigger our “fight-or-flight" responses.

The consequences of

this evolutionary

(1

14)

tendency are not minor. Journalist

Edith Efron would disparage such a claim as apocalypticism as a hyperbolically

warning proves to be

dire warning. But if the

consequences of our heeding

it?

And

if it

They seek,

sensitivity.

like

many

scholars and artists, prefer the option of

in their writing, to reach

toward

The

a

new

level

of sensitivity

biological ancestors.

“The

of global disaster goes up each year,” they warn,

but our consciousness of action.

less,

it?

beyond the immediate, hands-on version of our probability'

what are the potential

proves to be accurate, more or

what would be the implications of not heeding Ornstein and Ehrlich,

false,

old

it

does not

mind quickly

tires

We

seem

to

need shocks and tragedies to goad us into

of being cautioned, especially about dangers that cannot be

averted by immediate, personal action.

I

iSi

GOING AWAY TO THINK But

if

blindness to threatening gradual change continues, eventually a weather report

might sound

like this:

the Northwest

“Clear skies on Thursday, followed by scattered nuclear explosions

with possible unseasonable freezes for a few months."

(i

1

in

)

This passage, though published only two decades ago, obviously emerges from the fears of the cold war. Today’s political reality

context that inspired New World

New

preoccupied Ornstein and Ehrlich

Given that we are

how might we

Some have now

in) vast processes

ever learn to think in a

way

intensified.

about individual cases and to

a species inclined to care

be daunted by (or disinterested

from the

different

and yet many of the concerns that

Mind,

persist.

may be

and numerical descriptions,

that will enable us to adapt to the

dangers of the modern (and future) planet? Ornstein and Ehrlich point to such

problems ity,

C0 buildup, and desertification. human population and resource

as acid rain,

vast increase of

2

Acid loss of biodivers-

consumption, gradual

(but ultimately dramatic) shifts in temperature, and various other almost

imperceptibly vast changes in the

human and environmental

realms,

and we

re

facing potential systemic transformation that will likely change the Earth into a

one we currently

different planet than the to convince

most people

might require them to of waste.

and

in the

And

live on.

new

it

would be

difficult

United States that there’s anything going on that

alter today's habits, their use

of resources and production

What kind of language might break through

trigger

yet

this

apparent insensitivity

alertness to the potential hazards our civilization faces?

Since the 1960s, there has been an extraordinary surge of important

North American writing about the relationship between human beings and the natural world. But contemporary environmental writers in the United States

and Canada are not an

the American literary

isolated group, nor

community

from the work of Homero Arid Ishimure

in japan, Judith

Oliver Friggieri years ago

I

in Malta,

read an

Wright

I

j

can think of is

in

Mexico

in Australia,

is

their influence limited to

many

international examples,

to the writings of

Kole Ade-Odutola

Michiko

in Nigeria,

and many other writers throughout the world

M .A. thesis by

Nadia

S11 in

(a

few

Taiwan, mostly a study of Annie

Dillard with a concluding chapter about the contemporary Taiwanese writer

Liao Hung-chi,

IS2

|

who worked

for years as a fisherman before quitting to establish

Seeking a Discourse ofEnvironmental Sensitivity

the Black Current Society for the Preserv ation of the to

write)— and

of this environmental literature and the ecocritical response

all

to this literature have ramifications that go far 1

Ocean Environment and

would argue that

this

beyond the realm of

body of literature, known variously

aesthetics.

as “nature writing"

or “environmental writing," has the potential to help readers reimagine their

overcome crippling

relationship with the planet and alienation

and

— and through a kind of ripple effect this literature will who

the people getting at

fears

when

actually read

This

it.

is

reach beyond

what Terry Tempest Williams was

comments

she concluded her

feelings of

January February

in the

2000

of Sierra magazine by urging her readers not only “to become biologically

issue

literate,"

but “to make the abstract

in the language

of

Pope

at a time" (qtd. in

One emerge

story, to

real, to

remember we

we

be unafraid to speak of what are engaged in blood work,

love

one day

45).

of the reasons environmental literature has become and continues to as

such a powerful force in contemporary literary expression

writers such as Sanders

— as well as

Robert Michael

Wendell

Pyle,

is

that

McKibben, Arid jis,

Dillard. Williams, Bass,

Gary Snyder, Robert Hass, Rudolfo

Berry,

Anaya, Barry Lopez, William kittredge, Linda Hogan, Peter Matthiessen, and

dozens of other environmental writers

— understand

their

work

as the effort

to achieve not only beautiful, lyrical language, but an understanding of

human

society’s relationship to the actualities of the planet.

Ecologist Garrett Hardin once expressed suspicion about literary language as a Folly

means of articulating environmental :

How to Survive Despite Economists,

Poetry

is

least

poetic intent.

ideas. In his

Ecologists,

and

the

1985 volume

Filters

Against

Merely Eloquent, he stated:

dangerous when the typographical arrangement of words reveals the author’s It is

most dangerous when the argument

heavily infected with

is

cast in the

form of prose,

unacknowledged poetic claims of non-negotiability.

In

now come from

those

who employ

the rhetorical

sentences

our time the

claims of recognized poets are no longer a serious threat to rational thought. threats to rationality

in

The

gravest

weapons of poetry from

behind an ambush of prose. Popularizers of ecology and advocates of the environment are not the least of the offenders. (33)

I

would argue, though,

that

that this

contemporary nature

is

writers,

an unnecessary

working

fear.

Hardin seems

in the subtle guise

to

worry

of poetic prose.

GOING AWAY TO THINK will

undermine

what we think and cannot,

about our relationship to nature

feel

be expressed

in

scientific information;

I

see

happening

that's all

what

1

important for any

it’s

most current and most accurate

in the

crucial, for writers

it’s

and perhaps

should not,

Of course,

wholly rational terms.

environmental writing to be rooted

each other, and

However, much of

rational thinking about the environment.

and

scientists to

be talking with

take to be the fundamental purpose of gatherings

over the world now.

The

best

way

to develop combinations

of affectively meaningful discourse and empirically based ideas

to loster

is

ongoing, cross-disciplinary communication so that economists, ecologists, and artists

can work together to avoid the oversimplifications and extremes toward

which our

disciplines, in isolation

from each other, might be

inclined.

Writers seeking to achieve an understanding of the actual condition of the planet and projections for the future must have a sturdy appreciation a firm grasp on, the scientific world.

including the

science

work of

vironmental anthropologists

The

— are often extremely abstract and difficult for the

How do we know that

works ot environmental in a

way

that

is

is

What

is

an ecosystem and

why

is it

hundreds and hundreds ot animal and plant

species are disappearing each year, especially if extinction itself

modern environmental

environmental historians, and en-

ecologists,

public to believe, difficult even to decipher. so delicate?

lessons of

and

for,

becoming

extinct?

a natural process?

There

literature that explore these

Why are

and

does

this matter,

now many eloquent other, related topics

designed to compel the general public to think independently

about the state ol the world, to provoke concern and wonder and a desire to learn more. I’m thinking of

Janovy

Jr.’s

1997 work,

Environmental

Argument

Issues,

and

10

two particular examples; Nebraska

Minute

Bill

Ecologist:

20 Answered Questions for Busy People Facing

McKibben’s Maybe One: A

for Single* Child Families,

biologist John

which came out

in

Personal and Environmental

1998. These two books

are examples ol writing that takes numerical information and presents

way of images and

stories, that

like these,

together with

as the poetry ot A. R.

more metaphorical

Ammons

Ursula K. Le Guin, have the potential to help readers gain a their place in the

world

ot inert information. 154

I

by

attempts to explain the context in which the

information was derived. Works

and indirect writings such

it

a sensitivity that

and the

new

stories ot

sensitivity to

goes beyond the mere accumulation

Seeking a Discourse ofEnvironmental Sensitivity

Janovy and

McKibben

two of the authors

arc

have featured

I

my

in

University'

of Nevada course “The Literature of Population.” The goal of

the course

is

to

examine selected samples of the body of recent American

literature that exists at the borders of

environmental science, environmental

journalism, and environmental literature, focusing not only on the topic of

human

population (or overpopulation), but on global climate change (the

We

sO'Called greenhouse effect) and biodiversity extinction. effort to discern the literary

although debates

at

times

— about

it's

difficult

We

the issues and arguments raised by our authors.

and contemporary

read,

not to get sidetracked into discussions— even

the

Dodo to see

narratives,

and humor to convey the urgent Paul

a special

and rhetorical dimensions of everything we

David Quammen’s The Song oj historical

make

how

he uses extended metaphors,

biographical

intricacies

read

profiles

of

scientists,

of “island biogeography.”

and Anne Ehrlich on population and on the implications of

complacent, antienvironmental “brownlash” literature.

We

We

read

distortive,

study the efforts

of Donella and Dennis Meadows and Jorgen Randers, in Beyond

the Limits,

to

convey the feedback loops and overshoot theories of global systems by way of

computer modeling and charts and graphs,

in

contrast to the

and conversational approaches of recent authors such wrote

Believing Cassandra:

An

as

more

narrative

Alan AtKisson,

Optimist Looks at a Pessimist’s World.

Our

who

discussions of

population literature per se focus on various works by the Ehrlichs, on Gregg Easterbrook's “eco-realist” dismissal of environmental doomsayers like the Ehrlichs,

on the work of janovy and McKibben, the Meadows, and AtKisson.

Now

let

me move toward

a

conclusion by focusing on a few specific

John Janovy' holds an endowed chair

biology depart'

authors and

texts.

ment

University of Nebraska, where his teaching and scientific research

at the

focus on the field of parasitology.

maintains funding for

He

is

the author of many scientific papers and

a research lab at the university. In the

after attaining tenure in the biology

readers. In 1978

some of his attention and energy

and projects that would explain

he published

mid'i970s, shortly

department, Janovy became frustrated with

the politics of academia and began to divert to literary expression

in the

scientific ideas to general

Keith County Journal, a collection

of personal essays

I

1

ss

GOING AWAY TO THINK on subjects related

to his held research.

Mind appeared,

Migration of the

Two

years later the novel

of an individual migrating

telling the story'

Since then, Janovy has published such books as Back Becoming Journey

a Biologist

(198s),

Fields of Friendly Strife

and Dunwoody

Baja California (1992),

in

the Cultivation of Naturalists

in

A

A

bird.

Keith County (1981),

(1987), Vermilion Sea:

On

Naturalists

Pond: Rejections on the High Plains and

(1994). But the particular

book

that interests

modes of environmental

the context of this discussion of alternative

and

Tellowlegs:

me

in

discourse,

especially those approaches that seek to express complicated scientific

phenomena

in nonquantitative language,

is 10

Minute

Ecologist,

which appeared

in 1997.

Janovy explains the genesis of this book in his preface: I

was

talk

meeting one day listening to one of the world’s most distinguished

sitting in a

scientists

about biodiversity. His audience was made up mainly ot business executives and attorneys

who, because of various factors such

as

government regulation or marketplace

found themselves dealing with environmental

issues.

As

I

looked around the room,

the audience paying close attention to the speaker. But afterward that speech but that point

1

still

decided

I

don’t all

this

biodiversity really

someone

means or why

could see

I

said to me: “1 loved

it’s

so important." At

these businessmen needed help. But they didn’t have the time to go

back to college and major

Keeping

know what

events, suddenly

in biology.

That’s

when

decided to write

I

this

book,

(xi)

audience in mind, the biologist has attempted to present a series of

complex ecological topics

in a

manner

that should be accessible to an educated

but nonscicntific group of readers. In the United States, children often play a

game

"Twenty Questions,” where several players are invited to ask

called

twenty questions

in

order to figure out what another person has

in

mind

(a

person, place, or object). Janovy offers his readers twenty' questions pertaining to ’’ecology”

and twenty brief responses, mini-essays that he thinks readers

should be able to get through is

important, as

as

much time

subjects.

"What

is

about ten minutes each

many people who need

simply don't have

on these

in

to

know

in their daily lives to read long,

I

complex

articles

Despite the difficulty of responding to such questions

biodiversity?”

and attempts

156

idea of brevity'

things about the environment

and "What

is

an ecosystem?" and

islands?” in five or six pages for each topic, Janovy

project

— this

to find an accessible

and

“Why

study

throws himself into the

scientifically legitimate

mode

Seeking a Discourse of Environmental Sensitivity

of communication. “I've tried very hard to make reasonably complex ideas

same audience

accessible to the

he states

and watches

television,”

(xii)

my

Because one of

other important textual examples in this essay

Mckibben's Maybe One,

a project that

reproduction meaningful to

emotional

levels,

I'd

w Minute Ecologist

from

that reads paperbacks

the indirect

a

as well.

“How many

title:

audience on both intellectual and

comment on John

like to

The is

first

Janovy’s population chapter

thing one notices about this chapter

too many?

1

''

The avoidance of

politically

emotionally charged terms such as “population" and “reproduction"

important

— the author does

his five-page essay

by offering

readers that the concept of “too

other words, this

is

in the first sentence.

a brief, simplified history lesson,

many” dates back

and

quite

at least a

Janovy

showing

few centuries

(in

not merely a modern social and environmental problem).

“In most people’s minds,” begins Janovy, “the

name

'Malthus' connects with

the concept of overpopulation, and the adjective 'Malthusian dire consequences of reproducing to the point that as

is

is

not want to scare away readers at the outset. But

he does quickly get to the issue of overpopulation

opens

Bill

human

attempts to make population and

general

is

predicted by the British economist

refers to the

we run out of

Thomas Malthus

in

resources,

1798."

Janovy

continues. In

his Essay on the Principle of Population,

Malthus noted that populations tended to grow

exponentially, so that the population increase, as measured in

greater with every'

new

numbers of

individuals,

generation, whereas food supplies increased by only a constant

was

amount

over time. Eventually, Malthus reasoned, populations would outgrow their food supply and

would then become limited by

Notice

how

this

disease, famine,

and war. (76)

opening paragraph delicately avoids emphasizing human

populations and instead speaks about “populations” and “individuals” without

denoting species. The next several paragraphs explicitly avoid focusing on the issue

of

human

overpopulation, instead discussing the population biology of

plants and animals and observing that

needed resource (76-77). This

is

is

usually

shown

most studies

in this field indicate

to be a limiting factor

very clear and species-neutral language

“some

on the population”

— not exciting perhaps,

GOING AWAY TO THINK but not treading on the delicate moral and religious questions of

reproduction

On

.

. .

yet.

by

is

clearly a

in a relatively sate

human

idea,

and

and

humans

or die; only practical

care.

it

and nonargumentative way, refers to the

Nature

a particular set of resources.

live

human

the third page of the essay janovy gestures toward the

of the topic, but

many'

human

numbers

stating,

“'Too

that can be supported

whether organisms

really doesn't care

But we can explain 'too many'

way by considering what

relevance

in a rather neutral

ecologists call carrying capacity'" (78).

one of the keys

This emphasis on apparent neutrality and practicality

is

Janovy s discourse of accessible ecological information.

He

is

to

trying not to be

boring or offensive to his readers, so he attempts to make his prose clear and to fined

cleverly oblique

ways of approaching sensitive

capacity” has everything to

“neutral

and

a

the

and

end of the

by talking about plant seeds

two-paragraph

The

bacteria in a test tube.

into a large

“carrying

initiates his

in boreal forests,

kind of parable, about talking

story, a

bacteria reproduce themselves actively, and by

day, “the bacteria," writes Janovy,

diversified

The term

do with human population, but Janovy

practical" discussion

and then he moves into

issues.

community

“have flourished, multiplied,

that includes bacterial politicians,

The

businessmen, ecologists, and of course college students” (79).

bacteria then

begin to debate what to do about resources and population. “Remember,

it’s

only a story,” Janovy reminds his readers, suggesting that there's no need for

humans

to take

And what do gists

at the debate.

have been saying for quite a while

are idiots;

He

writes:

these talking bacteria say at 11:58 p.m.?

cian, likewise, says

we have

Jor me because I'm

men

umbrage

what

so smart).

many

ecologist,

— namely, that were about

politicians have

three times as

The

resources as we’ve used throughout all our history 50 don’t ,

In a similar

many

to create the

asking what young people ask to the ecologist, but

IS8

|

I

new jobs produced by

all

these sales).

the time, namely:

'm biased (79)

politi-

the ecologists

worry (and vote

manner, the bacterial businessman says what business-

resources as we’ve used throughout all recorded history, so

(and gimme a tax break

The

run out of resources.

been saying lor quite a while, namely that

have been saying forever and forever, namely that our

times as

to

of course, says what ecolo-

political leaders are right;

we should

And

Whom should

I

sell

some

to

we have

another

test

three

tube

the bacterial college student believe

1

think

we should

is

listen

Seeking a Discourse of Environmental Sensitivity

Even while expressing

his

own

personal perspective on this debate, Janovy tries

to avoid stigmatizing himself as a liberal, environmentalist intellectual. Rather

than belaboring his endorsement of the ecologist's perspective, he jokes about his “bias.''

he concludes this section of his essay by offering a fundamental,

Still,

apparently incontrovertible principle. “The point of the story

fairly obvious,”

is

he writes: “No matter what you want to believe about the natural world, we are still

very

much

a part

of that world, and there are certain fundamental ecological

on

principles that operate

these principles

is

One

organisms no matter what they believe.

all

that environments possess carrying capacities

and

will

of

not

support populations larger than those capacities, no matter what politicians

and businessmen claim" (80).

The rhythm

of the entire essay stresses the idea of things building

inevitable conclusion by

way of a

subtle and gradual approach.

about the bacteria figure out

resources.

how At

to

in the test

manage

last, in

to an

obvious from

It's

human reproduction and

the outset that Janovy will eventually be talking about

overpopulation, but he takes his time getting there.

up

It's

obvious

in the

parable

tube that the creatures will eventually have to

their

own numbers and

their increasingly limited

the eleventh of the essay's twelve paragraphs, Janovy turns

to the inevitable crux of the matter:

To what extent does

this principle apply to

answers. Mathematicians, as well as the mass of humanity rates

comes

ecologist, to figure out that

Malthusian existence,

in

something may happen

many college students, can

to exceed the

remain what they are today.

humans? That

It

some time

is

a

easily calculate the year at

which

mass of Earth, assuming that human reproductive

doesn't take a rocket scientist, or even a ten-minute prior to that date, humanity' will begin to live a rather

which our resources become increasingly to stop

good question with many

human population growth

scarce.

well before

On

it

the other hand,

reaches the Earth's

carrying capacity. (80)

And

the author then offers a few suggestions about what

the Malthusian certain

to avert

outcome of unchecked human population growth. Although

kinds of readers, especially religious fundamentalists, are unlikely

to soften their views result

we might do

on contraception and reproductive

of Janovy s delicate rhetorical dance,

would even open

a

book

like

it

w Minute Ecologist

responsibility' as a

seems unlikely that such readers in

the

first place.

1

lowever,

I

IS9-

many

GOING AWAY TO THINK people in the United States, including businessmen and lawyers and politicians (people with substantial social influence), want to

between human all

and

and the environment— they

activity

some urgency

feel

know more about

for the

improvement of

the relation

realize they don’t

by adopting

at least the guise

human

very gradually toward the vexed

manages impressively

to

relevance of population biology, Janovy

open up new perspectives on population

modes of discourse

ecological topics understandable

Like Janovy,

McKibben

Bill

political

of authorial neutrality and by moving

important audience. The other nineteen essays explore appropriate

it

their ecological knowledge.

By not attacking these kinds of readers and flouting their religious and beliefs,

know

in

issues to

an

in 10 Minute Ecologist likewise

which to make complex and sensitive

and interesting to nonscientists.

made

has

a

name

for himself by addressing

challenging scientific topics and controversial political issues in clear, engaging language. artist.

He would most

But

I

likely describe

and sophistication

believe there’s an exceptional level of craft

McKibben earned

his writing.

himself as a journalist, not as a literary

after graduation

went

to

his

work

BA

in

government from Harvard

as a staff writer for the

New

in

Yorker,

in

1982 and

one of the

most widely read American magazines. He wrote hundreds of columns and feature articles for the

and moving

to a

house

New

Yorker before

in the rural

In 1989 he published his

first

becoming

a freelance writer in

Adirondack Mountains ot upstate

New York.

book. The End of Nature, a study ot ozone depletion

and environmental disturbance that has become pervasive activity In

1987

as a result

of

human

1992 The Age ofMissing Information appeared, examining the complicity

ot television in the

contemporary environmental

television for the ineffective

crisis

and the implications ot

communication of environmental information.

His 1995 book, Hope, Human and Wild, describes examples from Brazil, India,

and the United States ot environmental situations that environmental recovery. In 2000, Strenuously

he published Long

— a study of cross-country skiing and

McKibben's

I'd like

to

comment on

:

If

Distance:

human

more depth

in a bit

on population and reproduction. Maybe One A for Single^

the

offer

is

some hope

A

body.

his

for

Year oj Living

The book of

1998 meditation

Personal and Environmental

Argument

Child Families.

the key to John Janovy 's treatment ot population

160

is

indirectness and

Seeking a Discourse of Environmental Sensitivity

gradualness, McKibben's approach seems to be a process of telescoping, of

moving inward toward

intimate, personal aspects of

human

then moving out to the broader, more abstract aspects. This forth

from the intimate

to the global

reproduction and

movement back and

an attempt to make the topic accessible

is

and meaningful by way of narrative prose without compromising the information that the author

make informed

feels his readers

need to have

decisions about reproduction in their

own

in

mind

lives.

scientific

in

order to

From

the very

beginning of the book he acknowledges the sensitivity of the subject matter and apologizes for intruding on his readers' private Population

is

been

a subject I’ve

try

ing to avoid for years, and not just because

cause turmoil and angry controversy.

probably affects each of our there

is,

one of the

lives

last subjects

yet

my work on

me more

scared

children

more than any we

we

avoid

my business how many kids anyone And

It

how many

confront head on the issue of

lives:

in this

because

it

forced

we were going will

know

I

me and my

It’s

taboo-frec society: At

will

wife to

to have, a decision

ever make.

it

which

as intimate a topic as

some

level,

it’s

not any of

else has.

environmental issues kept bringing questions of population front and

center. (9)

McKibben goes on

in his

introduction to explain

why he

to confront the issue of population in the book. Maybe

One

finds differs

necessary

it

from more

conventional examples of population literature not only because of the author’s use of personal narratives of reproductive decision making, but because of

emotional and developmental experience of growing up

his interest in the

a single child.

daughter.

I

As he

wanted

to

explains, “I did

make

would not damage her examines what

it

and not

just

my

four-year-old

or her mind." Likewise, the book's final chapter

to be parents raising

tradition dictates, or to raise

parents,

because of Sophie,

sure that growing up without brothers and sisters

spirit

means

it

as

no families

“much

smaller families than

By focusing on children and

at all."

on their material existence but on

their “souls" (their

emotional well-being), McKibben hopes “to make what has usually been an abstract question very personal and immediate" (11).

The opening chapter of Maybe One begins with fears that his

approach to parenting

will

a

paragraph about the author’s

“screw up" his daughter Sophie, and

the final chapter concludes with a description of a delightful (and implicitly

|

161

GOING AWAY TO THINK afternoon and evening with his daughter as they play and learn

routine )

together. In

between these “bookends,” these frames, McKibben

of chapters devoted to Family Species, Nation, and topics ranging

presenting research on

from child psychology to population biology, resource economics,

and contraception, mixed with personal

pollution,

Self,

offers clusters

stories

and narratives ot

his

research practices, including stories of working in the basement of the library at the State University

of

New

York

Albany and meeting scholars such

in

psychologist Toni Falbo for an interview in Washington,

Perhaps the best way,

One

is

to refer to the

book devoted

to “Self.”

The chapter

eight,

starts

experience having a vasectomy performed learn about the doctor:

an earring, a plaid

“Then

shirt.

So

Dr.

far that day,

then comes the procedure: “So

my

ankles,

I

with a narrative of McKibben’s

own

Ottawa Vasectomy

We

at the

and he swabbed

he

on the

my

it

scrotum with iodine

McKibben religious

way

.

.

,

down

and then he

The whole

is

clearly an

who

author

has lived

discussing. After telling the story of the medical procedure,

programmed

to reproduce ourselves

that goes against this

it

is

humans seem

that

and how we might come

programming. The discussion

is

to act

reasonable and

even sympathetic. McKibben seems to appreciate both the dogmatic

and personal reasons

for having children, pointing out that in his

and acquaintances, the

single

through raising children, often through

.

pants

testicles” (182).

dimensions of reproduction, asking why

respectful,

friends

my

my

And

backtracks and explores the emotional, philosophical, and even

biologically in a

is

— sweet."

makes the entire subject of vasectomies

profoundly personal and accessible. This the subject he

done nine vasectomies,

and pulled

table,

Clinic.

wearing khakis, old Nikes,

was calm, gentle

injected a slug of anesthetic into each side of

story takes only three pages, but

in,

said, he'd

trees. Fie

sat

discourse of Maybe

which begins the section of the

McGuire came

pruned the branches of nine family

around

DC.

in brief, to explain the ecological

opening of chapter

as

his

lots

own decision-making

most

common

own

“circle of

route to maturity has been

of children.” But he then walks the reader process, his choice not to have additional

children, as a result of exploring the fact that

“now we

live in

an era

.

.

.

when

parenting a bunch of kids clashes with the good of the planet” (196).

One

could argue that there will be a limited audience for any work of

162

|

lit-

Seeking a Discourse of Environmental Sensitivity

and perhaps an even narrower audience for

erature,

literature (or literary

journalism) that explicitly addresses issues of ideology, politics, and biology

However, the process of dispersing ecologically enlightened ideas to the general public requires the development of

new

describing experience,

new modes of

strategies for translating statistics

McKibben may be

Writers such as janovy and

writing, to

complex topics

refined ways of thinking about such

reproduction, and these readers in turn are learning their

own

Sometimes,

readers.

eventually appear in books are

as in the case

first

of mass-market magazines such sacrificing their sense

important

scientific

and

Glen Love claimed to redirect

in

The

New

people

more in

in 1991 that “the

human

— must

is

who

consciousness to a

He

full

(as

i

ndi

helping to communicate

consideration of

assume responsibility

work

both to create an interest

— as well

nonhuman

among

as artists

nature.

from day to

will always

to bridge the divide

nature

its

place in

working

for guiding their audiences to a

for environmental writers,

in

literature

did not limit his statement to American

parts of the world simply to live

use their

is

most important function of

sustainable relationship with

many

Without

ethical information to an ever-increasing readership.

The challenging task

teachers

of expressing

McKibben, and other environmental writers

immediate needs and trusting that there species.

new ways

Yorker or The Atlantic.

but implied that writers in every country

other media

deeper,

population and

broadcast to general audiences in the pages

as

a threatened natural world” (213). literature,

as

of McKibben, the essays that

are inventing a discourse of ecological sensitivity that

is

extent, for the

of humor or their compassion for human beings

viduals and as a species), Janovy,

today

into stories.

thoughts and experiences to friends and colleagues and sometimes

own

to their

some

ways of

words are giving these readers

“choir” of already converted readers, but their

more

— new

discourse

It

is

easy for

day, satisfying their

be a tomorrow for our

and

between

for the scholars

literature

their readers

and

and

and science,

to impress these

readers with the value of living with a long-term vision of our relationship to the rest of the planet.

I

163

15

Oh, Lovely Slab ROBINSON JEFFERS, STONE WORK, AND THE LOCUS OF THE REAL

One

of the deepest urges

erature

— and perhaps

in literature

contact with “the

real,”

and

in all

more

art

with that which

intense reality with love and

wonder

poem, “Oh, Lovely Rock” (Wild God

.

in

is

.

generally

—

is

the urge to achieve

authentic and true.

Robinson

Most of

us

call “reality”

seems to be an

essential

When we

dimension of what we refer to

say “environment,”

we seem

this

its

1937

as

phenomenon

— at

mean

least this

“environmental

commentary about to

Felt

would rather be sobered

than dazed and deluded by a transient fantasy

writing" (both original literature and the critical erature).

“I ...

Jeffers in the

and moved by an experience we take to be part and parcel of

we

lit-

environmental writing and even

says

.

163).

American environmental

that

lit'

what’s “out there,”

what’s hard and fast and externally verifiable, not merely what individual

humans or groups

of

humans

imagine into being.

This quest for contact with external

seems not

American

to

be ultimate

literature.

with illusory haze, Shadows

reality)

reality

emerges

(and suspicion of that which

in the earliest

One of the great examples of this is

of Divine Things

qtiest,

moments of Euroand the uneasiness

surely Jonathan Edwards’s eighteenth-century Images or

(unpublished until Perry Miller's edition

in 1948),

which

considers the physical reality of nature to be mere “images or shadows” of truer things, “divine things”

— this

was the approach to

(physical things existing as “types” or

164

|

reality'

emblems of deeper

known

as “typology”

reality').

But the locus

Oh, Lovely Slab

of the quest for

classicus

modern

the

American environmental

reality in

writing, at least in

sense of the tenaciously empirical ascertaining of truth, could well

be Henry David Thoreau's Walden (1854), especially the passage in chapter two,

"Where I

went

Lived,

I

to the

and see

life,

that

I

woods because

if

I

had not

sturdily

and What

wished to

I

could not learn what lived

...

1

and Spartan-like

wanted

as to

or

if it

to live

all

and reduce

was not

that

it

to

its

it

when

not,

deep and suck out

the

all

life,

came

I

it,

to die, to discover

marrow of

life,

and publish

if it

its

to live so

and shave

to cut a broad swath

lowest terms, and,

get the whole and genuine meanness of

were sublime, to know

front only the essential facts of

live deliberately, to

had to teach, and

it

put to rout

close, to drive life into a corner,

why then to

Lived For,” where he writes:

I

proved to be mean,

meanness

to the world;

by experience, and to be able to give a true account of it

in

my

next excursion. (90-91)

To

deliberately seems

live

to

mean

living

with self-awareness and

self-

consciousness, with an acute appreciation of one’s most essential needs and

When

passions.

writers in the era of

importance of knowing and

modern environmentalism

living “within limits,'' they

seem

express the

to be echoing

Thoreau's notion of “deliberateness.” For Thoreau, though, the reasons for such careful,

mindful living were mainly spiritual and psychological (to overcome the

“quiet desperation” evident

among

so

many people

industrialization) rather than ecological,

There

is

also, in

the

Walden Pond and

wooden that

it

to

known

well

must be possible

the era of

to both scholars

spend the afternoon walking around

find themselves reading these lines carved

sign at the site of his house

somehow

dawn of

means of averting ecosystemic collapse.

famous passage by Thoreau,

and members of the public who happen

at the

and painted on

a

on the eastern shore of the pond, the notion

for the

human mind

to

apprehend

reality

by

close observation of the physical world: “to front only the essential facts of life."

This seems to articulate the fundamental goals of modern biological science, of ecology, founded on a Leap forward to the Abbey’s Desert

same urge

to

Solitaire

know

faith in empirical observation. late

we encounter

twentieth century, and

Edward

in

(1968) some of the most memorable statements of the

reality, to

grasp something

imagination or brain-fabricated

belief.

more

substantial than flights of

He famously

articulated this effort as

the struggle to negotiate the relationship between “bedrock" (verifiable truth.

1 I

6?

GOING AWAY TO THINK geology— however firm

as firm as

shifting realm of ideas

and

and “paradox” (the

that might be)

ideologies).

As he put

it

I

am

here not only to evade for a while the clamor and

filth

apparatus but also to confront, immediately and directly

itself,

and into

devoid of

a juniper tree, a piece

humanly ascribed

all

To meet God or Medusa

in myself.

dream of

a hard

non-human world and

yet

of quartz,

and confusion of the

face to face, even

and brutal mysticism

somehow

survives

still

us.

in

want to be able

and see

as

it

even the categories of

means

if it

I

self

it

in

is

scientific

risking everything

which the naked

cultural

bones of

possible, the bare

it’s

a vulture, a spider,

qualities, anti- Kantian,

description. I

writing):

and fundamental, the bedrock which sustains

existence, the elemental to look at

it

chapter of his

in the first

book (one of the cornerstones of modern American nature

fickle,

human

merges with a Paradox and

intact, individual, separate.

bedrock. (7)

Of course,

anyone who reads some modern geology quickly learns that even

rock (within an appropriate time frame)

apparent firmness

is

permanent only

is

fluid

and impermanent — that

temporary beings such

to

So even Abbey’s geological metaphor for ultimate a

metaphor,

a

kind of truth

ultimate explanation of

we might

why and how

its

as ourselves.

truth, “bedrock,”

simply

is

begin to fathom, but not exactly the that the

discerning. In the canyonlands of southern Utah,

human mind might where the red

dream of

(fleshlike) rock

and vegetation

stands fully exposed to the observing eye. not clothed in

soil

commonly

struggled to appreciate

the

the case in Thoreau's Massachusetts,

meaning

of his

own

own

than his

considering the

living, aging,

human

is

existence in relation to this durable (and apparently

permanent) evidence of something at least

Abbey

as

subject

and

real

and

(all

to

in relation

essential,

something more

too soon) dying

self.

The

lasting

process of

something demonstrably

other

than

the self is at the very heart of the task of environmental literature.

The

quest to

know

a kind

of truth and to articulate

through meditations on geology finds

quest

its

this truth

prosaic apotheosis, in

can environmental writing, in such works as John McPhee's Annals World (1999) and Wallace Stegner's Angle succinct

reality

of

— and

Repose ( 1971 ). But

this

Ameri-

of the

Former

perhaps the most

and profound statement of and about the human fascination with the of rock may be Robinson

Jeffers’s

1937

poem “Oh,

Lovely Rock,” inspired

by an August 193b backpacking trip into the Ventana Creek gorge several miles

166

L

Oh, Lovely Slab

east of California's Big Sur coast

home

in

the

town of Carmel.

becomes, for the poet,

humans

seems, for

meditation on

a

on

change,

Jeffers’s

on stone quickly

Ironically this meditation mutability.

It’s

impossible,

it

to look at any part of nature, particularly stone, without

becoming intensely aware of the

knowing

what’s the value of

and about twenty miles south of

this,

we

fact that

are simply passing through. But

of being reminded of our mortality through the

observation of nature and through writing literature on this issue and reading

such literature?

And how

does the literary treatment of mutability

enhance our appreciation of life and our during our relatively short also,

lives?

ability to achieve ethical responsibility

would

I

like to

consider these questions, and

by telling the story of a recent expedition to find

consider

why

literary critics love the idea

Jeffers’s

‘

lovely rock," to

of finding “the precise

place’’

readers think of natural elements in Robinson Jeffers’s work, they

are likely to dwell

on such motifs

metaphors (especially the

and

first

last

what scholars have come

to call

of these) of durability and emotionless

“Rock

[in

of change

antithesis

human

Jeffers's

work]

is

species.

life,

initially,

of

— as a stable and

in direct contrast to the transience of the

the temporariness of the entire that

human

“inhumanism.” Readers might think,

the poet's profound emphasis on stone as the

phenomenon

— apparent

hawks, and stone

as the sea,

stoicism. All three are potentially images of fierce indifference to

sturdy

where

occurred and became manifest in language.

literary inspiration

When

somehow

human mind,

Robert Brophy has written

a consistently divine image, a mysterious,

chthonic presence and stoic endurance,” while “Mountains and headland are a

measure of the heavens and reminder of human

There

is

something

ironically

life's

calming about such reminders of our

in the beautiful passages in Jeffers's

for instance, of the conclusion of the 1927

is

the water, the

cliff is

fragility, as

poetry and prose where he articulates the

unexpected solace that comes from acknowledging

The water

precariousness” (io).

the rock,

poem

human

mutability. Think,

“Credo”:

come shocks and

flashes

of reality. The mind Passes, the eye closes, the spirit

The beauty of things was born

is

a passage;

before eyes and sufficient to

itself;

the

heart-breaking beauty Will remain

when

there

is

no heart

to break for

it

( Wild

Cod 48) I

167

GOING AWAY TO THINK The

human mind

frail

in contrast

is

— no

the sea, despite

and permanence

human mind

And

—

its

its

matter what

restless

its

"is

the rock.” Even water is

human,

temporary incarnation may

level,

the same chemical

movement,

inevitably an

is

as “shocks

and

flashes

sound even with no person there

— the

affirmatively

concerned, has

human

little

when

Will remain

to

to hear

it,

presence in the world,

no heart

is

do with creating or perceiving

beauty. Instead, if

inhumanist credo, our purpose on

simply to experience and contemplate our emotive

logic

of

this

no alternative

surely have replied

seems, as far as Jeffers was

it

is

to such pain.

And

selves,

—

is

our breaking

indeed, the pain that

perhaps the ultimate source of beauty,

Think of the famous

lines

at least as

in

“Does

in that perfect sky

of haiku poetry

.

ripe fruit never tall? .

.”

— the

Or do

which the

(283). Recall, as well, the

Hang

the boughs

comes living

humans know

permanent ripeness from the trees— “Is there no change of death asks Stevens.

all

from Wallace Stevens’s “Sunday Morning”

where he considers the tedium of a heavenly realm

we re

this planet

from contemplating human mutability — and the mutability of things

fixity

paradoxical

its

there

would

Jeffers

acknowledge the

is

phenomenon.

of reality.”

to

— there

water

be,

asked whether a tree falling in the forest would make a

If

it.”

for “the

emblem of

then there’s the wonderful conclusion of “Credo,” with

to break for

is

vastness and power, like the firmness of rock, reach the

claim that “heart-breaking beauty

hearts

merely a "passage,"

spirit is

and permanent than that which

on the most fundamental

always,

And

substantial

the water”

is

and even the human

with the solidity of the “cliff”— which

somehow more water

“passes,”

fruit

it.

(1915),

hang

in

in paradise?”

always heavy

fundamental aesthetic principle

Japanese concept of "aware”

— which

denotes the sweet

sadness of fleeting things, such as falling leaves in autumn, delicate cherry'

blossoms

in spring,

(the frog

and

its

and even the brief sound of

sound being

a frog

jumping into an old pond

transient, in contrast to the

pond

itself).

transience, without change, the concept of aware suggests, there can be

no yearning

The

no

beauty',

tor attachment.

final selection

included in Albert Gelpi's recent collection of

poetry and prose. The Wild God

of the

World,

is

Jeffers’s

the poet's statement “To the

American Humanist Association,” dated March

168

Without

25, 1951,

which contains the

Oh, Lovely Slab

following blunt assertion of

human

ephemerality:

human

a nearly infinitesimal part; the

is

of nature, but

a part

race will cease after a while and leave

but the great splendors of nature

trace,

“Man

will

go on” (201).

I

love the confident

suggestion here that humanity will ultimately “leave no trace," despite

we do

to

torment each other and diminish the

planet's ecosystems

from the detached perspective of evolutionary time,

it

or not individual backpackers leave their traces on the

run the wild issue

is

will take

the kind of

back the

trail

— the

trail, will

no

all

that

— viewed

may not matter whether trail,

because in the long

take back everything. What's really at

kind of planet

— we get to experience as

long as

our kind remains.

The

next few lines

in the 1951

statement (written two years following the

publication of Aldo Leopold's landmark articulation of

A

in

“The Land

Ethic"

Sand County Almanac) could serve as manifesto for the entire genre of

environmental

literature. Jeffers says that despite

our puniness and inevitable

extinction,

most of our time and energy are though

and

I

think

it

necessarily spent

on human

affairs;

should be minimized; but for philosophy, which

for contemplation,

which can be

a sort

of worship.

1

is

that can't be prevented,

an endless search of truth,

would suggest

beauty of the earth and the outer universe, the divine “nature of things," object. Certainly

It

seems to

heart of

it is

me

more ennobling.

It is

that the

is

a

immense

more rewarding

a source of strength; the other a distraction. (201)

that this statement about the goal of philosophy goes to the

Jeffers’s so-called

inhumanism and

also reveals

some of

the basic

motivations of the larger genre of writing about humans within the context

of the more-than-human world.

Why

might

it

be a good idea for humans to

Who

contemplate the “immense beauty of the earth and the outer universe”? cares if such contemplation might be “ennobling" for the people it,

as writers or readers?

to be

one of the central

least in

about

phrase “source of strength" explains what

issues in

contemporary environmental

North America. Something about the

— phenomena

to those

The

that are

who engage

more durable than

phenomena, connects us

to them,

act of

I

in

take

literature, at

observing— and writing

ourselves places us in relation

makes us part of them and them part

of us. So much of Jeffers’s work, especially when he refers to natural phenomena

I

169

GOING AWAY TO THINK such as rocks and hawks and the beings But,

seems sneeringly scornful of human

sea,

— “I’d sooner, except the penalties,

on

deeper emotional

a

level,

what's going on

with phenomena that seem more fellow humans. This

is

is

than

hawk” ( Wild God 49).

the poet's effort to identify

and

lasting, noble,

a

real

than himself and his

what one finds when inspecting more recent American

writing about nature as well

— as

we

see

when examining

and John Calderazzo, looking

Russell Sanders

man

a

kill

the

work of Scott

at their geological

nature writing

and considering how these contemporary writers have taken on

a

somewhat

different view of geological mutability.

Essential to the idea of reality in environmental literature

the con-

— the

nearby the here and now. In many ways, the idea of the

become one

of the favorite ideas of contemporary environmentalism,

cept of the local has

is

local

an idea that scholars routinely trace back to Henry David Thoreau. travelled a

good deal

pages of Walden

in

— and

Concord"

(4),

Thoreau

states cryptically in the

eventually he concludes his famous

have

“I

opening

tome by quoting

William Habbington’s paradoxical seventeenth-century admonition not to

and wade, but

travel far

(320,

my

italics).

to look

inward and “be

And

local social

and environmental activism

in self-perpetuation

“government by by

life

would be

exist,

Bioregional life”

stickers

that spearheaded a in

new

response to the feeling

than in achieving healthy relations between communities

and the places where they

Some

bumper

was ineffectual and more interested

that big government, like big corporations,

Life:

/lomc-cosmography”

related to this slogan, in the

movement

1980s, “bioregionalism” became a political

by

in

Environmentalists are famous for sporting

declaring “Think Globally Act Locally."

enthusiasm for

Expert

Jim Dodge,

Theory and

in his

40

titled “Living

Practice,” defined bioregionalism as

and declared that “If you

at least

1990 manifesto

billion times better

can’t

imagine that government

than government by the Reagan

administration, or Mobil Oil. or any other distant powerful monolith, then

your heart

is

probably no bigger than a prune

Kentucky author Wendell Berry made of bioregionalism: “Love

170

|

is

a

pit” (231).

Around

the

same

time,

statement that explained the core logic

never abstract,

"

he wrote

in his

1989 essay “Word

Ok

and

“

Flesh.

It

Lovely Slab

does not adhere to the universe or the planet or the nation or the

institution or the profession, but to the singular sparrows of the street, the

of the

field''

lilies

(200).

Dodge and Berry emphasize

the

of localism

politics

their statements,

in

arguing that good government must function through an awareness of what's

going on

on the

in specific places

planet. Others, such as cultural critic Lucy

Lippard, in her 1997 book The Lure of the Society,

adopt

a

more detached and

ironic

contemporary American society Lippard The

lure of the local

our

spiritual legacies.

is

view of the concept of the

It

is

the geographical

component of the

to a prevailing alienation.

many who have

local in

writes:

the pull of place that operates on each of

somewhere, one antidote attractive to

Local: Senses o f Place in a Multicentered

.

.

never really experienced

us,

exposing our politics and

psychological need to belong

These days the notion of the

.

who may

it,

or

may not be

local

is

willing to

take the responsibility and study the local knowledge that distinguishes every place from every

other place. (7)

In a strange way, as Lippard suggests in the very title the Local,

of her work. The Lure

our multicentered, placeless culture (think of

travel

of

writer Pico

recent book The Global Soul [2000]) has actually fostered an intensified

Iyer’s

enthusiasm

for, a need for, local

might argue that

this sort

knowledge and

of experience

is

a sense

of local experience.

almost unattainable for those

One who

dwell in cyberspace and in the generic urban wilderness of strip malls and

highways. It

seems to

me

that, at this

time in history

when

there

is

such a hunger for

the local, for contact with something “real” and lasting, there could well be a

resurgence of interest

the pull toward something

mobile, than the

work of

in the

human

journal, in Jeffers’s work,

is

a poet like

more meaningful and nothing

new— we

and certainly

in

Robinson

Jeffers.

Obviously,

durable, less transitory and

see this impulse in Thorcau's

Edward Abbey’s

effort to navigate

between “bedrock and paradox” (between hard stone and the mirages of the mind)

in Desert Solitaire

and

his

many other works. But Robinson

Jeffers

remains

the quintessential voice of the meaning of stone in American environmental

I

171

GOING AWAY TO THINK perhaps

literature,

in

American

Stones of the Sur, Jeffers scholar

Jeffers’ feeling

of the

literature altogether. In his introduction to

James Karman writes:

of kinship with the granite on Carmel Point served

coast.

The

ocean’s ceaseless rhythm, the cries of the gulls and other shorebirds, the scent of

seaweed and wildflowers, the fog-bound all

as the basis for his love

this

became

infinitely precious to

chill

night

air,

the

moon

him, far more important

than the cramped, agitated, and transient world of

human

rising over the

in its

permanence and majesty

Indeed, a key aspect of the

affairs.

awakening that occurred while he was building Tor House was the realization context of geological time,

Much of home

Jeffers’s

human

life is

“stone work"

ephemeral. (14-

(my

mountains

that,

within the

15)

Carmel

phrase), both his building of his

(Tor House) from local California granite and his literary reflections on

meaning of stone, emphasizes the immediacy and vividness of this

the

phenomenon

its

Karman

Jeffers, as

Poet oj California,

heaviness,

its

physical

and

suggests in his description of Tor

House

yet even

in Robinson Jejfers:

experienced a push-pull tension between the local and the

global that seems akin to the current impulse in

Karman, the house was

to

And

intellectual weight.

natural

built

American

culture.

between 1920 and 1925 from

According

“local granite

boulders” (48), but using a design from a Tudor barn in Surrey, England, and

with far-flung artifacts (stones, carvings,

from the

as far

away

as

Mount

Vesuvius,

American Midwest embedded

The come

tiles, fossils,

Angkor Wat,

and even an arrowhead)

the Great Wall of China, and

in the walls of the

tower (49-51).

tensions between permanence and transience, local and global, be-

particularly poignant

when we consider

famous poem “Oh,

Jeffers’s

Lovely Rock” in the context of the present-day American adoration of stone. Until recently,

it

had never occurred to

me

that there

is,

at the

beginning of the

twenty- first century, an enormous global trade in stone,

much

way from the

— and

far corners

of the earth to the United States

of

of

it

or

less in

traveling

first

to Italy to be cut into

eight-hundred-pound

thickness (called “slabs") and then most of

|

slate

it

will

it

become

its

weighing

Colombia and Indonesia and Zimbabwe,

again en route to North America, where

172

making

I’m not talking

about pebbles, but rather huge blocks of granite and marble and several tons each, quarried in

it

slices

all

an inch

crossing the ocean

floors

and walls and

Oh, Lovely Slab

kitchen counters.

The

ironies of this

explosion, are multiple.

Americans has caused

we yearn

for

in

and we

situate this feeling

emblem of longevity

of solid ground

will

of hand known

move as

11

“home

equity',”

which

1990s became

in the

homes and pay

home improvements, now

for the purpose of purchasing

some ultimate

(in

sense)

pick

will live to

an age

1

a

common way for

off credit-card debt or cover

means of creating

serves as a

stone— something

Third, even

real.

North America — remember,

when people

solid

come from Reno, Nevada, on

abundant white, pink, and golden granite — even

and heavy and

live in

of the Sierra Nevada range, John Muir’s famous “range of is

we

until

our

to 12 times in a lifetime). Second, the financial sleight

to “refinance” their

the daunting costs of

in

to

an average of 6.6 years (using information

in

from www.census.gov suggesting that the average American

money

— so

something cold and hard to stand on, to prepare our food on,

up and move to another home

home owners

commercial

sense of dislocatedness

in us a spiritual malaise, a

order to appreciate the short-lived

of 77.6 and

this

mobility of contemporary

the geographical

First,

give us the sense of placedness,

homes

contemporary stonework,

stony parts of

the eastern slope

light,”

where there

in places like Reno,

it

is

cheaper for homeowners to purchase granite and other building materials that have been mined

in

the Third World, shipped to Italy for

initial cutting,

and

then shipped to the United States for warehousing, sale to consumers, and “fabrication” (refinement for

home

use).

And

fourth, the notion that

ultimate locus of the local (the physical material

we work

in our yards or

Americans, a symbol of

till

fixity

we

pull

stone,

the

from the ground when

our farmlands), has increasingly become, for many

and

local reality that

we procure from

distant

reaches

of the globe. So, in case this hadn't occurred to you,

am

I

perience— as someone concurrently going through and reading Robinson

Jeffers’s

work.

When

I

writing from personal exa

home-remodeling process

was working on the

initial

draft

of a project on the Yucca Mountain proposed nuclear-waste repository southern Nevada,

it

occurred to

on the long-anticipated

my wife,

Susie,

retrofitting of our

and

me

Reno home

that

we should embark

for the dual purposes

of increasing energy efficiency and aesthetic enhancement. Since we city'

where home values have

essentially

doubled

in

in the past

four years,

I

live in a

we were

>73

GOING AWAY TO THINK home (which we bought

able to refinance our

amount of our previous mortgage. The

2001)

in

in

2005

for twice the

completed the plans for our

architects

kitchen before finishing plans for the improvement ot our passive solar walls

and the

roof,

where photovoltaic panels

up working on the kitchen approximately

a

dozen businesses

and marble, each with

I

on the this,

a large

half-expected

someone

beautiful title of

but

my

in

stroll

in the fall

Reno

my

of 2005. Susie and

visited

1

ot stone slabs, almost like meat

among

the future floors and counter-

“Oh,

tavorite Jeffers

be placed, so we ended

specializing in imported granite

hill

to exclaim,

carried the phrase in

I

" 1

warehouse

Watching homeowners

lockers.

tops,

“Phase

as

will eventually

—a

lovely slab!”

No one

poem.

perverse twist

ever actually said

head throughout the entire process ot

selecting stone tor our remodeling project: “Oh, lovely slab.”

With pounding and sawing reverberating

poem

the Jeffers

in the

context ot this

flourishing global trade in stone.

Any

new

in

reality

about a year before

(volume

8,

number

my renewed

1,

most

on

on

Jeffers

attention to the poem:

my own

the

George Hart compares

Jeffers’s

purposes, Robert Kafka provides a detailed gloss

Garth and Garth's friend Lloyd

Tevis, the experience that inspired

Rock.” Jeffers’s

poem

We stayed up the

begins as follows:

the night in the pathless gorge of Ventana Creek, east fork.

rock walls and the mountain ridges hung forest on forest

above our heads, maple and redwood. Laurel, oak,

madrone, up to the high and slender Santa Lucian

that stare

Of slide-rock

174

in

ShaunAnne Tangncy

August 1936 hike up the east fork ot Ventana Creek with

Jeffers’s

firs

and geology

work with the writing of Kenneth Rexroth and Gary Snyder, and

excitingly, for

The

to me, at least) ot a

dated Spring 2004) that appeared

discusses the idea ot “catastrophic geology," geological

(new

reread

I

discussion ot “Oh, Lovely Rock” should

also occur in the context ot the excellent articles

issue of Jejfers Studies

the background,

up the cataracts

to the star-color precipices. (Wild

God

16?)

his

son

“Oh, Lovely

Oh, Lovely Slab

As Kafka

reveals in his precise written interview with Lloyd Tevis (conducted

in the fall

of 1997 some sixty-one years following the actual experience), the

three hikers began on the Pine Ridge Trail, which traverses the southerly wall of the Big Sur River

Canyon, aspiring

to climb the

Double Cone or the

"Double Ventana Cone,” and then eventually dropped down into the Ventana

Creek gorge and made

their

way through the low creek waters of late summer.

They were prevented from reaching

Double Cone by the steep

the

“cataract

of rock” and cumulus clouds forming overhead, perhaps presaging a

Although they may have encountered other hikers on the

flood.

they were by themselves find

when

initial trail,

they turned north into the “pathless gorge.”

I

important, on rereading the poem, to note that the poet and his young

it

companions, in the narrative of

have selected such an isolated route

this text,

for their trip, a place off the beaten path. In order to contemplate “truth”

the

flash

“immense beauty” of the

humans — so wrote

poem

of this

is

planet,

the poet in

best to avoid the distraction of other

it’s

March

1951.

And

yet

one of the

the poet’s contemplation of his sons (Garth,

during the Ventana Creek walk; and Donnan, rock of the nearby

cliffs

— the

fact that the

important to the meaning of the poem,

and

who was

speaker

is

crucial tropes

who was

present

not) and the personified

not entirely alone

is

very

think, emphasizing relationships rather

1

than solitude.

The poem of

Jeffers's

It is

begins with the phrase

stone works, the

poem

“We

stayed"

— ironic because, like so many

concludes with a meditation on mutability

ironic for us to think of ourselves as staying anywhere, even for a brief spell

of time.

1

am

struck, too,

by the verb used to describe the relationship between

various kinds of trees and the “rock walls and mountain ridges”; Jeffers us the maple, redwood, laurel, oak, madrone,

Lucian

firs”

are hung

on the

up the cataracts

Of slide-rock

imbued with

upper

cliffs

The

is

a

humans who

mutable, portable, prone to

resemble the seemingly immortal

lengthy second stanza of the

poem

The

kind of sentience and “stare

to the star-color precipices."

“slide-rock” contrasts strangely with the that even stone

and — up high — “slender Santa

rock, a conspicuously precarious state of being.

trees (and later the rock itself) are

tells

slide,

stay

The

reference to

the night, suggesting

despite the fact that the

stars.

reads as follows:

I

17s

GOING AWAY TO THINK We Past midnight only

On

laid a clutch

the

The Lighted

on

gravel

and kept

a

camp-fire for warmth.

little

1

lay

two or three coals glowed red

in the

cooling darkness;

of dead bay-leaves

ember ends and

felted dry sticks across

them and

lay

down

again.

revived flame

my sleeping son’s

face

and

his

companion’s, and the vertical face

of the great gorge-wall Across the stream. Light leaves overhead danced trunks were seen:

two or three slanting seams

in

Smooth-polished by the endless naked rock

Seeing rock for the

the

fire’s

breath, tree-

was the rock wall

it

That fascinated my eyes and mind. Nothing

lichen, pure

in

first

it.

attrition

... as if

time.

As

strange: light-gray diorite w'ith

if

I

I

of slides and floods, no fern nor

w'ere

were seeing through the flame-lit

surface into the real and bodily

And Tell

living rock.

Nothing strange

you how strange: the loveliness: this fate

Outside our shall die,

fates. It is

and

my

...

I

cannot

silent passion, the

deep nobility and childlike

going on here in the mountain like a grave smiling child.

boys

Will live and die, our world will go on through

and

And

That

its

rapid agonies of change

discovery'; this age will die.

wolves have howled

will

1

in the

snow around

a

new Bethlehem:

this rock

be here, grave, earnest, not passive: the energies

are

its

atoms

many packed

be bearing the whole mountain above: and

will still

1

centuries ago.

Felt its intense reality

with love and wonder, this lonely rock. (163)

This passage begins with the speaker and his companions coming into physical contact with

little

pieces of stone (although Garth Jeffers later noted

that his father “always had trouble sleeping

spent most of the night

in the

on the ground" and probably

gorge sitting near the

scrap of paper [Kafka 36]), and the speaker of the wall with his “fascinated

between the

176

|

fleeting

.

.

.

human

fire

poem

eyes and mind" before he

is

and scribbling on

a

later grasps the rock

forced to distinguish

realm that “will go on through

its

rapid agonies

Oh, Lovely Slab

of change and discover)

and the monumental energy of the stone's seething

''

atoms “bearing the whole mountain above.' particularly intrigued, as

who accompany

I

I

suppose most readers

is

be

am, by the analogies suggested between the children

the poet (actually, as Kafka explains. Garth and Lloyd were in

and the rock wall that the

their early twenties at the time of the 1936 hike)

poet

will

studying— he

refers to the “childlike loveliness''

of the rock, he describes

the vast geological fate of the stone as a “grave smiling child." and he concludes

by using a phrase that requires a readerly double take— we expect repeat the

title

“lovely rock,” but instead the final

Jeffers to

words of the poem are

“this

lonely rock," emphasizing not the rock's beauty but the poet's perception that it is

and that

“living"

experiences relationships (and the lack thereof) and

it

corresponding emotions.

While some might argue

inhumanism

that

would rather

kill

sensitive feelings to a rock wall in a

that Jeffers revels in a kind of stony

man

a

poem

than

that says

except that they are mortal and ephemeral,

going on

in

“Oh, Lovely Rock," and

with the emotions caused by

loss

it

the

lovely

in

it

he

rock, the living rock,

what

is

says, “its intense reality

about

his

think something else

of the nonhuman, lonely

own is

boys

actually

coming to terms Rather than

change.

describing

it

humanizes

Jeffers delicately

rock throughout this poem, adopting

fashion and reaching with his

mind

to feel, as

with love and wonder." Actually, what he says in the is:

“and

with love and wonder,

the local rock from the wilderness near his also

that attributes

phenomenon of stone and

peculiar and astonishing final sentence Felt its intense reality

little

and death — caused by

and the

literally a fatherly

1

hawk and

has everything to do with

simply pulling back from the inhuman as the ultimate other, the essence

a

I

many packed

this lonely rock.”

home

a part

of

his

centuries ago

As he makes

own

family,

he

performs an imaginative leap and becomes, perhaps, the entire geological

history of this place, experiencing the “intense reality" of this particular rock in the

Ventana Creek gorge (the

packing

down, from above), rock which

reality is

of an entire mountain bearing down, “younger" (more childlike) than the

rock that was pushed up from the earth earlier in geological time, subjected to the elements, and ultimately weathered into gravel.

I

1

77

GOING AWAY TO THINK By declaring

drawing geology into himself of his ephemerality, even live

and

die.”

by projecting humanness onto

this affinity for rock,

But

as

seems to reach toward

Jeffers

he states

explicitly, “1 shall die,

a

and

and by

it

transcendence

my

Will

boys

transcendence of mortality through association with

this

stone depends on a particular notion of stone that predates contemporary

environmental writing and the contemporary stone trade. For still

stone

is

the locus of the local and the locus of a kind of permanence: as he puts

it

toward the end of "Oh, Lovely Rock,” not passive.” This rock will

finally

of his

hundred

bottom" (45)

face at the

tells

own

visits to

the gorge in

encountering during the more recent

perfectly vertical rock wall, several

smoothed

be here, grave, earnest,

be here.

Robert Kafka

In his recent article,

1997 1998, and 1999,

“this rock will

Jeffers,

feet high

— perhaps

.

.

with an erosion-

.

lovely rock.

Jeffers’s

trip "a

Unless

times change dramatically and California rock becomes as cheap as the rock in

Mexico, Turkey, Spain, or Brazil and finds office walls

Jeffers’s lovely

type of plutonic rock

such stone

Bill

Selby

large crystals that

is

is

that

in

2005 alone — this

seemed

Jeffers

figure

imaginatively to graft

own human

human

Briefly now. I’d like to

in

stone

its

the granites, marbles, 3

million tons of

slabs.

fixity'

ephemerality

and sublimity

— onto

which he

—

its

tried

characteristics (childlike beauty', living energy,

means of coming

loneliness), perhaps as a

in place.

comes from www.stoneworld.com, the

to prize his lovely rock for

contrast to his

remain

probably diorite, a

it’s

among

not

of the primary trade journal for dealers

awesome

likely to

most prized by dealers who imported more than

slates

site

w ith

is

rock that Kafka confirmed in an interview

with Santa Monica College professor

Web

carved up and spread along the

of corporate Tokyo or Beijing, the rock

Another thing about

and

itself

compare

to terms with his

Jeffers’s fascination w'ith

own

mortality.

stone with a few

examples of contemporary environmental writing. Lest

it

seem

that meditations

irrelevant to the jaded 1

on mortality are the product of distant

and edgy postmodern perspective,

I

must confess

eras,

that

detect a persistent philosophical and psychological strand in contemporary'

American writing about humans and nature of life and death, brevity and longevity

178

|

I

that explores these timeless issues

find myself thinking, for instance, of

Oh, Lovely Slab

Oregon poet and

essayist

John Daniel's moving piece of prose, “Some Mortal

Speculations,” from his 1992 collection The Trail Home: Nature, Imagination, and

own

American West, in which he grapples with his

the

“discontent with mortality”

(197), try ing to take solace in the “grandeur in the prospect oi evolutionary

time" but resisting “abstract consolation" (198) in favor of what he

happen

things, things that in

memory and

age of

can see and turn slowly

I

ten years younger than Jeffers was

when he

crafted “Oh,

Lovely Rock,” Daniel finds himsell “looking] carefully at things that cause everything [he] see[s]

Another

“smaller

see again, in imagination’s second light” (199). Writing at the

some

forty,

close in front of me, things

calls

is

live,

be-

hieroglyphic of what [he] might become" (20 1).

on human mutability

particularly relevant meditation

is

Indiana

writer Scott Russell Sanders's '“Cloud Crossing,” included in his 1987 collection

A

Paradise oj Bombs.

This essay recounts a 1978 hike up Hardesty Mountain

southeast of Eugene, Oregon,

and carrying

his infant

son on

when

the author was thirty-three years old

his back.

And

“Clouds are temporary creatures.

The

so

is

you take the long entropic view of things” Jesse reaches out

along the

trail,

revealed. “Looking

I

see that

mountain

it is

is

is

more

the Milky Way, for that matter, (49). Later in the narrative,

of the backpack and pulls

Sanders

essay begins with the sentences,

a

if

when

handful of moss from the rock

compelled to focus more intently on what has been

closely at the rockface," he writes,

crumbling beneath roots and weather, sloughing away

like old skin.

The

entire

migrating, not so swiftly as the clouds, but just as surely, heading grain by grain

to the sea. (53)

In the final line of the essay, as the small child looks out the author's car and shouts

“Moon

hinting at the universal

human

[

.

.

.

]

moon, moon,” the narrator seems

desire to reach

Jeffers’s

predominant emphasis on the

of stone, Sanders seems to appreciate that

the

to be

beyond ourselves — to grasp our

commonality with clouds and mountains, with the moon and Robinson

window of

relative fixity

fact that

all

things,

mutate and migrate. Mortality' loves company, you might

say.

But unlike

stars.

and durability

even mountains,

There

is

a sense oi

“calm” in Jesse’s backseat “babbling” and in the author’s prose (57).

My

final

example of recent environmental writing on the mutability

I

*79

GOING AWAY TO THINK ropos comes from Colorado essayist John Calderazzo’s Fire: Volcanoes

Our

and

Inner

The opening

Lives.

2004 volume.

of Calderazzo’s prologue

lines

reveal the relevance of this entire project to the focus of

He

"Rock moves.

writes:

small, through far

below

essays

it”

deep time and

(v).

And

becomes

story of the time,

fast

my

discussion here.

the time, everywhere, in big ways and

ail

forward, on the surface of the earth and

the personal motivation for undertaking this series of

clear at the

when he was

malignant melanoma on

how

moves

on volcanoes throughout the world and

significance

a

It

Rising

and psychological

their cultural

end of the prologue when the author

He

the

dermatologist discovered

in his thirties, that a

his back.

tells

concludes his opening explanation of

he became fascinated with volcanoes by describing the comfort he came

to feel while “meditating about long-term geothermal forces, the sliding of

continent-sized plates, currents of stone welling up from the depths of the planet over millions of years.

on the earth was

Compared

so fleeting. Volcanoes

to

all

he acknowledges,

that,”

me

were helping

"my time

find solace in the liquid

nature of rock, in the impermanent nature of everything, including me” (xviixviii).

For Calderazzo,

Andy Goldsworthy,

it

is

startling

and emulate the

beautiful) to perceive

2004

reassuring to recognize the transience of

and unsettling (and instability

film Andy Goldsworthy Rivers and Tides: :

stability

of stone, and

that really

Much

all

things

from the human to the geological, while for other thinkers, such

in nature,

artist

it is

when you

undermines

of

what

I’ve

my

“We

of stone,

set so

find that stone itself

sense of what

is

at the

as

is

same time

he states

much by our actually fluid

here to stay and what

as

in the

idea of the

and

liquid,

isn't.”

been talking about, the use of the poetic and narrative

imagination to explore the

relation

between writers and

their apparently distant

subject matter (rocks, volcanoes, celestial objects, and so forth), demonstrates

what philosopher Anna

book

Being Human:

Ethics,

L.

Peterson

Environment, and

mainstream. Western notions of “Asian, Native American,

humanity

as

calls

Our

human

“relational

selves”

Place in the World.

objectivity,

and feminist approaches

in

In contrast with

Peterson argues that

[to objectivity']

shaped and even defined by relations to

her 2001

all

portray'

a host of other beings,

including people, animals, plants, and natural processes.” She argues that the

Western emphasis on “autonomy” (on detached

180

|

objectivity) "is ideological

Oh, Lovely Slab

reinforcing ecological, political, and economic

in a particularly insidious way,

practices that marginalize

Although there

is

nothing explicitly addressing the pressing contemporary

of environmental

issues

and exploit other persons and other species" (205).

justice

and conservation

in

the examples

here of relational thinking in the work of Edwards, Thoreau, Daniel, Sanders, and Calderazzo,

I

do believe

imagination demonstrated in this literature

— the

of the very detachment underlies

many of

fair to

Copland Morris argues

offered

Jeffers,

Abbey,

a prelude to the breaking

is

pretense of autonomy, as Peterson puts

Jeffers's shifting

that

've

I

suggest that the type of

we

the social and ecological problems

today In his 1991 study of

on the

it's

what we

social

down

— that

it

world

face in the

voice in “Oh, Lovely Rock," David

find in the

poem

is

not only a reflection

poet’s relationship with stone, but a testing of the relation

between the

language of scientific detachment and that of emotional connection: “The

language of geology and the language of feeling can both apply," he writes his description

of the poem, “but each alone

is

in

too limited" (120). For Morris,

what's significant about the language of “Oh, Lovely Rock" (and Jeffers’s other

writing in the inhumanist vein)

is its

paradoxical struggle to achieve a balance

between appreciation of genuine, autonomous

He concludes:

“

otherness

and

its

projection of

submit that knowing away from

onto that which

is

other.

and beyond ourselves

is

the necessary precondition for any sane environmental

feeling

policy, as well as the

I

very state of sanity itself "

(1

21)

In the era of postmodern narrative and criticism, as authors like

the world beyond the

mind — or beyond

— has become troublingly (and comically)

complicated. Take

certainly intimate, the ability to

human

fabrication

know

Karen Tei Yamashita’s 1990 novel. Through

the

Arc of the Rain

Forest, in

appears as a motif, as a case in point. Yamashita suggests that

technology and global stone

when

The Matacao,

Edward Abbey

which stone

in this age of

high

movement of commodities, we may think we're looking at

we're really seeing plastic. At one point, she writes: scientists observed,

paralleling the

had been formed for the most part within the

development of the more

common

forms of

plastic,

last

century,

polyurethane and

Styrofoam. Enormous landfills of nonbiodegradable material buried under virtually every

populated part of the Earth had undergone tremendous pressure, pushed ever farther into the lower layers of the Earth’s mantle.

The

liquid deposits

of the molten mass had been squeezed

|

181

GOING AWAY TO THINK through underground veins to virgin areas of the Earth.

One

on Earth, got

areas

last virgin

that,

is

David Morris puts in the

longer (as

human and

the difference between what’s

work

along the lines of

we can no

clarion cry in The End of Nature,

novel, places the

Forest, being

one of the

(202)

plenty.

of the implications here

ourselves,” as

The Amazon

we

ever could) discern

what’s “away from and beyond

Ursula Heise,

it.

if

McKibben's 1989

Bill

in

her study of Yamashita’s

context of multinational commerce, showing

how

globalization interferes, too, with our efforts to engage with “pristine nature,”

with something that

real insofar as

is

it

originates

beyond human construction.

Concerning Yamashita’s wry presentation of postmodern geology, Heise The new raw though

“natural”

material here turns out to be artificial and a by-product of industrial garbage,

has been transformed by geological processes in such a

it

states:

and

seem no longer

“artificial"

way

that the very terms

Moreover, what looked

to apply.

initially like a

pristine rainforest locale violated by the advent of multinationals turns out to have

invaded by globalization long before and

masquerading

as local rock.

become meaningless. plastic

.

.

.

By global

The

local

in a

much more

plastic that

is

insidious fashion, by global plastic

local rock, since

bedrock that reveals

been

itself to

the distinction

be

at the

itself

same time

has

global

waste functions as a striking trope for the kind of deterritorialization John Tomlinson

analyzes, the penetration of the local by the global that leads to the loosening of ties

between

culture and geography. But Yamashita takes the idea of deterritorialization one step further

than Tomlinson artificial at

the

in that

same

she describes specifically the local natural environment as global and

time.

A

landscape where digging into the

soil leads

not to rock or roots

but polymer makes implausible any return to nature via the immersion into the local of the kind envisioned by

many

environmentalist writers.

The

native soil itself

is

deterri tonal ized in

Yamashita’s vision. (“Local Rock" 13s)

The

psychological and political value of such

deterritorialization,

(and perhaps exaggerated) through the voice of to

provoke

real

and what

ourselves) I

in

when

a literary artist,

is

processed

that

it

helps

audiences a questioning of the effects of losing a sense of what is

artificial,

of

is

where things come from, of where things (including

belong. Just as Jeffers in

“Oh, Lovely Rock” curiously

deterritorializes (it

can use the term metaphorically) permanence and transience, by making the

human

speaker relatively permanent (“and

the lovely rock relatively childlike

182

|

I,

many packed

and emotionally

centuries ago”) and

delicate (“this lonely rock”),

Oh, Lovely Slab

the postmodern writer of globalization intensifies readers' consciousness of relationships, of what belongs where.

Another striking work of postmodern ecocriticism Ecosublime: Environmental

Lee Rozelle’s

is

new book

Awe and Terror from New World to Oddworld (2005),

he explores the continuing significance

— and

in

which

the curious permutations

of

the aesthetic concept of the sublime in twenty-first-century American culture.

The sublime

is

the perspective that underlies

much

writers. Albert Gclpi, in his introduction to The Wild

sublimity of things.

He

is

as

goes so far

the World,

means the

really

the poet of the sublime without peer in American

book, makes the rather postmodern (and,

no

in its

affective difference

between the

and the rhetorical sublime; both have the power

to bring the

way, optimistic) assertion that “there

natural sublime

God of

of 'the beauty of things' often, but he

letters" (14). Rozelle, in his

own

work

mentioned above by contemporary environmental

well as the writings I've

as to say, “Jeffers speaks

oi Jeffers's stone

is

viewer, reader, or player to heightened awareness of real natural environments.

Both can promote advocacy.

My work,"

he explains, “thus argues that mountain

peaks, ozone holes, books, DVDs, advertisements, and even video potential to spark environmental

awe and

terror" (3).

games have the

takes particular kinds of

It

natural experiences to achieve this extraordinary combination of joyous

mortal terror

— for instance, gazing at an exquisite cliff in

on the cover of

Rozelle’s

“Oh, Lovely Rock").

And

book) or

in the

Ventana Creek gorge

us

— in

human

In April

reflections

let

it

depicted in

(as

accepts the inevitable all

things), evokes in

“Yes, but not yet.” Yes

us hold onto this beauty just a

of 2006, two months after

on “Oh, Lovely Rock”

ideas about stone

when

beings (and perhaps of

most instances — the response,

subject to change. But

(as pictured

the careful depiction of beauty and degradation that

occurs so often in environmental literature, even mortality or change of

Yosemite

awe and

in the

I

little

—

things are

all

bit longer.

had offered

my

preliminary

context of contemporary American

and the current movement

in

environmental literature and

ecocriticism as the opening talk at the annual Robinson Jeffers Association

Conference

(to an audience that consisted

of

all

the great Jeffers scholars,

from Robert Brophy and James Karman to Tim Hunt and Robert

Zaller), an

I

18?

GOING AWAY TO THINK from Robert Kafka arrived by

invitation

on

scholars

Creek

in

could

I

a three-day

order to

refuse?

backpacking

I

group of

like to join a

trip into the still-pathless

gorge of Ventana

How

measure, and document the “lovely rock."

see, touch,

And

would

e-mail:

yet why did

I

feel this

Years ago, as a graduate student in

urge to go to the rock

New

England,

1

itself?

found myself reading

which the author had traveled to

a study of Charles Olson’s Maximus Poems, in

Olson’s Gloucester, Massachusetts, in order to retrace the very footsteps of the poet's persona, Maximus, along the weathered pavement of the old

thought to myself that

my

devote I

would

life

would never be the

Why

where

life

I

who would

sort of literary scholar

so singlemindedly to the study of another’s

actually desire to be in the place

into words.

Why

1

city.

and ideas that

that writer’s ideas erupted

walk the streets of Dublin with Joyce’s Stephen Daedalus?

peer through the hazy

veil

of waterfalls

in

Yosemite with the ghost of

John Muir?

And yet, when had a spare afternoon during my years I

found myself driving north to Concord, to bask

Walden Pond.

sunlight at

much more than

Later, after

moving

a whisper about granite

toward Yosemite,

a

cliffs

in

in the red

to Reno,

Providence,

often

I

and golden autumn

Nevada,

and searing blue

it

wouldn’t take

skies to spur

me

three-hour drive to the south. After receiving Rob's terse

invitation to join the scholarly search for “the rock."

by Susie, and within hours

we had

1

immediately ran the idea

signed up for the trip

some

three

months

hence.

Any good important

from the the

traveler (or travel writer)

as the journey’s destination.

Pfeiffer Big

knows

As the

,

had walked into the same woods, of the backpack on

my

1

to the day after

reminded myself

as

at

nine in

Robinson

Jeffers

to savor the journey

— the

shoulders, the mingling smells of oak and pine,

the sizzling sweat after hours of walking,

hot head and frigid feet

is

of us began our day-long walk

Sur State Park into the Ventana Wilderness

morning on August 4 some seventy years

strain

six

that the journey itself

when we reached

and eventually the sharp contrast of the Big Sur River and

waded

across,

nearing the northward turn up Ventana Creek.

Our

party consisted of Jeffers scholar Robert Kafka, his son

had joined the

184

|

Gene (who

earlier trips to find the lovely rock as a high-school student

and

Oh, Lovely Slab

earlier in the

summer had graduated from Colby College with majors

and English), Tor House docent and grandson (son of Donnan) Lindsay It

John Courtney

Jeffers enthusiast Jeffers,

my

the Ventana

filled) trail to

Trail,

Jeffers’s

and me.

wife, Susie Bender,

took us seven hours of steady plodding up the Pine Ridge

strenuously steep (and poison-oak

in physics

down

the

Campground on

the Big Sur River, half a mile west on the Big Sur, and then north up Ventana

Creek for

(I

should say through the Ventana, for

more than an hour)

we

sloshed upstream in the creek

to reach our campsite at

on the western side of the

creek,

Ladybug

made breathtaking by

Flats, a small rise

the towering cathedral

of sequoia sempervirens arching over the tarps, where we would sleep for two nights

and enjoy our arboreal

tiny

human meals and

lives.

Even during the

first day’s

walk,

drama of age and youth, vigor and the

trail

conversations for a mere fraction of their

the

first

time

I

found myself riveted by the

frailty,

displayed by our group.

we ventured down toward

Jeffcrsian

When we

lost

the Big Sur River, Susie twisted

her ankle under the weight of her heavy backpack, and

I

could see the face of

Rob, our leader, twist with concern for Susie's health and for the fulfillment of

our mission to reach the rock. Swept up in the furious desire to make contact with the actual rock that had inspired the for

poem

that had inspired

months on the meaning of rock and words about

heavy pack to the back of

my own

large pack

rock,

and hiked

I

me

strapped Susie’s

for three hours thus

laden, unable to imagine myself as anything other than a mortal being,

would eventually reach

my physical

limits

and

collapse.

I

to reflect

also began,

one who

on the

first

day of our walk, to notice the relationship between fifty-eight-year-old Rob and

Gene, in

his early twenties, the father rather pale

age and exertion (and the last time he had

commenting on

made

this

How appropriate

his scrape

with death and surgery since

journey to the rock) and the dark-skinned (half-

Japanese) son intrepidly leaping off

we hiked upstream through

and somewhat trembling with

cliffs

waterfalls

to have a father

into the river

and leading the way

and through tangles of

and son along on

as

fallen sequoias.

this journey,

demonstrating

the crucial familial relationship that Jeffers himself contemplated as he took

notes at night by the lovely rock and,

later, as

he crafted

his

poem about

experience.

18s

the

GOING AWAY TO THINK Despite fatigue and the simple pleasure of lying having to heft a heavy pack against gravity,

waking often

up

to stare

at the

my

on

flat

back without

slept fitfully that first night,

I

branches of several nearby

sequoia sempervirens,

each hundreds of feet high, silhouetted by the almost-full moon.

My brief stay

here seemed to be in elegant and tragic contrast to the extended

one place of these ancient

trees

—

I

was passing through, intensely conscious

of these living beings that belonged here and nowhere reaching upward toward the

and healthy glowing

human

at heights

moon

stars,

lives in this

else,

while they were

trunks blackened by wildfires and yet green

visitors could barely glimpse.

1

watched the

pass gradually across the sky behind the spray of branches.

Saturday morning, the 5th,

we donned

lightweight day packs and ventured

further up Ventana Creek, determined to find

would be on wobbly

river rocks today,

Jeffers's rock.

Our

entire walk

sometimes through ankle-deep shallows,

sometimes through waist-deep pools, and

at

times through rushing waterfalls.

At one point, about two hours out of camp, we encountered

a shirtless,

brown-

skinned man, crouching over small plants he seemed to be cultivating

sandy

on the bank of the

soil

— he

over a campfire

creek, a pot of food (apparently onions) boiling

refused to look at

interrupting his solitude. Later, as

us, to

acknowledge our apologies for

we hiked back downstream

past his campsite,

he was gone, as were his small array of crops and his tent and

remained were

piles

fire

—

all

that

of excrement close to the creek. "Like someone out of a

Jeffers narrative,” said

House and knew

in the

many

John Courtney, who’d guided

Jeffers’s

work by

a visitor to

Tor

heart.

We began the day’s walk at nine, stopped for a half-hour lunch, and by shortly after

one

in the

a small bluff

afternoon found ourselves homing in on our goal. Pausing by

on the

east side of the creek,

Rob wondered

if

this

could be the

place and poured over his published article about the earlier trips in order to refresh his

memory of

orientation.

We

Lloyd Tevis’s description of the actual rock wall and

shook our heads, admitted that

and pushed further upstream.

way back

to

camp on her

Susie,

this

must be

concerned about her

a

"mock

ability to

walk

its

rock,” all

the

injured ankle, turned around at this point, just twenty

minutes or so before we came upon the lovely rock.

Upon

186

reaching this place, which had been

made

sacred by the poet’s

Oh, Lovely Slab

vivification

through language and which we had resanctified through our efforts

of reenactment, you might think we would have simply paused, dropped our

and

packs,

sat meditatively to

gaze at the stone, the

trees,

and the sparse patches

of sky above the narrow canyon, reflecting on the poet’s words of geology and mortality and lovely “seeing rock for the

lively,

first

You might have expected

lonely things.

us to try

time,” getting a running start toward such intensity

of vision with the aid of the poet’s words and then flinging ourselves mindfully

toward deeper appreciation than any of us had managed before. Instead, there

was

a curious haste

and pragmatism

as

we

scurried around the gravel bed facing

the rock wall. Rob, Gene, and John used a simple surveying contraption to

estimate the height of the wall, quickly realizing that the canyon walls were too

and the string they’d brought too short to determine the exact

close together height, as we'd

hoped

to

to estimate that the wall

do — scientific measurement

was between eighty and

walked around and peered

at the wall

savoring the fact that he had

been so meaningful to nine.

on

rock

digital

camera

itself, at least in

tranquility.

I

feet high.

grandfather seventy years before, at the age of forty-

my companions

and, feeling distracted, relied

and preserve the experience

to record

my memory — until

features, so unlike the solidity

I

I

— to

could reflect upon its

poet’s description of “pure

later in

it

had imagined from the poem.

American

lifespan in

I

touched the

how

unlike the

when we

set the

group, the

in a

cameras on timers. Then Rob

dramatically read “Oh, Lovely Rock,” his voice shaking with emotion.

never return to this place, he later told

to

my

am

us— wondered I

recording this narrative approximately a

Ventana Creek and the lovely

rock.

My

is

a

vague memory.

if

month

1

le

would

any of us would. after the actual trip

poison oak has healed by now, and

shoulders arc no longer sore from the heavy pack

Susie’s injured ankle

since the

2006)

posed for pictures, individually and

shutters clicking automatically

1

more

naked rock" the actual rock had become, seventy

years (about the length of an average all

preserve the

crumbling, fractured

mosses and ferns that grew from the rock face and considered

We

Lindsay

repeated a walk that had

touched the rock and thought about

poet’s visit in 1936.

forced

from various perspectives, presumably

just, in his mid-fifties,

found myself watching

I

my

his

hundred

a

we were

foiled,

We are both

I

carried during the hike.

looking ahead

now to other

I

187

GOING AWAY TO THINK adventures

— my lecture

trip to India in a

week, her

trip to

China next month

to recruit international students for the university. In such itinerant lives

down and

happen a

of

feel

to

“with love and wonder " the “intense reality” of any place

we

to be, ol other people,

pilgrimage to

China

to the lovely rock

in

and day

adrenaline

of trees and dogs and rocks.

Three Gorges Dam),

— the

as

I

When we undertake

It is

the nature of

this “love

1

88

how

|

to care,

how

to love,

human emotion

how

Great Wall

and wonder,”

difficulty sustaining in

to

to be

more

our

lives

day

wax and wane, mostly

wane. So we cultivate special words and special experiences ourselves

to the

did in the weeks prior to the hike

purpose seems to be to foster

of feeling, that we might have

out.

it is

Walden Pond or Ventana Creek — or even

(or the

this intensity

—

sometimes hard

driven by curiosity and

slow

commitment and

— lives

in

fully alive.

to

order to remind

i6

Out of Time

SOGGY

AGA

I

N

The alarm on my wristwatch rang Seven

o’clock.

But today

I

responded

in a different

this

morning,

way than

normally do.

I

stopped the insistent beeping, leaned out of bed, and hid the watch briefcase pockets, out of sight.

Thus began my

little

an experiment planned ahead and expected to

experiment

last

as usual.

in

I

one of my

in timelessness,

three days, approximately

my stay in the green and misty forests of the central Oregon Cascades. am visiting the H. Andrews Experimental Forest, about fifty' miles east of Eugene. These are the woods of my childhood, familiar and foreign in peculiar balance. The bushy greens of tilting pines are a familiar sight that returns me half of I

).

to the years of elementary school, junior high,

away

I

to college. Vivid, impressionable years. Years of comfort, family,

adolescent struggles. In landscape. This

decades

New

and high school, before

now

England

is

some ways

the landscape

I’ve called

I

this still

is

my

see in

original landscape,

my dreams

freeway-strewn California

streets, rural,

Sierra peaks “home.” For a

muggy small-town

week now. I’m back

dwarfed again by widow- making

firs,

in

at night,

and

although for

soggy again to the bone.

buckling

brilliantly

Oregon, back

and

my originating

foothills, narrow,

Texas,

went

brown

in rainy green,

GOING AWAY TO THINK PRERELEVANT

I

arrived at “the

Andrews" yesterday at midday. Scheduled

to

meet geologist Fred

Swanson and poet-essayist-housebuilder-gardener Charles Goodrich 1

at

noon,

pulled into the headquarters parking lot at precisely five seconds after twelve

o'clock, fastidiously punctual

lunch

We spent the afternoon chatting over

the field-station library. Fred demonstrated a geologist's penchant for

in

story, relating the history

detail

even for me.

about

his

own

of the research performed

special interest in landslides

and how ecological systems respond

much of

tried to retain as

and going into

and other natural catastrophes

to such events.

information

this

at this site

I

wasn't taking notes, but

as possible,

keying in on particular

Windthrow. Long-term. Temporal mind bending. Prerelevant.

phrases.

Impressed by the hundreds of experiments that have been conducted

Andrews

the

1

since

its

founding

in

thousand acres of the forest are

wondered whether there was

some of

1948 and by the idea that the nearly sixteen

full

of monitoring devices and research

a clear plan for

plots,

its

meaning. Fred explained that

I

each of these studies or whether

the data was simply being collected in hopes of later determining

relevance,

at

it's

its

often the case that scientists

gather information that doesn't seem relevant to issues of the day but that later

on meaning.

takes

That

later takes

information, storing

answers? Sitting

How often

on meaning. it,

in the

bringing

Andrews

it

of

this

temperate rain

flooding into

know yet

I

1

me

this place.

forest,

1

out again on that “rainy day”

when we need

repository of data about the myriad

library, a

studies of stream flow, biodiversity,

do we have the luxury of gathering

and the rotting and regeneration processes

am

straining to hold

on

to the information

through Fred's narrative, metaphor-rich language. I

should

know

this place.

This

is

the place of

my

I

want

to

youth, and

’m a stranger.

continued to wear

my

watch throughout the afternoon and evening.

Kathy Moore and her husband Frank and their colleague Dawn, the mother of one of

my

former graduate students, showed up to accompany us to several

long-term ecological reflection

sites

and

companionship and conversation. Time

190

|

to dinner. still

The afternoon was one of

dominated. “What time

is

our

Out of Time

reservation for dinner?" I

returned to

my

“I

guess

it's

time for the Corvallisites to

apartment, read myself to

my

and plotted

sleep,

hit the road."

escape from

time the following morning, promptly at seven.

INSPIRATION, EXPIRATION

My room

in the

Rainbow Right apartment has

low window with

a

a perfect

view of green, green, and more green. There's the pale lime green of lawn, followed by a dense thicket of young Douglas

come

darker green inner branches, and then

Lookout Creek, about

closer to

and more than

hundred years

five

Watch or no watch, and slosh giant

fir

to

and ancient

tall

trees

down tall

old.

put on

I

my layers, grab the umbrella,

Lookout Creek to observation plot number one:

during a big storm

fell

the

new growth and

of them, each over two hundred feet

m here to work, so

I

my way down

tree that

thirty

with light

firs

now

1996 and

in

a

straddles the creek,

about a three-minute walk from where I’m staying. Yesterday Fred suggested that this

is

one of the scenes

the Andrews.

he

said:

No

problem,

I

might wish to contemplate during

I

thought.

come

can

I

“You might want to climb out on the

creek while you do your observations."

my week

here and contemplate.

and

fallen tree

at

Then

above the

sit

Hmmm — not so sure about that. Then

he proposed: “You could also go through the underbrush over to that gravel bar that washed up in the 96 storm.” Not

much more

enticing.

could just

I

see myself trying to clamber over the four-foot diameter of the fallen, moss-

covered

awkwardly into the miscellany of rocks and branches,

tree, slipping

and spraining an ankle or worse

When

the time

into the rain

my first morning

came on morning one

down

to the fallen tree

method was simply

to stand

to

in the

do some observations,

my

and found that

on the

woods.

tree near the

my head

piece of paper in one hand and pen in the other. observations,

seems

still

like this

trail.

No

I

begin a

new

project

— the

need to perch

log,

but the main

while holding a small, folded I

tried to

self-conscious, not yet settled into this

when

headed out

preferred observation

myself above the rushing torrent. The view was fine from the challenge was balancing the umbrella on

I

stiff

make some

new

place.

It

initial

always

self-consciousness.

I

191

And

GOING AWAY TO THINK time

this

I

How

even more awkward than usual.

felt

A

ecological reflections’'?

mere human, standing atop

to

conduct “long-term

came

a fallen giant that

crashing down in the forest alter living about seven times longer than the average person. green,

felt like a flea

I

cold,

it’s

like the effect

standing on a dog.

wet.

it’s

The

my

of raindrops on

is

my

rushing creek drowned out

thoughts

It's

— almost

head.

even more constant, coupled with the clicking sound

umbrella.

The sun broke through

my

say about this place?

I

of the rhythmic crashing of waves on a seacoast, except here the

sound of moving water

near

What could

the clouds for a

moment, brightening the mossy twigs

noticed the stillness of the trees, the

I

water. In the creek, the fallen giant

was

while underneath the water rushed. exist in opposition to each other.

a picture

of stillness, massively immobile,

thought of how

I

movement of dripping

many

things in the world

This weekend, running with

my

father in the

mountains, he used the word “orthogonal” to describe phenomena that exist in opposition to each other. Stillness and motion. But to this landscape, just out of synch.

Too

fast

over the fallen log and the rushing creek,

my

moving, too impatient. Gazing out noticed a small insect rising before

I

then dashing away (or being dashed away by the breeze).

eyes,

scarcely force myself to see

was a

did not feel orthogonal

I

on

flea

it

before

vanished.

it

a dog's back, aspiring to

I

was

a

bug

perform long-term

could

I

to this landscape.

I

reflection.

Perhaps a walk in the woods would help to generate some thoughts. Guided

by one of the researchers,

became

that eventually

I

drove

six miles

into the dark,

public

and

chaotic.

trail,

Huge

They

so

it

at the

donned my

depths of temperate rain

always hiked in the past, this

trails I’ve

picked up. the

damp

Trail,

narrow paved road

a

stopped

a gravel road,

Lookout Creek Old Growth Forest

up

pack, then

was magnificently rugged

trees lay atop each other like pick-up sticks that will never be

are subsiding into the earth, as they should. Fallen logs crossed

was necessary

to creep

to hold such trees to the dirt.

forest,

192

|

I

under them.

tried to

and roar of windfall.

a rush

but here

made my way

Unlike the manicured

I

found myself especially

interested in the shallow roots of uprooted forest giants. So

becoming

1506

obscure entrance to the

forest. trail

called

I

was on

a rainy

day

I’ve

little

imagine the steady

underground

tilt

of

never actually seen a tree

when

the

soil

was

loose,

tall fall

trees in the

surrounded by

Out of Time

down with

thousands of tilting giants, any one of which could come

a

moment's

notice.

Somehow

map

the

make

didn't

clear that this

it

Old Growth

Trail requires

major altitude changes, including movement up from rain into the snow zone of higher elevations.

wet day

a

knew

woods

to be alone in the

on

I

the

simply breathing.

1

my own breathing— in and

place into you by drinking air.

I

heard as

walked

I

out, in

its

water, eating

and

As my breathing

intensified

about

my dog

and

brought her to the

I

golden

Silly’s last

own. For about herself,

but

she was so

a

finally

week

and

breath.

when

you're in a place, you bring the

what

lives there,

1

began to sweat,

I

saw her take

vet's office to

had reached

retriever,

I

a point

scarcely

The

hiked.

I

days earlier

Silly,

when

Susie

a fourteen-year-old

where she could no longer stand up on her

lift

when

I

set her

a

day to relieve

down on

the grass, and

her head anymore.

We made

entire process took only a

shaving of a small area on her lower back

leg,

the difficult

few minutes

her sudden collapse from her prone position on the metal table last breath.

— the

the insertion of a large syringe

instinctive flinch at the prick of the needle,

stopped and she'd taken her

in its

found myself thinking

I

five

and breathing

had carried her outside several times

decision to “put her to sleep.”

Silly’s

it

be euthanized.

she couldn’t even stand

weak she could

of pink sedative,

— the gurgles of

out.

concentrated on breathing this forest into myself as

I

desired effect.

its

whooshing of steep streams, distant caws and cackles

recalled Richard Nelson's notion that

I

had

trail

thinking about thinking— and started

what

tried to figure out

this entire forest

feeling of isolation. Eventually the

on the narrow

much — stopped

rainwater, the occasional

of birds, and

my

like today, intensified

stopped thinking so

a half miles long, but

perhaps the only hiker in

like this,

physical process of straining uphill 1

was about three and

trail

and then

when her

She was not there anymore,

full

just a

heart

hunk

of skin and bones.

As still

1

— ancient living trees, giant snags the process of fertilizing decay — found

walked through the old-growth forest

standing, deadfall everywhere in

myself more fascinated with

my own meager

I

breaths.

about a single tiny person walking and breathing

in

Nothing momentous the woods.

But the

rhythm of my breathing had, for the moment, joined the other rhythms of

I

193

this

GOING AWAY TO THINK the rhythms of water and

forest

dying. This felt

HAD

I

A

Woke up felt

good

air,

of movement and

DREAM

this

morning without an alarm

dreams, so the fact that

clock,

without any clock

that

I

was

living in a small, watertight space,

had no idea what the environment was

As

stiffly

and

all,

I

normally remembers is

unusual.

I

couldn’t see out of this living space,

Everything was dark, but there was

my room seemed

out of the bedroom,

at

surrounded by flowing

semi-sensory-deprivation amusement-park

tottered

I

I

like.

an abiding sound of flowing water, and like a strange,

who

one stayed with me out of sleep

this

My central concern was staying dry.

water.

of living and

to me.

myself emerging from a dream. I'm not someone

dreamed

stillness,

it

to shift occasionally, ride.

began to dawn on

me

that

I

must

have been dreaming about reflection plot number one, the fallen log across

Lookout Creek. Beyond the log

in the area,

1

haven’t yet been able to visit

because of the treacherous footing and thickets of debris in the pile of stones at the torrent's edge. Last night, before going to sleep,

on the

reflection plots

and saw that he

must have been dreaming about the nearby water

flow.

read Lred Swanson's notes

I

called this pile of rocks a "gravel

human

nearby and gauging the mechanics of flow' affecting rocks,

staff to

be a stone

whims of the It

at the

imagined

I

this three- room

1

observer, standing

imagined myself to

apartment for research

edge of the creek, temporarily stable but subject to the

physical world. Strangely, this

comfortable not to be

felt

1

gravel bar, imagining the effects of incessant

But instead of playing the role of a

be inside one of the stones.

bar.''

in control,

was not

a sad or disturbing notion.

but there was nonetheless a strong

desire to stay dry.

HIDING THE CLOCK

As

I

walked into the kitchen the morning of day two to heat some water for

coffee,

I

recognized the absence of regular ticking.

my watch

194

in

my

briefcase,

I

The day

before, after hiding

had come into the kitchen to prepare for the

Out of Time

day’s excursions, but there

breakfast,

had been a persistent ticking

had assumed the ticking was somewhere

I

room. During

in the in

my

head

patterns internalized through years of living by the clock. But as boots,

old-growth

and there was

forest,

birds, each representing

I

one of the hours.

return to time in a few days,

remember. But

debated for

I

it

seems important to be consistent

You might wonder about the clock computer — how could

in the

gazed

I

The

this sentence.

it

kitchen drawer.

in a

if

I

in

wall, if

I

removing myself from

'm to bother with

it

at

all.

upper right-hand corner of

my

avoid looking at that while trying to experience

I

freedom from seconds, minutes, and hours fifteen a.m. as

moment, then stepped

a

hang the clock back on the

I'll

clock time during this several-day experiment,

wrote

my

images of twelve colorful

a large clock with

over and removed the clock from the wall and placed

two

put on

I

glanced at the wall near a poster on the ecology of a Pacific Northwest

I

When

— sound

at the

for a

few

days. Well, that clock said

midmorning scene from my window and

made

irrelevance of such clock time

easy to ignore

it

the numbers.

TAKEN BY

NOTION TO EXPERIMENT

A

Free from the constraints of a schedule, it,

that

I

was taken by

afternoon,

I

drove

down

land that Fred suggested

I

visit

brutal. In the thinning light

I

drove

enough. This forested country

my

tried to drive

down

stay at the

Andrews.

up Road 1508

in the direction

feels quite disorienting to

of

on private

to the clear-cut

occasionally during I

Abbey once put

didn't seek out a rabbit or

I

Road 1501 and over

to

Blue River Face cut and burn,

No,

Nothing that

This morning, thwarted by snow when

far

found, as Edward

a notion to experiment.

a small bird to brain with a rock. late

I

to the

of 1501, but not

me — vistas

con-

cealed by dense masses of trees, only roads providing narrow strips of visibility.

Buoyed by good tried again,

and

this

feelings after an afternoon run,

time

I

made

it

down

the lower portion of clear-cut 1501. that’s

what

The cut

I

is

called

it

close to

in

my

I

I

hopped

in

the car and

to the gravel road that passes through

didn't

know

the

name

of this place, so

notes: “clear-cut 1501.”

Highway

126,

and the

traffic

was audible

as

I

sat at the base

I

195

GOING AWAY TO THINK of the

and considered what

treeless landscape

above the clouds,

a jay

debris, scattered

no more than

in a

a

fresh rain

I

among moss-covered

few years

When

folks

do

in as

university students

this

— a circumambulation

this at sacred places,

I

I

does one

my way up

down up

it

blew through

sorts.

Normally writers and

Mount Tamalpais is

a private

I

I

hikes, pausing

was by myself, and

now and

walk around

a clear-cut?

I

ol the car to

it

was

clearly a

asked myself, as

call it a

I

it

took

“circumcision”!

me

to hike

up and down, then up and down

of the land around the perimeter of the

person rather than the government. As

I

cut.

1

this land,

began coming

man

pulled

small green Nissan in the distance, letting his

dog out

my way

into the

roam around.

still

then to

had no poetry to

I

was breaking some property laws by walking

SUV behind my

shelter of

Marin

in

called a “circumtam.”

the upper part of the western side ol the cut, a white-haired

in his

mo-

the steep and rugged hillside at the eastern edge of the

guess you could

know whether

owned by

but

a sacred landscape, although

call a

again, following the undulations

don’t

such as

and true believers on such

know how long

don’t

of

Mount Tam

the base ol

was probably not

What

began to claw cut. Well,

car,

notion to experiment by taking a walk around the

a

read poetry and take pictures. Today

scarred one.

got out of the

1

Gary Snyder and David Robertson sometimes escort groups of

friends

And

seedlings

fir

the waning sun pushed through the clouds for a

County— the walk around

read.

— minimal

old.

shower was coming

contours of the clear-cut

My

alders beginning to

of decay, and some small

in various stages

was stricken with

New Age

beyond

in the trees

occurred to me. Almost nothing remains

it

stumps

few minutes.

ment,

heard airplane engines

distant edge of the twenty-acre barren hillside. This was really a

quintessential clear-cut,

A

I

of some sort chittering invisibly

the clear-cut. Misty clouds watted

grow on the

to do.

I

felt furtive

and

guilty

and made

-standing trees at the edge of the clear-cut, not wanting to be

my

reported to the landowner

if

Here

found

at the forest’s edge,

1

transgression,

my

circumcision, were noticed.

fallen, rotting logs to

be soft paths

down

the

steep slope, a striking contrast to the thickets of slash and blackberry vines that

made I

the going tough

on the logged-over

have never spent so

196

|

much time

hill.

at a clear-cut before. Typically,

1

am

dying

Out ofTime

over them in planes or hurrying past

southwestern Washington, clear-cuts near his

in a car.

Once, while

asked him to take

I

me

to see

Bob

visiting

some

Pyle in

of the gaping

home — but we merely stood at the edge and shook our heads.

Today, watchless and temporarily out of time, with nothing to do but run and

walk through the woods or

commune

strangely free to

felt

way around

edges.

its

inside listening to rain

sit

It

and grading papers,

fall

with the clear-cut, to gaze

did not feel like a good place.

Up

at

close,

kind of junky ard, a forty-degree hillside littered with debris.

animals .

.

.

I

Desert Solitaire,

The only

like a

signs of

the road.

killed the rabbit

with a stone and then crowed about

he said his experiment

in the world, part

made him

feel

of the tangle of predator and

strangely truant, a kind of truancy

freedom from time, 1

down by

shells

When Abbey

feel

looked

it

my

noticed, apart from distant birdcalls, were deer turds here and there

and shotgun

me

and crunch

it

I

I

I

it

in

more deeply enmeshed

prey.

My

experiment made

cannot overcome. Lured by the

indulged myself with a walk where the woods once

stooci.

did not heal anything with this circumambulation. this circumcision. Back at

the apartment, in the

I

bathroom

cut 1501," from

would

plucked a sink.

my

sliver

But

mind.

I

my

finger.

1

washed

of dirty socks

a pair

could not wash the feeling of that place, “clear-

1

wondered

if

another walk

in the deep,

dark woods

help.

TILTS

The first

AND THRESHOLDS

things you notice

when walking into an apartment here at

Forest are the safety items sitting hat.

from

The

first

on the counter:

a

the

Andrews

heavy-duty radio and a hard

item seems reasonable enough, considering the remoteness of

the locations people visit out here to collect climate data, water samples, and

demographic information on spotted owls and other iffy

weather and

at night.

rockfall are limited

The hard

and the

value of a plastic hat.

I

effects

hat seems

of tree

quickly decided

I

fall

species,

more dubious,

sometimes

in

chances of

as the

so catastrophic as to nullify the

d carry the radio with

me on

all

of

my

excursions this week, but Fd leave the hard hat on the kitchen counter.

This morning, day three,

I

decided to

visit

the Lookout (.reck

Old Growth

I

197

GOING AWAY TO THINK again before stopping at one of

Trail

Decomp site. trailhead, as

three days.

I

made

my

could hear the

I

about

and the

slush.

With about

at the

driving up to the

Old Growth

higher elevations for the past

up Road 1506

to

its

any further and

it

bottom scraping against the snow

isolated intersection

seemed

risky to

try.

middle of the

in the

were slipping on truck tracks now increasingly

tires

filled

with

three inches of snow on the road and the depth increasing as

made my way up Lookout

three' or four-mile trudge I

six miles

city car couldn't get

car’s

road,

I

it

Log

favorite reflection sites, the

know how high d get when

had been snowing heavily

it

with 3SO, but I

didn't

I

my

Ridge,

decided not to enter the deep forest for a

I

on the steep

trail to

the exit point higher up

on 1506.

pulled back from that challenging walk and decided instead to explore the

road a ways, where

Today

could at least be sure not to get

I

had intended,

I

like

two days

the snow}' and clear sections of the

On

between the two kinds of walking. of the steep

trail,

examine the threshold between

ago, to

trail,

lost.

to contemplate the transitional

Monday, following the dips and

ever-deepening snow

snow, deeper and deeper snow, as

my

cross-country

boots, the walk

where

I

skis, this

felt

more

abandoned my

moving up the

road.

walked up the road. Had

1

would have been

like a trudge. car,

The

I

knowing

tracks,

a pleasure jaunt

About

tracks

morning

to

contemplate the

after arriving here,

|

the

tilts

flat

my

in

skidding

up the road from

filled

with recent

didn’t feel directly threatened

me on

this

snowy

mud

Old Growth

walk.

snow and no-snow,

of trees and land. This

I

had intended

is

not a simple,

ground and up-tending vegetation. Soon

two hundred

imply danger— the danger ot

198

I

one notices that most of the land

trees (especially those

On

been wearing

I

but there was something vaguely ominous about them, about

perpendicular landscape, with

of timber.

a quarter-mile

were hours old and partly

In addition to considering thresholds of this

and the

noticed heavy tracks in the snow, apparently

had unseen companions with

1

trail

higher elevations. Today there was only

at

snow. Mountain lion? Lynx? Perhaps an elk?

by such

rises

found mysell shifting back and forth between snow and

I

no'snow, savoring the threshold, the relative security of the clear riskiness of the

margin

is

sloped,

feet or taller) tilted.

slides, rockfall,

Trail itself.

I

many of

To my mind,

the tilts

or the cataclysmic upheaval

was captivated by the many

fallen

Out of Time

giants, uncut, rotting in the

mud and

caked with

still

tilting snag, there often

dark forest depths, roots uplifted, sometimes

grasping boulders. Interesting

seems

to be

upright, but a glance at the sky

no

at

tilt

— or from

how

still

at the base of a

Tree after tree seems sturdily

all.

a distance

— shows

major

tilt

.

.

.

and

risk.

Walking on the snowy road, the threat from the tilting trees.

air

almost windless and misty,

I

The presence of wind would make

felt little

this a very

different kind of place, each tree suddenly posing a significant danger.

was no overt and urgent danger during

Watchless,

1

how

had no idea

early or late

out sheet back at headquarters that

There was

to

me

that

enough was enough. in the

I

had indicated on the sign-

1

deep woods on

a

snowy morning. The

my

right foot caused

large footprints in the snow, just parallel to

and

curiosity.

I

decided to turn around.

1

wasn’t tired, wasn't bored.

on the top of a toe on

slight uneasiness

was.

it

apartment.

at the

expected to return by “early afternoon.”

I

of snowy hiking,

after a mile or so

possible blister

my own

wondered,

too,

if

It

It

seemed

was beautiful

faint itching of a

some concern. The

clunky boot prints, caused

my

little

car

would make

it

the curvy, snow-covered road, bordered by steep drop-offs into rushing

creeks with no guardrails. threshold.

The

risk of

of peaceful exercise. sigh

morning, nor was there

this

of time.

plenty'

and peaceful

down

walk

need to turn back and resume another task back

a pressing

Still,

my

There

of recognition,

I

decided

had reached the edge of

I

becoming mired

The

in the

risk-benefit

snow now outweighed

recognition of limits did not

just a pause, a pivot,

my

and

a

come with

a

the benefit

momentous

continuation of the walk,

now

downhill. I

wonder

if our society, too, will

come

to a recognition of limits someday, not

through cataclysm, but merely through pause, pivot, and continued motion

new

in a

direction.

LOG DECOMP

It

sounds

break?

I

like a

kind of tepid punch

sat in the

line. So,

woods and watched

what did you do on your spring

logs rot.

I

199

GOING AWAY TO THINK This

what

is

done

I've actually

experiences at the Andrews.

One

week.

this

It’s

advantage of the Log

from the intersection of Roads 1506 and 1508 free

of snow when the higher-elevation

driving cars like mine.

I

River Face cut and burn

been one of

that

is

sites are icy

Decomp

favorite

site just

up

low enough to be

it’s

and inaccessible to people

haven't been able to reach one reflection

week — too much snow. But today

all

my

site,

the Blue

stopped by to

I

watch the logs rot for the fourth time, the third time by myself. There’s something special about this place. else I’ve visited at the

It’s

more peaceful than anywhere

Andrews — mossier and quieter

who

live

are

conducting the 200-year decomposition study,

year—

nearby aren’t hooting). This

launched if

less

200

now

the owls

his colleagues

in

its

twentieth

years for the duration of the study,

than a decade after the 1976 bicentennial of the United States, as

there might be something magical about such a time span, which represents

40 percent of the is

when

where Mark Harmon and

is

I'm intrigued by the choice of

(at least

current lifetime of the trees

something peculiarly anthropocentric

— no.

still

standing

in this area.

Americano-centric

There

— about

the

choice of a 200-year “long-term ecological research" project, beginning in 1985.

Why not 250 years? Why not 500? At the

decomp study

actual

site, a

number of mossy

some with white buckets

hither and thither,

among

how much carbon

other things,

linked to global warming. In

some 530

there are

logs,

lie

more

it

When

I

the corner.

visit

A

to the

monitoring,

phenomenon

at the

Andrews,

something

tissues a

of

I

dip in the path has

now

of the huge logs that

wood

fell

have

look like

filets

left

a habit of

across the

— they have a

hungry bear might have

"Log Decomp,”

I

The

western hemlocks,

flrs,

decomp,

to maintain trail access

seems to me. The

jagged, like

log-decomp study sites

En route

red, fleshy tissues

and have been sawed apart smell,

are

stored in dead wood, a

amid towering Douglas

Pacific yews.

bending to smell the

of the

scientists

formally decaying under the scrutiny of scientists.

logs at this particular site

and mossy-bearded

all six

is

been placed

attached, devices used to study

wood — the

gaseous releases from decomposing

logs have

ripe,

trail

mintlike

of salmon, except

behind.

tend to keep walking to a ferny glade around filled

with clear water from days of

rain,

and

the ferns, mosses, wildflowers, and russet maple leaves look like creatures in

200

Out

There being no

a seaside tide pool.

tide here, these

must be

Time

oj

“trail pools.”

A

herpetologist would probably detect signs of rough-skinned salamanders here,

but

see only plant

I

life.

The

only motion

is

caused by

fast-

or slow-falling

droplets of water, either actual rain or just residual wetness sliding off branches above.

Today

walked further than

I

usual,

The canopy thinned and more yews. This in

wind.

is

No

a quiet place.

all

the

came

light

in.

1

end of the

to the

many

noticed

Some drops of water, and everywhere around me as

silent,

shaggy

forgettable, the sawing itself distant

the silence of decay

passed through the enormous tree

1

trunks that were sawed through to keep the

human

trail spur.

rushing water and, for today, no branches sighing

and the silence of mossy growth. Even

the

way

trail

open, that violence seemed

and unimportant. Like so much violence

in

realm, morality subsides as fiber erodes.

CONTINENTAL DRIFT

Last night

1

dreamed again of the

my apartment.

the forest headquarters and

down and

the wet

today,

trail

to

my fourth

Each day

1

my observation in the

find myself

Some of this may be due

and cross-stream

gravel bar

woods,

is

place

no

becoming

1

this

is

how

it

is

— this has quickly become a routine,

different.

more comfortable

bolder,

to the fact that the rain has let up,

merely an illusion— I'm not

seems,

how

it

sounds, to

a

and with

and Teva sandals,

and

and taking notes. The

found

a

first

I

— but

stepped through a

thing that occurred to

and young

wrote the word “continental” on

notepaper. Everything on the island appeared, from old.

I

that the island of small rocks, newly leafing alders, I

threatening.

boulder covered with pale green moss

I

hemlocks seemed “permanent."

the rush

gravel bar deposited by the

Lebruary 1996 flood. There

me was

less

it

measurer of stream flows

and went out onto the

sat for a while, reflecting

in this place.

me.

Yesterday, wearing running sweats side channel of the creek

from

wake up each morning and tramp

of Lookout Creek seems to have subsided, become quieter and Perhaps this

logs not far

my

my

firs

and

piece of

vantage, mossy, fixed,

recalled Lred's brief lecture about the place four days earlier, his

|

mention

201

GOING AWAY TO THINK of the flood

than a decade ago that created this

less

new

island

the information was “prerelevant" to me, unrelated to anything

— at

the time,

knew

I

should

I

be thinking about. Today, after several days of visiting this place and looking it

from different

here

of the stones, mud,

angles, the solidity

felt startlingly

logs,

at

and new growth

contradictory to the actual newness of this landscape in

the context of geological time.

The

gravel bar

was an

infant, yet to

me

it felt

permanent.

At the same time, there

sweep of water, the brief

hillsides,

moment when

I

and

trees

is

itself,

in

form during

My friend

is

’m here to witness

gravel bar

as “flux taking form,” as

creek and in the

as the rest

we

— strangely

tilting skyscrapers,

it

1

mean change

occurs to me,

sat

pausing

now en

don't see actual change, our eyes being as

like a clear'cut,

kingfisher zipped past as

An

can see the future of this place written

many

is

isn’t

happening

right

a rare clearing in the forest,

but without the debris of tree limbs,

many more

the steepness, the stumpage and with

the creek.

I

of our being, doesn't

before our eyes. This gravel bar,

A

— he’s referring to the “paradoxical The Lookout Creek

route back to earth. Just because

viewpoint

fond

in nature

me

temporary

John Felstiner

Western nature poetry of the past two centuries, and

in the not' flooding

a

it.

by which “raw energy can show design.”

also strikes

as if the entire

a sort of waterfall, frozen in

of describing waterfalls as “flux taking form”

dynamic”

of upheaval here,

a vibrant sense

is

rocks,

mossy with new

life.

on my wet boulder, following the flow of

airplane groaned overhead, unseen above the clouds,

its

sound

competing with the rush of water — and then there was only the water.

On

day four,

I

took a different angle on

this scene, following

comfort here and stepping carefully out to the middle of the sitting cross-legged to write in the

downstream,

this

In contrast to the solidity

brown

and apparent — if I

sat

|

noticed

but another large just a

illusory

— permanence

of the

above the moving water, there were

jobbies) flitting near the edge of the creek.

watch them for several minutes, but found

202

then

Goldsworthy sculpture.

two gravel bars and the log on which (little

I

one without alders and small evergreens,

graceful curve of stones, like a

two LBjs

log,

increasing

fallen log,

middle of Lookout Creek. Here

not only yesterday’s gravel bar upstream of the fallen gravel bar

my

it

difficult, agitating.

I

tried to

Their jerky

Out oj Time

movements seemed nervous, unclear.

the purposes of their jumps from perch to perch

Their ephemerality was exaggerated by juxtaposition with so many

unmoving rocks and rocks drifted

when

trees,

but

knew

I

fell

and

rotted,

and even

the stream flooded. Sitting there on the temporarily sturdy

log above fast- moving water gave fixity

that even trees

and change: everything

I

me

am

pronounced sense of the continuum of

a

able to

know

within one time frame or

is,

another, both stable and mutable. Last night,

when dreaming about

the gravel bar,

passage from the book I've been reading Economic Hit Man, a political

memoir about

lately,

I

remembered

John Perkins's

aft

the behest of corporations and the

government. Perkins notes that

U.S.

For ever)' SlOO of crude taken out of the Ecuadorian rain forests, the $75.

Confessions of an

economies and

his role in destabilizing

regimes in developing nations,

a disturbing

Of the

companies receive

oil

remaining $25, three-quarters must go to paying off the foreign debt. Most of the

remainder covers military and other governmental expenses— which leaves about S2.50 for health, education,

of

oil

and programs aimed

torn from the

those whose

lives

Amazon,

less

at

than

helping the poor.

S3.

00

.

Thus, out of every Sioo worth

goes to the people

lack

who need drilling,

money

the

most,

and the pipelines,

of edible food and potable water.

Because of this brutal inequity, Perkins concludes, Ecuador, billions around the world

they believe in

.

have been so adversely impacted by the dams, the

and who are dying from

in

.

communism

— are

“All

of those people

potential terrorists.

or anarchism or are intrinsically

millions

Not because but simply

evil,

because they are desperate'' (xx). It is

occurs to

me

that America’s catastrophic impact

akin to the occasional flooding of Lookout Creek.

supported by the government,

is

at the heart

ominous

is

corporate culture,

What

to understand, however, itself,

is

that

cannot remain

our nation's violent mistreatment of other cultures

reactions, but there

of our apparently stable

parallel

fail

occur, the agent of change, the flood

unchanged. Not only

prompting violent

Our

world

rest of the

changing the world's cultural landscape.

the corporate and governmental leaders

when such changes

on the

is

a

profound corruption,

society.

a

kind of

rot,

Morris Berman establishes an

between contemporary America and the

late

Roman Empire

I

203

GOING AWAY TO THINK in his recent

book. The Twilight of American

today’s power,

we

clear to us after a

and change that become

perilously ignore the lessons of fixity

few days walking

in the

Remember, even continents

fallen logs.

In the ecstasy of exerting

Culture.

woods, reflecting upon gravel bars and

drift.

TRANSITION TO CLOCK TIME

I

had intended to spend today day

could find without too lot at

headquarters,

I

back. “I’m in the

to

snow

showing

my reflection

on

cat

sites,

cat

— got room

decomp

I

I

a giant vehicle in a

like

parked

me

my

in a

snow

I

recalled a

photo from

Moreau Collecting

Analysis,'

H.

7,

like

Sample

January 1990.”

my car down later,

by the cement bridge, not

and jumped

far

from the log decomp

John for the ride up to the snow.

in with

hiked earlier in the week. cat

is

It

took only a

essentially the opposite

of

moment

a peaceful in

Old Growth

site

We left

trailhead

to learn that riding

woodsy experience. The

between the two

seats in the

and the powerful tank treads do indeed get you up the mountain, but with

snow country was

forest’s

and

apartment,

a Precipitation

Andrews, Watershed

J.

the cost of a kidney-pulverizing shake. into

my

snowstorm with glowing headlights and tread

grinding roar of the engine comes from right cab,

green Forest

plans for a quiet stroll

the jeep at the junction of 1506 and 350, not far from the I’d

in a pale

an opportunity to learn something new.

d be visiting

where

I

At the turnoff to Road 1506, the

for two." In an instant,

were scratched.

site

Water Chemistry

Seemed

a trailer.

trails

pulled out of the parking

I

of

any

John pulled up ahead of me and came walking

a tank, the caption reading, “‘John for

as

Moreau ahead

noticed John

again, walking

headed up to Carpenter Mountain today to check some met stations

snow

at the log

my own

on

much remaining snow. But

Service SUV, pulling the

main route

four,

major climate

scientific

At the

first

and check three of the

This was to be a reimmersion into clock time

measurements. station, as John

some

went through sort,

sans band, which he placed on the

|

the entire purpose of our journey

to collect meteorological data

stations.

the paper in a meter of

204

And

I

a calibration checklist

and changed

noticed the time, 11:40, on his wristwatch

work

counter.

It

was the

first

time

I

'd

looked

Out of Time

watch

at a

snow

cat

snow

poles

We

in nearly four days. Fifteen

we climbed back

later

into the

and continued our errand, pausing occasionally to take readings from

on the road or placed back

in the forest: 1.3 feet, 1.9 feet, 2.2 feet.

noticed animal tracks on the road ahead of the tractor and tried to identify

them:

The

perhaps bobcat or coyote.

elk, deer, rabbit,

machine swallowed up most of the in

minutes

vicious tread of the

snowy washboard pattern

tracks, leaving a

our wake.

Higher up the mountain, we had to leave the snow meters through deep snow to the met station. tracks,

but

my

boots

sunk another

still

six

1

cat

and hike

walked

in John’s

hundred

a

snowshoe

or eight inches into the snow.

Hard

going, this transition back into clock time and scientific measurements, this

The met

hike into deep slush.

station,

John explained to me, measures ground

temperature, ground moisture, wind speed and direction,

among

precipitation height and weight,

other things

—

sent back to headquarters via radio telemetry. reported, explaining the

record the data on a sheet of paper 19.5,

and so

— depth

Washington, Belknap Crater, and the Three

snow

Face cut-and-burn

my

little

trees

cat,

site,

and John offered

which

I’d

Sisters,

to drive

been unable to

first.

I’ll

meet you

minutes,” he promised. Although

1

at still

been

having as

visiting

much time

appointment

all

as

week now had

my mind needed

to hitch a ride

up

decomp

around

us.

and

I

we

Mount

me up

visit

site,

shattering roar of the

down

rattled back

to

to the Blue River

so far this week, since

me

return the

Log Decomp Number wasn't wearing

a

helped

The

name: “Number

to engage with this

cat

in forty-five

3

my own

snow

watch,

timeless

1

felt

decomp

And instead now had place, 3.'’

I

of

an

to another reflection site in forty-five minutes.

For the better part of an hour, logs at the

all

readings,

myself being enveloped again by clock time and numbers. site I'd

also

sample length 20.0, weight

Nissan couldn't handle the snow}' road. "Let

to headquarters

and

at the station

snow

23.5,

this collected in

After lunch in brilliant sunlight, gazing out at

forth.

the jeep in the

five

temperature,

eight degrees Celsius,’’ he

“It’s

snowmelt raining down from

John used a large core-sample pole to take

of

all

an electronic data recorder inside the small building up

air

I

walked among the old growth and rotting

enjoying the extraordinary quiet following the skull-

snow

cat.

I

marveled

at the

former

“trail pools,”

I

20s

which

GOING AWAY TO THINK had already absorbed

all

of the shin-deep water from the day before.

the distinct glow of sunlight passing through mossy beards

John pulled up, in

my

easy

was waiting near the road, holding

1

hand, counting the individual strands

had been to return

it

Up

Blue

the

at

to a numerical

River

alternatives to clear-cutting- leaving to regenerate the natural forest

rhododendron

small

plants,

—

to erase

my outing details from

of epiphytic moss twenty-six.

on

a

blackened stump

How

4:21.

Back

cat,

a sea

of

seedlings and trying to

fir

About

among

fifteen feet.

climbed into

I

at headquarters,

went

1

the sign-out board and noticed that

had driven down to return the snow

When

the big trees, burning slash

counting Douglas

and noticed the time was

trees.

at

experimenting with

are

scientists

estimate the distance between each of them. John's jeep

— twenty-five,

some of

sat

I

a handful

looked

frame of mind.

where

Face,

on yew

I

he had changed

my ETA

inside

when John from

“early

afternoon” to “18:00.”

had known

I

but

when

I

would happen again

this

woke up

morning,

this

again and return smoothly to

Tomorrow

I

resisted the temptation to put

I

my

would spend the day walking again

again, just to see

how

at first, pulling

on my watch

urban, professional, clock-checking identity.

log decomp, and possibly the clear-cut,

been

eventually, this return to clock time,

if

in the usual places: gravel bars,

not the cut burn, wearing

that affects the experience,

if

at

all.

my

How awkward

watch it

had

away from time and numbers — how strangely rapid and

natural this return to measurements.

HANGING THE CLOCK

This morning, day

rehang the clock days. it.

I

’ve

I

've

I

woke

it

all

dawn and went

removed from the wall three days

along

it

was

A

person

uses the wristwatch as a whip,

it

who I

I

've tried to

lives

to the kitchen to

ago. For the past

keeping track of time.

avoid this week, so

much

somewhat inordinately by clock

figured this

week

in

few

from me and myself from

in there, ticking steadily,

has not really been time

monitoring of time.

206

at early

kept the clock in a kitchen drawer, hiding

known

Perhaps

I’d

five,

the

woods might be

as the

time, a rare

Out ofTime

chance

— a week with

somewhat

few appointments, perhaps none

at

to experience a

all

different state of mind.

Of course.

I've

known

along

all

how

the

week would end. The

plot of this

experiment was mapped out from the beginning: hide the clock early on, hang it

up again

at the finish.

the Andrews,

Ve

I

And

clearly

despite the flexibility of

had things to accomplish, or

my daily schedule

here at

attempt

— visits

at least to

to particular sites, taking notes, massaging notes into reflections, reading books,

And

grading papers.

each day, before heading into the woods, I've dutifully

marked the sign-out board going and when I’ve

I'd

where

forest headquarters, indicating

in

return: midday, early afternoon, before dark.

be

I'd

wonder

I

if

behaved any differently than usual without the clock on the wall of the

apartment, a watch on

my wrist while hiking and observing. To some extent,

any

differences in behavior were predetermined by the decision to experiment with

the avoidance of timekeeping devices.

I

my wristwatch

hid

because

I

intended to

avoid making decisions this week according to a strict schedule, and thus

more

act

patiently and flexibly than usual, or so

Although

much of my managed, this

always

I’ve

appointment

me

at

week's end.

of so many others

I'd

probably have

my

daily behavior

be hanging out here for about

at the end: a at the

I

in this society,

5:00 rendezvous

at

six days,

Hovland

end of the experience. Then

with

Hall, OSU’s

a drive

home

to

the following day, return to the office the day after, and class again the

day after

The

that.

circumscribed I

to

moderate the press of time on

known

Philosophy Department,

Reno

lives

in a small way, to

week.

a big

and the

seemed

did

not suspended the temporal frames that structure

I’ve certainly life,

it

I

entire experience of a clockless

— you might even say

find myself

comparing the

clocks, with the story line

predictable, or

scripted,

been

It

and

‘scripted.''

relative orderliness

of nature.

artificial

seems- to

my life, with or without me that there are certain

of

processes in nature, too. Rules that must be followed.

“Water moves downhill" least this

it's

week has been

is

an obvious one. Everywhere

in the

time of year, you can see this plot occurring: each

trail

Andrews, I’ve

at

walked

has presented tiny mountainside rivulets carrying water to larger runoffs, then to creeks,

and

finally into rivers. Yesterday,

up on the high slopes of Carpenter

I

207

GOING AWAY TO THINK Mountain, the downward movement of water was conspicuous

seemed

to

be raining on a brightly sunny

from every branch of every

No

tree.

day, as

—

it

almost

showers of melting snow

fell

avoiding this process, the tug of gravity,

except through the evaporative force of heat upon fallen water. Other inevitable processes also govern this place and the objects and beings in

photosynthesis,

it:

plant growth, animals eating and evacuating the waste. Things around here

not operate

strictly

by clock-driven schedules, but there

guess the main purpose of

I

attachment of

my own mind

personal habits

— checking the

my

forehead. But perhaps

my

to

is

order nonetheless.

clock-hiding gimmick has been to test the

temporal measurements.

keys in

my most

my

I

have a few small

pocket, pushing the hair away from

persistent habit, or tick,

is

life,

my

ing

but

it

it

activities, finishing

get things done,

watch,

means,

I

I

seems to

me

my my

feeling for

wristwatch and checking the time. This has become almost unconscious

normal

may

in

now, that I’m always compartmentaliz-

one task and moving on

suppose. But after a

This

to the next.

week here

in the

begin to wonder whether “getting things done"

is

is

how

I

woods without my same

the

as living.

OUT OF "OUT OF TIME"

The

phrase “out of time” sounds

like a threat, doesn't it?

tough-guy movie: “Buddy, you’re out of time and out of That’s not really 1

had

how

mind was an

in

it

in

my

and

act as

if

title

luck.”

for these reflections.

what would

it

be

What

like to step

out

there were simply day and night, rain and

no other minute parceling out of hours, minutes, and seconds?

The Andrews

Forest, located not far

hour’s drive west of here, also this

meant

assertion of freedom:

of time for several days shine,

I've

Perhaps a line from a

seemed

like a

experiment. Perhaps in a small way

time or

scroll

forests like

I

it

from the woods of

it

unique setting

my

in

childhood an

which

would be possible for

me

to pursue

to

suspend

backwards, spending part of the week simply wandering in

did as a child and adolescent in Eugene, near

on the slopes of Spencer

Butte, south of the

city.

A

Edgewood School or

chance for some “temporal

mindbending,” to use one of Fred Swanson's phrases. It

had been

208

|

my

plan to spend Saturday morning, April

2,

the day of

my

Out of Time

more

departure, taking a

way 126

a

here on a cloudless

my friend

Bill

—

I

97 S or 1976,

summer day — the two

McChesney. That was

playful energy. Bill

and

ran

I

all

of us,

way

the

was freezing” and decided to

Olympian unable

compete

to

of high'School graduation

itinerant researchers

and

in the

trinkets,

rainy coastal highway. Steve

is

I

would run on the extra-

now

lecturers.

1

believe.

and

water until

A

few years

I

far

the slopes of

Mount

snowmelt

later

he became a U.S.

then a salesman

a car accident

my

father and

a I

run— sun 'flooded

in India, elegant city

parks in Taipei,

Blanc in France. Tomorrow, stepping back in time,

run again on the soft pine needles of the McKenzie River

dark passageways of the forest of

on

and wide around the planet,

meeting with colleagues and seeking beautiful places to beaches in Australia, wooded campuses

bold plans

complained that

busy Portland surgeon,

wander

and

Steve,

Bill

and then the victim of a

fitness,

Moscow games,

boycotted

1

My father drove us

to a reservoir filled with

icy

stop.

forest pathways.

my younger brother

a time of innocence

and then leaped again and again into the his “brain

time and driving up High'

one of Oregon's most magical

Trail,

ran here about thirty years ago

and

in

few miles to Paradise Campground, where

ordinary McKenzie River last

backward

specific step

Trail,

would

I

through the

my youth.

But upon returning to headquarters after my morning circuit of the reflection sites,

there was an e-mail from

snow

in the

Cascades and proposing that

to have dinner with

Had

them and spend the

already said

I

my mother,

my

expressing concern about incoming drive

I

down

to

Eugene that evening

night.

good-byes to the Andrews Forest reflection

recalled the trip to the vet with Silly last week,

sites?

and how, when the vet asked

I

if

we’d like another minute by ourselves with our dear old dog after she was dead, Susie said, “We’ve already said our good-byes.” I

could stay in these forests for months, perhaps longer, extending and

deepening

my observations, but

for now, five days

of visits to the gravel bars and

the log-decomp site and a few stops at the 1501 clear-cut and the Blue River

Face cut burn, four days without wearing a watch and one time, have

But

I

prompted plenty of reflections.

I

cannot leave without running the

feel I've said

MRT

final

day back in clock

my good-byes

here.

again, after three decades.

raining again today, mostly drizzling but sometimes pounding down.

I

I

he

209

It's

trails

GOING AWAY TO THINK made

are truly soggy. I've

run

is

promise to myself, though — in some ways,

a

the central purpose of my stay here in the

McKenzie River

this trail

drainage.

Thirty minutes out, thirty minutes back. Thirty years out, thirty years back. I've got

my watch on

again, so keeping track of time

is

no sweat.

Thirty minutes out, thirty years back. Temporal mindbending. This morning, driving

down Road 1506

out to be the

“Change it

final time,

seemed important Dressed

that

I

my gray New

minutes east to Paradise Campground,

Highway 126 had

little traffic,

head sign and

my little green

When

I

pull

psychological.” For

is

Balance running shoes,

just as

and the campground

new

sign for a dazzling

woods

just as

Moving

east

the

feeling

trail,

I

times turning with the

is

some

reason,

1

drive twenty'

I

do tomorrow.

to

empty.

find the trail-

trail

my

Trail" sign to stretch

system.

over.

falls

Wooden

signs

quickly find

Faster, faster.

1

trail,

run,

my

I

Achilles

recall this as

seem

to rot in

rhythm, breathing smoothly,

slapping in the mud, sinking into moist

sometimes skirting the

into dense old-growth glades.

trail

of the past

this trail thirty years self.

new

squish the soggy

pine needles. Faster and faster

mind — thoughts

a note:

experimental logs do.

on the

my shoes

made

car to a stop.

“McKenzie River

lean against the

had planned

I

tendons, the gray and fraying sign wobbles and nearly a fresh,

what turned

logs for

write this down.

and

in rain gear

decomposing

pulled over to the side of the road and

I

phenomenon— time

a physical

is

alter visiting the

week

in the

full river,

Memories flood my

Andrews, thoughts of

my

else

on

trail.

Shimmering

leaves of

run on

last

my

ago with father, brother, and friend, inside

No one

other

teenage

Oregon

grape,

glowing moss-beards on hemlock and yew. Dancing across patches of what call

“feather moss," clambering over fallen logs. Faster, faster.

recent e-mail announcing

my

Andrews would be shouting on. Tiger!"

I

at

I

remember

I

a

junior-high coach's eightieth birthday— Coach

me

now,

“Is that all

goose the accelerator and sprint

you got

in you.

uphill, try ing

son?

Come

not to sprain an

ankle on tree roots, careful not to slip on rain-slickened muck. Flashes of light

on shimmering the

woods

210

leaves,

dark tree bodies, the rushing river flashes

recede. Rushing, breathing, moving, running, thinking.

silver I

where

cannot

see.

Out of Time

my young

cannot see myself. Only

the woods, breathing, breathing.

Red

I

my dancing feet. am flying through cannot think my name, cannot speak hands,

it.

pungent branches on

cedar,

splaying out like

fig trees.

Giant

1

trail.

trees,

Multifaceted, giant cedar trunks,

red cedars. Thinking of our family house

named “Red Cedar” because of

in Sunriver,

name. Red cedar, shining

street

Oregon

branches, like ferns. Flashes of leaves, serrated,

grape. Puddles

on

trail.

Breathing, breathing. 1

think of

my

The

breathing.

friend, father, brother,

forest

opens to embrace

running us, to

just

enclose

gether, squinting back tears. Pushing harder, harder.

you got

in

you

51

"

Glancing back, no one

moving through the

No

is

with me.

behind me. Breathing, Sense of being to-

us.

“Come

Where

on. Tiger,

is

my

is

that

all

friend? Alone,

forest.

pen, no paper, just a breathing, running mind, absorbing, remembering.

Bright leaves push the light back, dimly glowing leaves take

it

in.

Reflection,

absorption. Supposed, supposed to be reflecting, making sense of this experience.

Not my

My mind a

way.

mossy

thinker, taking, taking

in,

not glinting out.

Thirty years out, thirty minutes back, breathing, breathing the forest

A

week of images,

sights, smells, sixty

thirty years of

it

occurs to

What

I

do

I

terribly

good

at

“long-term ecological absorption

during this past week

in the

me, sustain me. Perhaps

decomp

sites,

trail.

Oregon woods

in thirty years,

I 'll

"

long-term ecological reflection.

The impressions

will surely

the cuts, clear and otherwise.

to begin driving to Eugene. For now,

my

I've

gathered

remain with me, move

return to this forest and consider

what changes have occurred with the Lookout Creek the

soft forest

back to the Andrews, sweaty hands on steering wheel,

me that may not be is

memories, sixty minutes of rushing sounds,

minutes of wobbling, squishing feet on

Later, driving

in.

It’s

gravel bars, the fallen logs,

three P.M. now, about time

out-of-time experience

is

over

out of “Out of Time.”

I

211

I

am

17

Even Better than the Real Thing

Like

many

my

of

As

"the real thing." “lovely rock"

colleagues, I’ve

have long been a devotee of

I

discussed in

my

essay

on

and the traditional importance of “the

Jeffers’s

real" in

environmental literature and ecocriticism, the very concept of essential

and the

what

possibility

of feeling

many of us time and

lures

we can

as if

grasp

risk

of trivializing what

we

write

the beauties of literature, community,

appropriately to occasions that tell

the story of

twist in the

En route

wake

how my

itself is

call

them down.

take to be a rather serious topic

I

essential focus of this collection of essays, the efforts

to

of the thing

again into the dark forest of words, following

bread crumbs of ideas that evanesce even as

At the

some wisp

reality

— the

of a scholar both to enjoy

and the natural world and

for social political

to respond

engagement— I wish

appreciation for “the real thing" took a surprising

of a lecture trip to the other side of the world.

to present versions of

of the Organisation

for

the

my

Jeffers

stone talk at the

first

conferences

Environment

Study of Literature and the

and the Indian branch of the Association for the Study of Literature and

Environment — and

to talk with the leaders

about the

of coexisting

possibility"

in

of these

rival

mutually supportive ways

airport in Chennai, India, just before midnight in

scholarly groups

—

I

arrived at the

September 2006, rested

for

four hours at a nearby hotel, and then took a taxi back to the airport through the still-dark streets to catch an early flight up to

New

Delhi. In Delhi

I

found

Even Better than the Real Thing

a taxi driver standing

handwritten

sign,

among

the throngs at the airport with

the offices of Navdanya, where

Vandana Shiva

for

I

had

Hauz Khas neighborhood and

one o'clock appointment

a

launched years ago (and outlined in chapter

of Environmental Sensitivity substantial grant

The Numbers d

in a

World of Data "), had

on

Vandana

to arrive,

I

a

would be devoted

it

Navdanya

offices

waiting

reread two of her books. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and

Development and Water Wars: Privatization,

man

been funded by

just

with leading social and environmental

this issue

thinkers throughout the world. While sitting in the for

Nerves

“Seeking a Discourse

14,

from the Hewlett Foundation, and part of

to sponsoring interviews

to interview

an hour about her strategies for communicating

quantitative information to technical and lay audiences. project,

a

and we alternately inched and sprinted our way through the

chaotic traffic of India's capital city toward the

Dr.

my name on

Pollution,

and

and

Profit,

I

paid the young

clipping newspaper articles in the office for copies of several pamphlets

and in-house publications, including Costs of Seed Monopolies Patents, Building

d

Seeds of Suicide:

Globalisation of Agriculture,

Water Democracy

:

The

Ecological

and

Human

Intellectual Property Rights

People's Victory Against

Coca-Cola

in

Plachimada,

and

and

the Polaris Institute’s Coke Water Wars.

Late in the morning, hoping to wash away

my jet

lag,

I

went out

for a stroll

along the dirt and gravel streets of Delhi, stopping to take photos of browsing

cows and Coca-Cola ads painted on building walls around the corner from Navdanya.

My

morning reading had

freshly

reminded

me

impacts of the corporate water wars on local communities

found its

it

of the oppressive

in this country,

ironic that the arch nemesis of this activist organization

products so prominently

myself, there are

in

Hauz Khas

the

district.

At

and

1

was marketing

least,

1

thought to

no billboards crowing about the contributions of Monsanto

to

Indian peasants. Shortly before one o’clock, Vandana’s assistant, Priya. walked small cafe a few blocks from the office,

and sandwiches made with organic, interesting teas and fruit juices.

A

local grains

at one,

Vandana walked

over to a

offers healthy soups

and vegetables and

a variety of

laminated green and brown poster hung on

the cafe’s wall, declaring in English and

Promptly

where Navdanya

me

in,

1

lindi:

friendly

“This

is

Coke

Pepsi Free Zone.”

and businesslike, and found

I

21?

me

GOING AWAY TO THINK my

waiting for

lunch to arrive. She impressed

me

during the interview with

her careful approach to “counterexpertise” and the use of story to communicate scientific ideas

and with her

to general audiences

and numerical information

passionate devotion to the plight of peasants and local people, caught in the

sweep of globalization. During the next consciously avoided buying cans of

ASLE'I conference

me

with

in

Pondicherry, and

during the meetings,

that the Aquafina water

I

days of

my

stay in India,

at the university

when

to live in a

go through if

way life

we wish

noticed in reading the fine print on the label Pepsi.

Even when sensitized to

What would

that meshes with one’s awareness.

obsessing over the small print?

And

yet

what

it’s it

not easy

be

like to

alternative

do we

to be socially engaged, socially responsible?

1

Reno from

India,

I

weaned myself from

drinks and bottled water. This seems like an easy sacrifice, but partial

self'

purchased some water to carry

I

was actually bottled by

After returning to

is

I

canteen during the

and environmental concerns associated with globalization,

social

have

Coke

five

peace of mind for the abstainer

it

doesn’t

all it

make the

soft

accomplishes

slightest

dent

in

the multi'billion'dollar profits (or the worrisome activities) of the companies

being boycotted. So after two months of private abstention,

away from

piles of

I

pulled myself

student papers and prepared the following letter to the

CEO

of Coca'Cola:

1

Mr.

E.

8

November 2006

Neville Isdell,

Chairman, Board of Directors and CEO

The Coca-Cola Company P.O.

Box 1734

Atlanta,

GA 30301

Dear Mr. I

Isdell:

write to you as a longtime Ian of your company’s best-known

grew up enjoying oi various I

and

this

Coca-Cola products.

companies

rival

214

I

drink and have, until very recently, remained an enthusiastic consumer

lowever. during a recent lecture trip to India, its

product— Classic Coke.

|

chiefly,

Pepsi

and

1

became aware of the impact Coca-Cola

Parle Bisleri

— are

having upon Indian society

Even Better than the Real Thing

through the privatization of water and the pollution of water resources

in places like Kerala,

Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Himachal Pradesh. I’m sure you are well aware of what your

company

is

doing

and throughout the world, and

in India

aware of these water issues only to parts of the world

from fall

a scarcity

recently.

that I’ve

become

do applaud the concept of bringing clean water

1

— Latin America, South Asia, and Africa

of potable water. However,

ashamed

feel

1

that have suffered historically

was deeply concerned during

I

and other

to learn that thousands of subsistence farmers

my

trip earlier this

local residents in India have, in

recent years, lost their access to the water that their communities have traditionally used for

No

farming, livestock, and daily consumption.

doubt, the Indian government has facilitated

the privatization of this water by Coca-Cola and other corporations (for the production of

and bottled water

soft drinks

in India),

but while this access to local water supplies has enabled

your company to open the Indian market to your products, there have been dramatic and terrible

consequences for the most vulnerable Indian citizens From what

I’ve read since

return to the U.S., similar tradeoffs have occurred elsewhere in the world

my

of the

as. a result

corporate control of water resources. I

suppose the reason I’m writing to you

some of your company’s most in the privatization I

have decided as

loyal

is

a result

of

this

a rather trivial complaint

much of my time

my

branch of

traveling

my

literary studies

articles for

Cola and other

I

knowledge no longer that

know

I

I

let

you know that even

to purchase or

Coke

However,

drinker.

In

my

case,

consume products

to be involved in this practice.

that of a single

—

in

I

would estimate

I

that

I

You may think

happen

spend

to

combined audiences of

reach

of

in

several

an average year, and each of these listeners (not to mention

academic and popular audiences)

my

likely to

is

my

soft drink (and bottled water) corporations into I

learn that a

have read Coca-Cola’s Corporate

encounter hundreds of

lecture topics tend not to have

have found ways to work comments about

to continue doing so indefinitely, until arrived.

simply to

customers are concerned about Coca-Cola’s participation

students and colleagues in a year. Even though

with soft drinks,

is

around the world lecturing to audiences of teachers and scholars

thousand influential people readers of

time

and contamination of water resources throughout the world.

Coca-Cola or other corporations this

at this

new

much

to

do

disenchantment with Coca-

many

of

my lectures

and plan

era of corporate responsibility has

Responsibility Review,

and

it

contains nice-sounding

language about the company’s responsibility for environmental stewardship and toward the

communities where

it

does business, but,

do not yet match on-thc-ground

What to think

I

ask

is

I

realized during

my

visit to India,

these slogans

reality.

that you and your colleagues at

beyond the economic bottom

in regions

as

line

when

Coca-Cola consider making an it

comes

of the world where there are many people

active effort

to using precious water resources

who cannot

easily afford to

I

buy bottled

2IS

GOING AWAY TO THINK water or to purchase water for

people— farmers

Many people

participate in the

1

1

knew

commercial economy

and

India,

— so

I

that your

would be willing

company was

seriously trying

buy bottled water— many scarcely

it

makes

little

sense to bring clean bottled water

where few can afford

to

buy the product.

In truth,

it

like extortion.

believe that

Coca-Cola

is

a

reputable and important company, and

you are working

I

of your products

I

hope, ultimately, to

some evidence

receive

to respond appropriately to the concerns that people throughout the

world are currently voicing about the privatization of water. I’m afraid all

more

to

be able to return as a loyal consumer of your products. However, until that

to pay

— maintain access to their local water resources.

do not have enough money

to the hinterlands of Africa

sounds rather

if

in India, for instance

the world

in

Speaking for myself,

and your bottled water

for your soft drinks to help

irrigation.

— and

I

will

encourage others to do so

I

will

have to boycott

as well.

Sincerely,

Scott Slovic

Professor ol Literature and Environment

It’s

possible that this letter will have

something

my words

in

will strike a

little effect,

chord

in the offices

Perhaps the example of this letter will inspire

Coca-Cola or

to other

my

companies or government

social concerns, close to

home

or far away

but

When

it’s

possible, too, that

of the corporate giant.

students to write letters to

leaders, expressing their

it

comes

to engagement, often

the most useful thing writers, scholars, and teachers can do

meetings or craft

letters

Approximately

a

own

is

to speak

up

at

and e-mails to decision makers.

month

after

detailed and defensive response

semi-anonymous person

I

sent

my

letter to Mr. Isdell,

from someone

at

called “William.” Here’s

I

did receive a

Coca-Cola North America,

a

what he wrote: December 20 2006 .

Mr. Scott Slovic University of Nevada

Dept, of English

Reno,

NV 89557

Dear Mr.

Slovic:

Thank you

me

shared with

for contacting lor response.

about our operations 216

|

in India.

The Coca-Cola Company. Your

We

letter to Neville Isdell

was

appreciate the opportunity to respond to your concerns

Even Better than the Real Thing

The

reality

that

is

we

industry' accounts for less than

among

to

one half of one percent of water use

in

beverage

fact the

India

— but

we

are

the most visible.

Our Company makes it

— in

are not the largest user of water in India

makes no sense

We

all

We

and training workers and

community of the most important resource

to then drain the

produce our products.

share owners and

significant investments in building plants

that

we need

share an interest in water stewardship with our consumers, our

the communities where

we do

business.

have an obligation as a responsible community partner to use water

own

our

in

operations as efficiently as possible and to work with communities to steward this precious natural resource.

The

facts

demonstrate that we are not the cause of groundwater depletion

in

local

communities. In April 2005. the High Court of Kerala determined, on the basis of a year-long scientific study, that the

reduced to

rainfall

primary cause of the water shortage

during the

last several years,

withdraw and use water from the

Piachimada area was due to

and that The Coca-Cola Company has the

local aquifer for

right

our operations. Although the Piachimada

March 2004. we continue

plant has been closed since

in the

to supply drinking water to the local

community. Mehdiganj

is

neither a water scarce area nor a drought prone area.

been regular during the

The

last

few years and the average

The monsoon

rainfall in the area

is

mm

950

has

year.

allegations that our plant has depleted the water there are not substantiated by official

records.

The Coca-Cola Company 1999 and 2005.

We

has reduced our water use ratios in India by 34 percent between

have installed 220 rainwater harvesting structures spread across 17

including locations at schools and farms. At our plants, the collected water functions and for recharging aquifers. Today, a substantial in

our operations

is

renewed and returned

To further address concerns committed

to an

that

to

is

states,

used tor plant

amount of the groundwater we

use

groundwater systems.

we have depleted

local

water resources

in

India,

we

independent third-party assessment ot The Coca-Cola Company’s current

water resources management practices. In mid-September. The Energy and Resource Institute (teri), an India-based nonprofit research organization, began this assessment.

TERI

is

working with an independent steering committee that

will

oversee the study and

provided strategic direction to the assessment process. TERI has told us that they expect to

complete the assessment

Our Company completing

this

in

the

first

has pledged

quarter of 2007.

full

cooperation with TERI and

assessment and addressing

Although The Coca-Cola

Company

its

has

its

steering

committee

in

findings. its

own environmental management

I

systems.

217

GOING AWAY TO THINK which includes regular audits of every plant within our global system, we welcome additional assessment to provide an independent perspective

water resource management practices and

performance, and we’re committed to doing

As

we

always,

We know

policies.

this

on how we can improve our

that

we can

always improve our

so.

appreciate the opportunity to respond to your concerns and share our

position with you. Sincerely,

William Industry and

Consumer

Affairs

The Coca-Cola Company

The

detailed letter

Coke

to me, an authoritative defense of the

India, but

seemed

it

fire a single salvo

This

from William gave the appearance of

is

true,

toward

feel, in

I

than never writing watching,”

is

me

to

even

that the function of a concerned citizen

a potential (or actual) offender, but to

but to write back and

all,

better.

word" from

company’s record on water use

any context, any situation. To write

at

a “final

At the same time,

I

say,

still

did not want to

not to

keep watching.

a single

“I'm

is

in

time

is

better

interested,

make

still

a pest of

myself or come across as a crackpot.

So

I

wrote

a

second time to The Coca-Cola Company: 8 January

Industry and

Consumer

2007

Affairs

The Coca-Cola Company P.O.

Box 1734

Atlanta,

To I

GA 30301

Whom

It

May Concern:

sent a letter to Neville Isdell

last

month, expressing

Company’s water resources management Today

I

I

Consumer

concern about The Coca-Cola

and

practices in India

received a very helpful response from

vided) out of your Industry and

my

in

someone named William (no

appreciate William's detailed response, and

I

would be very interested ”

The Energy and Resources

result in

Institute (teri). based in

any sort of public document,

receive information about

218

|

how

I

last

name

pro-

Affairs office (see enclosed)

about the results of the “independent third-party assessment that by

other developing nations.

would very much

New

is

know more

currently being conducted

Delhi. If this assessment will

like to see a

to access the report online.

to

copy of the document or

Even Better than

As

come

mentioned

I

to hear

my

in

my

previous

letter,

resources in India,

I

would be happy

I

would

significant

improvements

who

thank him for

media and

The

management of water

in its

to share this information with

my

readers and listeners,

activist reports

of prob-

use.

advance for your response to

like to

the TERI assessment indicates that

II

are primarily familiar, at this point, with

lems caused by corporate water in

have access to audiences throughout the world

practices).

Coca-Cola Company has indeed made

Thanks

Thing

presentations on environmental literature and American culture (including

American corporate and consumer

many of whom

1

the Real

this request. Also, if

William

is

based

in

your

office,

his recent letter.

Sincerely,

Scott Slovic

Professor of Literature and Environment

On

March 6

sumer

1

received an e-mail from

Affairs office.

Thank you

He

“Tom"

at

Coke’s Industry and Con-

wrote:

for contacting

The Coca-Cola Company

again. Mr. Slovic.

We appreciate your

concern.

The information you

are requesting

available

is

on our Company website. You may wish

view the press release regarding the safety of our brands in India http:

We

web

address:

www.thecoca-colacompany.com presscenter nr_20o6o8iiP_csl.india.report.html

hope

comment

at the following

to

this

information

is

you have additional

helpful. Please contact us again should

or questions.

Tom Industry and

Consumer

Affairs

The Coca-Cola Company

I

immediately checked the

and found

Web

a press release dated

site

mentioned

August

II,

in this

message, of course,

2006, that declared Coca-Cola

products in India to be free of pesticides, to be “pure." But this

had written about

in either

my

first

or second letters to the

is

not what

company

I

I

had

expressed particular concern about the depletion (and privatization) of water resources needed by rural people, people

drinking water,

let

who cannot

easily afford to

alone water for farming or livestock.

The

buy their

e-mail from

Tom

completely missed the point of my inquiries to the company Busy with academic responsibilities I

and somewhat dismayed by the

had received from the company

in

polite obtuseness of the e-mail

March 2007

I

turned away from this

I

219

GOING AWAY TO THINK correspondence for some months, but

Cola products and similar

I

continued

I

continued to express

my

companies during

my private

my concerns

boycott of Coca-

about the company and

lecture trips throughout the United States

and

abroad. In the

of 2007, while preparing the

fall

searched the Coca-Cola all

I

Web

site for

practices in India.

What

To my knowledge the study has not

I’ve

results, despite

my communications

learned from

that the process of paying attention

with

yet

my

silent

and speaking out

instead of

— shelling

citizens (and this includes those

of us

it

is

ongoing. There will be

let

attention and I

was

we

But

seems necessary for

in

us, as

and

world

political

skills

we have

addition

engaged

work

called

other ways.

in

as writers

the multinationals and government officials

know

I

and public

we’re paying

care what’s going on.

sincere, by the way,

publicize Coca-Cola’s I

giant.

the academic

whatever

essential for us to use

speakers to

I

request.

who perform

ecocriticism), to interact with the corporate it is

been completed.

out our cash for corporate products and keeping

about any misgivings we might have,

believe

I

The Coca-Cola Company

no simple, quick, reassuring response from the corporate

— or

book,

an update about the teri assessment, but

have received no information about the

to

this

teri to conduct an assessment of Coca-Cola’s water-management

to enlist

is

manuscript of

press release stating the company's intention

2006

could find was an April

final

when

good deeds

wrote to “William” that

I

as

I

I

would be glad

learn about them, not only

to

its

infractions.

what “the

real thing”

take no pleasure in issuing only warnings and critiques.

Ask refers to,

and he or she

“Coke — it’s the industry or

Much

a stranger

real thing.”

artists,

of

my

will

on the

probably recognize this as a line from a commercial:

Who

support

work, coextensive with

to the best of this

feel right to

220

can lay prior claim to this

philosophers, and devotees of nature?*

savoring (“La vida tiene sabor

working

street in this country

my

"!)

my

personal

line,

Does

life,

it

the soft-drink

matter?

has been devoted to

the world's cultural and natural beauty and

abilities,

and within

my limits

of time

beauty and meaning. There are times, though,

when

enjoy a sip of Coke or a walk in the mountains,

when

and energy, it

it

to

just doesn't

makes more

Even Better than the Real Thing

sense to attend a bicycle advocacy and education group meeting or letter

of concern to a corporation. Sometimes

docs not refer to Coca-Cola)

— to quote

the

U2

fire

off a

song (which

— we need to realize that certain actions are “even

better than the real thing.”

Appreciation and action overlap are intermittent.

To

live a

at times,

responsible

life

but these

moments of consonance

means constantly

to

tweak the

bal-

ance between art (or scholarship) and activism. But to ask whether activism

compromises one's explains in Writing

intellectual

life,

as

Alison Hawthorne

the Sacred into the Real, is like asking,

nature? Does love compromise solitude? the mountain

compromise the

Deming

beautifully

“Does culture compromise

Does eating compromise prayer? Does

sky? All of these,” she says, “are relationships of

complementarity, correspondence, call-and-response, the mutualistic whole of existence” (67). I

guess this

that ecocritics

is

what

— and

I

ve been trying to say in the pages of this essay collection:

other socially committed literary scholars

— must

per-

petually seek appropriate ways to balance their aesthetic and emotional attach-

ments and

their

necessarily differs is

what

I

mean by

politics.

The

balance constantly

from one person to the

next.

shifts,

To pursue

and the balance

this balance,

though,

“responsibility.”

I

221

Acknowledgments

“Going Away

to Think: Travel,

by permission from Jennifer Sinor and

Placing the

Home, and

Academy

:

the

Academic

is

reprinted

Essays on Landscape and identity,

edited by

Life”

Rona Kaufman and published by Utah

State University

Press in 2007.

“Ecocriticism: Storytelling, Values,

Communication, Contact" was presented

at

the October 1994 meeting of the Western Literature Association in Salt Lake City, Utah.

An

early version

is

available

on the

Web

site

of the Association for

the Study of Literature and Environment (wwwasle. umn.edu).

“Seeking the Language of Solid Ground:

Reflections

Narrative” originally appeared in Fourth Genre

An

earlier version

1,

on Ecocriticism and

no. 2 (Fall 1999).

of “'Be Prepared for the Worst’: Love, Anticipated Loss,

and Environmental Valuation” was presented Association Conference in Albuquerque, publication in Western American Literature

“Mother Nature Sends

a

Pink

Seeking the Corn' Mothers Wisdom,

Slip,”

at the

New

Mexico, and was revised for

35, no. 3 (Fall

is

1997 Western Literature

2000).

reprinted by permission from

by Marilou Awiakta. Copyright

i

Selu:

993 Fulcrum >

Publishing, Golden, Colorado (www.fulcrumbooks.com). All rights reserved.

I

223

Acknowledgments

An

earlier version

of “Authenticity, Occupancy, and Credibility: Rick Bass

and the Rhetoric of Protecting Place" appeared the

American West, edited by William R. Handley and Nathaniel Lewis and pub-

lished by the University' of

A

in True West: Authenticity and

Nebraska Press

on and

brief version of “Ecocriticism

Hiroshima University Japanese) in the book

by Shoko

Itoh,

in

japan on 7

in

2004. Reprinted by permission.

after

September

May 2002. The

was presented

11"

lecture

was published

at

(in

New Landscape ofAmerica: Toward a New Ecocritical Vision, edited

Mitsu Yoshida, and Yuri Yokota and published by Nanundou

Press in 2003.

“Gated Mountains" was the Desert

,

first

published in Wild Nevada: Testimonies on Behalf

Moore and

edited by Roberta

of

Scott Slovic and published by the

University of Nevada Press in 2005. Reprinted by permission.

A

briefer version

Malamud’s

of “Animals and

Poetic Animals

Humans:

In

Appreciation of Randy

and Animal Souls ” was published in South Atlantic Review

(Winter 200 7).

An earlier version of “Chimeric 2005

issue ot Orion

Opinions” appeared

in the

September October

magazine (www.orionmagazine.org).

“The Story of Climate Change:

Science, Narrative, and Social Action” was

first

presented as a sermon to the LTitarian Universalist Fellowship of Northern

Nevada on 30 January 2005.

2005

the spring

issue

An

abbreviated version of this essay appeared in

of The Okinawan Journal ofAmerican

Studies,

University of the

Ryukyus, Japan.

“There’s Something about Your Voice Public Policy, and Ecocriticism"

2004 (64

2)

|

Cannot Hear: Environmental

appeared

environmental issue of

versity of Sydney, Australia).

224

first

I

Southerly

in slightly different

(Department ot

Literature,

form

in the

English, Uni-

Acknowledgments

“Seeking a Discourse of Environmental Sensitivity in a World of Data:

Divide between Literature and Science" was

2000

presented at

The

Earth

La Tierra Ario 2000, a symposium of scientists and writers sponsored

UNESCO and

by

first

The

International PEN, Mexico City Mexico, January

2000.

A

different version of this essay appeared in Tamkang Review (Spring- Summer

2002).

An

of “Oh, Lovely

earlier version

Slab:

Robinson

Jeffers,

Stone Work, and

the Locus of the Real" was presented as the keynote lecture at the Lebruary

2006 Robinson later as the

Jeffers

keynote lecture

in Pondicherry, India. Ecocriticism,

Association Conference in Big Sur, California, and at the

September 2006 conference of ASLE- India

This essay appeared

in the

OSLE' India volume

Essays in

edited by Nirmal Selvamony, Nirmaldasan, and Rayson K. Alex and

published in

New

Delhi by Sarup

Poems by Robinson

&

Sons

Jeffers are reprinted

in

2007.

from The Collected Poetry oj Robinson Jejfers,

Tim Hunt. Copyright © 1987 by the Jeffers Literary Properties Orca and 1938, 1966 by Donnan and Garth Jeffers for “Oh Lovely Rock.” edited by

rights reserved.

Used with the permission of Stanford University

Press,

for All

www

.sup.org.

A

previous version of “Out of Time" appeared in the environmental special

issue of Flyway

I

(Winter 2005).

am most grateful

to Professor

translation of Going Away

to

Wei Qingqi

for his careful

work on the Chinese

Think.

I

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How

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Harper Colophon, 1979.

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Wiesel,

“Peace

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Wilkinson, Charles. The

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Mapping a

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New

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—

.

“A

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Refuge: -

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I

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1,

1996.” Journal of Land, Resources,

1—7

May 1998

Unnatural History of Family

An Unspoken

236

17,

Tribute to Wallace Stegner, April

New

a? Place.

New

York: Pantheon. 1994.

York: Pantheon. 1991.

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Wilson. Edward O.

Winton, Tim.

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Worster, Donald Dust Bowl: The Southern Natures Economy:

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Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological Imagination.

New

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1993 Yamashita, Karen Tei. Through Yeats,

William

edited by

Butler.

M.

Zepeda, Ofelia.

L.

Arc of the Rain

Going

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Poems and Two Plays of William Butler

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Forest. St. Paul.

“The Second Coming.”

Rosenthal.

“It Is

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Index

Abbey, Edward, 104. 165-66,

171,

1

81

,

195,

ASLE (Association

for the

Study of Literature

and Environment),

197

Ackerman, Diane,

AtKisson, Alan,

157

21. 155

Activism. 24. 81, 167, 221

Attention, 18, 26, 136-37,

Adamson,

Auden, W. H., 147

joni,

94

Ade-Odutola, Role, 152

Audubon magazine,

Aesthetics of the not-there. the, 74

Authenticity, 63. 66, 67,

75

Age ofMissing Information The (McKibben),

42-43, 149

220

31

See also “Real,

,

212

18. 103,

68-69.

The”

Awiakta, Marilou. 49-50,

51

“Age of Numbing” (Lifton and Mitchell), 149 Allen, Bruce,

31,

Ambivalence,

xiii,

A.

R

,

200

there,”

153

human

59; activist letters

and the “aesthetics of the not-

of, 8l;

Animal Heart (B. Peterson), 114-15

74-77; and the evocative

parable, 5 1 nostalgia for the South. ;

77 79; and numbers, 146-47,

arrogance, 108;

mysterious and authentic autonomy,

and relationship

no,

66-67, 70-72;

1 1 1

poetically imagined animals,

—1

Human

Being

Anzaldua, Gloria,

Bellow, Saul.

Apocalyptics,

115

style

of note-taking,

Aquafina, 214

74. 184,

209 Berman, Morris, 248 185, 187,

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,

xii

Argument Culture, The (Tannen), 116

Homero and

81

25

Bender. Susie (wife), 89, 102, 173

The (Efron), 47

80

79

(A. L Peterson), 180 1

153:

to place. 52, 63,

32; rhetorical strategies,

“Animals and People" (Rogers), 112

Aridjis,

*

Bass, Rick. 4, 31, 35, 58

154

Anaya, Rudolfo. 90-91, 97,

Animals: and

Ronald, 45

Barry, Peter. 93

7

Americano-centric,

Ammons,

Bailey,

34

Betty,

152. 153

xi,

24, 85, 88.

Berry. Wendell,

15, 35. 153,

170

71

Betrayal ofScience and Reason (P. Ehrlich

Ehrlich).

Aristotle, 115

Big Sur. 184

Arizpe. Lourdes, 86, 88

Bioregionalism,

and A.

45-46 15,

207 08

I

239

Index

149-50

Birkerts, Sven,

Crosby, Alfred W., 147 Culture and Truth (Rosaldo), 41, 56

Blake, William, 2 Bless

Me, Ultima (Anaya), 90, 91, 97

58-59

Book of Yaak, The (Bass),

Daedalus, Stephen, 184

Borderlands La Frontera (Anzaldua),

Daly,

1 1

Herman, 51-52

Boyle, T. Coraghessan, 51

Daniel, John, 24,

Breytan, Breytenbach, 86

Darwin. Charles, 44

Bringing the Biosphere

Home (Thomashow),

35, 51, 63,

Davis, Fred, 38. 57

138-39

Day After Tomorrow, The

H

Brinkmeyer, Robert

70

,

Death

in Life

(Lifton),

Brisbane Forest Park (Australia), 103

DeLillo, Don. 95

Brophy, Robert. 183

Deliverance (Dickey),

Brownlash (antienvironmental) phenomenon,

De Lough rey,

Lawrence,

3,

experience

30, 74, 93; literature of,

and

124

(film), 123,

148-49 169

Elizabeth

DeMenocal,

45-46, 128 Buell,

89, 179. 181

M

,

96

Peter, 130

Deming. Alison Hawthorne, 66,

67, 221

Dialogue. 116

137

Dickey, James, 169

Calderazzo, John. 170, 180, 181

Dillard, Annie, 152:

Carson, Rachel, 47, 49 Celebration oj the Senses,

information, 145

A

Dirt Music (Winton), 138

(Rolls), 137

Dodge, Jim, 170

Christianson, Gale, 123

Climate change,

xii;

and numerical

ads,

pondence with,

1

19, 213, corres-

,

xiii;

dissenting

sci-

Dubos, Rene. 47 Duncan, David James, 138

entists on, 159; increased volatility of,

1

19;

and human

214-16; and personal values,

to CEO, 1

18,

1

3

1

;

and privatization of water,

213; public policy,

126-27; responses

from semi-anonymous 216-18. 219. rhetoric

and

trust,

Cohen, Michael

Commoner,

Earthwatch,

scale, 21 ; letter

of, 119. 121, 123;

128

P., 3,

Barry,

Communication,

staff people,

x,

IO

Easterbrook, Gregg. 45, 127-28, 155 Ecocritical responsibility, xiv, xv,

3

Ecocriticism, 6; advocacy, 138; definitions of, 27.

93-94; engaged

citizenship,

220-21; ethical assertions

in,

109;

overview since 2001, 93-96; and

96

storytelling. 28, 34-35; as ‘‘third

wheel,” 12, 34; and values,

47

29, 34, 107, 118, 144

Ecocriticism

(Garrard), 93

Community, 63-64

Ecosublime (Rozelle). 183

Complacency. 19-20. 42, 63

Edwards, Jonathan, 164,

Confessions ofan Economic Hit

Man

(Perkins).

Contact. 43

203

Efron, Edith.

51,

53-54. 141-42

181

47-48, 78 44-45,

Ehrlich. Paul R..

Contingent valuation.

28-29

—and Anne

47, 51, 115,

Ehrlich, 155;

150-52

on climate

Courtney, John, 185. 186. 187

change. 128; on grassroots efforts,

Cradle Mountain (Tasmania), 102

131-32; and “a world of wounds,” 55

Credibility, 79, 81

Credo

The,

Series,

Elder, John, 28. xiv, 7,

89

Crichton, Michael, 119-22

Cronan. William, 104

240

|

5

30

“End of Something, The" (Hemingway), 42 Engagement.

3.

12. 29.

92-93, 140-41, 142,

214-16, 218-19; lack

of,

32

Index

Environmental-justice ecocriticism. 88.

Handley, George

94-95

Hans, James

S.,

Environmental Protection Agency (epa),

ix

Hanson,

Essay on the Principle of Population (Malthus),

44

Hanson. Susan,

B.,

96

8

Jim, 134,

140

97,

98-100

Evans, Mei Mei, 94

Hardin, Garrett, 133-34

Extinction of Experience, 105

Harmon, Mark, 200 Hart. George, 174

202

Felstiner, John, Fiber (Bass), Field Notes

Hass, Robert, 6-7, 133

Heaney, Seamus,

59

Heise, Ursula. 93. 182-83

(Lopez). 52

Finch. Robert, 63

Hemingway,

Finn Rock (Ore), 83-84

H

Four Season

in Five

Senses

ill

(Masumoto), 137-38

Friggieri, Oliver. 152

J.

Hogan, Linda.

Home, "1

42

Andrews Experimental

Holt. Sidney,

Fukuoka, Masanobu, 29, 35

Ernest,

23,

Forest, xi, 189

133

86

23-26, 72, 101

lomeland

Security’’

(Hanson).

Gaines, Susan, 128 -29

Humboldt, Alexander von, 72

Garrard. Greg. 93

Hung-chi. Liao, 152

Gelbspan, Ross,

128

121,

98-100

Hunt, Tim, 183 Hurston. Zora Neale, 123

Gelpi, Albert. 168. 183

Geographical isomorphisms, 72-73, 99 Gessner. David, 90,

97-98

Inconvenient Truth,

An (Gore), 132-3302

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. 47

Inhumanism, 203, 206, 215

Globalization. 84. 261

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,

Global Soul, The (Iyer), 171

Global warming. See Climate change

133112

PEN-UNESCO Symposium,

International

Goldsworthy, Andy, 180, 247

85

Gomides, Camilo. 93 Goodrich, Charles, 190

“Into the Shirakamis” (Bass), 35

Gore, Al. 132-3302

Introducing Criticism at the 21st Century

Gosson, Renee

K.,

I

ntransigence,

96

xi, 87.

See also dialogue

(Wolfreys), 93 ronic humor, 50

Great Barrier Reef (Australia), 174

I

Great Basin Institute, 23

Isdell, E. Neville,

Great Wall of China, 188

Ishimure, Michiko, 152

Greenhouse (Christianson). 123

Iyer, Pico,

Greenhouse

effect, 136,

1

214

7

192

Gregory, Robin, 53 — S 4

Jacobs, Jane, 148

Graulich, Melody, 47

Janovy, John,

Jr.:

communicating

Gubanich. Al, 11,13

environmental science, 154-56;

Guggenheim, Davis. I32n2

rhetorical strategy of. Jeffers,

Donnan,

Habbington, William, 170

Jeffers,

Garth 174

Haiku, 168

Jeffers. Lindsay, 185,

Halliburton,

ix,

122

Hamilton, Joan, I33n2

xi.

Jeffers,

157-60

175, 185

76 187

Robinson, 164, 174-77, 182; concept of inhumanism. 168-70; and mut-

I

241

Index

ability, 167, 175, 178;

rock quest, 166,

on stone, 166-67, 171-72,

184, 187;

environmental and 1 1

Maslow, Abraham, 8

Masumoto. David Mas,

177-78 Justice,

Marshall, Ian, 30

social, 109, 112,

8—2

MaybeOne (McKibben),

McKenzie River

Kafka. Robert. 174, 177, 178. 184 -87

McKibben,

Karman, James,

1

S

Bill,

xi-xii,

warming. 123-24, I32~33n2; human

Kingsolver, Barbara, 63. Kittredge, William,

4

91-92

51, 52,

1 ;

scale.

68, 70, 153; as lay

9.

personal papers. 73

21-22; making

numbers,

rhetoric,

travel count.

telescoping

153, 154.

160-62. warning. 182

Kolbert, Elizabeth, I32n2

McPhee, John. 166

Kowalewski, Michael, 70

Meadows, Donella and Dennis,

Kyoto Protocol, 122-23

Measure of Reality, The (Crosby), 147 Mestizaje,

Landman,

Larkin, Philip.

P.,

71

Le Guin, Ursula

The (Nichols), 36

55,

169

Hanson, 67

Mixing. Sec under Silko, Leslie

Moore, Kathleen Dean,

148-49

Jay,

Mitchell, Greg, 149

Mitchell, John

K., 154

Lewis, Corey Lee, 30

Robert

Trailhead (Nev.),

Miller, Perry, 164

Last Beautiful Days ofAutumn,

Lifton,

Limerick, Patricia Nelson,

Moore, Marianne,

63-64

8,

ill

ix,

Limits, 199

Moore, Roberta,

xii

Lindzen, Richard, 121

Moore, Thomas Gale, I33n3

Lippard, Lucy,

Moreton Island

and

Literature:

7

social

values, 28,

Lopez, Barry,

Loss,

8;

and

and vivid particulars.

.

Si

52, 65,

66-67.

60. 88

Lure of the Local. The (Lippard),

1

7

Lynas, Mark. 121-22

Thomas

J..

(France),

(Awiakta).

1

8 1 182 ,

209 a

Pink Slip"

49-50

Mount Coot tha (Australia), 102-3 Mount Kosciuszko (Australia). 102 Mount Monadnock (Mass ). 18 Mount Rose (Nev). IOI, 103 Mount Tamalpais (Calif), 196

Love, Glen A., 28. 163

Lyon

Mont Blanc

73.

135. 153

S5.

(Australia), 103

“Mother Nature Sends

ix, 8. 35, 51.

41-42. 47.

99

Morris, David Copland,

170-71

Local, the,

93

engagement,

Marmon

190

Moore, Michael,

1

155

15

Thompson 107m

1 1

Leopold, Aldo,

1

Michael D.

Janet, 37

Landow, George

1

“ecological bottleneck,” 22, 134; global

10-11

1

(Ore ), 209

Trail

42-43, 149; drafting the Mexico City Declaration, 85-86;

172, 183

ethicist,

160-62

157,

209

Bill,

Kafka, Gene. 184, 185. 187

Kahneman. Daniel,

137-38

Matthiessen, Peter, 153

McChesney,

Keir, Jerry,

8, 35,

Moyers.

73

Bill.

Muir, John.

1

x.

17

173 184 .

Malamud, Randy: “advocacy methodology,” III;

defense of “literary value.”

empathetic imagination. 109;

1

IO;

human

arrogance toward other animals, 108

Malthus. Thomas, 44 157 -

242

|

Nabhan. Gary Nagel,

Paul. 17, 35. 65. 69,

1

4

Thomas, 109

Narrative scholarship,

xiv, 7, 12,

Natural History of the Senses.

34 — 35. 57

A (Ackerman),

137

Index

Quammen,

Nature ofEconomics, The (Jacobs). 148

Navdanya, 213

David, 43,

155;

personal papers,

95; reaching “the great

unwashed,” 65

Nebuka, Makoto, 45 Nelson. Barney,

1

Randers, Jorgen, 155

13

Nelson, Richard K., 193

“Real. The,” xv, 164-67, 170, 173, 186-87,

New World New Mind (Ornstein and Ehrlich), 51, 115-16,

212. See also Authenticity

P.

150-52

Red Sky at Morning (Speth), 126-27

Nichols, John, 36, 55-56

Reed, T.

Normalizing the new, 14

Regret. 37

North Stradbroke Island

(Australia), 103

Nostalgia, 38; and environmental writing,

56-59; 96;

as imperialist.

56-57

V.,

94~95

Relevance, xv Resistance, 108 Responsibility. 9. 39, 42, 68. 103, 221

Not home. The, 79

Retreat.

Numbers and Nerves (project), 213

Rexroth, Kenneth, 174

Numbness,

Rigby, Kate, 93

7,

40, 42, 43. 47, 50, 78

6, 12,

3.

122

180

Rising Fire (Calderazzo).

Occupancy, 67

“Oh, Lovely Rock”

(Jeffers).

Okajima, Shigeyuki. Oliver, Mary,

River Why, The

68,101 174-11

Robertson, David, 196

Robinson

31, 33

Jeffers Association

Rogers, Pattiann, 73, no,

10

1

(Duncan), 138

Olson, Charles, 184

Rolls, Eric, 137

Organisation for the Study of Literature and

Roosevelt, Theodore,

Environment. 212 Orion magazine,

Orion

Society,

Ornstein. Robert. Ortiz,

Owning

Simon

Ross.

Andrew. 124-25

Roy, Arundhati. 4,

92-93

Rozelle. Lee, 183

All (Kittredge).

It

150-52

8. 141

J.,

no

Rowland, Sherwood, 86

1 1

51, 115.

1 1

Rosaldo. Renato, 41, 56-57

xiii

The, 79,

Conference, 183

Ruby Mountains (Nev), 105

68

Rueckert, William, 6 Pacheco, Jose Emilio, 109,

Running,

ill

11.

17-18,

Sharman Apt,

Payne, Daniel G., 135

Russell,

Paz, Octavio,

Ryden, Kent C., 28

24

209-n 35

Perkins, John, 203

Peterson,

Anna

180-81

L.,

Sanders. Scott Russell,

35, 51, 52. 63, 95,

Peterson, Brenda, 114-15

136-37. 143-44, 1ST 170, 1 81 and the

Philippon, Daniel

ephemerality of mountains, 179

Phillips,

J.,

;

135

Dana, 96

Population,

44

Ecologist,

Satterfield, Terre (Theresa), 54, 69, 134, 141

John Janovy’s

45; in

157

62; in Bill

10

Minute

McKibben’s

Maybe One, 157-62 Population Bomb. The (P. Ehrlich), Priscolli,

Jerome Del

1 i

.

44 45

86

II,

89

2, 4, 1.

126

126.

197

Bless

Me, Ultima in

90-92, 97; David Gessner 97-98; Susan Hanson on.

context

of,

98-100 Servid, Carolyn,

35, 65. 105. 153.

268

90: teaching

on,

97-98 Robert Michael,

I,

Savoring,

9

“Punctured Pastoral. The" (Gessner), 90.

Pyle.

Saving,

xii

Scherer, Glenn, 117

I

243

Index

Through

Schneider, Stephen, 127

the

Shirakami Mountains (Japan),

Travel, 9,

Sierra Nevada, 105 14;

1

and concept of

41-42, 60-61. 82

Slovic, Jacinto (son), 37,

Slovic, Paul (father), 192, Slovic. Steve (brother),

209-11

15;

and

and mindfulness, 67

responsibility,

Amos.

16-17; the

life,

69

xii.

96

151

Typology, 164

91-92 Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of

1 1

Snowy Mountains

Northern Nevada,

(Australia), 102

Snyder, Gary, 65, 67, no.

III, 153.

174 196 .

Solnit, Rebecca, 2,

Songojthe Dodo The

Upgren, Arthur.

Urban

Sojourner, Mary. 63

sprawl,

119.

xii;

Urban wilderness

106

(Quammen).

43, 15s

change,

Stegner, Wallace, 104, 166

1

164

xii,

3

“McMansion trail access,

as,

102

103

Urgency, moral and political, 84, 96; climate

Speth, James Gustave, 126-27, 130

1

5

U2. 221

94 Values and valuation, 28-29, 48,

Steinbeck, John, 129 Stevens, Wallace. 168 Stock, Jurgen,

1

131,

141-42

and grief and

lyric intensity.

rage, 41,

174,

223-28

culture, 172-73, 178

Storytelling, 28, 34—35:

53, 79.

51

Ventana Wilderness (Calif), 166,

19

American

and

and the academic

Truth of Ecology, The (Phillips).

Tversky,

209-11

Small Wonder (Kingsolver),

Stone: and

2;

Trimble, Stephen,

mixing, 114

Stein, Rachel,

1

frustrations of, 19;

Marmon,

Smith. Stevie,

Rain Forest (Yamashita),

Tor House, 172

31

Vandana, 213-14

Silko, Leslie

the

181-82

Shikoku (Japan), 29

Shiva,

Arc oj

Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve, 24

46-47, 50

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 36, 47

Wald, George, 47

Su. Nadia, 152

Walden Pond,

“Sunday Morning” (Stevens), 168

Warning, language

Swanson, Fred, 190-91, 194, 201, 208

Water

201. 224, 228 of,

privatization,

42-44. 48,

xiii,

213, 215, 219

Weather (Upgren and Stock).

1 1

9 131-32 .

Tallmadge. John, 30

Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, 98

Tan, Amy, 47

Weltzien, Alan, 71

Tangney, ShaunAnne, 174

What's Nature Worth ? Nature Expressions

Tannen, Deborah. 116 Tenacatita Bay (Mexico), 10

Minute

Ecologist

(Janovy),

Slovic),

157-60

teri (The Energy and Resource

Institute),

217, 218

White.

,

.

E. B.,4

White, Richard, 12 Wilderness, 104-5

Wilkinson. Charles, 54. 63-64, 69,

Tevis, Lloyd. 174, 186

Williams, Terry Tempest,

Thomashow. Mitchell, 138-39 Thoreau, Henry David, 2,4.8.

65. 69. 107, 134.

26. 74, 150,

244

I

142. 153;

and

(China), 188

xii. 5,

Wilson, Edward O., 8

135

34. 51, 52.

140-41; and

statistical

145-46, 147

165, 170, 181

Dam

and

69. 134 135 - 36 141

Terrarium (Sanders), 52

Three Gorges

oj

Environmental Values (Satterfield 11

268

221.

stories,

information,

Index

Winton, Tim. 138

Yamashita, Mike, 31-33

Wolfreys, Julian, 93

Worster. Donald. 44, 130,

Yeats, 131

Wright. Judith, 152

William

Butler, ix

Yucca Mountain (Nev.),

xii,

106-7, 173

54,

Yaak Valley Forest Council. 80-81

Writing: and social engagement, xiii-xiv Zaller, Robert. 183

Xenotransplantation, 114-15

Zanzani. Esmail,

1

1

Zepeda, Ofelia. 24, 141

Yaak Valley (Mont ), 58-59, 70-72, 77-81 Yamashita, Karen Tei, 181-82

Zwinger, Ann, 25, 35

I

245

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

3 9999 06252 132

literature

and environment

1

at the

University of Nevada, Reno.

1

le is

the

author or editor of many books, was the

founding president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment,

and has edited ISLE: in Literature

Interdisciplinary Studies

and Environment since 1995.

E

NVIRO N M E NTAL LIT E R A T U R E

Scott Slovic has spent his

life

as a teacher, writer,

of ecocritical literary studies. In Going Away life

—

the

commitment

pate fully in

its

to

do some good

most intense moments

to

in the

environmental

activist,

and leader

Thin\, he reflects on the twin motivations of his

world and the impulse

—and he examines

most important environmental

profound discussions of the

role

on the impact of family

tions

and

crises

the relationship

is

between

and

literary activists.

and the influence of his wide-ranging

literature

Away

—

Joni

“Many

all

Adamson,

will read

they’ve issues

and grace. The answers he

felt

of one of

They range from rumina-

and the world, between

posits are the

most

travels.

satisfying

and

art

and activism?

on with

In this

fearlessness, sen-

insightful to date.”

coeditor of The Environmental Justice Reader

Going Away

Thin\ and have the same reaction

to

I

had

— recognizing

the tensions

without consciously identifying or being able to articulate them before.

.

.

.

These

have never been so well articulated or identified. Most of all, the book demonstrates

these conflicting purposes

tion that

is

beautiful in

its

and desires can be synthesized, balanced, brought into

creativity, startling in

its

— Ian Marshall, author Nature, and

of

Tea\ Experiences: Walking Meditations on Literature,

Need

UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA PRESS illustration:

©

Getty/Ross Anania

Cover Design: Ann Weinstock

a

how

conjunc-

clear-sighted intelligence, utterly convincing,

and thoroughly moving.”

Cover

life

to Thinly

beautifully written, inspiring book, Scott Slovic takes these questions sitivity,

partici-

the tension created by his efforts to

responsibilities of scholarship to deeply personal

Praise for Going “What

critics

and

to enjoy life

balance these two poles of his responsibility. These essays reveal the complex inner this generation’s

in the field