|
Writing About Nature Books on the Inland Northwest and Beyond by the WSU Press -- reviewed by Phil Druker
Landscape of the HeartA broad genre, nature writing has a long history. At its best, it has helped change the way we think about and deal with the world, as did Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Published in 1962, it still makes interesting, relevant reading. At its worst, nature writing has given us overly sentimentalized "nature fakers," but even Bambi has influenced the way many view forest fires and hunting. Nature writing generally deals with description, as in descriptions of flowers or travelogues; policy or issues, as in writing about environmental concerns like endangered species; and philosophy, as in the ways in which nature explains the meaning of life. In addition, nature writers often use narration as a driving force: writers who tell good stories get read. Assuming that people read to be entertained or to learn new information, and that most who read for information are plenty glad if they can be entertained while getting educated, I contend the best nature writing balances these four elements to engage readers. The WSU Press recently published four books of writing about nature: Landscape of the Heart by Stephen Lyons (1996), Valley Walking (1997) by Robert Schnelle, Edge of Tomorrow, An Arctic Year (1998) by Sam Wright, and Wild to the Last, Environmental Conflict in the Clearwater Country (1998) by Charles Pezeshki. The first three of these books form the press's Northwest Voices Essay Series, but all four books chronicle WSU's bio-region in various ways, and the WSU Press has done an admirable job providing these authors a way for their voices to reach the public. |
|
 |
Stephen Lyons's Landscape of the Heart offers a personal collection of narratives, prose poems, and verse about a single father and his daughter growing up together. Lyons shows how his connection with nature and the place where he lives—the Palouse—helped him survive divorce, single-parenting and joint custody, growing up without a father, and learning to become a father himself. His heartfelt, personal narration takes us on drives, hitchhiking trips, and hikes around the Inland Northwest, Yellowstone, and across the West. He even takes us on visits to New York City. Landscapes, animals, and especially birds frame Lyons's observations and feelings about his daughter, divorce, re-meeting his father, and coming to grips with his own mortality. But mostly this book is about the emotional growth of the author, his love for his daughter, his hopes that she will grow up loving nature as he does, and his realization that she is who she is. In reading Lyons's first book, we learn much about the author and his philosophy and also learn the patience to appreciate the landscape and the people near us. |
 |
In Valley Walking, Robert Schnelle takes readers for walks and philosophic rambles through the landscape near his Kittatas Valley home, the nearby Cascades, and the Washington coast. Rather than a guide to trails, the book offers a guide to Schnelle's thoughts on our current imperfect culture, typified by snowmobiles and urban sprawl. No casual observer of nature, Schnelle provides vivid detail about places, animal behavior, and plants and connects them with literature, reminiscences of growing up in New England, land-use—or misuse, as he sees it—and environmental politics, child rearing, family life, and the sanctity of wild places. The wild places he enjoys and writes about are not the national parks or the big, official wilderness areas; rather, Schnelle offers a sometimes self-righteous call for us to know the natural spaces around our homes and towns. The writing here does not rely on narration to carry the philosophy; instead, the writer toys with phrases and uses descriptive detail to extol the virtues of taking a good hike to get to know and appreciate the place where we live. |
 |
We have all heard about deforestation in the Amazon, and many know about the vast clearcuts in western Washington and Oregon. In Wild to the Last, Charles Pezeshki informs us that deforestation and forest mismanagement are also serious problems in the little known Inland Northwest, particularly in the Clearwater and Nez Perce National Forests of Idaho. Not one to mince words, Pezeshki argues the forests and the ecosystems they support are "going fast. Real fast" (p.2). (I need to mention here that I helped the author by reading early versions of the book, so my account might not be totally unbiased.) In the book's first section, Pezeshki introduces readers to the landscape of north central Idaho, its forests, mountains, rivers, and vast areas still remaining roadless. He tells some frank, and sometimes humorous, stories about his exploration of the area, and in doing so describes how he sees it. In the next section, he writes about the area's people—environmentalists, eco-warriors, foresters, loggers, and lumber mill workers. In the third section, Pezeshki chronicles the ecological crises the region's forests face: too many roads, too much logging, and general mismanagement of one of the world's treasures—the Inland Northwest's forests. In writing Wild to the Last, Pezeshki learned a great deal about northern Idaho's land and people. Readers interested in environmental issues will find the book useful, as it provides good information about recent struggles to protect some of the nation's last remnants of unroaded forest. Sadly, in the epilogue the author develops a tortured analogy comparing the logging of these forests with the Holocaust and Nazi Germany. Apparently, he actually believes that the people working for the Forest Service and in the timber industry hate the woods and the trees just as the Nazis hated Jews. |
 |
Edge of Tomorrow, An Arctic Year by Sam Wright mixes description, narration, and philosophy to chronicle a trip around the sun from the vantage point of a cabin north of the Brooks Range and the Arctic Circle in Alaska. Wright's descriptions are as clear as a star-filled arctic night and as vivid as the northern lights. His narrations are interesting and sometimes exciting. In each of the book's 12 chapters, he opens with a discussion of the month's weather and then spins "An Arctic Allegory." Next, he launches into musings about subjects like responsibility, religion, mysticism, mythology, the afterlife, and the value of wild places. A self-confessed romantic, Wright argues that religion and spirituality, rather than science, hold the answer to the problems society faces, and that "…feeling, imagination, and wonder are as much a part of reality as fire…" (p. 171). Not much is new here, but the author gently encourages readers to live on the edge, rather than complacently, and to seek the spiritual rather than the material. Finally, he offers readers a short poem. All this might become rather ponderous, but Wright closes each chapter with a humorously told "Polar Parable" and an apt postscript. Phil Druker is a lecturer and assistant director of writing at the University of Idaho.
|
