Book Reviews:
Seeking Awareness in American Nature Writing:
Henry Thoreau, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, Barry Lopez by
Scott Slovic (1992)
and
Pilgrims to the Wild: Everett Ruess, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Clarence King,
Mary Austin by John P. O'Grady (1993)
by Harold W. Wood, Jr.
These two new books from the University of Utah Press contain much of interest to
Pantheists.
Slovic's thesis is that the nature writers he studied were preoccupied not only with
eternal nature, but with the psychological phenomenon of awareness itself. The
interactions made by Thoreau, Dillard, Abbey, and the rest with nature led them to a
better understanding of the human mind, thus achieving a heightened attentiveness to our
own place in the natural world. Slovic says, "To write about a problem is not
necessarily to produce a solution, but the kindling of consciousness -one's own and one's
reader's is a first step - an essential first step." Thus, for Slovic, "Nature
writing is a 'literature of hope' in its assumption that the elevation of consciousness
may lead to wholesome political change, but this literature is also concerned, and perhaps
primarily so, with interior landscapes, with the mind itself."
Thus, in exploring each of the nature writers he has chosen for his study, Slovic finds
the attitude of "attentiveness" to be of primary importance. For Thoreau, his
"acts of discovery was not just enlargement of knowledge, but rather depth of
awareness."
This same theme can be found for the other writers, each with their own unique
perspective. From Annie Dillard's psychological emphasis, Abbey's pure aestheticism,
Berry's watchfulness, and Barry Lopez's seeking awareness, Slovic penetrates deeply into
each of these writers. Throughout, he considers whether the direct encounter with nature
is aided or obstructed by the experiences that environmental literature affords.
John P. O'Grady seems to take a different tack in his Pilgrims to the Wild .
His approach is not to consider the "nature writers" whom he has chosen to study
as a critical inquiry of nature writing, but rather a contribution to the study of
American spiritual autobiography. He uses the concept of "pilgrimage" to make
his analysis. This can be seen most cogently, perhaps, in the story of Everett Ruess, who
at age 20 disappeared in 1934 in southern Utah, as a "vagabond for beauty." He
was one pilgrim who never came back.
By comparison Thoreau's pilgrimages were little ones; he never traveled far from
Concord; but he journeyed far from the cultural milieu that surrounded him. O'Grady says
that Thoreau's writings are "acts of love issued from the edge of civilization, which
is also the edge of the wild." But O'Grady agrees with Slovic that in engaging in a
love of nature, writers like Thoreau is "seeking self."
O'Grady further describes John Muir as making a ten-year pilgrimage to the wild,
"walking, climbing, pursuing his desire, to-ing and fro-ing the length and breadth of
California, singing its undomesticated praises." Likewise, Clarence King and Mary
Austin were two other pilgrims from the east who came to California, and become
exceptionally engaged with the natural world they found there.
Of these two books, O'Grady's is more descriptive and less analytical. O'Grady has
combined a study of five writers, with the theme of pilgrimage being the only real link
between them. By contrast, Slovic seems to think more deeply about the five writers he has
chosen to analyze, his is providing not a mere introduction to these writers, but perhaps
even assumes some knowledge of these writers beforehand, which O'Grady does not. He
wonders, "Are nature writers 'preaching to the choir,' or do their voices reach out
even to the unaware and uncommitted?" He quotes Glen A. Love in mincing no words in
proclaiming, "The most important function of literature today is to redirect human
consciousness to a full consideration of its place in a threatened world." But
O'Grady wonders if this can be achieved at all.
For Slovic, the solution is to recognize that it may not be necessary to view our
nature writers and literary analysts as "environmental indoctrinators." Instead,
it may be enough to simply stimulate awareness and thinking in general. In other words, he
believes educators should not try to stimulate "the right thoughts of the
righteous" but "to provoke thoughts, period. Any thoughts. Perhaps the best we
can hope for is, like Barry Lopez, to 'create an environment in which thinking and
reaction and wonder and awe and speculation can take place.'"
These two books are a good place to help us all begin thinking about how not just
nature writers, but all individuals can better explore both correspondence and otherness
with Nature.
Book Reviews: Seeking Awareness in American Nature Writing and Pilgrims to the Wild
Source: Pantheist Vision Vol. 14, No. 3, September, 1993.
