"Sickly" nature

Like Brooke, I was very much struck in this section by the repeated characterization of nature (in Brooke’s post, specifically water) as poisonous to humans.  This is a theme repeated with a difference from Traill’s work, as Traill is concerned with the healing or poisonous properties of plants.  In our discussion of Traill, we talked about how she (mainly) characterizes plants as curative and humans as sickly.  I think Austin does something different here, as she describes a “sickly” nature.

Austin suggests repeatedly that nature itself is sick, in ways that blur the difference between the human body and the natural world.  She uses the word “sickly” twice, describing both earth (“soil sickly with alkali-collecting pools”) and water (“sickly, slow streams”) (92).  Less obvious word choices also serve to characterize nature as sickly.  She refers, for instance, to “wastes” of reeds.  “Wastes” can be read as a geographic term signifying an empty expanse (Melville uses it to describe the ocean, for instance), but also suggests the “wasting away” characteristic of tuberculosis.  In the same vein, she repeats imagery of being bleached – a “faded white” heliotrope and “ghostly pale” reeds – creating the image of a nature which has wasted like an invalid’s face.  She describes stalks as “succumb[ing],” as after a long illness, says pools of water are “evil-smelling like old blood,” and describes the “leakage” from canals – the water, here, is like the pus from an infected wound (92).

This view of a sick nature is one which is decidedly less useful to humans than those articulated by Audubon, Cooper, Traill, Melville, etc.  These authors all depict a nature which is in some way harvestable by humans: Audubon and Melville both describe the “harvesting” of animals, while Cooper and Traill “glean” nature for plant specimens.  The nature depicted by Austin in this passage (with the exception of the healing heliotrope) is decidedly un-harvestable.  It is, rather, a nature which is sick, and capable of making humans who wish to better understand it sick (malaria could be the consequence of exploring the tulares, for instance.) 

The question is, what made nature sick?  If this is a proto-environmentalist text, then the answer seems to be the poisonous run-off from agriculture in the West (and Brooke’s reading of water as pharmakon supports this.)  But could there be other causes for nature’s sickness, or could sickness be the natural state of the “land of little rain”?

Perhaps unconnectedly, I think the point Sam made in class about Austin’s opaque style is suggestive here.  Nature is sick, and Austin’s difficult sentences are a diagnosis painfully described.  Unlike Cooper, though, or Traill (to some extent), we don’t see long moralistic asides about the ideal human relationship to the environment in Austin’s work.  Rather, Austin seems content to diagnose nature as sickly and refrains from recommending a cure – perhaps indicative of her overall attitude toward human-environment interactions.

Water as Remedy and Poison

The theme of poison in nineteenth century nature writing has come up in class discussion several times over the course of the semester, specifically with Rural Hours and Canadian Wild Flowers. A twist on the same theme can be found in The Land of Little Rain, but Austin writes about poisonous water instead of poisonous plants. Poisonous water first appears in the very beginning of “Water Trails of the Ceriso,” which is a section about the trails animals make in their endless pilgrimage to spots of drinkable water, the highest commodity in the desert:

There is little water in the Ceriso at the best of times, and that little brackish and smelling vilely, but by a lone juniper where the rim of the Ceriso breaks away to the lower country, there is a perpetual rill of fresh sweet drink in the midst of lush grass and watercress. (Austin 12)

Another example of poisonous water occurs in the passage we were asked to write about in “Other Water Borders,” which focuses on how water runoff from neighboring mountains affects both wild and cultivated plants in the desert:

In all the valleys and along the desert edges of the West are considerable areas of soil sickly with alkali-collecting pools, black and evil-smelling like old blood. Very little grows hereabouts but thick-leaved pickle weed. Curiously enough, in the stiff mud, along roadways where there is frequently a little leakage from canals, grows the only western representative of the true heliotropes…After so much schooling in the virtues of water-seeking plants, one is not surprised to learn that its mucilaginous sap has healing powers. (91-92)

These two depictions of nature and water are certainly far from romantic, but I find them extremely interesting because both examples conflate remedy (water) with poison. In the first selection, Austin emphasizes the fact that there is a limited supply of water in the Ceriso, but that the majority of the accessible water is undrinkable. However, one can find healthy water that will nourish the body if one only knows where to look by following the growth of grass and watercress. In the second selection, the poisonous water is characterized as stagnant water that collects minerals that makes the water not only unhealthy to consume, but absolutely fetid and repulsive. This implies a paradox—that which one searches to find also repels. Within the same paragraph, Austin turns from the poisonous water to the contrasting healing powers of the heliotropes that find adequate places to grow in such a hostile environment.

So, my question is: what do we make of this theme? What purpose does the notion of naturally occurring poisons (specifically poisons that harm the human body) hold in nature writing? This question immediately reminded me of the paradox in Plato’s work called “pharmakon,” which can be translated as “drug that is both remedy and poison.” I know that Plato discusses the concept of “pharmakon” in his “Phaedrus” and Derrida explores Plato’s treatment of the word in “Plato’s Pharmacy.” I see a similarity in the way in which Plato discusses “pharmakon” and the way in which Austin presents water in The Land of Little Rain. The desert is a paradoxical environment where things that are absolutely necessary for life, such as water, are not readily available to human consumption and where water is available, it can become poison to the human body.

I think in Austin’s case, the theme of poisonous water as both remedy and poison underscores the larger moral argument of the book—that nature is bigger than humankind. Austin appears to argue that nature is not made for the sole purpose of human consumption because there are many examples, such as the scarcity of drinkable water in the desert, where humans must adapt to their environment. In order for humans to live in nature they must live in a symbiotic relationship by taking the example of the desert plants and animals. Austin continually points out that strangers in the desert are not well suited for survival. For example, early on in the book she says, “man-height is the least fortunate of all heights from which to study trails” (10). The point is that Austin advocates a certain way of seeing—an animal or plant perspective—that enables humans to better discern remedy from poison.

Mysterious Ambivalence in "The Land of Little Rain"

Re: pp.91-93 in Austin's The Land of Little Rain...

In this passage I see Austin participating in some of the same exploratory concerns – the same uncomfortableness with terra incognita – as many of the other North American nature writers we have read (particularly Thoreau and Traill). Austin shares these writers' ambivalence about nature’s remaining mysteries. I’m thinking in particular about the mythological bottom (or bottomlessness) of Walden Pond, which both bothers and attracts Thoreau in the same way that flowers blooming unseen seems to unsettle Traill.

On the one hand, for instance, Austin displays resistance to the idea of nature unfolding in the absence of the human gaze: she is driven to conjecture about the nature of the mysterious tulares (“It must be a happy mystery” based on the song of the birds [92]) and overtly confesses that she “ wishes for…nearer speech from those the reedy fens have swallowed up” (93). I also detect anxiety accumulating along with the birds within the reeds; the gathering cacophony (from the specificity of “redwinged blackbirds” and “the great blue heron” to “quacking hoards” of “strange and far-flown fowl” [92]) evokes the idea of a sort of conspiratorial natural convention – one from which humans are excluded, driving a frustrating partition between man and nature.

On the other hand, Austin seems to embrace this mystery. The gorgeous lyricism of this passage, for example, elevates the secrets of the fens to matters worthy of poetic representation. Further, note the strangeness of this observation: “The tulares are full of mystery and malaria. That is why we have meant to explore them and have never done so” (92). One is tempted (perhaps even encouraged) to gloss over this assertion with an assumption – surely Austin means to attribute the wish to explore to the “mystery,” and the non-exploration to the “malaria”? – and yet the structure of the sentence is ambiguous. In one possible reading, the “mystery” itself plays an equal part in her resistance to explore. This makes some sense – mystery might imply danger, and therefore augment resistance – but then the word “explore” necessitates mystery; one cannot “explore” what is not unknown. So does Austin suggest that people have not explored the tulares precisely because they are unexplored? Because the mystery itself is worth preserving? 

This also puts me in mind of Thoreau’s encounter with the loon; he revels in its mystery even as he wishes to find it out. It seems that Austin shares a similar attitude toward these fens; she aims to glorify and preserve “the secret of the tulares” (93), even as she is driven to demonstrate a sort of knowledge about it.

- Sam

PS: On page 92, Austin asserts: “The tules grow inconceivably thick…cattle, no, not any fish nor fowl can penetrate them,” but then she describes them in terms of the birds that inhabit them. What is that about? Am I missing something, or did this trip anybody else up? 

The Thirst for Plot in Mary Austin’s The Land of Little Rain

I just want to preface this post by saying that I love The Land of Little Rain. I think its lyrical prose are absolutely beautiful, but let’s face it, the narrative lacks drive and plot. Approaching this book, I brought with me some generic expectations that I think most readers would also bring with them. From the outset, the reader knows that the book is a series of essays and/or short stories about the deserts of southern California. As a result, the reader expects some driving force, such as a central argument or plot, to organize the fourteen vignettes. Austin teases the reader with short tastes of possible avenues for plot throughout the text and then quickly dispenses with them. First, she introduces the Pocket Hunter and his tale: “I remember very well when I first met him. Walking in the evening glow to spy the marriages of the white gilias, I sniffed the unmistakable odor of burning sage” (Austin 25). What follows is a taste of character development, but then Austin drops the Pocket Hunter’s story in favor of the history of the Shoshone medicine man, which she in turn dispenses with in favor of a sketch of Jimville. After Austin’s suggestion of plots and quick dismantling of those potential plots in favor of lyrical ruminations, the reader is left with a sense of desire for that which is present, yet denied.

I argue that Austin uses this “thirsting” as an intentional rhetorical technique that parallels the primary symbol of the book—water—and the principle theme of the text—thirst, which are established in the very title. I argue that as the stranger

s in the desert thirst for water, so the reader of this book thirsts for a plot. However, I think the thirst for a plot is just as tragic as the outsider who dies of thirst in the desert while water can be found all around him underneath the surface: “There are many areas in the desert where drinkable water lies within a few feet of the surface…it is this nearness of unimagined help that makes the tragedy of desert deaths” (Austin 5). Austin defies the reader’s generic expectations because she presents a book that is more like a prose version of lyric poetry, broken into cantos/subheadings, rather than a tale or a novel with a driving plot.

An example of Austin’s lyricism can be found in the final paragraph of her opening vignette, “The Land of Little Rain:”

For all the toll the desert takes of a man it gives compensation, deep breaths, deep sleep, and the communication of the stars…It is hard to escape the sense of mastery as the stars move in the wide clear heaves to risings and settings unobscured. They look large and near and palpitant; as if they moved on some stately service not needful to declare. Wheeling to their stations in the sky, they make the poor world-fret of no account. Of no account you who lie out there watching, nor the lean coyote that stands off in the scrub from you and howls and howls. (10)

Like lyrical poetry, this short passage of prose is spoken in the present tense and depicts present observations and emotions. However, unlike the typical generic conventions of lyric poetry, Austin does not use a personal pronoun (“I”), but rather an indefinite pronoun (“one”) in this passage. This choice of perspective points to the fact that Austin’s lyricism is not just for herself and not just from herself. The land and its creatures speak through her and this lyrical speech brings the beauty and the experience of the land to Austin’s readers. Both Austin and the reader lie watching the stars and feel the mastery of nature in this passage, which acts as the moralizing summation of the first essay as well as the entire book. Austin’s text is a hybrid genre that builds up and breaks down multiple genres (is this reminding anyone of Moby Dick?). It leaves the reader thirsting for more vividness of observation, which ends up being the driving force of the novel, instead of plot.

~ ~ ~

A digression: I discovered that Mary Austin co-authored a book with Ansel Adams called Taos Pueblo (1930), which is about the Santa Fe area of New Mexico. From what I understand, Adams took the photographs (as you might assume) and Austin wrote the descriptions. Apparently, this book records the beginning of a transition in Adam’s work towards his more popular sharp-focused landscape images where there is a great contrast between light and dark. There were only 108 copies of the book (one hundred signed copies plus eight artist copies) printed and they were sold for an extremely high price during the Great Depression ($75/book). With the help of Austin’s friend, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Adams gained permission to take photographs in and around the Taos Indian village of Taos Pueblo.

I have attached two photographs to this post for your visual pleasure. I find the images of the Taos Indians more striking than the landscape photography, which surprises me given Adam’s fame for landscapes: 

Will & Co-Evolution and the Nature Writing Genre (and maybe Biography)

I am especially intrigued by the particular way Pollan introduces “the will” into the scheme of evolution, not by first beginning with “will” at the human level, but instead, like Traill, by confronting will at ground-level (plant level). Using this idea and Pollan’s explanation of co-evolution, I am interested in thinking about how we could think of co-evolution and the series of the unwilled event (I’m avoiding using the word narrative here—I’m not sure it “works” due to the teleological connotation) to think about the genre of nature writing (particularly the non-teleological structure of “nature writing” texts themselves) and perhaps also biography (though biography, it seems, often follows the usual birth-life-death, framework, so maybe it doesn't hold up the same way).

Pollan reminds us, “Evolution doesn’t depend on will or intention to work; it is, almost by definition, an unconscious, unwilled process. All it requires are beings compelled, as all plants and animals are, to make more of themselves by whatever means trial and error present” (xxi). Pollan’s use of language in the phrase “to make more of themselves” is fascinating here. Is he “only” talking about reproduction, or is he talking about something “more,” in the way that Thoreau might make “more” of himself? Is he saying that “making more” of ourselves is an unwilled process? (Is Thoreau compelled to acquire knowledge, or un-knowledge, because of his own willed intentions—or because of some other unconscious mechanism at work?) Will seems to enter at the register of desire and ensuing reciprocation. Further embedded within Pollan’s explanation of the presence of will is the nesting of artificial and natural selection. The notion of “artificial,” he says, is derived from the word “artifact: a thing reflecting the human will” (xxii). Natural selection, on the other hand, encompasses the “no teleology” idea (see last paragraph).  Artificial selection incorporates both willed and un-willed processes (humans might choose how to further “engineer” an orange, but the genetic material available for that engineering is a result of previous “natural” selection). (I hope I'm getting this right. Correct me if I'm not...this stuff is really still confusing to me.)

I really like the fact that even though Botany of Desire is at face-value a biography of plants, it must also be a biography of the human & animal desires that allowed the plants “to make more of themselves.” The structure of Pollan’s biography, we might say, is co-evolutionary. I’m wondering if we could also say that biography and nature writing are literary spaces where, metaphorically speaking, “artificial” and “natural” selections (/decisions) co-evolve alongside one another. For example, nature writers have reasons for writing and arranging their writing just-so, reasons influenced by preceding random encounters and preferences (these would be the metaphoric “artificial” selections), but at the same time, the genre seems to be hinged the “chance” of the woods—the happening upon the cinnamon bear or the water lily (this idea could perhaps also be applied to the notion of the biographical archive—the structure or “revelation” of the biographical narrative often depends upon the “chance” of the archive—what we happen to find when we aren’t looking).

This strange exchange of content and desire seems to me like it could partly account for the lack of a teleological structure that we are more likely to find in a novel, for instance. (Maybe certain types of poems also follow this “no-teleology” line? I’m not sure.) It seems to me that all of the texts we’ve read so far this semester are partly willed and partly un-willed. Traill, for instance, seems almost “unconsciously” compelled to provide scientific fact & description (including tips for how to use plants medicinally)—okay, this idea is partly problematic, but if the purpose of the book is to provide information to immigrants, then it seems like in some respects we could say that she is not “choosing” her genre—but on the other hand (the willed hand), the structure of the text is also driven by what her readers want for their gift book (poems, pretty pictures, etc.).

Disclaimer: While I was never “against” evolution in the way that many of my religious middle and high school classmates were, I never really understood it until taking a “History of” class during one summer in college. We read a bunch of books on the subject, including a huge chunk of On the Origin of Species and some other stuff like Darwin’s Dreampond.  It was during that class that I finally learned about the “no teleology” idea (in probably too simplistic but hopefully not erroneous terms: birds did not evolve feathers in order to fly but instead as a consequence of the genes carried forth through natural selection). I still consider this the first big turning point in my intellectual development—finally “sort of getting” evolution. Anyway, I’m still totally fascinated by the idea of “no teleology” (the reason for this post).

Thoreau and Material Comfort

Audubon, Arctomys Monax (Marmot, Woodchuck, Groundhog),
from The Vuviparous Quadrupeds...

I know we are continuing to have trouble with Thoreau and the many complexitities of his position.  I would like to draw your attention this this recent exchange in the Boston Review  between Stanford's Gavin Jones and Stephen Kennawer.  At issue is Thoreau's self-betrayal, íf that's what it was--the lapses in self-disciopline during his famous experiment.  As Jones writes, among other things: " Henry David Thoreau’s Walden is the classic assault on Americans who have gotten tangled up in means because they have confused the true nature of their ends. “It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live,” he writes at the beginning of Walden, with characteristic pun. To be mean is to be cruel and ungenerous. To have means is to have the necessities to live. But Thoreau wants to generate meaning from means, to gain vision—the true end—from the division of labor that alienates us from our genuine necessities. He sees that his contemporaries have become trapped in an idea that the means and not meaning is the ends. “The luxuriously rich are not simply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot,” he writes. Wealth has migrated from enough to too much, we have become slaves to our clothes. Thoreau strives in his experiment at Walden to embarrass riches by stripping down and exposing the self, yet his attempt to be comfortable, to balance perfectly his means and his ends, inevitably fails. He sneaks off to his mother for the occasional meal, he breaks his vegetarianism with an occasional woodchuck, and after two years he leaves Walden a failed experiment."

I don't know who Stephen Kennawer is, but his somewhat irritable response is interesting, given our discussions in class:  "I must admit that I had difficulty understanding exactly what Gavin Jones is getting at: there is so much writing going on I couldn't always find the thought. But about Thoreau, he seems clear, so I can be equally clear. There is no canard in American letters more hackneyed than the snarky observation that Thoreau often dined in Concord while living at Walden and thereby failed utterly to succeed in his experiment in self-sufficient living.  I only wish the purveyors of this canard would sit down and read the book. Thoreau could not be more explicit that he ran an experiment, not in simplified living per se, but in doing what he really wanted to do. He is recommending that his readers do the same, which in no case will mean repeating his own experiment. He did not attempt, and never says he attempted, to live entirely on his own, to forgo visits to town, or to prove that a frugal man can subsist on the profit of a bean field. He says he wanted to simplify his life, and undoubtedly he did; but he states in language that cannot be misunderstood that those who are content should continue on their path, and those who want to complicate their lives should do that.He never says he is a pure vegetarian; and he tried out the taste of woodchuck in the same spirit of experimentation that actuated his attempt to grow beans. He left Walden because he had gotten out of his experiment all that he had hoped to get, and felt he had other experiments to run. His way of life is never presented as exemplary of anything other than one man's marching to the beat of his own drum. His advice to Gavin Jones is by no means to take a cabin in the woods and simplify his life, but to continue to write labored analyses of literary works for as long as that makes him happy; but if some day he finds himself living a life of quiet desperation, he should follow his own dream, which will obviously not be Thoreau's."

For the full article and comment in context, see http://www.bostonreview.net/BR38.1/gavin_jones_gilded_age_literature_wealth_ethics.php.