Is it chutzpah? The willing suspension of disbelief? Or sheer stupidity? One wonders—and so does McPhee (Rising from the Plains, Table of Contents, etc.) as he describes, most graphically, three cases of humanity living at the brink of natural disasters. The first long piece describes man's never-satisfied efforts to tame the Mississippi. The mental picture that develops is of a channel forced into deeper and deeper cuts and levees built ever higher as dams are raised and flood plains tamed in an effort to prevent periodic flooding and natural spills into distributaries. But now look at one structure (that's what the Army Corps of Engineers calls a navigation lock complex) that controls the flow where the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers come together. Its purpose: nothing less than to maintain the volume and course of the Mississippi just as it was in 1950 and thus preserve the river's connection to Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Next comes a tale of Iceland and the sheer heroism of a small band to tame molten lava by, of all things, hosing it down with water. Even their fellow townspeople laughed at such folly—until they saw that it worked. At stake was the preservation of a great natural harbor at the town of Heimaey—Iceland's richest fishing center. Incredibly, the hosing saved the harbor—but not the town, now buried deep in lava. McPhee contrasts the Nordic approach with that of Hawaiians who accept Mt. Pele's whims fatalistically, their propitiatory gestures limited to offerings of flowers and gin. The last of these cautionary tales is set in California in the canyons and surrounds of the San Gabriel Mountains. Here, the incredible views, natural beauty, and freedom from smog and city are sufficient to close many a mind to the predictable disasters that follow subtle combinations of wind, fire, and heavy rain. Neither man-made pits nor dams can then stay the muck and mud that race down the mountains to bury million-dollar homes (while their tearful owners are interviewed on TV). As always, McPhce is apt at metaphor and simile, more so here where he is less the cerebral lecturer in geology and more the reporter and eyewitness, capturing the words of people and the music of nature. First-rate.
Pub Date: June 1, 1989
ISBN: 0374522596
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1989
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.
An account of the mysterious life of eels that also serves as a meditation on consciousness, faith, time, light and darkness, and life and death.
In addition to an intriguing natural history, Swedish journalist Svensson includes a highly personal account of his relationship with his father. The author alternates eel-focused chapters with those about his father, a man obsessed with fishing for this elusive creature. “I can’t recall us ever talking about anything other than eels and how to best catch them, down there by the stream,” he writes. “I can’t remember us speaking at all….Because we were in…a place whose nature was best enjoyed in silence.” Throughout, Svensson, whose beat is not biology but art and culture, fills his account with people: Aristotle, who thought eels emerged live from mud, “like a slithering, enigmatic miracle”; Freud, who as a teenage biologist spent months in Trieste, Italy, peering through a microscope searching vainly for eel testes; Johannes Schmidt, who for two decades tracked thousands of eels, looking for their breeding grounds. After recounting the details of the eel life cycle, the author turns to the eel in literature—e.g., in the Bible, Rachel Carson’s Under the Sea Wind, and Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum—and history. He notes that the Puritans would likely not have survived without eels, and he explores Sweden’s “eel coast” (what it once was and how it has changed), how eel fishing became embroiled in the Northern Irish conflict, and the importance of eel fishing to the Basque separatist movement. The apparent return to life of a dead eel leads Svensson to a consideration of faith and the inherent message of miracles. He warns that if we are to save this fascinating creature from extinction, we must continue to study it. His book is a highly readable place to begin learning.
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-296881-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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