Gessner also questions whether some of these characteristics make sense. He argues that nature is not inherently peaceful and suggests that writers should also be able to find a great deal of conflict to explore in their writing by studying the natural world. He also critiques the sense of certainty that seems to pervade much of this type of writing, as well as the fact that these texts' narrators do not seem to be in the process of development, but often come across as having already found all of the answers to life's questions.
Essentially, Gessner seems to be advocating for a type of environmental writing that is more true to life and that acknowledges and depicts uncertainty, complexity, disorder, and so on while more authentically capturing the emotion that nature can contain and evoke for both the writer and reader.
Do you agree with Gessner's critique, and, as a writer, do you find his suggestions useful? Going forward, will the ideas that he puts forth in this piece have an impact on how you portray the environment and human interaction with it in your own work? Also, what connections do you see between Gessner's argument and the other speakers' presentations? What common threads, if any, do you see in each presentation (aside from a general concern that the environmental essay needs to evolve in some way to address contemporary issues)?
I think Gessner makes a lot of good points. From the sound of the essays he's read for contests and in books, there is a lot of repeated nonsense throughout various environmental writings. By nonsense I mean anything that has been over used, sugar coated, inaccurately depicted, or just in general is not helpful. Maybe to some people these types of writing with their repeated descriptions of 'calm' and 'peaceful' might be relaxing. For someone seeking a spiritual or zen path these essays probably have great value, but from an environmentalists standpoint (and probably from many spiritual standpoints as well) their value falls short.
ReplyDeleteWhile appreciating the calm and peaceful moments and the idealistic scenery and beautiful landscapes have their place in life, they are not the only way to depict nature, and are in fact only a very small part of what is otherwise a system that is is both chaotic and structured, messy and orderly, unpredictable but also completely predictable. Nature does things that we often don't understand, no matter how much we do know about it. Like so many other fields of science we are continually learning things we never imagined could exist or would work they way they do.
I think what Gessner was getting at is that we too as writers need to evolve with out growing understanding of the natural world, including those parts sometimes labeled "unnatural" and their importance in our world, because ultimately we have only one world (that we know of for certain at least). Everything this world has some effect on it and if we want to preserve the world around us, in all of its chaotic, predictable, beautiful, dangerous, terrifying, inspiring reality then we have to learn to acknowledge and write about ALL of it, in its complexity and sometimes uncomfortable aspects.
Environmental writing, or whatever it might be called one day needs to change so that we can encompass all that is nature and why it is important, not just the idealistic scenes or the doomsday worries. We need to talk about real problems and current issues as they can be addressed. We need to write about the political, social, and environmental concerns at hand so that we can work on making changes for the better. If we want to keep our 'calm' and 'peaceful' scenery then we have to understand the implications of our actions; past, present, and future and remind people to not just appreciate the environment, but to understand it and fight for it.