Scan barcode
thebooknerdscorner's review
2.0
A deep dive into the matsutake mushroom and how it refuses to surrender despite human's best efforts to destroy its natural habitat.
I'm not going to lie about this one: I'm pretty sure I didn't understand like half of what this book was talking about. I had to read this for one of my classes, and I understand how it ties into globalization at the very least. I found certain sections to be really interesting, especially the interludes that were written in a bit more of a flowery language compared to the scientific deep dive of the rest of the book. I knew nothing about the matsutake mushroom before reading this book, so I feel like I still absorbed many new facts about it, despite not understanding the mass majority of the book.
Overall, I found some of Tsing's thoughts to be very astute and interesting, but I was mostly bored as I read this book. It probably would have taken me many months to get through if I didn't read it for class. If one is really into science, economics, and globalization, I'm sure that this would have been a more invigorating read. But for me though, most of it flew over my poor head. Oh well.
I'm not going to lie about this one: I'm pretty sure I didn't understand like half of what this book was talking about. I had to read this for one of my classes, and I understand how it ties into globalization at the very least. I found certain sections to be really interesting, especially the interludes that were written in a bit more of a flowery language compared to the scientific deep dive of the rest of the book. I knew nothing about the matsutake mushroom before reading this book, so I feel like I still absorbed many new facts about it, despite not understanding the mass majority of the book.
Overall, I found some of Tsing's thoughts to be very astute and interesting, but I was mostly bored as I read this book. It probably would have taken me many months to get through if I didn't read it for class. If one is really into science, economics, and globalization, I'm sure that this would have been a more invigorating read. But for me though, most of it flew over my poor head. Oh well.
ez_heath's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
confirmyourpassword's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
2.5
It was easiest for me to read this book when thinking of it as a loosely organized collection of essays about the author's views on ecology and sociology. Also works really well when paired with some stuff on traditional ecological knowledge.
There's a lot of interesting and introspective bits on imagining a 'post-capitalist' world, particularly with Tsing's descriptions of 'contamination', 'translation', and assemblages, but a lot of the writing is difficult to parse (repeating the same point dozens of times in a single chapter; some topics are underdeveloped or lack substantive connections across chapters; lots of run-on sentences and meandering discussions without clear topic lines). It's most apparent when comparing the direct and focused content on matsutake history and ecological critiques against the slower and expansively written self-narrated experiences of matsutake hunting in Oregon. I think the principle of the latter sections was to force the reader to deeply reflect with the text, but I found it to be vague and occasionally inchoate with flowery and loosely used terminology. A little too reliant on metaphors for my taste (which could be applied to the entire book since anything and everything about matsutake is basically just a vehicle for Tsing to expound on her views on capitalism). I'm also somewhat wary of the economic sections though I can't put my finger on it---I think it seemed a bit too hand-wavy for me. Not super sure if I'm convinced by the whole of the book, and it's pretty hard to define what the whole was, especially because it seems Tsing thinks defining that would defeat the purpose of the work.
There's a lot of interesting and introspective bits on imagining a 'post-capitalist' world, particularly with Tsing's descriptions of 'contamination', 'translation', and assemblages, but a lot of the writing is difficult to parse (repeating the same point dozens of times in a single chapter; some topics are underdeveloped or lack substantive connections across chapters; lots of run-on sentences and meandering discussions without clear topic lines). It's most apparent when comparing the direct and focused content on matsutake history and ecological critiques against the slower and expansively written self-narrated experiences of matsutake hunting in Oregon. I think the principle of the latter sections was to force the reader to deeply reflect with the text, but I found it to be vague and occasionally inchoate with flowery and loosely used terminology. A little too reliant on metaphors for my taste (which could be applied to the entire book since anything and everything about matsutake is basically just a vehicle for Tsing to expound on her views on capitalism). I'm also somewhat wary of the economic sections though I can't put my finger on it---I think it seemed a bit too hand-wavy for me. Not super sure if I'm convinced by the whole of the book, and it's pretty hard to define what the whole was, especially because it seems Tsing thinks defining that would defeat the purpose of the work.
benghan's review against another edition
5.0
I bet I reread this a few hundred times in the next few years