Scan barcode
A review by mystic319
Death by Landscape by Elvia Wilk
3.0
I feel like this is the type of book one might appreciate if you wanted to feel like an intellectual about the state of the world without having to do very much work about what that actually means. Much of my issues with this book come from the fact that Wilk clearly knows how to use the language of progressivism, yet many of the ideas she puts forth (particularly in Plants) echo ecofascist talking points. She generalizes humanity's relationship with nature as purely negative and extractive over and over again. She follows this up by saying maybe it would be good for the Earth if humanity vanished. Now, this line of reasoning is unfortunately very common. If you don't spend much time reading intersectional environmental literature, it's easy to fall into the idea that all people, everywhere, are bad for nature. Wilk provided very little in the way to counteract this troubled reasoning, and essentially advocated we should all just accept our inevitable change/death. It irks me that someone who supposedly spent so much time reading environmental works could not see how harmful this particular attitude is to hold, especially for marginalized groups.
That glaring issue aside, I think her essays shined the most when they focused on her personal experiences. The epilogue was perhaps the most resonant part of this book for me, but I can't say I can recommend the rest of it very strongly. You need to spend a lot of time picking apart the arguments in this book, or else you run the risk of tacitly agreeing with some pretty uninformed/borderline dangerous viewpoints, which I fear many who read this book have done. Wilk is clearly a talented author in terms of her writing skills, so this makes it really easy to agree with a bad argument dressed up in lace.
One book I will recommend in place of this one and touches upon similar ideas is Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass. Kimmerer is able to provide the image of hope in the face of climate change that Wilk is unable to deliver, and also comes from both a personal and scientific background that better inform her views about the environment and how people form relationships with it.
That glaring issue aside, I think her essays shined the most when they focused on her personal experiences. The epilogue was perhaps the most resonant part of this book for me, but I can't say I can recommend the rest of it very strongly. You need to spend a lot of time picking apart the arguments in this book, or else you run the risk of tacitly agreeing with some pretty uninformed/borderline dangerous viewpoints, which I fear many who read this book have done. Wilk is clearly a talented author in terms of her writing skills, so this makes it really easy to agree with a bad argument dressed up in lace.
One book I will recommend in place of this one and touches upon similar ideas is Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass. Kimmerer is able to provide the image of hope in the face of climate change that Wilk is unable to deliver, and also comes from both a personal and scientific background that better inform her views about the environment and how people form relationships with it.