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A review by novabird
The Book of Rain by Thomas Wharton
1.0
I rarely use the superlatives of love and even less frequently that of hate. I need cartharis after reading this. I hated it. Why? Why did I have such a strong feeling an hour after I was done with this? Because Wharton is a trickster wolf in sheeps' clothing type of author, who is a hope-killer. He attempts a type of a quasi-First Nations perspective Dr. Doolittle told through multiple viewpoints, while on mushrooms (at times I suspected this was derived from his drug journals) and attempts to elevate the idea of interconnectedness of all things in a side show Bob kind of way.
For all this books wondrous depictions of nature, it honestly felt like a paid for "nature camp excursion," experience. "Look see this rare species here, you mustn't touch it and here are all the regulations why this is so," kind of vibe. It felt oddly too inhuman for me, too removed. The only character that I could connect with was Amery, but even then because the author was trying to not play favourites, any connection I might have gotten with Amery was like that of briefly meeting her at a road side diner where I never get a chance to figure out what her motivations were. For all his talk of intuition and trusting one's gut, I think I should have listened and read his trickster cautionaries that this would deliberately be an unstatisfying tale one in which he spoofs his readers with a board game that supposedly mimics life mimicking a game and a nature tour that only superficially brings any deeper meaning to light. It was too liminal and not enough substance. I was like the characters of the church, in investing my hope in an essentially what Wharton presents as very defeatist take on meaning itself. His line, "And sometimes hope is more than just another way to lie to ourselves. Sometimes hope is based on something real."
Realness means hard blood and sour sweat and angry tears. There was very very little real in this book that expressed my felt-experience with nature. There was no awe, no wonder. Instead there were jolts of novelty after novelty. It was an attempt at drawing readers into the natural world in an unnatural setting. It failed for me on so many levels. Even the Bird Language story at the very end didn't capture me. I was left feeling in dark vacuum of extinction, where hope was effectively smothered. If this was Deep Ecology, then that message was loud and clear. But this should have come with the disclaimer, "Abandon all hope all who enter here." Life is sacred. Nihilism has no place in my natural world as it sh_ts on a non compostible pile of itself. Never s_it where you eat.
For all this books wondrous depictions of nature, it honestly felt like a paid for "nature camp excursion," experience. "Look see this rare species here, you mustn't touch it and here are all the regulations why this is so," kind of vibe. It felt oddly too inhuman for me, too removed. The only character that I could connect with was Amery, but even then because the author was trying to not play favourites, any connection I might have gotten with Amery was like that of briefly meeting her at a road side diner where I never get a chance to figure out what her motivations were. For all his talk of intuition and trusting one's gut, I think I should have listened and read his trickster cautionaries that this would deliberately be an unstatisfying tale one in which he spoofs his readers with a board game that supposedly mimics life mimicking a game and a nature tour that only superficially brings any deeper meaning to light. It was too liminal and not enough substance. I was like the characters of the church, in investing my hope in an essentially what Wharton presents as very defeatist take on meaning itself. His line, "And sometimes hope is more than just another way to lie to ourselves. Sometimes hope is based on something real."
Realness means hard blood and sour sweat and angry tears. There was very very little real in this book that expressed my felt-experience with nature. There was no awe, no wonder. Instead there were jolts of novelty after novelty. It was an attempt at drawing readers into the natural world in an unnatural setting. It failed for me on so many levels. Even the Bird Language story at the very end didn't capture me. I was left feeling in dark vacuum of extinction, where hope was effectively smothered. If this was Deep Ecology, then that message was loud and clear. But this should have come with the disclaimer, "Abandon all hope all who enter here." Life is sacred. Nihilism has no place in my natural world as it sh_ts on a non compostible pile of itself. Never s_it where you eat.