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A review by savaging
The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
4.0
I love to sink into the mind of Anna Tsing, because she knows her mind -- and her writing -- isn't 'hers.' It's a web of roots and rhizomes where all kinds of creatures are welcome.
As academic writing: this is such a good challenge to old epistemologies and ego-infused academies. This is playful, collaborative, and surprising. As Tsing writes: "Getting by without progress requires a good deal of feeling around with our hands."
As lyrical prose: some sentences made me grit my teeth.
As political stance: I mostly loved the commitment to learn how to appreciate the wastelands left after 'development.' Sometimes though, amid all the postmodern caveats and nuance, I longed for the bravery to make some unequivocal value statement -- some kind of "It is wrong to kill this forest and we will fight to protect it," even though "forest" can't be defined, and neither can "kill" or "protect" or even "we." I want nuance and realism in ecologies and ethics -- but I don't want to give up my fighting words.
It was valuable in those times to remember this isn't Tsing's first book about destroyed forests. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection showed a forest gone up in flames, and though it was still nuanced and postmodern, it showed its grief up-front. After all that mourning, Tsing deserves to write a book that finds some comfort in the ruins.
As academic writing: this is such a good challenge to old epistemologies and ego-infused academies. This is playful, collaborative, and surprising. As Tsing writes: "Getting by without progress requires a good deal of feeling around with our hands."
As lyrical prose: some sentences made me grit my teeth.
As political stance: I mostly loved the commitment to learn how to appreciate the wastelands left after 'development.' Sometimes though, amid all the postmodern caveats and nuance, I longed for the bravery to make some unequivocal value statement -- some kind of "It is wrong to kill this forest and we will fight to protect it," even though "forest" can't be defined, and neither can "kill" or "protect" or even "we." I want nuance and realism in ecologies and ethics -- but I don't want to give up my fighting words.
It was valuable in those times to remember this isn't Tsing's first book about destroyed forests. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection showed a forest gone up in flames, and though it was still nuanced and postmodern, it showed its grief up-front. After all that mourning, Tsing deserves to write a book that finds some comfort in the ruins.
Without stories of progress, the world has become a terrifying place. The ruin glares at us with the horror of its abandonment. It’s not easy to know how to make a life, much less avert planetary destruction. Luckily there is still company, human and not human. We can still explore the overgrown verges of our blasted landscapes — the edges of capitalist discipline, scalability, and abandoned resource plantations.