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A review by trsr
The Night Country by Loren Eiseley
4.0
Although Loren Eiseley has this to say about nature writers such as Gilbert White, Richard Jefferies, and W. H. Hudson, the words apply equally to himself: "Even though they were not discoverers in the objective sense, one feels at times that the great nature essayists had more individual perception than their scientific contemporaries. Theirs was a different contribution. They opened the minds of men by the sheer power of their thought. The world of nature, once seen through the eye of genius, is never seen in quite the same manner afterward. A dimension has been added, something that lies beyond the careful analyses of professional biology."
Eiseley's writing is lyrical, deeply reflective, even melancholic. The essays in this book defy a simple description. Are they examples of nature writing? Memoir? Reflections on archaeology and anthropology? Ruminations on the external and internal worlds of the human? Essays on education and what it means to be a teacher? The essays are drawn from all this, gain synergy, become something larger and memorable. It is rare, I feel, to find emerging from the pen of a scientist, educator, and thinker, prose of such grace and humility.
Still, there are those who would complain of such writing, flay his ornamentation of ideas, rubbish his reflection as mysticism. It is difficult to imagine Eiseley himself being able to publish some of these essays in the literary and nature magazines of the present day. Where are the details? the editors may ask. The specifics, the hook, the motif, thread, conflict, and denouement? Or they might return his manuscript, advising him as one of his colleagues did, in all seriousness, to 'explain himself', perhaps 'confess' the state of his mind and internal world in the pages of a scientific journal. In Eiseley's words again: "No one need object to the elucidation of scientific principles in clear, unornamental prose. What concerns us is the fact that there exists a new class of highly skilled barbarians--not representing the very great in science--who would confine men entirely to this diet." Fortunately, Eiseley does not join the ranks of the barbarians, even as he admits in "Obituary of a bone hunter", with due humility, that his own scientific career is marked by "no great discoveries", that his is but a life "dedicated to the folly of doubt, the life of a small bone hunter."
Eiseley's writing is lyrical, deeply reflective, even melancholic. The essays in this book defy a simple description. Are they examples of nature writing? Memoir? Reflections on archaeology and anthropology? Ruminations on the external and internal worlds of the human? Essays on education and what it means to be a teacher? The essays are drawn from all this, gain synergy, become something larger and memorable. It is rare, I feel, to find emerging from the pen of a scientist, educator, and thinker, prose of such grace and humility.
Still, there are those who would complain of such writing, flay his ornamentation of ideas, rubbish his reflection as mysticism. It is difficult to imagine Eiseley himself being able to publish some of these essays in the literary and nature magazines of the present day. Where are the details? the editors may ask. The specifics, the hook, the motif, thread, conflict, and denouement? Or they might return his manuscript, advising him as one of his colleagues did, in all seriousness, to 'explain himself', perhaps 'confess' the state of his mind and internal world in the pages of a scientific journal. In Eiseley's words again: "No one need object to the elucidation of scientific principles in clear, unornamental prose. What concerns us is the fact that there exists a new class of highly skilled barbarians--not representing the very great in science--who would confine men entirely to this diet." Fortunately, Eiseley does not join the ranks of the barbarians, even as he admits in "Obituary of a bone hunter", with due humility, that his own scientific career is marked by "no great discoveries", that his is but a life "dedicated to the folly of doubt, the life of a small bone hunter."