[.ca] Abstract Wild (ISBN 0816516995)

From Amazon.com:
Much contemporary environmental literature names as enemies of the wild corporate agriculture, logging, mining, and ranching. For mountain guide/philosopher Jack Turner, these will not do. He dislikes even more the abstractions that divorce us from the natural world, which cause us to create pseudo-wild locales like Yellowstone National Park and Grand Canyon, places that resemble nothing so much as Disneyland. Wilderness advocates who do not make themselves at home in the wild, he believes, cannot hope to understand the object of their desires, for only from that "complete immersion in place over time" can there arise the "wisdom that cannot emerge from tourism in a relic wilderness." This sometimes blistering, provocative book is an eco-radical manifesto of a kind, and every reader concerned with wilderness issues should pay attention to it.

This kind of writing is rare:
I got this book when searching for something for my biodiversity class to read that would hook them to the subject and move them the way "Sand County Almanac" did me back in my college days. Wasn't able to read it at the time, but I picked it up this fall, thought I would read an essay at a time before bed, like I usually do with essay books. Sometime in the wee hours I realized that I had to stop reading or I would head out into the dark night and wander until I found the wilderness again. Few modern writers, or writers of any age, have so clearly and eloquently expressed what it means to love the wild, what we are about to loose, and truly why we are loosing it despite efforts to the contrary. Turner's solution is one I believe in, but rarely find seriously advocated, probably because it would work. Frankly, if you haven't gone wild, you may not "get" this book. If you want to really know what the wild is about though, read this book and if you like the sound of things, go seek it out. If you are wild, this will be one of the few books on the topic you can stand to read these days. I haven't been so enlightened since I read "The Practice of the Wild" by Gary Snyder. Five stars means a great book. Some books are beyond that, this is one for the ages.

The new John Muir:
Jack Turner's "Abstract Wild" is a collection of essays, screeds really, the result of taking a lifelong climbing bum, guide really, a wacked out college philosophy professor, a naturalist, and a Buddhist of good intention until the duck pate or a plate of steamed shrimp lands in front of him, and rolling all these people into one cranky mountain poet living under the guise of an Exum Mountain guide -- the premiere climbing guides of the Tetons. The essays, some personal and some philosophical, one that is better on economics that any essay by any economist I have ever read, define what wildness truly is and what abolitionism in the name of the environment is all about. Not humorless zero tolerance, but rather, how one takes a powerful ecological conscience and translates that into how we live. He might be our century's John Muir, although that might involve a book tour which would involve Turner leaving his little cabin in the woods and dealing with airports and cabs and subways. Probably not. So meet him through his book. It is worth it. Turner is like a melding of Ed Abbey and Gary Snyder, fierce, provacative and playful, always trying to set you off. In fact, when I met him eight years ago, the last time he was in Washington, DC, he told my wife and me, "Get out of this town. You are going to lose your souls." My wife wanted to hit him with a pot, having just made us all a wonderful dinner after putting in a 12 hour day in an environmental career." I laughed, thinking of Thoreau writing that he had never learned anything of value from his elders -- a shot directed at one of the great mentors of all time -- Ralph Waldo Emerson. These brilliant cranks do this as a form of teaching, they set us off, pop us on the head with a 2 x 4 to make us see the world in a different light. I now run Greenpeace US and, eight years later I am still in Washington, DC, still holding onto my soul, but rereading "Abstract Wild" every year just to be sure.

Deep ecology:
The modern paradigms of economics, science, philosophy, social science, and conservation strategies are here critically scrutinized. Turner takes no prisoners, assailing even those institutions and organizations that are near and dear to many environmentalists. Of course, some of his points might be argued against, but this reader finds himself to be most often in agreement with the author. The outdoor "fun hog" whose views of nature are those of Outside magazine (and of a great number of commercial interests which encourage the consumption of nature as a means of self-pleasuring), will find no comfort here. At the very least this book is serious food-for-thought for anyone who loves and attempts to understand the wild. Turner's description of proximity to a mountain lion in the Tetons, and of his "unreasonable terror" at the thought of being the hunted, struck a common cord with this reader, although in my experience the terror was rather more reasonable. The sense of exhilaration which followed can hardly be articulated and perhaps exceeded that described by Turner (but I digress...). Says Turner: "... go into a great forest at night alone. Sit quietly for a while. ... smell and hearing and touch reassert themselves. The wild is keenly sensual. ... The majority of Americans no longer know this experience of the wild. We are surrounded by national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife preserves ...We are deluged with commercial images of wildness. There are nature movies ... nature books ... yuppie outdoor magazines ... philosophical magazines, scientific magazines ... Zoos and animal parks and marine lands abound ... From this we conclude that modern man's knowledge and experience of wild nature is extensive. But it is not. Rather, what we have is extensive experience of a severely diminished wilderness ... a caricature."

A book with clarity and guts.:
This book is such a welcome deviation from so much "environmental" judgmentalism, finger-pointing, and theoretical whining. Its basic premise is: how can we relate to the "wilderness" we wish to preserve when we don't even spend time with it? And: what, in fact, are we working to preserve? There is a rawness and intensity to how the writer expresses himself that has a marvelous feeling of sincerity about it. He is not afraid to point up the shadow side of the very ecological programs he subscribes to. Reading, I had the feeling of sitting next to him by a campfire somewhere, or in front of the fireplace in his home in the Grand Teton, hearing him talk from the heart about things that concern him deeply.

"Can we put the wild back in wilderness?":
This is a book about wildness. Not about the wilderness where it exists. More importantly this book is about you and me and how we think about wilderness. I have single-handed my sailboat to Catalina Island many times and watched the dolphins with fascination as they played at the bow of my boat. You cannot help feeling a sense of connection with them as you watch them only a few feet away as they share their ocean with you. As a young man I stood on top of Mt Whitney and looked out across the many mountain ranges of the High Sierras. I purchased this book at the visitor's center while camping in Anza Borrego State Park in California. What an appropriate place to buy this book! I have visited many National and State Parks and National Monuments crowded with people. So, I have experienced the wildness that Jack Turner talks about and I have also visited the controlled spaces of our current managed wilderness areas that this book addresses. Because the author has traveled in wilderness areas worldwide and a former philosophy professor from Cornel University and a long time climbing guide in the Tetons of Wyoming this book is an absolute jewel - well researched, eloquently written and straight from the heart. What can I now write to get you to read this wonderful book? It is more than his opinion. It is a way of thinking about the world we live in and the true meaning of wilderness. I sometimes end a review with some original poetry. Unfortunately, I am still trying to get my mind around this book. It is such great food for thought. Here is a quote from the book: "Do you want to change the world? I don't think it can be changed. The world is sacred. It can't be improved. If you tamper with it, you will ruin it. If you treat like an object, you will lose it. ..... The Master sees things as they are, With out trying to control them. He let's them go their own way, and resides at the center of the circle." Lao Tzu Yes, this reads like a Zen koan. Don't meditate on it too long -read this book and then keep it in your backpack or sea bag.