Sick of Nature [Paperback]

David Gessner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2005 | ISBN-10: 1584654643 | ISBN-13: 978-1584654643 | Edition: New edition

David Gessner's Return of the Osprey is "among the classics of American nature writing," said the Boston Globe. So why does this critically acclaimed nature writer now declare himself to be "sick of nature"?

In diverse, diverting, and frequently hilarious essays, Gessner wrestles with father figures both biological and literary, reflects on the pleasures and absurdities of the writing life, explores the significance of place for both his work and his sense of well-being, and rails at the confines of the nature genre even as he continues to find fresh inspiration for his writing in the natural world. In the end, he learns to embrace--or at least tolerate--the label he once rejected.

Whether kicking at the limits of his category or explaining why he was fired from his job as a bookstore clerk; whether recalling his youthful obsession with Ultimate Frisbee or recounting an adventure in the jungles of Belize; whether lampooning his own writerly envy of Sebastian Junger or raging at the over-development of Cape Cod or searching for solace in nature in the wake of September 11, Gessner ranges from the personal to the natural in lyrical reflections on writing, self, and society.

In a powerful concluding essay, Gessner moves from the arrival of coyotes in the suburbs of Boston to the birth of his first child in an extended meditation on his characteristic themes of wildness, place, and creativity.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Comical, energetic, and reverentially irreverent . . . Gessner's literary voice in this book is something new, something different . . . In particular, he argues for - and then gleefully demonstrates--the enlivening contribution of farce and other modes of narrative in the field of nature writing . . . More like a gulp of laughing gas than the standard breath of fresh air."--Orion Magazine

"The book reads like a novel and reaches a satisfying conclusion as Gessner matures from a wild adolescent to a seasoned professor. His humor, irreverence, raw honesty, and passion make him reminiscent of Edward Abbey, and, like that writer, he leaves you with plenty to ponder. Highly recommended"--Library Journal

"Here is an environmental read with irreverent laughter and attentive awe both."--Virginia Quarterly Review

"Eschewing expectations turns out to be one of Gessner's favorite pastimes, as he exuberantly demonstrates throughout Sick of Nature . . . Anyone who can capture in words the quiet joy of rocking an infant as well as the boldness of an osprey's plunge to the sea is a unique voice, well worth reading even if you're not the least bit sick of birds and trees."--Audubon Naturalist News

Review

"As self-conscious as Eggers, but deeper. As funny as Sedaris, but smarter. Our best writer of creative nonfiction period." (Mark Spitzer, author of Bottom Feeder )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Dartmouth; New edition edition (July 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584654643
• ISBN-13: 978-1584654643
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,209,169 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An Impish Kind of Reverence March 27, 2007

By Anna Mills

Bravo to David Gessner for thumbing his nose at the hallowed genre of nature writing! I love the genre, and I believe Gessner does too. Still, I applaud anyone who helps to tip over sacred cows. Gessner expands the possibilities for other nature writers and loosens things up. He structures his book of essays around the tale of a prodigal nature writer. First he rebels against his self-assigned role as wise and straight-laced chronicler of plovers and other small beer (Return of the Osprey, A Wild, Rank Place). Then he strikes out into the territory of the personal essay to explore his relationships and his writing apprenticeship. Finally, he returns to nature writing, reinvigorated and willing to break the rules.

The book opens with a rant so clever, funny, and hyperactive that it dazzled me. I tried in vain to summarize what his complaint against nature writing was. I had to go back over the argument sentence by sentence to catch every insight. Gessner chafes against a sense of restraint, a standard of quiet gentility and decorum.Gessner rolls his eyes at what he sees as a habit of humorless, excessive earnestness. He complains about the narrowness of the genre and its tendency toward repetition. Then he admits that it is his own conformity that embarrasses and frustrates him more than anyone else's expectations.

Gessner is sick not just of nature writing, but of the marginal position of nature writers in society, of the skeptical inquiries about his job, of his own "eccentric costume of an English bird watcher." He worries, too, about the self-indulgence of the lonely philosopher on the shore. Perhaps most of all, Gessner hates the writer's helplessness. He groans at the contrast between his lofty aspirations and his inability to stop the destruction of the wilderness. He throws up his hands: "I have to admit that an essay is a much less effective method of protecting the land than a cudgel. In other words, I have to admit to impotence."

By the end of the introductory essay, though, he's back on his feet, trumpeting a new aesthetic. He makes a plea for wildness and honesty in nature writing, "for freedom. For sloppiness... for amateurism, variety, danger, spontaneity." By this time we can infer both directly and indirectly what figure he'd like to cut. The persona that attracts him is virile, wild, funny, sexy, irreverent, contrarian, a little cranky. He's got a touch of Edward Abbey's picaresque approach to our lovely earth. Gessner wants a nature writing that excludes no human truth, a nature writing that can include substitute teaching, TV and Al Qaeda if these affect our relations with nature. While Gessner may not be quite such a colorful lecher and prankster and messiah as Edward Abbey, he's more credible in the maturity department. Gessner is so self-reflective that we're not always sure whether he's commenting on nature writing or describing his personal trajectory. Fortunately, he makes both these projects revealing and appealing.

In "A Polygamist of Place," Gessner describes his alternate attachments to Cape Cod and Colorado. He points out that marriage to a place remains the dominant, unquestioned trope for American nature writing. Why should marriage be necessary? He sees its value, but it may not be for everyone. Gessner notes the virtues of distance; when we step away from a beloved place we can sometimes see it more clearly in the light of contrast and nostalgia.

Gessner feels a certain urgency about exploring his own defects. He complains that nature writing is "a strange Sunday School where I alternate between sitting in the pews (reading nature) and standing at the pulpit (writing nature)." In this book he refuses those pieties. He won't just preach and worship; he'll confess to the sins that give all humans vitality.

In the title essay, Gessner claims, "I'm willing to write manifestos, but I'd prefer having others act them out." I don't buy this. His final trilogy of essays, "Howling with the Trickster: A Wild Memoir," does act out his manifesto. In these essays, he moves to Boston, gets obsessed with urban coyotes, tracks one alone a concrete canal, supports his mentally ill brother, and watches his wife's belly swell as his own daughter grows. Gessner waxes earnest, emotional, inquisitive, lyrical, playful by turns. He braids together personal history, natural history, and philosophizing. When he sobbed at his daughter's birth, I started crying too.

Ultimately, it's liveliness that matters most to Gessner. Like Whitman, he looks for energy wherever it lurks. It lurks in the coyote by the trash heap as well as in the sublime irridescent "blue-grey juniper berries." In his deepest essays, his warmth and all-too-human honesty transport us. He seeks truth and an impish liberation in the profane; in the process he finds his way to the holy once again.

5.0 out of 5 stars Not your stodgy nature writing July 19, 2011

By Matthew Taylor

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If narrative nonfiction does not interest you, then you can stop reading this and go back to reading Water For Elephants or some such.

If you do, like I do, love reading high-quality, well-crafted narrative nonfiction, then you will love this book. Gessner is nominally a nature writer, but he really covers a lot of bases, which makes him hard to categorize but exceptionally fun to read.

As mentioned in previous reviews, this is a collection of essays and nonfiction, and is definitely not your stodgy, self-important nature writing. I had previously read one of the essays included here, "Bigger Than Shakespeare" which is a funny, entertaining tale of Gessner meeting fellow author Sebastian Junger. My other favorites are "Dungo in the Jungle" (about a trip to Belize), "To the Fatherland" (about his father and a trip they took together to Germany), and of course the title essay. In all the essays, he touches on personal history, nature, symbolism, sociology, politics, all with a touch of humor and a gifted eye for detail.

I am currently finishing the last part of the book, a triptych of essays regarding coyotes in Boston, and I can't put it down.