Guttersnipe Bookshelf: Derrick Jensen

Derrick Jensen, Dreams
Seven Stories Press, 2011

A few years ago I started to read books about ecology and climate change. First I read books like Thomas Friedman’s Hot Flat and Crowded, that claims we can use a “green revolution” to save the earth and get rich. (It’s embarrassing to think that just four years ago this seemed to me a reasonable idea.) Then I read the more serious books, that argued that profound sacrifice would be necessary: Orr, Brown, McKibben.

Meanwhile, natural communities are destroyed at ever-increasing pace. Meanwhile, government and business are wholly unwilling to make real changes to avert destruction. They can’t even manage hollow gestures and window dressing! Meanwhile, many of the smartest and best people I know -- who appear otherwise thoughtful -- say they can’t be bothered or hide themselves away in easy nihilism or nauseating New Age vapidity.

People act as if they had someplace else to live. They appear to be waiting for an new iphone application that will save the Earth in just one click.

Now here is Derrick Jensen, every cell in his body radiating outrage, kicking in all directions in his fury. I think Derrick Jensen is wrong about plenty of things. I only wish that he was wrong about the things that matter most. He’s not wrong. He’s right: there is no reason to believe that the system of which we are a part, and which is destroying the Earth, is going to voluntarily dismantle itself for the good of all. It isn’t going to happen.

I groaned aloud when Jensen related yet another zombie nightmare but the zombie metaphor is hideously apt: what are we doing but moving in stunned lockstep toward the destruction of the basis of our own lives and spirits?

Naysayers will find this book effortless to dismiss. On page 9 he talks about how pet dogs communicate with him in dreams after their deaths. And on page 12 he’s back calling for the end of civilization as we know it.

I’ve spent enough time in Cambodia and China for my blood to run cold when I hear someone calling to remake society but – there is no other option that I see. We are headed off a cliff.

Derrick Jensen’s style is extremely casual. The chapters invite us to think and fume and dream along with him. Sometimes it seems that he can write about as fast as I can read. (At one point in the book he provides times.) I often wished that, since I had to spend so much time, he’d spent more time too. Is Jensen so revered that someone is afraid to edit? The strongest chapters are brilliant: Extinction, Fungi, The Bear, Reciprocity, Wisdom. Others could have been condensed or cut entirely. Sometimes he sounds like a visionary, other times like a peevish eighth grader. He is often brilliant. He is often downright snarky.

I am very glad I spent many days reading this book and taking notes. I wrestled and sighed, complained -- and learned a tremendous amount. I hope that portions of the book can be edited and tightened and made available to people who cannot or will not read the entire book.

As for me, I’ve taken to hauling the book around and begging people, “Could you just read the chapter ‘Reciprocity’? Please! I’ll make you tea. I’ll rub your feet. I’ll wait. Please, please! Read ‘Reciprocity’.”

Guttersnipe Bookshelf: Philip Hoare, The Whale

The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea
Philip Hoare
Ecco, 2010

The book’s original title, “Leviathan”, is more appropriate, if less marketable. Expecting a natural history, I found instead a history of humankind’s obsession with the whale. The book is composed of elegant meandering essays which explore literary history (particularly Melville and Thoreau) along with whaling ports (New Bedford, Nantucket, the Azores) as well as natural history and the business of whaling.

If someone had told me this book was largely a history of the whaling industry, I would have put it back on the shelf. I am grateful for my mistake – and all that I learned by reading. I had no clue what a driving force whaling has been in history or the extent to which the early industrial world was built on the bodies of whales.

As a long-term resident of Japan, I was especially grateful for the detailed and unsparing discussion of whaling in Japan. (Japanese nationalism has made a fetish of whaling, which it claims is an essential part of Japanese culture. The actual sources are more complicated. Whaling was encouraged by McArthur during the Occupation.) May this book be swiftly translated into Japanese!

The book strives to be elegant and literary -- and occasionally tries too hard. I sometimes felt as if I had been trapped at a high class dinner party with far too much silverware and not nearly enough wine. He wants to be WG Sebald – and who can blame him? Although I sometimes rolled my eyes, I didn’t really mind. If the journey is marvelous, a little melodrama from the guide is easily accommodated.

The details he provides are delicious. In a day’s reading I learned that the milk of humpback whales is so rich it resembles cottage cheese, that Moslems believe that the whale that swallowed Jonah is one of ten animals that will enter heaven (I imagine it there, hanging in mid-air, like an exhibit in a museum) and that young Melville lost a job because of his atrocious penmanship.

There are sections that are irresistible, such as a history of sea monsters in the 19th century. The section about the arctic whales, which leads to a discussion of whale life spans – some live more than 200 years – is unexpectedly moving.

In a mania of greed we nearly destroyed the whale. Now we belatedly and halfheartedly attempt preservation. Not surprising, our ignorance has proven remarkably durable. The whales remain mysterious. This book is an elegant ticket to that mystery.

The Story of the Spell

The state should keep me. I have come into the world for no purpose but to compose. -- Franz Schubert




Because the essential thing, it seems to me, qualifies just as well as mental illness as it does as art. Thus, if no creative grants are available – can I just go ahead and apply for disability?

Not in America, obviously. Someplace Scandinavian and enlightened. Or Canada, maybe?

The conviction that ordinary words, if arranged exactly right, might function as a spell. Or as the numbers of a combination lock. That something new might appear or something old unlock.

This is the goal, isn’t it? And does it not also transparently qualify as nuts?

The primary purpose of the Devi Mahatmyam is neither entertainment nor instruction. If you recite the scripture, which relates the story of Durga’s victory over the buffalo-headed demon, your demons will be subdued as well. Because what good is listening to old stories of victory if you have demons of your own?

How’s that for literature! Never mind self-help. (Every time I see the word, I want to add: As if!) Divine intervention – now there’s a thing worth reading, writing, listening for.

But maybe it isn’t possible anymore? How satisfying it would be if people reading my stories found themselves, for example, comprehensively deloused. Wouldn’t that be marvelous? How much pleasure it would give me to overhear, for example, “I have been reading the stories of Jonathon Mock every day for a week -- and my toenails look great!”

Seriously, if I can’t do as well as one of those little disposable hand-warmers, what the hell is the point?

As I’ve been sitting here in the cafe, three very pregnant women have walked past. There may have been other pregnant women whom I missed. Three very pregnant women. That’s got to be a good omen. I am going to allow myself to feel encouraged.

The story is underway. It is not necessary to make up hoards of imaginary people. People are already sufficiently imaginary.

I’m not certain if I was born a fictional character, but I have been one as long as I can remember. Seriously, I am completely made up. I’m not even particularly convincing.

Every day a man is here at the coffeehouse, standing at the counter near the door. He always wears a suit and carries a briefcase. His bowtie is askew and his thinning hair is lank, as though in allegiance to Crazy People Regulations: if you’re going to be crazy, you ought to look crazy.

His every move is purposeful. He straightens his coat on the chair, goes to get another sugar, stirs, sips again, gets another sugar, straightens his coat.

He writes standing up, in a thin blue booklet, like students used to use for writing exams. He peers thoughtfully, his pen moves. His head tips obediently forward, like a schoolboy receiving dictation. Then he must straighten his coat again, get another sugar, stir it round his silver cup.

He always carries a silver cup. He doesn’t use the regular cups, only his own special cup. I hope his silver cup helps him feel a little better, a little safer, a little more in control.

This man appears here at the coffeehouse every day. He never sits down, his every move is purposeful, he takes careful notes. He repeats his routines for hours: stirring, straightening, writing.

Reports differ as to whether there are actual words on the paper. Some people say the words are gibberish; others claim the page is blank. I do not have the heart to look.

My husband pointed this man out to me and said, “You’re not like that, are you?” To his credit, he was very sorry when after watching the man for a moment, I started to cry.

My husband is not a cruel person, I don’t think. Still, whenever he sees the man in the suit, he says, “There’s that man.” Always standing, always wearing a suit, drinking out of his silver cup.

(I am watching this man right now. After each sip he wipes the rim of his silver cup with a napkin, as though it were a chalice for communion.)

I prefer to sit in the corner. I strongly prefer. At least by the wall. I particularly dislike sitting in the middle of a room. Still, it is not required. OK, it is rarely required. Occasionally there are times when I must sit in the corner. At least if I want to think about anything other than the fact that I am not sitting in the corner.

Those are also the times when I find it acutely painful to hear two songs playing at once. And many people seem to be chewing more loudly than is necessary -- or even polite.

As a small child, alone in the ancient farmhouse, I believed in the power of odd and even numbers, in Jesus Christ, in house cats. All these were powers to array against the ghosts and bogeymen of that vast dark house.

The cats were number one. Jesus and math might or might not come through. And so I ran night after night through the dark corridors of that house with a cat twisting in my arms.

I’m sipping my coffee. Strictly speaking, I probably should not be allowed to have a refill on a large. But it’s not like I am being supervised. I am expected to moderate myself.

As if!

If coffee suddenly vanished, would writing also cease? Do other people worry about this?

Is my vocation simply a side effect?

I wrote my fears to my sister. Maybe it isn’t real writing at all, I wrote. Maybe it’s just a symptom.

My sister wrote back, You make art because you are an artist you nitwit.

I was strenuously grateful for this. I copied her words on a note card and taped them to the inside of my door.

Unfortunately her opinion cannot be entirely trusted. She’s on the list. Of people who are biased. And thus cannot be entirely trusted.

What a pity that that list includes everyone who loves me.

Recently I discovered that all my stories have a plot. (I, too, was shocked.) They are absolutely plot-driven. There is almost nothing but plot.

The plot is: a man is on a quest. He is looking for divine providence. He wants to know if it exists. He thinks probably not. Almost certainly not. Nonetheless, this doesn’t discourage him. Or anyway does not stop him. He asks, am I delusional or is the divine participating? Or is the divine attempting to participate and I am only getting in the way?

I am obsessed with plot!

Thus I am extremely interested whenever anyone appears to set up their life in a way that appears to demand a response from God. Most commonly when they say: Next month’s rent will come from somewhere!

In the last year I’ve known two people that have done this. One was an evangelical Christian missionary. Donations were down because of the economy and the weak dollar. He didn’t know if he’d be able to pay the rent and continue his ministry.

The other was a budding New Age luminary who wanted to teach Tarot. Both gentlemen had rent bills in Tokyo of nearly three thousand bucks. Both felt that, if God supported their work, then goddammit he could come up with his share of the rent.

I awaited the outcome with interest. Who would prevail, I wondered, Jesus or Tarot?

A year later, the missionary is moving out and the Tarot master is still at home.

Unfortunately the seeming clarity of this outcome is totally fake. After all, Jesus did come up with eleven months’ rent. Maybe it was just time to move on? Why Jesus would want anyone to live for long in Tokyo is a fathomless mystery to me.

Also I seriously suspect that the Tarot master is actually loaded and just says “I don’t know where the money’s coming from” so he and his affirmations can score a victory, so he can pretend to be like us.

Obviously further investigation is required. And that means reading t-shirts in crowds and billboards on buses and counting pregnant women as they walk past. Constantly examining events and asking oneself, “Is this random, or am I being directly addressed?”

Close attention must be given to sudden pronouncements from total strangers. In particular, I am slavishly obedient when odd strangers tell me what to read. Why else would I read Celine? Or Million Dollar Mermaid? How would I ever have been able to survive without A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, or Esther Williams?

Are the things that happen to us meaningful or not? -- is widely considered a reasonable question.

But then: how can anything be meaningful unless everything is meaningful?

See how quickly one arrives at total nuttiness? It’s right next door. It might not even be a different door. There might not be a door at all.

Here we are.

As soon as you even ask, “What matters?” --

Then, God help you.

Or not.

Disability payments are more regular than grants, presumably. And no lectures are required. Still, there’s the matter of glamour. Presumably it is easier to maintain one’s self-esteem as “artist” than “sick fuck”.

I should admit it does not much matter to me personally, as long as I am permitted to go on writing sentences on blank white three by five cards.

Here, then, is the story. It’s finished now. Please feel free to forward it to whatever authorities you deem appropriate.