Nature Matrix
New and Selected Essays
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- 9,49 €
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- 9,49 €
Description de l’éditeur
Nature Matrix is a gathering of some of Robert Michael Pyle’s most significant, original, and timely expressions of a life immersed in the natural world, in all its splendor, power, and peril
Nature Matrix: New and Selected Essays contains sixteen pieces that encompass the philosophy, ethic, and aesthetic of Robert Michael Pyle. The essays range from Pyle’s experience as a young national park ranger in the Sierra Nevada to the streets of Manhattan; from the suburban jungle to the tangles of the written word; and from the phenomenon of Bigfoot to that of the Big Year—a personal exercise in extreme birding and butterflying. They include deep profiles of John Jacob Astor I and Vladimir Nabokov, as well as excursions into wild places with teachers, children, and writers.
The nature of real wilderness in modern times comes under Pyle’s lens, as does reconsideration of his trademark concept, “the extinction of experience”—maybe the greatest threat of alienation from the living world that we face today.
Nature Matrix shows a way back toward possible integration with the world, as it plumbs the range and depth of experience in one lucky life lived in close connection to the physical earth and its denizens. This collection brings together the thoughts and hopes of one of our most widely read and respected natural philosophers as he seeks to summarize a life devoted to conservation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this thoughtful collection, biologist Pyle (Tidewater Reach) examines the natural world and humanity's place in it. Each essay reads as a standalone piece, though the ideas within benefit from closeness to one another. In an early essay, for instance, Pyle posits that while physical books offer a "direct experience," digital ones do not. Later, Pyle elaborates on the value of experience, opining that the loss of a species isn't just regrettable for the animals' sake, but also because it represents humanity's experience of the species disappearing. Pyle's arguments are strongest when they deal in nature, and when his passion emerges in intricate details about landscapes, animals, and theories of the wilderness. "To what extent can the wild and the Wilderness include our own species; and how?" he wonders at one point. Occasional instances of datedness in Pyle's word choices and attitudes may distract otherwise sympathetic younger readers his description of visiting his "coed sister" in college, for example, or his resistance to the connected digital life. But these infrequent moments do not detract overly from Pyle's message. His probing, thoughtful assemblage will resonate with readers who agree that nature needs to occupy a larger role in modern life.
