The World Without Us.
Jun. 9th, 2008 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elwen[This is kind of a booklog, written as dated. I figured it'd be easier to read if I kept it all together in one post.]
5/7/08
I've been reading The World Without Us
, by Alan Weisman. I read about the book in Newsweek a while ago and was intrigued by the premise: basically, what would happen to the planet if humans were to suddenly vanish, leaving behind all their edifices and environmental modifications? I think of Fuuma's vision of the future in X, where skyscrapers are half-submerged and covered with jungle greenery. [I've always loved that part about X, how the more utopian future is the one that will result from letting the "bad guys" win, i.e. letting humanity be destroyed, while the future of the "good guys" is a desert with twisted metal rising out of the sand. I suppose it wasn't necessarily an environmentalist message -- it could just as easily be about war, or nuclear holocaust -- but regardless, it's always appealed to the misanthrope in me.]
Weisman probably did a bit more research than CLAMP, so his depictions -- of a house slowly breaking down as water leaks in through where the chimney meets the roof, and of the New York subway flooding while the surface is slowly invaded by ailanthus clinging to dust and decomposing newspapers that collect in the gutters -- draw upon countless conversations with engineers and naturalists. And while I shuddered to think of the precious packrat's collection of stuff in my room being exposed to the elements, and was unpleasantly forced to remember when our house had rats living in it, there is at the same time something primally satisfying about the picture a house tumbled down and crumbling, slowly returning to nature.
Some of the chapters, like the ones I described above, follow the script very well. There are brief detours when Weisman talks about how bridges were built, or how native species have been replaced by foreign invaders, but they all lead naturally to his point about what the world will look like after we are gone -- how the over-fortified bridges from the early 1900's will last the longest, how the forests that grow back will not be the forests that once were. Then there are some chapters that are all detour, and it's really easy to miss the sign for the turnoff. Or maybe I'm just an inattentive reader, or not used to the narration style of nonfiction. For example, there are chapters and chapters about how humans evolved and how in the modern day two species of monkeys have begun interbreeding because squeezed into the same tiny ecological refuge, or how North America was full of amazing megafauna far more diverse than in Africa until humans crossed the land bridge during the Pleistoscene. It's fascinating stuff, so I keep reading, but I keep wondering why we are going back in time instead of forward. Eventually at the end a paragraph or so ties it together, and I remember the tiny clue dropped at the beginning. Questions like: if we are gone, will something evolve in our place? or, what will restock the continents that have been empty of large mammals for tens of thousands of years?
I've just started Part II, and it's something like the detour chapters, except the detours now are of human history rather than natural history. Things like how Cyprus was divided in the 1970's between the Turks and the Greeks, and ended up staying that way until the present day, to the destruction of a resort city built by the Greeks but that ended up on the Turkish side of the no man's land. I'm generally more interested in natural history than human history, but there are tidbits about ancient civilations, which I also like to read about. Like the cave cities at Cappadocia -- which now I really want to visit someday. [Just like reading about the megafauna of North America makes me want to revisit the natural history museum in San Francisco, where they have lots of dioramas. I just have trouble imagining the sheer scale of these animals without a visual aid.]
In sum: I find the organization of the book very confusing. The chapter titles are misleading, and make it hard for me to figure out where the author is going. But if you like reading books that are a collection of random facts loosely woven into a story with a compelling premise (which apparently I do), then you'll like it.
5/13/08
I've finished Part II now, and it definitely got preachy at times. More and more focus on the past and less on the future, to the point that in some sections the "after us" part was little more than a paragraph of rhetorical questions. Also more and more gratuitous "look how horrible we are" parts, like more than a page about industrial accidents at petroleum refineries and how many people they kill. What happened to talking about the world without people (and hence without people to kill in refinery accidents)?
I also still have serious issues with this guy's idea of "organization". I think the whole thing is one long stream-of-consciousness romp. He starts talking about what will happen when farms are overtaken by wilderness again, and points to New England and old England as examples... then he decides to keep talking about other parts of old England for no good reason except that he was already talking about England.
Okay, I realize this book grew out of an essay he wrote, and this is how popular nonfiction reads -- since it's supposed to be more fun than informational or scientific -- and I will enjoy it as such, but I just feel like he keeps hiding the ball. And I really want to see the ball, because that's what interests me about the topic.
6/9/08
Finally finished the book, because it was due back to the library. [I was surprised to discover last night, when I suddenly remembered that I needed to renew, that someone had placed a hold on the book. I kind of want to say, "Ha! Another sucker!" But I guess it wasn't that bad a book.] It didn't actually take this long because it lost my interest; I just got swamped with work. But it really did degenerate into a book about random factoids at the end. Pretty much anything that could somehow be tied into the "what if we disappeared off the face of the earth" theme, was. For example, talk about radio waves propagating forever into space, because they will outlast us. Or, how truly undisturbed coral reef ecosystems work (a lot more large, top predators than one would expect), because that's what things might go back to . . . if we disappear before all the reefs are taken over by algae slime. It's one of those books that's good to read if you want to collect a lot of random factoids that you can bring up in casual conversation.
Also, the punchline was really, really obvious.
As in, after spending a lot of time talking about how awesome the planet would be if there were no humans, the solution that permits the survival of humans is . . . less humans!
[More specifically, that each woman should only have one child. Wow, so original. I kind of liked the VHEMT thing more. At least, it made for a better-sounding story.]
Well, at least that's one book off my "to read" list. I think I should hunt down one of the more law-y books next, like The Terror Presidency or The Next Justice.
5/7/08
I've been reading The World Without Us
, by Alan Weisman. I read about the book in Newsweek a while ago and was intrigued by the premise: basically, what would happen to the planet if humans were to suddenly vanish, leaving behind all their edifices and environmental modifications? I think of Fuuma's vision of the future in X, where skyscrapers are half-submerged and covered with jungle greenery. [I've always loved that part about X, how the more utopian future is the one that will result from letting the "bad guys" win, i.e. letting humanity be destroyed, while the future of the "good guys" is a desert with twisted metal rising out of the sand. I suppose it wasn't necessarily an environmentalist message -- it could just as easily be about war, or nuclear holocaust -- but regardless, it's always appealed to the misanthrope in me.]Weisman probably did a bit more research than CLAMP, so his depictions -- of a house slowly breaking down as water leaks in through where the chimney meets the roof, and of the New York subway flooding while the surface is slowly invaded by ailanthus clinging to dust and decomposing newspapers that collect in the gutters -- draw upon countless conversations with engineers and naturalists. And while I shuddered to think of the precious packrat's collection of stuff in my room being exposed to the elements, and was unpleasantly forced to remember when our house had rats living in it, there is at the same time something primally satisfying about the picture a house tumbled down and crumbling, slowly returning to nature.
Some of the chapters, like the ones I described above, follow the script very well. There are brief detours when Weisman talks about how bridges were built, or how native species have been replaced by foreign invaders, but they all lead naturally to his point about what the world will look like after we are gone -- how the over-fortified bridges from the early 1900's will last the longest, how the forests that grow back will not be the forests that once were. Then there are some chapters that are all detour, and it's really easy to miss the sign for the turnoff. Or maybe I'm just an inattentive reader, or not used to the narration style of nonfiction. For example, there are chapters and chapters about how humans evolved and how in the modern day two species of monkeys have begun interbreeding because squeezed into the same tiny ecological refuge, or how North America was full of amazing megafauna far more diverse than in Africa until humans crossed the land bridge during the Pleistoscene. It's fascinating stuff, so I keep reading, but I keep wondering why we are going back in time instead of forward. Eventually at the end a paragraph or so ties it together, and I remember the tiny clue dropped at the beginning. Questions like: if we are gone, will something evolve in our place? or, what will restock the continents that have been empty of large mammals for tens of thousands of years?
I've just started Part II, and it's something like the detour chapters, except the detours now are of human history rather than natural history. Things like how Cyprus was divided in the 1970's between the Turks and the Greeks, and ended up staying that way until the present day, to the destruction of a resort city built by the Greeks but that ended up on the Turkish side of the no man's land. I'm generally more interested in natural history than human history, but there are tidbits about ancient civilations, which I also like to read about. Like the cave cities at Cappadocia -- which now I really want to visit someday. [Just like reading about the megafauna of North America makes me want to revisit the natural history museum in San Francisco, where they have lots of dioramas. I just have trouble imagining the sheer scale of these animals without a visual aid.]
In sum: I find the organization of the book very confusing. The chapter titles are misleading, and make it hard for me to figure out where the author is going. But if you like reading books that are a collection of random facts loosely woven into a story with a compelling premise (which apparently I do), then you'll like it.
5/13/08
I've finished Part II now, and it definitely got preachy at times. More and more focus on the past and less on the future, to the point that in some sections the "after us" part was little more than a paragraph of rhetorical questions. Also more and more gratuitous "look how horrible we are" parts, like more than a page about industrial accidents at petroleum refineries and how many people they kill. What happened to talking about the world without people (and hence without people to kill in refinery accidents)?
I also still have serious issues with this guy's idea of "organization". I think the whole thing is one long stream-of-consciousness romp. He starts talking about what will happen when farms are overtaken by wilderness again, and points to New England and old England as examples... then he decides to keep talking about other parts of old England for no good reason except that he was already talking about England.
Okay, I realize this book grew out of an essay he wrote, and this is how popular nonfiction reads -- since it's supposed to be more fun than informational or scientific -- and I will enjoy it as such, but I just feel like he keeps hiding the ball. And I really want to see the ball, because that's what interests me about the topic.
6/9/08
Finally finished the book, because it was due back to the library. [I was surprised to discover last night, when I suddenly remembered that I needed to renew, that someone had placed a hold on the book. I kind of want to say, "Ha! Another sucker!" But I guess it wasn't that bad a book.] It didn't actually take this long because it lost my interest; I just got swamped with work. But it really did degenerate into a book about random factoids at the end. Pretty much anything that could somehow be tied into the "what if we disappeared off the face of the earth" theme, was. For example, talk about radio waves propagating forever into space, because they will outlast us. Or, how truly undisturbed coral reef ecosystems work (a lot more large, top predators than one would expect), because that's what things might go back to . . . if we disappear before all the reefs are taken over by algae slime. It's one of those books that's good to read if you want to collect a lot of random factoids that you can bring up in casual conversation.
Also, the punchline was really, really obvious.
As in, after spending a lot of time talking about how awesome the planet would be if there were no humans, the solution that permits the survival of humans is . . . less humans!
[More specifically, that each woman should only have one child. Wow, so original. I kind of liked the VHEMT thing more. At least, it made for a better-sounding story.]
Well, at least that's one book off my "to read" list. I think I should hunt down one of the more law-y books next, like The Terror Presidency or The Next Justice.
