I’ve always believed in climate change; I’ve never been a doubter, but I also thought that sometime, somewhere, someone would do something and “things would be ok.” Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History has shifted this optimistic view.
I look at the world now and am grateful that I live in a time when I don’t have to witness the chaos of its destruction. I’ve come to believe that we are very probably living at the start of an extinction which will see much of the natural world disappear. If this sounds overly dramatic, Kolbert thought so too. She knew she had to start slowly to build her case.
Just a few hundred years ago, scientists didn’t believe there was such a thing as extinction. There were many theories about those large fossils – what they were and where the animals had gone. Eventually, people came to realize that some of those bones represented animals that were not coming back. Much later, geologists began to realize that extinction didn’t have to happen gradually; there were times in the geological record, five (!) known so far, when 90% of life on earth suddenly disappeared.
Kolbert presents a meticulous body of work to support the hypothesis that a sixth extinction has begun. Scientists have named our age the Anthropocene, or the time of human beings who have had a profound effect on all other life and literally changed the makeup of the planet. Snowball rolling downhill is the image that came to mind as she discussed the effects of global warming and ocean acidification, the speed at which these things are happening, and the large loss of plant and animal life that has already occurred. We are used to the idea that our world has changed course once in the past; after all, there are no more dinosaurs. But the fact that it has done it five times, that it will continue to do so in the future, and we are witnessing the beginning of the sixth – that is disturbing indeed.
When I read these scientific books, I am always so impressed with the vast amount of detailed, unpleasant, repetitive drudgery involved in teasing out a particle or two of new information. Kolbert presents vivid stories of dedicated scientists and hardworking grad students spending their days doing just this.
But what of the business leaders and politicians who are in the position to make a difference, to be the “someone to do something?” Their days are also filled, many times too much so, but not with worry about snails living near vents in an ocean, dying because of too much acidification. How do we switch our collective focus from the immediate and particular to the looming and only somewhat distant future?
My reading group did not have an answer; rather, there was the dreary realization that stopping massive climate change will take massive cooperative effort which is not in evidence these days. Kolbert tells us however that we do have that ability. Humans first came to dominate all other animals because our genes, more than those of any animal, promote cooperation. Primitive humans with few weapons figured out how to kill large game. They worked together as a group to kill mastodons and the group ate well. But looking at it from another point of view is not so optimistic. The mastodons, which comprised all those dinners, are now extinct.
Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri is a novel with parts missing. There is no plot; the chapters are short and episodic. Some, such as the vignette about her relationship with her mother, could be inserted anywhere. There are no permanent characters other than the narrator; an occasional friend or acquaintance inhabits just one chapter.
The most unsettling thing missing is the setting. All throughout this short novel, I looked for clues. Eventually the narrator is called signora; there is a piazza; the town closes in August. This lack made me realize how we always put the people we know in their “place.” This is a friend from work; this other is a neighbor; this is someone from my book group. But Lahiri tells us “…when all is said and done, the setting doesn’t matter…” Doesn’t it? It’s an interesting question.
What the book has in abundance are descriptions of the minutiae that make up the majority of most lives, such as the routine physical things that become habitual or casual relationships with people regularly seen but not known. Lahiri’s use of stream of consciousness gives a running commentary on the narrator’s reactions and emotions, the pleasure of unexpected kindness, the irritation with an unpleasant co-worker. This emphasis on the immediate reminded me of Ram Dass’s Be Here Now and the mindfulness movement he helped to popularize. Perhaps Lahiri is saying your whereabouts doesn’t matter; life happens wherever; pay attention.
And yet – at the end of the book, the narrator (she has no name) goes away for a year’s sabbatical, crossing “a border” thus choosing to change the setting of her story. Perhaps this character who has had no direction (plot) or close relationships (characters) finally generates enough agency to go out and look for her place in the world. My co- readers and I all had different ideas about the point of this novel.
I certainly didn’t get the meaning on my first attempt, when I listened rather than read. This book requires the ability to slow down, reread, stop and think. It’s an interesting example of when listening to something read in an unchanging measured pace is totally inadequate.
After the previous two books, it was relaxing to read No Stopping Us Now by NYT columnist Gail Collins which is cheerful, optimistic, and to the point. She talks about the leaders in the women’s rights movement – starting in the 1700’s. There were always some women, the independent, motivated, super energetic, who worked for improvement in the lives of senior women.
One thread running through the book is that women are valued when they can make a contribution to the family’s welfare. For a long time that value was childbearing only. A woman past that age was superfluous and just an additional mouth to feed. She might find a place for herself if she was needed to care for grandchildren or do chores. As women lived longer and a middle class developed, women could expect many years after childbearing was over. What to do with them?
Giving women the right to fill that time as they wished was the purpose of many reformers. They felt that women need not stay unwanted and hidden at home but could, and should, find a cause – helping the poor, suffrage for women, abolition of slavery, the temperance movement (to keep the family intact.) Eventually toes were dipped in water and women took jobs – and then had careers! Collins tells about the women who led the way and the changing tolerance of society towards working, and now governing, women.
Of course, there are more causes than ever today, the environment comes to mind, but I wish she had said more about women feeling they finally have permission, and time, to do things just for their own enjoyment – painting, music, chess, golf, travel, a lot of reading. The book emphasizes the leader, the celebrity, rather than the majority of us at home who might be interested in less pressure and quieter pleasures.
Helping senior women (and men) to lead more fulfilling lives are the many improvements in health care. We are reminded of the easily fixable things today that caused misery and illness a hundred years ago. We meet the advanced thinkers who connected health with lifestyle rather than God’s decree and recommended exercise and keeping the drinking water separate from the sewage.
A quote from Alva Vanderbilt illustrates the flavor of this funny educational book, “Brace up dear. Pray to God. She will help you.”
Our views of ripe age and 53 have certainly changed.
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You gave me some words to think about every day:
Brace up dear. Pray to God. She will help you.
I love it!