In an interview last week the actor Seth Rogen, reflecting on his brushes with bad reviews, said: “I think if most critics knew how much it hurts the people that made the things that they are writing about, they would second guess the way they write these things.” The Guardian’s film critic Peter Bradshaw came to the defence of “bad notices”: “Of what value are the good reviews… without the bedrock assumption that the reviewers were free to say the opposite?” The exchange dredges up an old question: who is criticism for?
One day about 10 years ago, a German beachcomber picked up a small orange rock and pocketed it without much thought. Minutes later, he looked down to see that his left leg was on fire. The rock, it turned out, was not a rock at all but a glob of phosphorus — a remnant of the deadly firebombs that pummeled the country during World War II. After decades of slumber, the modest heat of the man’s body had rekindled its wrath, leaving him badly injured.
That harrowing incident makes a fitting opener for Dan Egan’s new book, “The Devil’s Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance.” In the tradition of environmental clarion calls like “Silent Spring” and “The Sixth Extinction,” which drew attention to the problems of pesticide overuse and disappearing species, respectively, “The Devil’s Element” urges readers to confront another quietly unfolding disaster. This one revolves around phosphorus — which is essential for life but has, at the hands of humans, become a menace in ways that go far beyond incendiary pebbles.
The Wilderness Act, passed in 1964, established the National Wilderness Preservation System to safeguard federally owned land, beginning with 9.1 million acres, called “wilderness areas,” to be “designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition.” Wilderness was defined as a place essentially untouched by humankind, one where a person is “a visitor who does not remain.” The desire for places where we are not is a deep and multifaceted one. Because of the climate crisis, this desire is increasingly urgent; into this charged atmosphere comes “The Nature Book,” an experimental novel by Tom Comitta. “The Nature Book” is entirely made up of descriptions of the natural world that Comitta has copied from canonical novels and spliced together in oddly mesmerizing combinations. As the afterword explains, no words have been added to the phrases, sentences, and longer passages that the book borrows; some words, however, have been erased. What’s omitted are the human stories. In doing so, “The Nature Book” attempts to create a novel that is itself a wilderness.
She lets them grow slack in their purple suits.
She keeps them