My brief review of The Night Country (1971) by Loren Eiseley, a writer I greatly enjoy reading.
Loren Eiseley has this to say about nature writers such as Gilbert White, Richard Jefferies, and W. H. Hudson, but the words apply equally to himself:
Even though they were not discoverers in the objective sense, one feels at times that the great nature essayists had more individual perception than their scientific contemporaries. Theirs was a different contribution. They opened the minds of men by the sheer power of their thought. The world of nature, once seen through the eye of genius, is never seen in quite the same manner afterward. A dimension has been added, something that lies beyond the careful analyses of professional biology.”
Eiseley’s writing is lyrical, deeply reflective, even melancholic. The essays in this book defy a simple description. Are they examples of nature writing? Memoir? Reflections on archaeology and anthropology? Ruminations on the external and internal worlds of the human? Essays on education and what it means to be a teacher? The essays are drawn from all this, gain synergy, become something larger and memorable. It is rare, I feel, to find emerging from the pen of a scientist, educator, and thinker, prose of such grace and humility.
Still, there are those who would complain of such writing, flay his ornamentation of ideas, rubbish his reflection as mysticism. It is difficult to imagine Eiseley himself being able to publish some of these essays in the literary and nature magazines of the present day. Where are the details? the editors may ask. The specifics, the hook, the motif, thread, conflict, and denouement? Or they might return his manuscript, advising him as one of his colleagues did, in all seriousness, to ‘explain himself’, perhaps ‘confess’ the state of his mind and internal world in the pages of a scientific journal. In Eiseley’s words again:
No one need object to the elucidation of scientific principles in clear, unornamental prose. What concerns us is the fact that there exists a new class of highly skilled barbarians—not representing the very great in science—who would confine men entirely to this diet.
Fortunately, Eiseley does not join the ranks of the barbarians, even as he admits in “Obituary of a bone hunter”, with due humility, that his own scientific career is marked by “no great discoveries”, that his is but a life “dedicated to the folly of doubt, the life of a small bone hunter.”
(Review originally written on 3 October 2013. You can read the book here.)
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Aasheesh Pittie says:
I have been an unabashed Eiseley fan for some years now, perhaps relating naturally to him and his style of writing because I am not a scientist myself, but a traveller on the fertile lands that science discovers and his type of nature essay reveals. Re-readings are particularly enjoyable for they open newer horizons into Eiseley’s thoughts, as he plumbs the lodestone where science a deep understanding, a relatable, empathetic belief, and an genius for literary expression meld into spellbinding ruminations.
I particularly admire his excavations of Edward Blyth’s genius, through Blyth’s path-breaking essays on evolution, which led on to shaping Charles Darwin’s cataclysmic theories. Eiseley exposes how Darwin failed to acknowledge Blyth’s contributions in shaping his own mind. This set of Eiseley’s essays, and book make fascinating reading.
Eiseley wrote, ‘But let the world not forget that Edward Blyth, a man of poverty and bad fortune, shaped a key that dropped half-used from his hands when he set forth hastily on his own ill-fated voyage [to India, as curator of the collections of the Asiatic Society of Bengal]. That key, which was picked up and re-forged by a far greater and more cunning hand, was no less than natural selection.’
Eiseley, L. C., & Grote, A., 1959. Charles Darwin, Edward Blyth, and the theory of natural selection. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 103 (1): 94–158.
27 September 2021 — 6:30 am
TR Shankar Raman says:
Thanks Aasheesh! I had no idea of the Eiseley–Blyth connection and sounds like there’s an interesting story there. Wallace was not the only person short-changed by Darwin, perhaps?
28 September 2021 — 8:26 am
Jayant Pande says:
I discovered Eiseley — through The Immense Journey — a few years ago and was left shaken by the beauty of his (natural) philosophy and his prose. Someone who could view the world in this way, and then capture it on the page like this, was to be held close and treasured. I know that his philosophy — and perhaps his prose — is now outmoded, but, to me, Eiseley reached places in the soul that few authors have, and none others in science that I recall.
My question, and this is one I have been seeking an answer to ever since, is whether there are other writers like him. (What do I mean by like him? To answer that I would find it hard to improve upon the entirety of your second paragraph, the one that begins “Eiseley’s writing is lyrical, deeply reflective,…”) Stephen Jay Gould I have read a bit and liked, but isn’t quite it, and John Muir I have heard about but not tried yet. Any other recommendations I’d be grateful for.
27 September 2021 — 6:52 pm
TR Shankar Raman says:
No one exactly like him, of course, Jayant, but I have equally enjoyed the prose and poetry of Mary Oliver, and the writings of Aldo Leopold. Among contemporary writers, I have enjoyed reading Kathleen Jamie a lot. You may want to check them out if you have not read them already.
28 September 2021 — 8:29 am
Jayant Pande says:
I have liked quite a bit what little I have read of Mary Oliver, while the other two are new to me (though Leopold’s name rings a bell, I can’t quite recall why). These seem to be just the kind of recommendations I was hoping for. Thank you very much.
9 October 2021 — 1:03 am
Ginger Bensman says:
Eloquent review. I was aware of Eiseley but hadn’t read his work. Now I will. Thank you Aasheesh!
29 September 2021 — 7:37 pm
Greg Vincent says:
One need only read “The Bird and the Machine” to be convinced of Eiseley’s moving genius. Thank you for reviewing this book, TR!
28 November 2022 — 12:00 pm