(no subject)
Dec. 5th, 2021 11:44 amI first became aware of John McPhee's Basin and Range when my absurdly talented friend Shannon did an absolutely stunning comic; I became further aware of it because Shannon sat on my couch with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blotthis and I said 'why is it so hard to find nonfiction that is both good and well-written' and received a more-or-less synchronous response, 'have you heard the good word of John McPhee --'
Unsurprisingly, Basin and Range is indeed gorgeously written, a journey through the human understanding of geology and deep time which was both extremely worth reading for me and a kind of humbling demonstration of just how bad my brain is at thinking about things outside of the human spectrum -- it took me about twice as long to read this relatively slim book as I expected, because I'd encounter three beautiful pages about the geologic narrative to be found in the transformation of the world's materials under various pressures and my mind, which is not practiced in finding rocks interesting, would slide right off the cliff face and I would have to go back and read it again to get it to latch.
My favorite moment in the book is a reported conversation between McPhee and his silver-mining geologist guide which goes like this:
"The geologist has to choose the course of action with the best statistical chance. As a result, the style of geology is full of inferences, and they change. No one has ever seen a geosyncline. No one has ever seen the welding of tuff. No one has ever seen a granite batholith intrude."
Since I was digging his sample pits, I felt enfranchised to remark on what I took to be the literary timbre of his science.
"There's an essential difference," he said. "The authors of literary works may not have intended all the subtleties, complexities, undertones, and overtones that are attributed to them by critics and by students writing doctoral theses."
"That is what God says about geologists," I told him, chipping into the sediment with his broken shovel.
What I like about this passage is it describes a lot of the essential frustration/fascination of the project of trying to understand our world, and it also captures the quality of the numinous in the natural, and it is also just a very good joke; McPhee's gift lies in his ability to do all of this at once.
blotthis and I said 'why is it so hard to find nonfiction that is both good and well-written' and received a more-or-less synchronous response, 'have you heard the good word of John McPhee --'Unsurprisingly, Basin and Range is indeed gorgeously written, a journey through the human understanding of geology and deep time which was both extremely worth reading for me and a kind of humbling demonstration of just how bad my brain is at thinking about things outside of the human spectrum -- it took me about twice as long to read this relatively slim book as I expected, because I'd encounter three beautiful pages about the geologic narrative to be found in the transformation of the world's materials under various pressures and my mind, which is not practiced in finding rocks interesting, would slide right off the cliff face and I would have to go back and read it again to get it to latch.
My favorite moment in the book is a reported conversation between McPhee and his silver-mining geologist guide which goes like this:
"The geologist has to choose the course of action with the best statistical chance. As a result, the style of geology is full of inferences, and they change. No one has ever seen a geosyncline. No one has ever seen the welding of tuff. No one has ever seen a granite batholith intrude."
Since I was digging his sample pits, I felt enfranchised to remark on what I took to be the literary timbre of his science.
"There's an essential difference," he said. "The authors of literary works may not have intended all the subtleties, complexities, undertones, and overtones that are attributed to them by critics and by students writing doctoral theses."
"That is what God says about geologists," I told him, chipping into the sediment with his broken shovel.
What I like about this passage is it describes a lot of the essential frustration/fascination of the project of trying to understand our world, and it also captures the quality of the numinous in the natural, and it is also just a very good joke; McPhee's gift lies in his ability to do all of this at once.
