A Different Stripe

TIA: The One-Straw Revolution by the Reverent Eater

Part of an occasional series in which we post excerpts of reviews from around the web. This excerpt comes from the blog of a Unitarian Universalist minister who writes about sustainable farming at The Reverent Eater.

After reading [Fukuoka's] chapter on "Do-Nothing Farming," I think finally understand better the 29th chapter of the Tao Te Ching, which I've read translated by Peter Merel as:

Those who wish to change the world
According to their desire
Cannot succeed.

The world is shaped by the Way.
It cannot be shaped by self.
Trying to change it, you damage it;
Trying to possess it, you lose it.

My favorite translator of the Tao Te Ching, Stephen Mitchell, has interpreted the same passage to read:

Do you want to improve the world?
I don't think it can be done.
The world is sacred.
It can't be improved.
If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it.

His interpretation of the chapter continues:

The Master sees things as they are
without trying to control them.
She lets them go their own way.
And resides at the center of the circle.

Ironically, despite my interest in farming and the natural world, in the past, I've always understood this portion of the Tao as a reference to the world's social problems. I've usually interpreted it to mean, rather pessimistically, that we ought not bother trying to change those things that are troublesome about the world, such as the poverty, the racism, the human rights violations, and even climate change. As such, I've really wrestled with this passage.

But perhaps when Lao Tse said "the world," he really did mean "the earth" - "the natural world," rather than the society that humans have created, complete with all of its problems. What is climate change, after all, but the world thrown out of balance by human intervention? To not address it, Fukuoka would say, would be abandonment. He might recall the time when, as a young man, he was handed charge of his father's orchards and, eager to put his new way of thinking into action, he too suddenly allowed the trees to take care of themselves without first doing what he could to ease them back into a place of natural balance with their surroundings. As a result of his inaction, the trees withered and failed to produce fruit. There is an immense difference between "Do-Nothing Farming" and neglect, he learned, just as there is a difference between wu wei (non-doing), and not doing anything at all.

[read the entire post here]

TIA: Memories of the Future by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky

A brief review of Memories of the Future by Dwight at Royal Rhino Flying Records:

[Krzhizhanovky's] works beautifully parade their influences, Russian and otherwise, and share affinities with those of other authors inside and out of his medium. The stories collected in Memories of the Future happily jaunt into Borgesian irrealities, with John Collier’s whimsical poeticism and Yevgeny Zamyatin’s humor. [read the entire post]

You can read a more detailed essay about Krzhizhanovsky by Christopher Byrd at The Barnes and Noble Review and next Sunday's New York Times Book Review will feature a full-page assessment of the book.

TIA: Tim Robinson's Aran

Some of the best responses to our books come from non-traditional review sources—which is why we're starting a feature that is long overdue: TIA or Total Information Awareness. That's right, we're watching you, and if you write something of note about an NYRB title, we just might post an excerpt here.

For more about the TSA mascot, see this post at Bibliodyssey. We hope that it is less creepy than the logo for US govt's similarly titled program.

First up: A celebration of Tim Robinson, author of The Stones of Aran and his personal, historical, mythical maps of Aran. The complete text of the review can be found at Views from the Barracks.

The fractured limestone landscapes of Western Ireland, and in particular, Connemara, the Aran Islands and the Burren are the subject of Robinson's cartographic and literary output.  A Yorkshire-born, Cambridge-educated mathematician, Robinson brings to his task linguistic diligence, an inquisitive spirit, and the capacity to translate and communicate the abstract into his maps and writings and make it  wonderful. Last year, my partner Ro and I explored the islands of Inis Meán and Inis Oirr, clambering over dry-stone walls, walking down ancient boreens accompanied by Tim Robinson's increasingly dog-eared map.  Monochrome, with the greyness of the landscape itself, and covered with hints and gifts, here a dolmen, there a blow-hole. And, on one memorable afternoon in the spring sun sat on the stones of an ancient fortress with the sea a distant but insistent drone and found the music of a flute that brought the first cuckoo to an eerie duet.

This is fractal cartography that describes the intersection of geology, human activity, the ascent of the human spirit in myth-making and story-telling and the ever-present sea.  The maps guide the traveller to look harder, listen longer and take time to absorb his/her surroundings. [cont.]