Tag: Nature
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Thomas Browne
I was first introduced to Thomas Browne in one of my favorite books, W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn. How could I not be intrigued by Sebald’s distillation of Browne’s thought? What we perceive are no more than isolated lights in the abyss of ignorance, in the shadow filled edifice of the world. We study the…
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More on Nature on the Fringes
In the last post, we noted that, at the edges of things, the order of nature breaks down. Exhausted by the work of creation, she begins to tire of her labor and the whole tapestry begins to fray. It resembles the sea, unfathomable and vast, mysterious and dangerous. There’s another factor on this particular edge, Ireland,…
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The Alexandreis, Book X
At the close of Book IX, Alexander has conquered the world, and sets his sites on more distant pastures: The boundary of the world lies near at hand. Not to provoke the ill will of the gods, the world’s too narrow, and the breadth of the earth is insufficient for its only lord. Bu when…
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Man Eaters of Kumaon
Jim Corbett’s Man Eaters of Kumaon is a remarkable sort of book. It’s written in a matter-of-fact style that seems almost impossibly authentic. Corbett was a hunter, later conservationist, specializing in man-eaters, including the Champawat Tiger which killed over 400 people before Corbett brought it down (imagine! four hundred, the terror that must have inspired).…
Dan Yingst 