silver

I posted a short review/summary on bookish already, but that was a functional summary, so I could corrupt get people to read the book. This is my own reflection. Sometimes, the idea of conservation becomes a bitter fight between what's-good-for-the-humans and what's-good-for-the-land. Or the mindset is "it's wolves or us" or so on. Often, this is polarizing: you're either on my side, or you're on the other side. Leopold, however, does not begin his novel by hitting the reader over the head with "Do this, do that". Instead, he outlines the world around him, a world he clearly loves. Every creature is described in a whimsical, touching way; the cranes and plovers and ruffled grouse might as well be bickering and flighty old family friends (no pun intended). What most people see as immobile oaks and spruce might as well be a library, an archive of information to Leopold; he interprets the growth of rings and whorls and imagines the fires and floods and droughts, the sudden influxes of rabbits that eat the bark, the easy years. He sees cranes and the writing reflects his love for the land around him, portraying the cranes as heralds of "time immemorial". It is an amazing account of what is often not seen in nature, and I will recommend it to anyone who even expresses a vague interest in ecology.