Uitgelezen. Want ik hou van boeken die gaan over het schrijven.
(Elk langer commentaar heeft zeker 400 woorden nodig, en ik heb andere dingen te schrijven). (Over wat ik er goed aan vind, over dingen die ik niet zo goed vind, maar die toch wel okay zijn, enzovoorts).
Gelezen. De ene (Danilov) onverwacht geboeid tot het einde – terwijl je denkt: zoveel herhaling, en het is een truuk die ik wel snap, maar nee, je leest door en leest door, geboeid. De ander (Meuleman) geboeid, geïnteresseerd, soms herkenning, maar ook hele stukken half overgeslagen (waar het gaat over onderwerpen die me minder interesseren, zoals Vlaamse architectuur).
Dmitry Danilov: De horizontale stand
Bart Meuleman: De jongste zoon
‘Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom – poets, visionaries – realists of a larger reality.’
‘Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximise corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.’
& dat is nog maar ‘t begin van de speech van Ursula K. Le Guin op 19-11-2014 – lees de rest:
www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/20/ursula-k-le-guin-national-book-awards-speech
Meer leesvoer dus.
(Ben nog bezig in Riddley Walker).
‘Leescrisis’: als geen van de boeken je bevalt. Je legt boek na boek weg, halfgelezen, kwartgelezen, alleen de eerste pagina’s gelezen. Je probeert het te counteren met herlezen van je favorieten. Dat werkt ook niet echt, je herleest passages her en der, maar waar je naar verlangt is die langere, geconcentreerde leestijd, het verdiept zijn in een boek – meestal een roman. En dan ineens lees je weer roman na roman. Pakt het proza je. Lees je zelfs door als het je niet helemaal bevalt, of twijfels hebt, hoe makkelijk het (ook) wegleest.
Ik las (in anti-chronologische volgorde):
Jan Kjaerstad: De ontdekker
Jeff Vandermeer: Annihilation (dwz: Vernietiging)
Marc Reugebrink: Het Belgisch huwelijk
Karl Ove Knausgård: Nacht
Peter Terrin: Monte Carlo
Initially I had the idea to make a short reading list for the Dark Ecology project. A couple of articles, a few interviews, maybe an online lecture that together offer an introduction to the theme. A bit like a syllabus for a graduate seminar. But the journey is not conceived as a graduate seminar, and I’m not a professor teaching a course. Therefore instead of a syllabus, I have made an overview of some of the theories, ideas, philosophical directions and books that have guided my thinking for ‘Dark Ecology’. It’s not exhaustive – and probably anyone can think of an important book or a theoretical approach that’s dearly missing from this overview. The overview contains pointers to books and online resources, and is ‘spiced’ up with a few provocative or informative quotes from the mentioned books.
Timothy Morton: Dark Ecology
We have indeed borrowed the term ‘Dark Ecology’ from the work of Timothy Morton. Over the past couple of years he has written a number of books outlining an ‘Ecological Thought’ that has no use for the Romantic notion of ‘Nature’. He begins to explain this idea in Ecology without Nature (2007) – a book which is also about art and ‘environmental aesthetics. In The Ecological Thought (2010) he shows that the ‘ecological thought’ is not nice and green and a celebration of all things natural, but that to really think the interconnectedness of all forms of life and all things (the ‘mesh’), is dark. ‘Dark ecology puts hesitation, uncertainty, irony, and thoughtfulness back into ecological thinking. The form of dark ecology is that of noir film. The noir narrator begins investigating a supposedly external situation, from a supposedly neutral point of view, only to discover that she or he is implicated in it. The point of view of the narrator herself becomes stained with desire. There is no metaposition from which we can make ecological pronouncements. Ironically, this applies in particular to the sunny, affirmative rhetoric of environmental ideology. A more honest ecological art would linger in the shadowy world of irony and difference. …The ecological thought includes negativity and irony, ugliness and horror.’ In Realist Magic (2013) Morton sides with Object Oriented Ontology, and particularly with the ideas of the American philosopher Graham Harman, to further explain how we can conceive of the world. He continues this trajectory in Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World (2014). In this book he explains what a hyperobject is (global warming is an hyperobject), and what the ‘end of the world’ means for philosophy. Here are three quotes from this last book: ‘But there is no “away” after the end of the world. It would make more sense to design in a dark ecological way, admitting our coexistence with toxic substances we have created and exploited.’ And: ‘Hyperobjects are directly responsible for what I call the end of the world, rendering both denialism and apocalyptic environmentalism obsolete.’ And: ‘For what comes into view for humans at this moment is precisely the end of the world, brought about by the encroachment of hyperobjects, one of which is assuredly Earth itself, and its geological cycles demand a geophilosophy that doesn’t think simply in terms of human events and human significance.’ And as I am busy quoting, here’s another long one from Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World that partly summarises Morton’s philosophy: ‘There are objects: cinnamon, microwaves, interstellar particles and scarecrows. There is nothing underneath objects. Or, better, there is not even nothing underneath them. There is no such thing as space independent of objects (happily contemporary physics agrees). What is called Universe is a large object that contains objects such as black holes and racing pigeons. Likewise there is no such thing as an environment: wherever we look for it, we find all kinds of objects—biomes, ecosystems, hedges, gutters and human flesh. In a similar sense, there is no such thing as Nature. I’ve seen penguins, plutonium, pollution and pollen. But I’ve never seen Nature (I capitalize the word to reinforce a sense of its deceptive artificiality).’
Morton’s Realist Magic is available online: http://openhumanitiespress.org/realist-magic.html. Through Morton’s blog you can also find a number of his lectures and seminars: http://ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com/, his youtube-page with lectures is here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZzyz52s2D6f8uRF0EmOaZw
Bruno Latour: Politics of Nature (2004) and AIME (2013)
in his book Politics of Nature (2004) Bruno Latour also defines an ecology without the notion of ‘Nature’. In this book he states ‘if “nature” is what makes it possible to recapitulate the hierarchy of beings in a single ordered series, political ecology is always manifested, in practice, by the destruction of the idea of nature.’ (p. 25). The idea of nature that political ecology has to let go of is the result of a political division that puts the indisputable and objective on one side, and the subjective and disputable things on the other. According to Latour, we have to escape from that division to be able to make a common world. The issue is rather to find out how humans are ever more and ever more intimately attached to a panoply of non-human natures. This idea is – for me – the core of the Dark Ecology project. Latour’s most recent book – and webplatform – An Inquiry into Modes of Existence (2013) is an ambitious attempt how to compose such a common world. It starts from this cue: ‘Not so long ago, the project that would have seen modernization spread over the whole planet came up against unexpected opposition from the planet itself. Should we give up, deny the problem, or grit our teeth and hope for a miracle? Alternatively we could inquire into what this modern project has meant so as to find out how it can be begun again on a new footing.’ It’s not an easy book, as it challenges you to conceive differently of a lot of ideas that have guided western thought since Modern times. The English webplatform of AIME is accessible at http://www.modesofexistence.org/, a lot of Latour’s articles and video lectures are available at http://www.bruno-latour.fr/
Michel Serres: Times of Crisis (2009) and Biogea (2012)
Times of Crisis is a short book by Michel Serres explaining his ideas of the new relationship between humans and the world, which leads to a new science and a new society. The English translation is from 2014, the French original from 2009. He writes: ‘The term anthropocene means nothing else: we used to think of ourselves as the individual or collective subjects of a passive object, the world. Reversal: we become the objects of the new subject Biogea.’ (p. 47) And: ‘An immense era of our history is ending; furthermore, the time of our hominescence begins. Our past will not help us much to dialogue with our new Biogean partner, whose immanence requires a new science, new behaviors and another society.’ (p. 48) Biogea could be seen as Serres’ autobiography. He focuses on the relationship between Earth and human, and how the Earth speaks to the human. It is an almost novelistic account of his idea of ‘biogea’. It is interesting and highly readable – unless you can’t stand Serres’ particular mix of autobiography, poetry, myth, science and philosophy. Info on Times of Crisis: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/times-of-crisis-9781623564346/, and on Biogea: http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/biogea
OOO – Object-Oriented Ontology
The ideas of several other ‘OOO’-philosophers and theorists – apart from Timothy Morton – are also relevant in relation to Dark Ecology. OOO posits a world that does not prioritise the human perspective, and philosophically attempts to take into account a world prior to humans. I particularly like the work of Graham Harman, for instance Guerrilla Metaphysics (2005), Prince of Networks (2009), and Weird Realism (2012). There is a plethora of OOO-related discussions online, as many of the OOO-philosophers blog regularly and passionately. The publications by Urbanomic, particularly the issues of their magazine Collapse, are an excellent starting point if you have missed it all: http://www.urbanomic.com/publications.php
Elizabeth Ellsworth & Jamie Kruse: Making the Geologic Now (2012)
A collection of theoretical text with examples from art and design, this book is definitely an inspiration for thinking about the convergence of the human and the geologic, and about art for the Antropocene. Ellsworth & Kruse are http://www.smudgestudio.org/, and they run the blog Friends of the Pleistocene: https://fopnews.wordpress.com/. An interview with them on nuclear waste and the vastness of geologic time can be found here: http://bombmagazine.org/article/1000109/jamie-kruse-and-elizabeth-ellsworth. You can download Making the Geologic Now at: http://punctumbooks.com/titles/making-the-geologic-now/, or consult the interactive webbook: http://geologicnow.com/.
Jan Zalasiewicz & others: ‘The Anthropocene, A new Epoch of Geological Time?’ (2011)
The idea of the Antropocene has very quickly gained a lot of support. Here is one of the definite scientific articles outlining why we should indeed conceive of the Antropocene as a new geological era: http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1938/835.full
Laurence Smith: The New North (2011)
In the past few years quite a number of books describe the Earth from a future perspective. Alan Weisman’s The World without Us (2007) is a journalistic account of what the world will look like without human presence. Jan Zalasiewics’ The Earth After Us (2008) describes what legacy humans leave in the rock, from the viewpoint of an alien civilisation one hundred million year in the future – it’s also a way of explaining what geology is doing. In The New North geographer Laurence Smith describes the Arctic in 2050, and how global warming will affect its economy and geopolitics. In Smith’ account Kirkenes becomes a major hub in the economic network. Two reviews: http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2011/03/natural-resources-world-global & http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2012/09/01/book-review-the-new-north-our-world-in-2050/.
Arie Altena: Kirkenes – Nikel – Zapolyarny – Murmansk, (2013)
My own travelogue and report of the short 2013 journey to Kirkenes, Nikel, Zapolyarny and Murmansk: http://ariealt.home.xs4all.nl/2013/dark_ecology/kirkenes_nikel_murmansk.html
Arie Altena
Just dug up a bit of text I made a couple of months ago. Something I’d been thinking of doing for a long time. Simple idea: an ABC of American literature, mentioning my favorite writers in bits of 140 characters max – so it’ll fit a tweet. One tweet per letter of the alphabet.
Was waiting for the right moment to ‘tweet’ them.
I don’t feel like tweeting them. Just imagine that someone picks up on it, begins an argument, or a quarrel, and forces me to react… I have presently no time to react, nor do I wish to begin an argument.
It’s just a highly personal ABC of AmLit. (Sure, there are some value judgements ‘hidden’ in the list).
Online sinds een paar minuten: http://www.darkecology.net/field-notes/drilling-deep
De laatste tijd geen enkel boek uitgelezen (Wel flinke stukken uit o.a. Steinbeck: The Winter of Our Discontent; verhalen van De Maupassant; Daniel Rovers’ De figuur in het tapijt, enz.)
Anik See (schrijfster, radiomaker, buurvrouw) zit op ‘t moment in het Pierre Berton huis in Dawson. Schrijf-residentie. Tijdens de zomervakantie voer ze in een kano de Yukon af met L. en W. (Beren op de oever, eten voor een week mee, enz.)
Zoals bijna alle Nederlanders had ik nooit van Pierre Berton gehoord. In Canada een ‘grootheid’ (journalist, schrijver van historische boeken en romans, jarenlang televisie-host). Berton voer de Yukon af in 1972 met zijn familie en schreef er een boek over, waarin hij ook ook de geschiedenis van zijn vader vertelt die in 1898 naar Dawson kwam en er bleef: Drifting Home. En dat las ik wel uit (in het weekend, op de camping).
(Dark Ecology link: Dawson bestaat om de mijnen, en ik wist niet dat de oevers van de Yukon bezaaid liggen (lagen?) met de troep van de goldrush).
Nog een boek dat al tijden lag te wachten om gelezen te worden. Ik was het alweer bijna vergeten. Jonathan Crary’s 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. Gisteren gelezen. Tja, hij heeft natuurlijk volkomen gelijk in zijn schets van het 24/7-tijdsparadigma. Maar de manifeststijl (alles is een karakterisering van 24/7 en de uitwerking ervan) maakt het boekje ook eenzijdig. Het is nogal, euh, apodictisch? Is dat het juiste woord? Andere noemen het ‘provocatief’ en ‘polemisch’. Ik denk: ah, het klopt allemaal, (en daarmee klopt het eigenlijk nu al niet meer), maar het mist nuance – met meer nuance krijg je een rijker boek. Voorbeelden van andere tijdsregimes, praktische voorbeelden vooral. Ook van hoe mensen hun tijd indelen. Ritme geven, of ritme ontkennen. Dat zou het rijker maken (in plaats van weer een analyse van Marker’s La Jetee). Ook in politieke stellingname is het, hmm, wat aan de simpele kant. De simpele versie van de linkse kritiek op het 24/7 neoliberale denken – een analyse die ik grotendeels deel, maar dus, hmm, ook in deze vorm te simpel vind. En laat ik het zo zeggen: het boekje brengt mij weinig nieuws – maar dat is grotendeels omdat ik de lijnen die hij samenbrengt, al uit en te na ken. Dat is dus geen kritiek, het boekje biedt een uitstekende, pakkende samenvatting. En dus een perfect beginpunt voor wie al die lijnen nog niet kent. Want Crary’s analyse van hoe kapitalisme, ons economsiche systeem en het tijdsregime van 24/7 de samenleving tot in de poriën verandert, deugt ondertussen wel degelijk. (En de verbanden met mediatechnologie). Eerste hoofdstuk is overigens het best.
(En ja, ik ben altijd een tegenstander van de 24/7 ideologie geweest. Ik vind nog altijd dat we er goed aan zouden doen om winkels en bedrijven op zondag verplicht te sluiten. Ik weet ook dat toen de zondagsopenstelling van winkels een politiek item was in Nederland, ik in mijn omgeving de enige was – oh, en mn moeder – die daarop tegen was). (Enzovoort, enzoverder).
