Emily Kestrel's Reviews > Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination

This was one of those books that was hard to rate, because although I didn't like it, I have to concede that it was well-written and it would probably be enjoyed by a different reader. I've been reading a lot of "nature writing" lately, and I can definitely say that I have a preference for a more down-to-earth, factual approach, with some narrative and humor sprinkled in. It seems that I do not like intellectual, philosophical, poetic musings about nature, such as this book.

I happen to love swamps, bogs and the human imagination, but I didn't learn anything about swamps or bogs in this book (it is a collection of creative essays), nor did I feel inspired to run out and visit one, and although I feel more acquainted with the author's imagination, I thought her essays seemed rather contrived and...odd. I guess that's it in a nutshell: her thought processes seemed kind of odd to me. The essays were a series of extended metaphors about human nature, based upon the author's experiences, using bogs and swamps as a starting point, but I didn't really feel that bogs and swamps were the true topic, just the start off point for her musings.

Maybe it's just better to judge for yourself. Here are a couple of examples of what I found bizarre.

The author sees a mink and thinks:

"Covered with dark fur, its chin dabbed with white, it reminded me of what theologians say about the life of the personality being horizontal, craving community; and that of the soul, vertical, needing solitude. This mink, going from what alder to another, manages both landscapes, traces with its lustrous back a pattern of swell and subsides, evokes an image of Muslims prostrating themselves and standing, Catholics kneeling and rising, pale inchworms arching and stretching along my forearm."

Personally, when I see a mink, I think, "Hey, cool! A mink!!" And...that's about it. So maybe that's why I found that passage bizarre, pretentious and actually, it has nothing to do with actual minks at all.

One more example. The author's legs sink into the mud and she thinks:

"No wonder the Puritans hated swamps. Think of it this way: in sex, the more a man disappears inside a woman, the more she feels his presence. But if you're prudish about such things and used to banishing what you don't like, you can't stand a damp and slippery world where the banished keeps growing, where what's buried is so deeply felt."

Okay then! Once again, she's not really writing about swamps at all in that passage. Also, I'm pretty sure that the Puritans and other early settlers, as with people today, disliked and drained wetlands so they could farm them and slap houses all over them, and they objected to the bugs, not because they're too sexy! Overall, I was really disappointed; based on the topic, I was really expecting to love this book, as I can see by the other reviews that many other readers do.