Response 8: Solace of Open Spaces

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book, given that Gretel Ehrlich is primarily a nature writer (which, let's face it, can get boring, redundant, or preachy).  Even though Ehrlich has a very strong connection to the land, which comes out in this collection of essays, she is never any of those things.  Overall, I found her writing to be strong in terms of structure, metaphor, and lyricism--all things I admire and I think are necessary for a successful essay that will hold my interest.  She wasn't too subtle or heavy-handed with her message, always managing to tie things (at times, seemingly unrelated things) together successfully. 

There are a few things Ehrlich does in this collection that might be considered risky.  One that stood out to me was the fact that she has a tendency to omit information that the reader is likely to be curious about--as an example, in the essay "Other Lives," she begins much of the essay with a focus on her lover, David, and explains that he is dying but only hints at why.  She also does not attend his funeral, and doesn't mention whether she ever visited his grave afterward--nor does she explicitly state how she felt about his death, even though we know it must have affected her greatly.  On the whole, their relationship, as well as her feelings about it all, remains largely untold as she moves onto "other lives"--other people she encountered in Wyoming and what happened to them.  David almost seems to get lumped in.  But in the end, though I'm left wanting more, Ehrlich manages to pull this off, via her descriptions of a new budding romance with a young rancher, and by ending her essay with a brief mention of the "concussive pain" she had been living with now being mixed with "tonic undulations."  I also think that the essay, though largely an omission of the most important issue at hand, speaks to how many people (and, I can only assume, Ehrlich) deal with death--by distracting themselves with other things, by holding in their thoughts and emotions--something that seemed to be common within Wyoming: "Living well here has always been the art of making do in emotional as well as material ways. . . . The toughness I was learning . . . was the art of accommodation. . . . To be tough is to be truly fragile."  In this way, Ehrlich's form speaks to her content, and her message, despite much omission, is successfully conveyed.  Ehrlich does this throughout, and much of her necessary content is revealed implicitly, rather than explicitly.

Ehrlich parallels the landscape and culture of Wyoming constantly in these essays--each one heavily influencing the other.  The culture and its people are almost slaves to the land in which they live, although I wouldn't actually want to use the word "slave," because it is clear that the relationship between the people and the land is give and take; most of them appear to love the land, and even tasks completed out of sheer necessity are completed with dedication.  I was struck by mention of the "Western Code" on page 11 and mention of a friend, "Cliff" on page 12, who "cut off half his foot while chopping a hole in the ice," and still made sure to take the extra time to get out of his truck and close the ranch gate before driving himself to the hospital, out of a sense of responsibility to the land, the animals, and the other ranchers.  Throughout, there is this idea that the land is a character in and of itself, and that its plants and animals depend on the people to take care of them as much as the people depend on the land to sustain them.  In this way, the nature and culture of Wyoming have a co-dependent relationship that must always be honored, lest larger problems occur.

Though I'm not used to living on a landscape similar to that of Wyoming's, this give-and-take relationship makes sense to me.  Though many people keep farms outside the city limits of my hometown in British Columbia, the main industry in Fort St. James is forestry (logging, sawmills, and replanting).  Though this industry differs a lot from ranching, it is necessary both to keep the land healthy (especially with the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic, which is destroying much of B.C.'s forests) and to keep Fort St. James sustained.  As a town of only 5,000 people, most of its residents work for the mills and forest services, and depend on that income to keep the economy stable.  When the trees and the land aren't maintained or in a proper state, the mill suffers financially, layoffs occur, and people have trouble keeping food on their tables and making an income.  As a result, many other family-owned businesses suffer, and it is not uncommon to see a handful go under each year.

On the whole, Ehrlich's book was an enjoyable read and also gave me a lot to think about.  I'm looking forward to the discussion on Thursday.