The World is Never Boring: Exploring The Tangled Bank with Robert Michael Pyle

Interview by Christian Martin

Robert Michael Pyle has been interpreting the natural world for readers for more than 30 years. Combining his Yale-educated scientific background, an insatiable curiosity for the world and a warm, generous personality that inspires his prose, Pyle explores the myriad ways in which nature intersects with our daily lives.

A long-time resident of Grays River in southwestern Washington, Pyle’s published work—which includes books on the natural history of the Willapa Hills, Bigfoot, butterflies, Vladimir Nabokov and his childhood in Colorado— has been recognized with two Washington State Book Awards, a National Outdoor Book Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Nature Writing.

His latest book The Tangled Bank collects dozens of his columns from when he was a regular contributor to Orion and Orion Afield magazines. Each personable piece is a finely honed mini-essay, weaving together natural history, philosophical ruminations, travelogue, scientific facts, poetic observations and commentary on contemporary culture.

CM: Your column “The Tangled Bank” was published in 52 consecutive issues of Orion over 11 years. What were the challenges in writing such a long-standing feature with a strict format?

RMP: The biggest challenge was to learn to write concisely (750–1300 words, depending on the issue) and still write substantively, not lite, shallow or “sound-bitey.” I did enjoy it, and continue to value and employ the heavy apprenticeship in concision that it represented. But it was invariably difficult, sometimes wrenchingly so, to meet the inflexible word counts and the incessant deadlines. It seemed that no matter how long and how many drafts a column took to finish, there was always the next one due on its heels. But that's good, too, to keep you going.

CM:  How did you come up with enough topics to sustain the column?

RMP: I wrote about what most fascinated me at the time. Since I am always fascinated with something, or many things, and since my travels constantly suggest new topics, it wasn't difficult. The greater difficulty was deciding among the many possible topics. This collection of my columns concludes with a list of 52 more I'd like to write someday, including ones on waterbears, plants that grow on animals, the evolution of empathy, recycling roadkill, the history of saffron and the ontology of crocuses and “Utopia: what to leave in, what to leave out.” I could go on.

CM: Was there a unifying theme or mission that tied together the columns over the years?

RMP: Yes, the unifying theme was Darwin's contention that "it is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank...”—in other words, all of nature is interesting when closely observed. My mission was to demonstrate that the world is never boring. And, I suppose you could say, to dive as deeply as I could in one breath.

CM: It is very unusual to find natural history writing, as exemplified in these columns, in publications today, don't you think?

RMP: Yes, such writing is rare, especially with a bit of wit, which I employed when appropriate. One does see good natural history writing here and there in serials, such as Tom Titus's fine essays in the newsletter of the Eugene Natural History Society and Rod Crawford's columns on spider collecting expeditions in Scarabogram. But not a lot. Maybe there are lots of good naturalists’ blogs, but since I don't tend to read online, I don't see them. I mostly go to books, both fiction and nonfiction, and of course, poetry.

Apart from the obvious candidates we both know and love, some current writers of excellent natural history (writ large and sometimes funny) that I would endorse include Ken Lamberton, David Carroll, Julia Whitty, Jim Lynch, Charles Goodrich, Bill Yake, Seth Kantner, Carl Hiasson, Barbara Kingsolver, Henry Hughes...these are people who observe the world in all its individuating detail and bring it back in ways that delight me.

CM: Your column succeeded in connecting natural history and scientific topics to contemporary life and relevant issues.

RMP: It keeps the wide world always engaging—and therefore, ever compensatory—for the unsatisfactory qualities of the narrow world of human society. Ala Robinson Jeffers, it can help you keep your mind in maddening times. It makes life, in short, more fun.

CM: What do you do to keep the arts of traditional natural history studies alive?

RMP: I go out of doors, with my eyes, ears, and mind wide open. And then, when and if I feel like it, I write about it, in letter, journal, essay, poem, or even—if nothing else—an email. Other than that, I guess my main ways of helping to keep the practice alive are the reading and writing of books informed by the physical world; and urging the young to go afield, to seek, to read, and—if they feel so moved—to write what they find.

Photo by Benj Drummond: bdsjs.com.

Falling in Love with the World: Thomas Fleischner works to revitatize natural history

By Christian Martin

Thomas Fleischner is a man on a mission. An environmental studies professor at Prescott College in Arizona, cofounder of the North Cascades Institute and founding president of the Natural History Network, Fleischner has worked in the trenches of conservation biology, environmental education and ecological literacy for decades. His latest effort towards these interrelated goals is the publication of The Way of Natural History, a multidisciplinary anthology featuring contributions from Jane Hirshfield, Robert Michael Pyle, Kathleen Dean Moore, Robert Aiken, Dave Foreman, Scott Russell Sanders and others.

Fleischner lived in Bellingham from 1979-1988, attending WWU for his Master's in Biology degree, working as an Interpretive Naturalist and Backcountry Ranger for North Cascades National Park and serving as co-director for North Cascades Institute. I had the opportunity to talk with him while he is back in town, readying for his July 8 presentation at Village Books.

Christian Martin: How do you define natural history as it pertains to your new book?

Thomas Fleischner: For some years now, I’ve defined natural history as “the practice of intentional, focused attentiveness to the more-than-human world, guided by honesty and accuracy.” Simply put, it’s the practice of paying attention.

In this book, I gathered together a variety of voices—poets, artists, musicians, philosophers, scientists and others—to hear how this practice of paying attention to the wider world has served their work and play. Natural history is a fundamental human trait—and need.  Their stories show how many different ways this can be manifested.

CM: So, natural history involves a way of seeing the world?

TF: In my mind, natural history is a verb, not a noun—it’s the practice of attending, not just the body of knowledge that accrues from the observations. I’ve come to refer to natural history as the practice of falling in love with the world.

Natural history at its best involves integration between sciences, arts and humanities. It’s at the center of a liberal approach to education: we pay attention to the world around us and respond in a variety of ways—through a painting, a poem, an essay or a scientific monograph.

CM: What are the roots of this tradition?

TF: Natural history is the oldest continuous human endeavor—there’s never been people on this planet without the practice of natural history. But – and this is what concerns me—there’s never been a time in the history of the world when natural history was practiced less than it is today.

It’s important to recognize that natural history is more than just science, more than just a body of facts, more than dinosaurs and other dead animals. Natural history comes from the Latin “Historia Naturalis,” which literally means “the story of nature.” At any moment, in any given place, there’s an infinite number of stories of nature unfolding. We make choices about which ones we pay attention to—or if we pay attention at all. And that’s crucial: too many people simply don’t pay attention to Others in the world. As a species, as a contemporary culture, we’re greatly diminished by this.

CM: How is natural history related to the idea of "Citizen Science"?

TF: Citizen Science is a wonderful trend toward involving amateurs into the collation of important data. First, remember that “amateur” literally means “one who loves”—so we should never underestimate the importance of amateurs!

In many important cases, having the thousands of eyes and ears of citizen scientists makes a huge difference—for example, in reporting changes in flowering times as we experience climate change, or the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. The Bird Count is a classic example of this: for over a century, all sorts of people have counted birds in a structured way. It’s the longest term, uninterrupted data set for any group of organisms ever, and it has shown major changes in bird distribution throughout the continent. Wonderful stuff.

All of these citizen observations are natural history. Of course, because natural history involves more than just science, the citizen science movement doesn’t necessarily include the arts and humanities as much as it could. I’ve been part of discussions that suggest we might try reframing Citizen Scientists as Citizen Naturalists. Then, we might encourage the writing of haiku along with the tabulation of bird numbers!

CM: From your vantage point, what do you think the future of natural history is?

TF: I’m ultimately optimistic. Humans are wired to do natural history—it’s literally what we evolved to do: pay attention. So it’s a matter of rediscovering who we are—not of trying to make ourselves into something we’ve never been.

I’ve been part of a national movement to help revitalize natural history, and it’s been really exciting and encouraging. The Natural History Network – which includes many members here in the Cascadia bioregion – was established for this purpose, and has received a super enthusiastic response.

CM: There are a lot of new ways to access and appreciate nature today without having to go outside. One can watch nesting birds from hi-def webcams, fly over national parks and mountain ranges via Google Earth, peruse stunning nature photography, listen to bird calls on our iPhones. Are these valuable outlets for our biophilia? Why do we still need to go through the hassles to get outdoors?

TF: These new technologies are wonderful, and provide all sorts of new channels into observing nature. I’m all for them. There’s lots of examples of ways they’ve helped us understand the world. These technologies are also really important in that they can provide an entry point for young people, brought up in this electronic world, to pay attention to what’s around them.

But it’s key that it doesn’t stop there. It’s vital that they take the next step and get out there and get muddy and watch what that bird is really doing, or how luminescent that butterfly’s wings really are, or how the beetle’s carapace glistens in the sun. Those are the experiences that create the opportunity for falling in love with the world.

Photo by Benj Drummond.