The World Without UsAlan Weisman
What would happen is humans instantly disappeared from Earth? Would the organisms that were driven to the brink of extinction by humans make a resounding comeback? What would be the longest-lasting human contribution to the environment? Would extraterrestrial life forms ever know what the Earth was like under human-rule? Theoretically, Weisman's book could have been an incredibly interesting discussion of Earth's resiliency or inability to overcome the significant damage it has experienced; in reality, this book fell short of my expectations.
World Without Us started extremely slow for me, perhaps because I am not overly interested in the description of my home being returned to nature - the rusting of nails, the slowing infiltration of rainwater, the infestation of rodents. These dull and redundant stories did not grab my attention but the interesting side stories that occasionally seemed like pointless wandering kept me reading - how often the New York City subway system fills with water and must be pumped back out, the history of now-extinct large mammals in the Americas.
As the book progressed, it got more and more interesting. Weisman began discussing the human contributions that would tattoo Earth for long after we're gone - the changes in soils due to large-scale monoculture farming, nuclear wastes, the meltdown of power plants, and the indestructible plastic. Weisman included novel information that was extremely mind-blowing - I had no idea where nuclear wastes were stored! I found these stories scarily amazing while continuing to enjoy the side-bars that were prominent in the first part of the book as well.
Ultimately, my dissatisfaction with this books arose from the lack of a cohesive story - I was expecting one story that told about the future of the Earth as a whole but instead was a collection of very specific scenarios about very limited geographic areas. This wasn't necessarily bad, just not what I was expecting at all. Also, even after finishing this book, I can't figure out how it was organized, there were four parts to the book and I couldn't identify a single unifying theme among the chapters included in each (apparently he couldn't either because the parts are title-less)! His writing was also unnecessarily convoluted and complex. An overabundance of punctuation and multi-compound sentences caused me to lose the meaning of his words.
Overall, you might enjoy this book if your expectations are fairly low and you are prepared for structure that borders on schizophrenic.
I liked this book but then I since I listened to the audio version at work, it didn't matter that it didn't have an over arching storyline. I found things like what would happen in Texas if we all disappeared pretty fascinating.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't so much that I was bothered by the lack of cohesiveness - it was more that I EXPECTED there to be a single overlying goal to the book and, where there wasn't, I was disappointed.
ReplyDeleteThe more I reflect back on this book, the more I remember some of the truly spectacular parts of this book...