How I changed my mind about Terry Tempest Williams

If you will only read one book by Terry Tempest Williams, make it An Unspoken Hunger. I was put off by her mythification of the Navajo and the Utah desert in Coyote’s Canyon, because I thought she embellished needlessly and didn’t allow the land and animals to speak for themselves. In An Unspoken Hunger, she uses her powers to make ordinary – OK some extraordinary – people even larger than life. She writes about us and our ineffable connection to the earth – no we can’t really justify or explain our emotional connection to the land ethic in purely rational terms – at least not terms that will satisfy a developer or a bureaucrat. But these words have weight. Some random excerpts:

When James Watt was asked what he feared most about environmentalists, his response was simple: “I fear they are pagans.” He is right to be fearful.

It is time for us to take off our masks, to step out from behind our personas – whatever they might be: educators, activists, biologists, geologists, writers, farmers, ranchers and bureaucrats – and admit that we are lovers engaged in the erotics of the place. Loving the land. Honoring its mysteries. Acknowledging, embracing the spirit of place – there is nothing more legitimate and there is nothing more true.

Edward Abbey writes: “Nature may be indifferent to our love, but never unfaithful.”