Landscape and Memory [ペーパーバック]

To support his thesis that aesthetic and religious expression and nature have always been and remain interconnected, Schama weaves together a variety of elements from many Western historical periods and places. Although on one one level his book could be viewed as a survey of Western art it is not. His premise is that our cultural legacy is the veneration of nature, that we do not inhabit a nature versus cultural world. Our culture is formed from our experience and our memory of our natural world. God is in the details and the impression of the Creator is impressed on the face of her creation.

LANDSCAPE has four main sections: Wood; Water; Rock; and Wood, Water, Rock. He begins with a backward journey to Eastern Europe, where his Jewish ancestors lived long ago. He searches for the family roots, and is reminded by a colleague, "Jews have legs, they don't have roots." Schama describes the great forest of Poland, oddly named Bialowieza--the realm of the Lithuanian Bison. Over the centuries, the forest has provided sustenance and sheltered many. During WWII, it became the hunting ground of the Nazis. His travels take him to Buchenwald the forest of beeches, once worshiped humans and now linked with the horrible deeds of men. Later, with his family, he stands in awe at the base of the giant redwoods--trees the Americans venerate and that the great natualist John Muir urged Teddy Roosevelt to protect for future generations.

Schama discusses the various myths associated with the forest--many of them tied to the German and Celtic people. His stories include the 'Green Man' linked during the Middle Ages to Robin in England, and the sacrificed Lord whose flesh was nailed to a tree. He ends the section with a discussion of the great work of Sir James Frazier, the old stouthearted conservative Scot and adherent of rational thought who in his wildest dreams never realized what he unleashed in his efforts to prove the uselessness of nature myths in his book THE GOLDEN BOUGH.

The second section of Schama's book covers water, wide rivers, flowing streams, and discusses the culture of the Nile with it's legends of Osiris and Isis. He tells the reader the word for palm and immortality are identical in the old Egyptian language. The palm is the tree of life whose waters flow in the form of oil and other liquids. He tells of Cleopatra and her lovers, Caesar and Mark Antony, and Napoleon's infatuation with all things Egyptian. He ends this section with a sad reflection of the destruction of the various temples of antiquity wrought by the building of the Aswan Dam and the flooding of the Nile River valley.

In the third section, we follow the exploits of those who attempted to conquer Mont Blanc and the highest wildest peaks of Europe. We see Bryon and Shelley on Lac Leman searching for various mythological sites and lamenting the drowning of prisoners at Chillon. Oh what is it about the mountain that sparks memory and drives humans to scale it, to embrace it, or in the case of a few deface it (Mount Rushmore, Stone Mountain in Georgia where a KKK rider was planned).

In section four, Schama wraps up his book with a discussion of Acadia--which Acadia? The Europeans alternated beteen terror and awe in their search for Acadia. "Et in Acadia Ego" -- what does it mean. There is the Acadia of Eden where two trees grew and the land of milk and honey where lion and lamb co-exist, and there's that other Acadia, the wilderness that some still want to protect.

In LANDSCAPE, Schama has described the multiple forms of artistic expression that depict the relationship between nature and culture. He covers poems, prose, stories, painting, sculpture from Rodin to Rushmore, gardening from Eden to the dead spaces people call front lawns. He describes the various attempts to shape the landscape from Karnak to Capability Brown to Olmstead in Central Park. His stories range from the Italian clergyman who designed "Holy Land America" just off the Connecticut freeway, to the "wild forests" at Hampstead Heath in London, Fontainbleu just outside Paris, and Waldon Pond just off the commuter rail line in Connecticut. This is a wonderful, wise, and sad book--read it.

I was dazzled by Schama's erudition and mastery of language, as he moved from making connections between Egyptian mythology and the fountains of Rome, or the myth of Robin Hood and rustic Englsh eccentrics of the 19C. This is a book that enhances one's experience, particularly if you live in EUrope and every day walk by the things that he describes. For example, I read it while we were living on the edge of Fontainebleau forest, in France, and inside the back cover of the book, I found a map of the forest that included our village of 600! To my astonishment, I then went on to read that Fontainebleau was apparently the first forest to have marked paths for hikers who visit from industrial cities, a method pioneered by a somewhat loopy bonapartist who had retired to the area, and whom the local authorities watched with suspicion in mid 19C. For anyone who loves hiking or sitting outside, you will find sections like that that speak to you, that are illuminating in a quirky personal way.

However, while these passages are wonderful and fun, for me they did not add up to much of anything beyond anecdotes. I enjoyed the facts, as a kind of entertainment that passed by as I read on, but they failed to coalesce into any deeper insights. In that sense, the book came up short for me, though many of the tidbits were indeed delicious. Rather than traditional history, this book is a huge and sprawling essay, like on of those old-style New Yorker articles that went on and on and on, until the point seems lost in detail.