Call of the Wild

My favorite quote in Samuel Clemens' "Life on the Mississippi" is where he writes, about the river becoming " a wonderful book- a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once an thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day." I love when authors compare things, such as nature, to literary items, making their readers understand more fully what they are trying to convey. In E.B. White's "A Slight Sound at Evening," he writes, "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau is a book "like an invitation to life's dance, assuring the troubled recipient that no matter what befalls him in the way of success or failure he will always be welcome at the party," making the book seem like a security blanket for the people who are scared. In Annie Dillard's "Heaven and Earth in Jest," she writes about her hometown as, "a good place to live, there's a lot to think about. The creeks- Tinker and Carvin's- are an active mystery, fresh every minute" If I had a body of water next to my house, I'd probably be out there walking the edges at least once a day, like Dillard. Her title to her essay comes from a quote in the Koran, which says, "The heaven and the earth and all in between, thinkest thou I made them in Jest?" It shows Dillard's knowledge of religion, which she writes about a lot, according to her introduction. She simply states, "we don't know what's going on here," which makes every human want to know more about nature, because it is of the unknown.



Each of these three essays gave me something new, such as a philosophy, to think about. Reading about the Mississippi River in Samuel Clemens's books about Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, made me feel like I knew what the river's elements were like during Clemens's time rather well. I thought it was interesting approach for Samuel Clemens to describe the river as a book in his essay, "Life on the Mississippi," with a lost language, which makes sense because each thing in nature has their own unique story and voice. I thought Clemens's philosophy about how "the passenger who could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures, painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eyes these were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading-matter" Usually when I see a beautiful piece of nature such as a river or a cloud, I think about its beauty mostly, taking photographs to commemorate them, and only sometimes wonder where it came from or how it ended up there for me to see. I think Clemens reminded me I need to study nature more in order to appreciate it to the fullest. Since we read "Walking" and "The Maine Woods" by Thoreau earlier this semester, I was reminded of Thoreau's great style and narrative by E.B White's essay. E.B. White's "A Slight Sound at Evening" makes me want to go back and read "Walden" again. It's been three years since I read that book, but I felt it was great book at the time. I didn't know a water bug who ate "insects, tadpoles, fish, and frogs" by paralyzing them and eating them while they are still alive, existed until I read Annie Dillard's "Heaven and Earth in Jest." It seems like a scary bug.



Samuel Clemens' "Life on the Mississippi" is about his afterthoughts of his piloting the river, comparing the river to a book, making him read until the end. Clemens tells us, "the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river" after he became a river pilot and witnessed the power and unlocked the mystery of its unknown. E.B. White's "A Slight Sound at Evening" is a review and commentary of "Walden" by Henry Thoreau. He calls Walden "an oddity in American letters," and "one of the first of the vitamin-enriched American dishes." White insists the book should be given to every college graduate, telling us we should read "Walden" while we're still young, having "anxieties, enthusiasms, and "rebellions." White tells us after reading "Walden" for the first time, "in a time of hesitation and despair, [Walden] restored me to health." He genuinely respects Thoreau, calling him brave to pretty much giving up life as he know it, for the unknown "simplicity." White admits he pretends Thoreau is still alive, and uses him as a imaginary friend, talking to his spirit, calling him "a better companion than most." He feels like he knows Thoreau's soul through his writing, and wants Thoreau to know him as well. Annie Dillard's "Heaven and Earth in Jest" is a recollection of experiences while out walking to her favorite island in Tinker Creek in Virginia's Blue Valley. She first tells us of her old cat who would come visit her during the night and would leave bloody paw prints when she woke up in the morning. Dillard tells us about seeing a frog "being sucked by a giant water bug" and what it was like to see a mockingbird flying. She tells us seeing "hundreds" of sharks in Florida, while standing by the water on a "shallow beach." As she is telling us these animal experiences, she is also telling us her favorite routines in the morning, afternoon, and night. Her idea of a perfect day to walk is in January, between four and five thirty in the afternoon. Her main prerogative for walking is "to see what I could see" and she is "no scientist," but an "explorer."



I was familiar with Samuel Clemens and E.B. White's writings, but not Annie Dillard. I had read both of Samuel Clemens's books about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, as well as his writings about the Mormons. His introduction to "Life on the Mississippi" tells us he became a river pilot on the Mississippi River, whose inspiration "flowed through Clemens's life, as through his art." I thought it was interesting how Clemens got his pen name, Mark Twain, and I didn't know his river adventures were impacted by the Civil War. I also learned it took seven year to publish "Huckleberry Finn" after starting to write it. I had read E.B. White's "Charlotte's Web" and "Stuart Little" books, as a child, so I was pretty familiar with him. I've always thought of him as more of children's writer, so it was interesting to see he had written some grown up essays like this one. His introduction to "A Slight Sound at Evening" tells us, his narrative voice is "modest and humorous, ironic and forgiving." I was also surprised to find out he worked on his writing while being employed by The New Yorker, an excellent literary magazine. I can definitely tell he loves "country things, especially gardening, farmyard animals, and sailing," because of the books I have read. I hadn't heard of Annie Dillard before, so I was pleasantly surprised. The Introduction to Annie Dillard's "Heaven and Earth in Jest" tells us she has an "energetic and eclectic style" of writing and her subjects are "religious mystic," "stand-up comedy," and her own "personal experiences" of "about what it feels like to be alive." Dillard won a Pulitzer Prize in 1974, which is a huge accomplishment. She also says she wanted "to bear witness equally to the beauty and terror" of nature.