Review: Cal Flynn “Abandoned Places – Life in a Landscape Without People”

non-fiction

publisher:

Publisher Press

translator:

Miriam Lynn

Release year:

2023

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nature back

But today we can say something about what will happen in the posthuman world. When Cal Flynn visits these desolate areas, where humans have damaged nature so much that we can no longer live or live there, she finds everywhere, a kind of dark green hope. For when nature gets rid of Homo sapiens, they return: first as mold and fungus, then as plants, and finally as trees. Wildlife Back: Toxic areas are less dangerous than human-dominated areas. Just ask the wolf. Predators can live in minefields, they are light on their feet.

surprisingly good

Cal Flynn has written an intriguing mix of travel fiction and science reporting. It’s kind of its own. The language is rich and saturated, flowing like a mighty and calm river. Scientific and literary references. This presents translator Miriam Lynn with some challenges. In Norwegian, the language becomes more angular than in the original English. For example, “life in a post-human landscape” sounds different, darker and more specific than “life in a landscape devoid of people.” Although the translation is good, it doesn’t quite reach Flynn’s suggestive power.

Plaz a gas

Verdun is located in France, a region that was bombed to pieces with people in the world’s longest meat grinder battle. But the first thing it grew again as 300,000 soldiers died was a carpet of deep red poppies. There is a settlement where in 1928, after ten years of war, the French decided to burn 200,000 chemical weapons: mustard gas, tear gas, phosgene and others. The plain is still besieged. In the worst places, arsenic makes up 17 percent of the total weight of soil.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and Marxist collective farms were good for something: the forest reclaimed large areas, the forests that store carbon and mitigate the impact of all the oil we burn. 100 million hectares of new forests have grown in Eastern Europe and European Russia. It happened in 30 years.

porn ruin

Planes also visit the extremities of humanity. Motor city Detroit in the United States has lost two-thirds of its population before. The car factories are deserted and the detached houses are rotting and must be demolished. The wilderness returns and takes over the factories. Some arrange sightseeing. It’s called “porn ruin”. In America’s first industrial city, Paterson, there are endless layers of toxic waste. The Passaic River was the industrial drainage. Waste was dumped where required. The result was sewage so polluted with water that it caught fire. At the mouth of the river hundreds of rusting ships lie far away – to remove them would stir up poison beneath them. To the north is the company that produced the miracle drug DDT.

The blue crabs that abound on the coast here are questionable food – eating one could kill you.

This is a dark but beautiful journey. The bright spot is nature’s ability to repair the damage, as long as we stay apart. Our neglect of the planet affects us. It is as if our absence is desired.

There are nicer places. On a deserted island in Scotland, a farmer released her cows when she left. Now, 46 years later, cows are wild animals. They have the island to themselves. Scientists study it. For Cal Flynn, it provides an opportunity to philosophize about wilderness and tameness. The package runs without its former masters. Nature does not need us either.