In Earshot of Water: Notes from the Columbia Plateau

I'm grateful to have received this excellent collection of essays through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, and will recommend the book to anyone who has enjoyed such authors as Annie Dillard or Terry Tempest Williams, or is generally interested in the intersection of environment and society in the Pacific Northwest.

Lindholdt writes well. His best essays pick a single topic and explore it with insight and sensitivity. Among them I'd number 'In the Shadow of the Government's Blind Eye', an appalling memoir of working at a hazardous waste disposal facility that later became a Superfund site; 'Under the Sign of Aries', a profile of a gifted blacksmith who is also the author's close friend; and 'Technologies of Doubt,' a lucid show more discussion of the grim outlook for wild salmon. In his most personal essays, Lindholdt writes with a cool and wrenching restraint. One of the pleasures of the collection as a whole is trying to work out the author's life history and personality from the details he candidly but sparingly shares in different essays.

Lindholdt's writing has a couple quirks that will annoy some readers. In several essays, he tells two or three distinct stories at once, intertwining them to imply parallels. For example, in 'Three Coyotes', the author interleaves paragraphs about coyotes surviving in the modern developed landscape with paragraphs describing the losses suffered by native peoples as white settlers 'tamed' the region. The contrasts don't always work, and the technique makes a few of the pieces feel choppy. Lindholdt also sometimes expresses the exact same concept in two adjacent sentences. I wondered if that habit is a consequence of his teaching an introductory literature course for many years; perhaps one gets in the habit of saying everything twice in slightly different ways to ensure that freshmen hear it. Still, both of these concerns are quibbles for a collection that mostly does a fine job; I'd happily read more essays by this author. show less

In Earshot of Water: Notes from the Columbia Plateau
Paul Lindholdt
University of Iowa Press

At the heart of Paul Lindholdt's collection of essays, In Earshot of Water, lies the argument that American Imperialism, far from being dead, is alive and well and gorging itself on a cannibalistic feast. He writes of a Northwest under siege from industry and development and he writes with the love of land inherited from his father to became a legacy for his sons.

For sheer horror the essay 'The Silver Valley' takes the prize, writing, as it does, of the effects of high dose lead poisoning (among other chemicals) on the communities near the Gulf Resources mining operations. Most chilling is how the company coldly calculated the cost of knowingly show more spewing lead into the air and the reparations cost of the resulting poisoning as opposed to the cost to the bottom line of repairing the problem. And the hits keep on coming, from chemical companies with a laissez-faire attitude towards worker safety and the minimal environmental standards of the time to the comedy of errors that is the Army Corps of Engineers' mounting efforts to bring back salmon populations without endangering their great works, the western dams.

For Lindholt the havoc being wrought is personal. This is where he grew up with a father who taught him to love and to enjoy the land and his connection to his bioregion (his term, not mine) is deep. He writes of fishing, hunting and camping trips with his father and friends and with his sons. I found the most moving of these family essays, though they are as much about the environment as they are about his family, to be 'The Way to Open' where he writes of volunteering for a river trip to weed exotics along the the river and to try to come to terms with his eldest son's disappearance on water three years previously.

This book is part of the Iowa Series in Literary Nonfiction and I can see why it's included. His prose style ranges from matter of fact to almost sensual with a very few missteps, yes, but is always engaging. While the book's appeal to westerners is obvious I think it would appeal to readers from all over, even southerners like me. show less

20. In Earshot of Water: Notes from the Columbia Plateau by Paul Lindholdt (2011, 149 pages, read April 2-18)
An LT Early Reviewer. My copy says “uncorrected proof”.

"The word attention itself shows us what we lack. Mindfulness, a noun that’s rare to most of us except Buddhists, comes up in my word-hoard. It means to ponder, to apply patience, to grow watchful in the here-and-now. Its root word, the French verb attender, means to wait. Maybe the deferring of our gratification is what grows harder every day, following the onslaught of commercials urging us to satisfy our craving in an instant. Give in; just do it."

In the 1960’s Edward Abbey could rant and rage in Desert Solitaire with such clarity and with such absolute show more confidence in his own rightness. In 2011 such things clang simplistically on our ears. Now, we think, “but it’s not that simple.” What about this or that?...or is it just me whose gone through this process? I soaked up Desert Solitaire in 1995 when I was 22 year-old. I’m afraid to open that book now.

In any case, it is true that nothing is so simple. That the world is complex, that bad things happen and nothing is done about it, and then it happens again and again. And those environmentalists, how do they stand not becoming jaded like me? And like Paul Lindholt?

In Earshot of Water is a collection of essays about the scablands and wild rivers of Washington and Idaho and about the natural and polluted aspects of Puget Sound. Lindholt is reflective, and has a complicated emotional and philosophical response to our historical and current destruction of nature, and our anemic environmental response. Part of this complexity comes from his relationship with his now deceased father, an avid hunter, and by the loss of his eldest son to a kayaking accident. Part comes from his own apparently lengthy experiences with these issues. His literary approach is not to dwell on it in a direct sense. Instead he wanders about discussing pumpkins and magpies and modern blacksmiths and spiders trapped alive by wasps to feed their eggs.

His essays can be complex and poetic, and he tends to make his points in a roundabout way. I found myself reading them slowly, some with a poems cadence, if that makes sense. And, I found it quite beautiful, the way he goes about it. I felt that Lindholt was pushing for some kind of truth. I don’t think he gets there, even to a kind of truth. Instead he gets sidetracked with writing essays on things that didn’t seem quite as important to me as he wanted them to be or thought they were. But, what I felt was his effort, his stretching, winding through his complex feelings, and emotions and depressions and unfortunate realities…reaching for that truth. And, it’s the reaching that I felt, that was real and that I thought was really beautiful.

There were some essays in here that were just that, essays. And they had an agenda (anti-damn, resistant respect for rodeos), but they were his weakest parts, IMO. In other essays there is nothing linear and nothing clearly said. He starts on one topic, and jumps to a few others and then maybe jumps back-and-forth. And then, right when he seems to be about the say something profound, he changes topic…because…maybe…because he didn’t actually have to make the “profound” statement, it was already there in our heads. And this I really enjoyed. I liked how his hunting story was told not to us, but to his two younger sons while camping, one of whom falls asleep. And, that despite the anti-hunting moral, his son’s first question afterward is whether he brought his gun along. And I loved how he brings up those spiders. The wasps hobble the spiders by clipping their legs, then they lay an egg on them. The egg uses the trapped, still living spider for nourishment.

2011
http://www.librarything.com/topic/104839#2648709 show less

An English professor at Eastern Washington University and concerned naturalist, Lindholdt gifts us with a splendid collection of essays that are related to the inlands and waterways of the Pacific Northwest but carry a universal message. His essays are beautifully written, sensitive, honest, and philosophical. He tackles industrial pollution, technology, progress, and their impact on the environment and families. Mourning the damage he has seen, he quotes Edward Abbey, environmental apologist reminding Americans that “…growth for growth’s sake is the ideology of the cancer cell.”

This can be a difficult read. The author struggles with the death of his father and his son. Following the recommendations of minister and doctor, he show more finds “… writing about one’s troubles as a splendid way to open them to light and air.” He also turns to nature to help him work through his grief by taking journeys in the wilderness and contemplating its power. Lindholdt reflects on experiences and controversies of his own and others. His writing clearly exposes concerns and visions.

The essays are varied and all geared towards making the reader consider their responsibility and accountability for the health of earth’s ecology – for the care of animals on whom we depend and with whom we share the planet – for what we have destroyed and now crave to have back – for our relationships with each other and our politics.

Lindholdt currently has a wavering faith in technology, governments, and the goals of the general population. He does, however, have hope that conservation messages, our own wisdom, and nature will be strong enough to enable recovery from damage already inflicted.

“South of my family’s acreage, among roots of alders and poplars and willows, Walter Creek is sourcing still, the liquid surfacing invisible at first, at last a legible trickle inches deep and one foot wide. The water purls. It sends up notes like early music. It quickens the willows and grass. You are within earshot of water.” show less

If I had to summarize this book briefly, I'd say that it combines the masculine, working-class focus of William Kittredge's writing with the environmental and gender sensitivity of Terry Tempest Williams.

But this book is more than just a derivative combination. Consisting of a group of essays addressing issues concerning the people and environments of the northwestern corner of the US, Lindholt's book explores themes of masculine identity, family, government-versus-local, environment, and pollution.

It's clear that the story of his family - particularly the men in his family (father, son, himself, others) - cannot be told without also telling stories about violence, class, environment and pollution. His narrative loops through their show more collective experiences, drawing attention to parallels - like his father's dying of prostate cancer and Lindholt's scarring around groin and thighs as a result of chemical burns - and poignant connections - like his son's death by drowning which contrasts with the larger theme of water and its importance in the life of the region and the author.

It's hard to do this slim book justice in a brief review; the weight of it requires measured reading, so that the droplets can slowly grow into a great wave of emotion and thought-provoking observations. show less

http://www.seattleartresource.com/inventory/hansen4.htm
Eastern Washington Artist Gaylen Hansen's rendering of magpie & coyote
[These leitmotifs recur in Lindholdt's essays]

Paul Lindholdt's IN EARSHOT OF WATER doesn't share critical ground with Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics: No classical allusions to mythological spirits of nature, but rather to the flora and fauna of the Pacific Northwest. We find ourselves undeniably caught in a net of mortal events which has led to almost irremediable environmental damage to the Columbia River watershed over the past fifty or sixty years. The writer's blue color labor at one of the country's worst superfund sites as a young undergraduate, with the scars he sustained from chemical burns while working show more there, certainly inform his work as an early whistleblower, environmental ethicist and activist. Lindholdt holds a joint appointment on the faculty at Eastern Washington State University in the English and the Environmental Science departments. The fourteen essays that comprise this book flow naturally from one another, each a tributary which informs the next and others to come.

Lindholdt's alliterative prose suggests that a body of unpublished or uncollected poems hides somewhere among his manuscripts. He alludes frequently to the poets who are his lodestones. He's a subjective thinker capable of bringing together a multiplicity of syntheses: The autobiographical elements reveal an ever-evolving growth of environmental consciousness. The essays available in this book integrate his activities as a private individual open to the wonders of nature, and as a citizen who has become more and more aware its despoliation. He brings forward a multiplicity of ironies inherent in the ways government agencies respond to pollution crisis and to natural disasters.

One of his first empathetic personal epiphanies stems from his youth when he accompanied his father in hunting season. He suddenly realized that he didn't have to shoot the animal he had in his sights. His father's constant exposure to air pollution as his property became surrounded by malurban spread probably rendered him prone to cancer. All this has led Dr. Lindholdt down a path of conservation and preservation of the watersheds of the Pacific Northwest. The most political and public of his essays: "In the Shadow of the Government's Blind Eye", "Subliming the System" and "Technologies of Doubt", are adapted from other papers and monographs that he has published.

Lindholdt has camped around the mountains of Washington, Oregon and Idaho. He has rafted down dangerous rapids while taking part in a clearance of non-native plants from the riparian clearances. He has lost a son to the waters off a cannery. The grief he still feels rattles like a pebble far under the surface of these quiet essays.

I found myself gripped by these essays, carried along in their flow. I did stop at one point after finishing "Subliming the System", an acid critique of the Bureau of Land Reclamation's efforts to mask the damage done to the salmon of the wild rivers of the Pacific Northwest.. This discussion moves along toward a Parmenidean trap: I made the first attempt to find out whether the Bureau of Reclamation has any intention of donating its art collection to the Smithsonian. One would have thought that the commissioning correspondence might have been donated to the Archives of American Art, for instance, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I hope that the first of Lindholdt's articles on "ecopornography" will resonate deep within the art history community. If it falls into the hands of those specialists, I would hope that it provokes much discussion and further research. Those scholars intent upon doing monographs on individual American artists who contributed work to the Reclamation project may want to search among those people's papers for correspondence, notes and journal entries.

The very term 'ecopornography' makes this reader squeamish. I don't think one can encapsulate all the revolting aspects of the various government agencies' mucking around with the hydrologies of the region; their despoliation of the entire ecosystem - and ultimately of some of the most pristine water supplies in our country. I'm not sure that the importation of the language of feminist critique into the mix helps in airing all the grievances about events that prove far more destructive not just to present residents but also to future generations: Many of the heavy metals in the waters have a potential to cause genetic mutations. The root term 'pornography' relates to one on one abuses of power and to physical and psychological destruction one by one, body after body. In the instance of this pollution, the irreparable harm to millions of residents in the watersheds is demonstrably more monstrous and immoral. I would suggest the term "malurbia" as a term to define or diagnose the kinds of intrusions into our natural environment which lead to urban sprawl, appropriation of rural resources with a concomitant refusal to provide any remediation when the consequences of this invasion can be proven and can be restored.

So many of these essays contain the sort of quiet observation worthy of many re-readings. I had thought to share this copy with relatives who live in the Pacific Northwest. Now, I imagine I will buy another copy to send as a gift.

Be sure to seek out Lindholdt’s YOU TUBE reading of the Howard Nemerov poem he cites in one of the essays. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKFKOWG7zP4

* Gaylen Hansen's work reflects his long time residence on the plateaus of Eastern Washington called The Palouse.
http://www.palousescenicbyway.com/pages/gallery.asp?Action=ShowGallery&Galle... show less

Paul Lindholdt's book of essays titled In Earshot of Water: Notes from the Columbia Plateau is a wonderful selection for anyone who enjoys reading about our connection with the natural world. Focusing on life in the Pacific Northwest, Lindholdt's essays are beautifully written insights into author's life, the fragile ecosystems of the West, and the impact of humans on nature.

The author weaves everyday activities like carving a pumpkin with this son into stories with larger meaning. This connection between personal experiences and larger environmental issues are at the core of this book. Whether drawing on memories of his father or dealing with the loss of his son, Lindholdt finds inventive ways to show relationships and express complex show more issues.

His essays span a wide range of topics. However they all directly or indirectly relate to his connection with the natural world. I wasn't surprised to read that the author is an English professor. While reading many of his essays, I found myself enjoying the cadence of the prose and the complexity of the ideas. However in other cases, I began to skim as prose seemed forced and the stories meandered around the theme.

One essay titled On Attention was easily my favorite. Stressing the need for mindfulness, Lindholdt described the hazards of life in a world of hyperactivity. He states that "attention and patience as social attributes seem to be on the wane" (90). He coins the term "green flash" to describe moments that are only truly experienced when a person is paying full attention, "it is a swift glint as the sun's face sinks, a revelation that betrays the expanse of this planet's watery body, a hint of aquamarine given then gone, a sudden leap of revelation that the world is vastly larger than it seems" (95).

I'll happily add this book beside other favorite nature writers including Barry Lopez, Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, and Terry Tempest Williams. show less