Description:
In Flight Maps, essayist Jennifer Price methodically accounts for the fall of the passenger pigeon, the rise of the pink lawn flamingo, the propagation of nature-themed mall stores, and what all this has to do with modern humanity's relationship to nature. The book began as an award-winning doctoral dissertation at Yale, now repackaged for the mainstream reader. Primarily a smart meditation for baby boomers on why a Volvo can't save your soul and why the name "Nature Company" should seem ironic, Flight Maps is a long, scholarly riff on how nature has evolved into a place apart. We fumble to revisit and recapture it, with everything from Toyota 4Runners to Rainforest Crunch candy. Price's observations center around how our actions, our beliefs, and--especially--our purchases betray an idealized but conflicted view of nature: it's an undiluted source of "realness," but also a remote and abstract ideal, often mangled by our embrace. Flight Maps traces these attitudes back to 19th-century America, recounting the extinction of passenger pigeons and the faltering first steps of early conservation groups. The book's second and best half, though, covers the present, finding nature's place in the mall. Price's lightly jaded sense of humor, combined with her academic rigor, perfectly skewers the likes of Northern Exposure's $5,000-a-day moose and stress-relief products from the Nature Company's catalog, such as "Pachelbel Canon in D Blended with the Eternal Sound of the Sea--Creates a tranquil atmosphere for quiet meditation.... CD $16.98"). --Paul Hughes
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