The Green Boat, Dingo, and The Graphic Canon

Mary Pipher is an excellent narrative non-fiction writer. The strong psychology of The Green Boat grabbed me and kept me going for about 3/4 of the book. Then I got lost. It appeared at first to be a recognition of the clash between the current environmental catastrophe and the human acknowledgement of it (or lack there of). Pipher kindly puts herself with us. "We want to do the right thing, but it's increasingly hard to discern what the right thing is. Most problems... seem to possess almost oceanic complexity." I like that. But then a quarter of the book is spent discussing the rallying of foody friends to fight TransCanada and the subsequent battle. Although interesting, I kept thinking "most people can't afford to eat local, organic, hand-crafted peasant loaves; you've lost the biggest portion of our population!" Ultimately I think the message is the same as My Green Manifesto by David Gessner but The Green Boat seems less accessible to the commoner. My Green Manifesto is a horrible title but Gessner, too, has a lovely writing style (makes you want to become a bird watcher), is full of humor, and his message is clearer: care about some place (a park, wild space, whatever), and then protect it with everything you've got. Don't have a place you care about yet? Go for a walk, every day. Be outside. I like that message. Anyone can do it and it's not overwhelming.

On a completely different note...

Have you heard of the Graphic Canon series? You can read bits of literature in graphic novel form! What I loved best was discovering new old fables/myths. I had never heard of Gilgamesh or Lysistrata. And though they don't print the whole story the editor Russ Kick did a nice job with the synopses. I've read volume 1, now on to 2.

And since I was on a myths and legends kick, I read the YA fantasy Dingo by Charles de Lint. It won the World Fantasy Award and the cover art is beautiful. The underlying myth of the story was excellent. I think many a young teenager would like it. I've never read anything else by Charles de Lint and now I want to read more but I'm hoping his adult stuff has characters that are a bit more three-dimensional.