Rachel Carson is barely remembered today but through the 1950s and 60s,
her name was as recognizable as that of any movie star or pro athlete. The
author of four books -- the first three, beautifully written treatises on just
about everything then known of the oceans; the fourth, a world-shaking attack
on the overuse of pesticides -- she was just as likely to be the topic of
conversation at any family dinner table as at one of President Kennedy’s press
conferences. She was big.
I’ve always had a bit of a mixed relationship with her books, though. On the
one hand, from the first time I picked up a copy of The Sea Around Us in
junior high, I loved the thought of Rachel Carson. I loved that most of what
she wrote centered on the ocean. I loved that she made it seem possible to have
a near-encyclopedic knowledge of a vast subject. I even loved the somewhat
dowdy photo of her on the back cover of the book.
On the other hand, I have to admit that I was never quite able -- then or now
-- to make it all the way through any of her books. As beautifully written as
her ocean books are, they’re too general for me. I prefer more detail over a
smaller range. As for Silent Spring -- her attack on the overuse of
pesticides -- I found the fact that such a book even had to written too
maddeningly frustrating.to stay with from cover to cover. (But the truth is
that you can still hear the ignorant blaming Carson for the
deaths of millions from malaria.)
Through all these years, though, Carson herself remained a shadowy figure about
whom -- with the exception of that back cover photo -- I knew little. When the
biography On A Farther Shore came out, I decided to rectify that.
The book does a decent job of showing us that much of Carson’s early adult life
gave little hint of the success she would have or the mark she would leave. An
above-average student from a poor family, she graduated from a women’s college
with a degree in a biology, and wound up at the Bureau of Fisheries, a federal
agency that would eventually become the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Her job
was not as a scientist, though, but as a writer, taking scientific reports,
distilling them down to their essence, and then writing them in language a
layman could understand.
The work brought her into contact with countless marine scientists, many of
whom she developed working relationships with, some of whom encouraged her
toward work beyond what she was already doing. Her first step in that
direction, the book Under The Sea-Wind, was a minor success at
best. The second, however, The Sea Around Us, spent months on the
best-seller list and catapulted Carson to fame. Its follow-up, The Edge Of
The Sea, did almost as well.
The details that emerge of Carson during this period are a study of
contradictions. She did little to dissuade the misperception of herself as a
scientist and a diver (she had made one helmet dive off the coast of Florida,
during which she never let go of the boat’s ladder). The combination of
ill-health and inveterate re-writing meant that her books were generally
finished years behind schedule. She sought almost no publicity for herself. She
never hesitated to complain to her publishers about even the slightest of
grievances she felt had been committed against her books. When she agreed to
the making of a documentary based on The Sea Around Us, it was
produced by Irwin Allen, of The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure
fame. It won the Academy Award for best documentary in 1953 but Carson hated it
as overly sensational. Before it was made, though, she had had the chance to
work with a young Jacques Cousteau instead. She decided against it.
The picture that emerges of Carson is of an exceedingly private, quiet but
confident woman, who seemed an unlikely protagonist in the war against the
giant chemical industry. Silent Spring -- the events that eventually
convinced her to write it, the research that went into it, the years it took to
finish it, and the battles that were fought after its publication, take up
nearly the second half of On A Farther Shore. And, for me, that
imbalance is where much of the difficulty of the book lies. By comparison, the
details of the research, the trials and tribulations, and the thought processes
that went into Carson’s three ocean books are barely touched upon. And since
that’s where my interest lies, it’s a disappointment.
Still, On A Farther Shore does a good job filling in the blanks of
Carson’s life. And it’s a life that should be remembered because, without her
and Silent Spring, the environmental movement as we know it today
probably wouldn’t exist. More importantly, the way in which Carson first staked
the battle against the chemical industry and its close ties with its supposed
regulators, and the manner in which she then calmly defended her work against a
barrage of blustery attacks -- weirdly reminiscent of those used today against
anyone raising environmental warnings -- provides a strong intellectual
blueprint against hyperbole and in defense of the environment.
It was published in 2012 by Crown Publishers.
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