Writing Forum

I have previously written in these forums, and elsewhere too, that I only read epic fantasy literature. And, being the unrestrained storyteller that I am, that is of course a lie. A fairly large whopper of one, as a matter of fact.

In fact, while epic fantasy literature is my preferred genre of fiction, one of my favorite writers ever---one who I often try to emulate in my own approach to creative nonfiction---is a scientist-author by the name of Loren Eiseley. And Eiseley's book, The Immense Journey, is one of my favorite, hands down, bar none, of all time.

Check it out...

“Out of the choked Devonian waters emerged sight and sound and the music that rolls invisible through the composer's brain. They are there still in the ooze along the tideline, though no one notices. The world is fixed, we say: fish in the sea, birds in the air. But in the mangrove swamps by the Niger, fish climb trees and ogle uneasy naturalists who try unsuccessfully to chase them back to the water. There are things still coming ashore. ”


Eiseley was an anthropologist. He was also a philosopher. And an educator... and a writer. And in my opinion, he was a wordsmith extraordinaire, a prose master, if you will.

“For the first time in four billion years a living creature had contemplated himself and heard with a sudden, unaccountable loneliness, the whisper of the wind in the night reeds.”


It's hard to get a true sense of the real power found in Eiseley's prose from just a few quotes. I've tried googling larger excerpts of his works, but alas I have thus far been unlucky---or more possibly inept---in my online research.

“While wandering a deserted beach at dawn, stagnant in my work, I saw a man in the distance bending and throwing as he walked the endless stretch toward me. As he came near, I could see that he was throwing starfish, abandoned on the sand by the tide, back into the sea. When he was close enough I asked him why he was working so hard at this strange task. He said that the sun would dry the starfish and they would die. I said to him that I thought he was foolish. There were thousands of starfish on miles and miles of beach. One man alone could never make a difference. He smiled as he picked up the next starfish. Hurling it far into the sea he said, "It makes a difference for this one." I abandoned my writing and spent the morning throwing starfish.”


Some of us have written in early posts that a connection linking writer and reader is necessary for good prose. I cannot disagree. Obviously, this invisible tether between author and audience begins with a common language. I might try to read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius in its original Latin to taste the literary delicacies found there, but alas it would all just be great gobbledygook to me. So, regardless of the beauty found in such a work of art, I am personally at a loss to experience it. Marcus Aurelius and I are separated by time and language, estranged to one another, and his art is only accessible to me through translation.

However, there is a secret and near-supernatural quality to art, an ability to stretch across vast distances separating us, a power to connect minds, one to another, writer to reader.

I am no anthropologist, nor was meant to be. My life is as much different from that of Loren Eiseley as it is from that of Marcus Aurelius. And it is only a common language, mine and Mr. Eiseley's, that is shared between us. His stories and essays contain no tales of elves and dragons, and the only magic found in them arises from the mysteries of nature, manifesting like sorcery from secret wells of the unknown. Oh, and as well, I do find a bit of wonder and wizardry in Mr. Eiseley's prose craft.

“Man would not be man if his dreams did not exceed his grasp. ... Like John Donne, man lies in a close prison, yet it is dear to him. Like Donne's, his thoughts at times overleap the sun and pace beyond the body. If I term humanity a slime mold organism it is because our present environment suggests it. If I remember the sunflower forest it is because from its hidden reaches man arose. The green world is his sacred center. In moments of sanity he must still seek refuge there. If I dream by contrast of the eventual drift of stars through the dilated time of the universe, it is because I have seen thistledown off to new worlds and am at heart a voyager who, in this modern time, still yearns for the lost country of his birth.”