Books

A short summary of recent books I have read, that have made an impression on me and I wish to remember.

Last Exit to Brooklyn - Hubert Selby Jr. 
A raw and unrelentingly bleak depiction of New York life in the 1950s. It is hard to find respite from the torrent of abuse, drugs, nihilism, love-less sex, casual violence and unredeemable characters in this book. I found myself propelled by Selby Jr's excellent writing style - slang borrowed from the streets unfold in huge, urgent, barrelling sentences that barely give you pause for breath, let alone a moment to reflect on the bleak subject matter.  The lack of quotation marks throughout blur the line between character and author, pulling you deeper into Brooklyn's seedy diners, flop houses and bars. This all amounts to a feeling of unsettling momentum - we arrive at some vivid and truly bleak moments, depictions of humans at their most selfish, capricious and vulnerable, yet Selby Jr doesn't allow us the time to dwell before we career off to the next event. This is an excellent book but the overall effect is visceral and gruelling - I felt drained after reading it.

The Mortal Sea: Fishing in the Age of Sail - W. Jeffery Bolster. 
For centuries we have held that the seas afforded us an inexhaustible supply of fish, that no matter how many were taken we would not be able to make the merest impression on the stocks, that this gigantic resource was immortal. This book examines the tragic cost of this misconception via the study of the relationship between the natural world (specifically the north western Atlantic), the economy and society in North America. It is well worth reading if you have an interest in the environment and the effects our development have had on it.

More than just an account of a time and topic that I find interesting, I found that the authors demonstration that it was not the result of outright ignorance that caused fish stocks to crash shocking and prescient: The decline of fish stocks due to overfishing was well understood by a wide cross-section of those involved in the industry, from scientists (although, notably, Bolster describes some serious shortcomings in the methodology of early fisheries scientists), through to the fishermen themselves. As with so many environmental issues, vested interests and a political stalling meant a lack of meaningful action that ultimately led to the ruin of an industry and a crucial pillar of our environment. It's not hard to see the similarities between the plight of the ocean outlines in The Mortal Sea and other fragile parts of our environment.

Reading this has made me question my attitude towards to the environment. On environmental matters I have been taught that before action can be taken there must be scientific consensus. In an unguarded moment, Bolster argues that waiting for this creates the opportunity for obfuscation and simply takes too long; the damage has already been done by the time any consensus is achieved. We should be cognisant of the cost of inaction and where there is reasonable evidence we should not wait to act to preserve natural resources. Here, the dangers of acting before the scientific consensus has been achieved is outweighed by the fact that any decision favours conservation, the more difficult of the outcomes to reverse.