Literature of nature

Nature writing springs out of an acute love for nature. Though it is backed by scientific facts, it is mostly what a writer has observed repeatedly. A nature lover not only learns about nature but learns from it. Nature writing can be fiction, non-fiction, memoir, or children’s, but they will always portray respect and admiration for the natural world.

Though Henry David Theurox is considered to be the first nature writer, the one who has published many popular books in the genre is Gerald Durrell. He was a contemporary of other nature writers such as Jim Corbett and Joy Adamson, but none of them were as prolific as Durrell.

I don’t think anyone collects exotic animals from forests to be kept in zoos anymore, but that is what Durrell did. His first book Overloaded Ark, is about his visit to an African jungle to collect specific species of animals that zoos needed. He begins this book with a vivid description of the forest — lush impenetrable vegetation, a serene stream, a timid snake coiled beneath an aged boulder, a herd of  exotic pigs scurrying by, wild rats, an anteater with a clinging baby — when you read him, the picture that comes to mind is nothing short of the simulated forest you saw in Avatar!

Most of Durrells’s books are based on his African expeditions but there are some that have come out of his missions in outlandish fauna elsewhere. Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons is set in Mauritius, The Drunken Forest and The Whispering Land in Argentina and then three books in the Corfu Islands in Greece where he grew up.

Durrell was a prolific writer. Along with his nature adventure memoirs, he has also written short stories and novels. His books are highly entertaining as he peppered them with humour.
You can only live through Durrell’s writings, and not do what he did. However, with our very own Ranjit Lal’s books you can actually become a nature enthusiast. Ranjit Lal superbly anthropomorphises animals. His collection of short stories, The Caterpillar Who Went on a Diet is about creepy crawlies. His perspective on ants, roaches and moths and their struggle for survival will make you think twice before you swat them! He has penned a number light-hearted works of fiction for young readers, which have ample information about the flora and fauna around us.

Nature writing is a genre where the choices are slim. A few books in the genre that young adult and older readers can try are The Old Man And the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, The New Nature Writing, an anthology from Granta, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson and Bird Cloud by Annie Proulx.

It is better that we understand and live in harmony with nature or else we perish, is a fact now too evident from the recent Japan disaster. The need of the hour is to show our gadget-happy children how to connect with nature. I am sure most of us adults need to learn the art too. What better way to start this process than with nature literature.

Vani is the founder of online library easylib.com