Gretel Ehrlich

Megan N. Liberty

Gretel Ehrlich: Defining a Contemporary American Nature Writer

Introduction

What is a nature writer? It is easy to look at Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, or Aldo Leopold’s A Sand Country Almanac, and determine that Thoreau and Leopold were both nature writers of their times. Moving out to Walden Pond and spending hundreds of pages describing the landscape, animals, and creatures that live there, or spending a chapter describing a land ethic that considers the rights of the physical land that people inhabit are obvious ways to become labeled a nature writer. However, even these two now prominent and widely known nature writers were not labeled as such until many years later. In fact, nature writing as a separate genre did not exist until the mid 20^th century (Carlson 932). In hindsight it is easy to look back and see how the characteristics that were developed by the pioneers of nature writing describe the works of early nature writing. But with a contemporary writers it is much harder to identify what characteristics define American Nature Writing . With the evolution of society since Thoreau and Leopold’s time, American Nature writing must also evolve.

The writing of Gretel Ehrlich expresses this evolution. Since the publication of her first nonfiction book, The Solace of Open Spaces, through the publication of her most recent book, The Future of Ice: A Journey into Cold, Ehrlich has been labeled and American nature writer. This raises the obvious questions of why and how? The Solace of Open Spaces was first published in 1985, just over two decades ago. What, then, makes Ehrlich so easily and immediately identifiable as an American nature writer?

Unlike Thoreau, Ehrlich did not build a cabin in the woods near a pond, instead she lives on a ranch in Wyoming. She does not write about the rights of the land, the way that Leopold did, nor does she preach for conservation. In this way, Ehrlich’s writing does not model after the topics of the first nature writers. On the other hand, as society has urbanized and nature has become farther and farther from the front of people’s minds, a new type of nature writing has developed. Many modern nature writers, like Bill McKibben or Jared Diamond, write more scientifically about nature and use their books as ‘a call to action’ against the ongoing destruction of the environment. But Ehrlich’s writing does not fit this model either. Instead, Ehrlich has become the perfect model of a contemporary American nature writer. She balances her personal experiences with nature—living on a ranch in Wyoming, herding sheep, visiting foreign natural lands like the Arctic, and even getting struck by lightning—with her desire to protect and value nature—for example her nonfiction book The Future of Ice: A Journey into Cold—creating a combination of both the modern scientific naturalist writer with the classic traditional nature writer of Thoreau’s time. Ehrlich’s writing deals with the sensations of nature and how these sensations lead to spiritual enlightenment and at times a negative truth. Her writing style mirrors nature the forms and shapes of nature by breaking her books into different seasons or describing ice in a broken way. Since it is not the writer who labels themselves a nature writer, but rather the public, this essay will explore various reviews and receptions of Ehrlich’s work to prove that she is not only a nature writer, but one of the new emerging contemporary Nature writers.

Defining American Nature Writing

Before it can be determined the ways that Ehrlich fits the mold, and defines what a contemporary American nature writer is, a clear and concise definition of an American nature writer must first be established. Various authors have tackled this question of what an American nature writer really is. But no clear concise answer has arisen. Thus, a combination of these critics criteria must be applied to Ehrlich’s work. A good place to start this definition is with John Elder’s anthology American Nature Writers (which includes Gretel Ehrlich). In putting together and collecting work labeled under a specific genre, one must at least attempt to define it. Elder writes,

The term ‘nature writing’ has generally been used to describe a particular form of prose that is closely associated in American literature with the work of Henry David Thoreau. One basic definition of the genre might be as follows: personal reflective essays grounded in appreciation of the natural world and of science, but also open to the spiritual meaning and value of the physical creation. (xiii)

Obviously, Elder himself admits that this is just a basic definition; but it serves as a starting point. Richard Mabey explains in his book, The Oxford Book of Nature Writing, “What characterizes the most convincing nature writing is a willingness to admit both the kindredness and the otherness of the natural world” (vii). And here we begin to enter the depth of the genre. According to the four critics, John Elder, Richard Mabey, Peter A. Fritzell, and Douglas Carlson, that this essay will use to determine not only what an American nature writer is, but also what a contemporary American nature writer is, an American nature writer must experience a sense of kindredness with nature, both on a spiritual and physical level, describe how the presence of nature effects him or her, include a mix of both personal and scientific narrative, and ultimately come to a conclusion about his or her place in relation to nature in society or the world. Through the examination of these elements of nature writing, this essay will determine not only that Ehrlich fulfills this criteria, but also that she exhibits a move beyond them, ultimately embodying an new type of nature writer: a contemporary American nature writer.

Ehrlich: a contemporary American nature writer

“Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me” (Thoreau 150)

Just as Thoreau’s Walden, one of the earliest forms of nature writing, sought to explore the relationship and connections between humans and nature, Ehrlich’s prose explores where nature and humanity begin and end, and her own place within it all. As Mabey explains, “[American nature writing’s] history is thus in part a history of our views about ourselves as species, part of the quest for the essential characteristics and boundaries of being human” (vii). Ehrlich’s novel, Heart Mountain, exemplifies this quest for boundaries. The fact that Stephanie Kaza, author of “Gretel Ehrlich,” an overview and criticism of her work in John Elder’s anthology, claims that, “Heart Mountain is not nature writing, yet it reflects Ehrlich’s sense of the land and the people who live there” (251) further illustrates the complexities of the debate over what constitutes nature writing. If the book shows a “sense of the land” then why doesn’t Kaza consider it nature writing? Because it includes plot and fictional characters? The answer to this cannot be determined, however, literary critic Thomas Brown, writes in his review of Heart Mountain, that in it, Ehrlich as the question, “Where does nature begin and end?” He continues to explain, “Ehrlich even developed a similie linking nature and history: ‘So how is one to say exactly where history begins or ends? It is all oscillations, curves, and waves which take so long to reveal themselves…. Like watching a tree grow’” (3). This comparison between nature and history demonstrates a conscious consideration of nature’s place and boundaries in society. History is something that has existed as long as time existed; there is no way to define the start or end of it. By comparing the growth of a tree to history, Ehrlich is able to comment on the constant rebirth cycle that trees often represent, and the ways that nature, like a tree, is always being renewed and never really has a beginning or end.

While Thoreau and the early American nature writers explored a friendship or positive connection with nature, a characteristic that defines Ehrlich as a contemporary American nature writer—more like Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek—is her ability to explore her relationship with nature, even if it is a negative one. As Mabey writes, “The reactions of the watcher were being quite openly explored as a legitimate subject for nature writing. They were at least knowable in a way that nature’s inner life was not” (xi). American Nature Writing must involve the exploration of boundaries as well as the exploration of personal emotions. According to Edith Milton’s review of Ehrlich’s nonfiction book, Islands, the Universe, Home, Ehrlich achieves this exploration of personal emotions. Milton writes of the stories in this book that,

In them, the country in which she lives becomes something of a contemporary American translation of the Wordsworthian Sublime, an evocation of a landscape which is familiar, ordinary and deeply loved, but which so dwarfs and isolates the human scale with its surrounding hugeness that it inspires a sort of moral terror. (Milton 16)

Ultimately, Ehrlich’s descriptions of the land in this nonfiction book about Wyoming, island of California, and parts of Japan, present the land in such a way that humans relationship to it is insignificant. She is able to realize that humans are just a small part of something much greater. Despite the frightening nature of this relationship, Ehrlich does not shy away from exploring it.

Along these line, the most unsettling connection that Ehrlich shares with nature is also the strongest, and cannot be compared to Thoreau, Leopold, or Dillard. A Match to the Heart: One Woman’s Story of Being Struck by Lightning, the closest thing Ehrlich writes to a memoir, details the events, emotions, and after thoughts of her experience being struck by lightning. While this book may not contribute to her standing as a contemporary nature writer, it certainly contributes to her relationship with nature. In Rosellen Brown’s review of A Match to the Heart, she writes, “The natural world in which [Ehrlich] sees herself an infinitesimal but connected part draws forth a good deal of stirring writing” (7). In this memoir, Ehrlich addresses the terrible emotions and other occurrences that are the side effects of her injury. She allows herself to experience doubt and fear with relation to nature. As Peter A. Fritzell, author of Nature Writing and America, writes, “The best American nature writers…have come perilously close to extreme forms of self-consciousness and self-doubt” (7). Ehrlich’s examination of nature allows her to experience this self doubt. Despite this horrible encounter with nature, which Ehrlich had already admitted often left her feelings overwhelmed, Ehrlich continued to write and publish numerous works after this experience.

It is not only through her memoir on her personal encounter with lightning that allows Ehrlich to be so personal in her nature writing. Fritzell writes, “This troublesome and often paradoxical blend of impersonal (and largely descriptive) science, on the one hand, and intensely (and often egoistic) personal narrative and refection, on the other, continues to seem to me distinct and peculiar to the best American nature writing” (6). Ehrlich achieves this blend of science and the personal in her writing. Kaza writes about A Match to the Heart, “Into this personal account Ehrlich weaves information on the nature of the heart and nervous system, the nature of thunder and lightning, and the complex long-term effects of lightning strikes on the human mind and body” (254). This perfectly fits the criteria for a nature writer, blending personal and impersonal together.

Bur it is not only through her experiences with lightning strikes that Ehrlich is able to incorporate personal details into her writing. Writing about Ehrlich’s book Yellowstone: Land of Fire and Ice, Kaza notes, “As in all her writing, Ehrlich illuminates the vastness of landscape through her own personal experience” (256). Ehrlich is able to make even a book simply meant to describe and illustrate Yellowstone connect with the readers through the personal experiences and emotions she feels there. Kaza also writes, “Like other nature writers, Ehrlich speaks from her experiences of landscape and pilgrimage, the quest of a mystic, rancher, naturalist, woman” (256). She uses her own personal identifiers, mystic, rancher naturalist, woman, to experience the land, making her descriptions even more personal and powerful. Milton explains in her review that “Ehrlich reaches into the ordinary events of her extraordinary worlds…she tries to enlarge these details of these very personal experiences into a cosmic, eternal and sometimes deeply negative truth” (16). As mentioned earlier, these personal details and self exploration can lead to negative and unsettling realizations. But as a contemporary American Nature writer, Ehrlich does not hide from them or omit these personal details, but rather explores them fully.

As if this confrontation was not enough, Ehrlich even goes beyond this personal narrative with nature. In a more contemporary way, Ehrlich is able to focus in on the specific sensations of nature in relation to human thought. In a Publisher’s Weekly Review of Future of Ice: A Journey into Cold, the reviewer writes, “her book is less about science than about sensations: loneliness and the relentless circling of the snowed-in mind; the rumbling of a glacier as its azure ice crumbles away; the whistling, ululating calls of the bearded seal” (50). Here, not only is Ehrlich able to describe the beauty of the glaciers but also relate them to the emotions of the mind—loneliness—achieving a new more contemporary way of writing about nature.

What ultimately makes Ehrlich a contemporary nature writer is her unique style. Ehrlich is able to make landscapes and old historic places feel alive again through the use of her personal and emotional details. Edith Milton writes about a section in Islands, the Universe, Home, “in this piece she bridges the gap between rationalism and superstition. The pilgrimage comes alive for us; so do the people she meets along the way…We can feel the history of this place and the fading intensity of its religious past” (16). This is beyond a blend of personal narrative and natural details, but rather a mixture of historical details, superstitions, and the rational and emotional observations Ehrlich makes about the land, illustrating Ehrlich as a contemporary nature writer.

But there are still more American nature writer characteristic that Ehrlich must fill, before she can be labeled completely, a contemporary American nature writer. Returning to Elder’s original definition, it has already been shown that Ehrlich writes “personal reflective essays” and has an “appreciation of the natural world and of science.” Consider one of the elements Mabey added, it has been proven then that Ehrlich shares a kindredness with nature. But Mabey also adds something to what he considers an American nature writer. He describes,

Here, after all, is language one of the most exquisite human inventions, resonant with the structures of human consciousness, being used to describe a world about whose inner states and meanings we can know virtually nothing. It forces us to rely on external clues, on empathy, and most notoriously on anthropomorphism, the assumption that nature shares human motives and feelings. (vii)

Mabey argues that people cannot connect with nature, people cannot have a kindredness with nature, until we assume that nature feels as humans do and use anthropomorphism. Brown writes, still in his review of Heart Mountain, “The natural world, on the other hand, the vistas so vast that ‘there was no place the sky stopped when he looked’ possesses a patience and timelessness unknown to man. The sweeping high plains, the majestic mountain ranges, and the endless sky reinforce nature’s eternality” (3). In reviewing Ehrlich’s work, Brown gives away a subtle hint about the way that Ehrlich addresses and deals with the land. He explains that she gives the land “patience,” which is clearly a human emotion, as well as “timelessness” and “eternality” which also serve to in many ways personify the land.

Giving the land this sense of “eternity” also relates to another one of Mabey’s criteria for American nature writers. Mabey explains, “the single great theme that underlies all nature writing—our relief and pleasure at not being alone on the earth” (x). Giving nature a sense of eternity, is a reminder that nature will and always has been present. Something that Ehrlich clearly wants to emphasis in her writing. But again, although Ehrlich fulfills the criteria for an American nature writer, her writing style and period places her in a position not only to be a contemporary nature writer, but also to define it.

A unique of Ehrlich’s style that qualifies her as the newer brand of nature writer, the contemporary American Nature writer, is her ability to match her writing style with the natural things that she describes. She first does this in obvious and simple ways. As both Kaaza and Brown note about Heart Mountain, “The four sections of the novel correspond to the seasons of the year, and within each section a full year unfolds with all its natural rhythms” (Brown 3). Kaza explains how Ehrlich uses each season or chapter title as a theme for the chapter as cold, with bitter descriptions and details about the moving of ice, or spring about a sense of restlessness (253). In this way each season has a writing style which mirrors the feelings of the season. The Publisher’s Weekly review about The Future of Ice: A Journey into Cold states, “her narrative favors short scenes as fragmented as the breaking ice sheets she encounters” (50).This is an even better example of the ways that Ehrlich’s writing is able not only to mirror the season, but also the qualities of nature around her; a mark of a true contemporary nature writer.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Ehrlich is an contemporary American nature writer who shares the roots of the pioneer American nature writers, Thoreau and Leoplod. As Fritzell writes in his definition, “Walden, and A Sand Country Almanac, and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek…are the archetypification of that historic interplay between personal narrative and systematic science” (6). While Ehrlich does share more direct connections with the more modern Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, she does have roots in Thoreau. Milton writes of her work, “It evokes Thoreau and Emerson and echoes with the Romantic precept that face to face with nature our intellect fails us; that we can reach the spiritual and moral enlightenment which nature offers only through the senses” (16) and Kaza writes of one of her books, “True to the tradition of Thoreau, the book uses walking as a way to follow the landscape and the mind simultaneously” (252). These are just a few of the connections that establish Ehrlich in the roots of a nature writer, allowing her branch out as a contemporary.

Ehrlich fulfills the criteria for a nature writer. She describes a kindredness with nature, a personal connection, includes personal details as well as scientific, and even expresses a relief that nature is an eternal force on earth. She also includes some unique and some common characteristics of a contemporary American Nature writer. She is able to face the sometimes negative truths associated with self exploration through nature and describe nature in a way that mirrors its qualities and emotions associated with it. Ehrlich is a contemporary American nature writer.

Works Cited

Brown, Thomas. Gretel Ehrlich’s Use of ‘Fictive History’ in Heart Mountain.” Notes on Contemporary Literature 20, no. 4 (September 1990): 3-5.

Brown, Rosellen. “Bolt from the Blue.” Rev. of A Match to the Heart, by Gretel Ehrlich.The Women’s Review of Books.12.2. (1994): 7-8.

Carlson, Douglas. “The Uses of Adversity: American Nature Writing in Despair.” Georgia Review 59, no. 4 (winter 2005): 932-44.

Fritzell, Peter A. Nature Writing and America. Ames: Iowa State UP, 1990.

Kaza, Stephanie. “Gretel Ehrlich (b. 1946).” American Nature Writers. Vol. 1. Ed. John Elder. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1996. 247-258.

Mabey, Richard, ed. Introduction. The Oxford Book of Nature Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Milton, Edith. “Inward Bound.” Rev. of Islands, the Universe, Home, by Gretel Ehrlich.The Women’s Review of Books. 9.6 (1992): 16-17.

Review of The Future of Ice, by Gretel Ehrlich. Publishers Weekly 251, no. 40 (4 October 2004): 80.

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