Book Recommendation: Gathering Moss
Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Gathering Moss, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, is a book of joy and excitement—adjectives one may not expect attached to a natural and cultural history of bryophytes (a taxonomic division that includes mosses, liverworts, and hornworts). But Kimmerer’s expert melding of memoir and biology turns each moss-inspired experiment into a page-turning mystery.
This type of science writing is rare. Modern science of sterile laboratories and white coats seems to demand a dispassionate rationality. Kimmerer acknowledges that she too had been part of this world. She reminisces that when she began a biology program in college, she “got the impression that the stature of science would somehow be lessened if we included human relationships” (108).
Gathering Moss demonstrates that this need not be the case. Humans are ever-present in this book about mosses. Sometimes it is Kimmerer herself standing hip deep in the Kickapoo River or swatting mosquitoes in the Adirondacks. Other times she uses mosses as metaphors for human greed or grief.
Another unique aspect of this book is the drama that infuses Kimmerer’s narrative of her experiments. Rather than a dry accounting of the inevitable progress from hypothesis to theory, Kimmerer’s experiments begin with an observation posed as a puzzle: for instance, why does this single species of moss sometimes reproduce sexually and other times reproduce asexually? Then, like any skilled mystery writer, she leads the reader on a winding path of false assumptions, red herrings, and dead ends before finally reaching a conclusion (but no spoilers here!). For all the excitement of the chase, Kimmerer does not lose her methodological rigor.
This is the heart of Gathering Moss. The world is wide enough for multiple ways of knowing. In one slim volume Kimmerer approaches moss as a bryologist, a mother, a paid consultant, and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Her multiple identities are not contradictory. More than once in the book she discusses the importance of human language in understanding the non-human word.
As a scientist, Kimmerer points out the gametophytes, sporophytes, acrocarps, and pleurocarps in a clump of moss, avowing that “having the words… creates an intimacy with the plant that speaks of careful observation” (12). As a steward of indigenous knowledge, she opens a chapter on the natural web of reciprocity with: “The average person knows the name of less than a dozen plants, and this includes such categories as ‘Christmas Tree.’ Losing their names is a step in losing respect. Knowing their names is the first step in regaining our connection” (108).
But while Kimmerer demonstrates that it is possible to understand moss in different but compatible ways, she sees no kinship between understanding and owning. In a chapter where she is hired as a landscaping consultant for a man wishing to recreate an Appalachian landscape in his backyard, she is increasingly disillusioned by his desire to possess—rather than enjoy—nature. “To destroy a wild thing for pride seems a potent act of domination. Wildness cannot be collected and still remain wild. Its nature is lost the moment it is separated from its origins. By the very act of owning, the thing becomes an object, no longer itself” (145).
Gathering Moss gives the reader a deeper appreciation of the tiny world of mosses and the excitement that comes from knowing it better.
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (New York: Penguin Books, 2003).
Review by Erica Mukherjee