![]() ![]() ![]() She cites, as encouragement, a pamphlet reminding readers that even in the aftermath of the United States military dropping atomic bombs on Japan, matsutake mushrooms continued to exist. The prologue’s epigraph is an eighth century Japanese ode to matsutake mushrooms in that country’s fall weather. Just before the prologue, Tsing presents the first image of a mushroom, in the ruin of an industrial forest in the American state of Oregon (1). She argues that extensive critique of capitalism and its failures has already been undertaken at length she is interested in what matsutake may reveal about possibilities for endurance and happiness in an unstable and uncertain world. Prologue Summary and Analysis: Autumn Aroma. Having introduced her abstract subject, Tsing next describes her concrete one: “aromatic wild mushrooms much valued in Japan” called matsutake (2). She argues that mushrooms act as a “guide-when the controlled world we thought we had fails” (2). The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins Hardcover Septemby Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (Author) 584 ratings See all formats and editions Kindle 1.99 Read with Our Free App Audiobook 0.00 Free with your Audible trial Hardcover 41.21 11 Used from 25.08 1 Collectible from 76. ![]() The world is beset by climate change, and employment and economic success is now elusive for many people. Tsing explains that her relationship to nature is emotional, rooted in a response to precarity-visiting the woods, finding mushrooms there, shows her “that there are still pleasures amidst the terrors of indeterminacy” (1). ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |