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Katherine R. Chandler and Melissa A. Goldthwaite, eds.
Surveying the Literary Landscapes of Terry Tempest Williams: New Critical Essays.
Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2003. 265p.
Deborah Weagel
University of New Mexico
Katherine R. Chandler and Melissa A. Goldthwaite bring together a valuable collection of
current criticism on the works of Terry Tempest Williams. This is the first anthology of
critical essays on Williams, and the editors consider it to be only "a beginning" of the
potential criticism that could be done. They write that "critics have yet to define all
the relationships among the concepts of Williams's vision" (ix). The text is divided into
three sections, "Ecocriticism," "Craft and Rhetoric," and "Faith, Ethics, Politics," with
five essays included in each section (a total of fifteen in the entire text). There is
also an introduction by Chandler and Goldthwaite, a select bibliography, and a useful index.
The essays are all well-written and the analyses represent a variety of disciplines and
perspectives. They deal with such topics as Williams' blatant concerns with nuclear testing,
her connection and sense of responsibility to the environment, her struggles with Mormonism
as well as its influence on her writing, the meshing of multiple genres and themes in her
work, the autobiographical nature of her texts, and the poetic quality of her prose. Despite
a certain diversity, there is also a sense of unity throughout the book. First, the writing
styles of a variety of authors have been sufficiently edited to achieve a successful flow and
uniformity as a person reads from essay to essay. Also, there is enough overlap in the passages
cited and discussed of Williams' work to help connect and dovetail the essays, without being
redundant or overly repetitive. Furthermore, there is a sense of symmetry in the structure
of the text as a whole with three main sections, each comprising five essays.
One topic addressed in many of the essays is Williams' use of certain binaries. It is the
current trend among some scholars to attempt to break up and/or upset traditional
dichotomies. For example, the essay "Deconstructing the Language of Opposition: Locating
Williams's Erotics of Place," by Jeannette E. Riley and Maureen K. Schirack, addresses this
topic quite directly. The authors write that "to contextualize the nature-culture relationship,
we use ecofeminist readings to underscore the importance of dismantling such oppositions" (59).
Other essays also discuss binaries, such as Goldthwaite's essay, "Rhetoric + Feminism =
Williams's Poetic Means: Transforming Triptychs of Body, Form, and Faith in Leap." This
chapter presents oppositions that are resolved through the metaphor of the triptych, in a
manner that seems somewhat Hegelian (in which a three-part dialectic comprises a thesis,
antithesis, and resolution). Goldthwaite presents Williams' approach to the triptych,
El jardín de las delicias, by Hieronymus Bosch, which avoids "traditional
patterns of arrangement" (131). She cites Williams who writes: "I chose to read the
triptych, left, right, and center: Paradise, Hell, and Earthly Delights. The center
panel becomes a landscape of exploration, a place where the reconciliation of opposites
is possible" (131).
It is interesting to note that a resolution of opposites does not necessarily require
their dissolution. In fact, references to binaries abound throughout the collection of
essays. A brief selection of such dichotomies includes: "natural ... unnatural" (3), "near
and far, dark and light, earth and air" (17), "mind, male, and human ... body, female,
and nature" (28), "the concrete and the imaginative -- reality and metaphor" (48), "black
and white" (72), "us and them" (92), "circular ... linear" (96), "discursive or nondiscursive,
conscious or unconscious, verbal or nonverbal" (110), "good and evil" (131), "comment
and response, speaking and listening, giving and receiving" (149), "self-exposure and
self-concealment ('Open and close')" (165), "personal . . . public" (191), "material and
spiritual" (198), "natural world ... civilized world" (215), "an interruption and a
continuation" (221), "deconstruction ... construction" (233), and "speech and action"
(243). Williams incorporates many such dualities in her work and seems to be more
concerned about facilitating their resolution than dissolving them altogether,
as she did in rearranging the order in which she experienced the Bosch triptych.
Why does Williams incorporate so many dualities in her writing? Chandler, in her essay,
"Potsherds and Petroglyphs: Unearthing Latter-day Saint Sources for Williams's Environmental
Vision," writes that "details of Latter-day Saint (Mormon) practices and beliefs abound
in Williams's prose" (195). She explains: "There is no question that Williams has drawn much
from the Mormon beliefs with which she was raised" (195). Perhaps the use of binaries
in her work is connected to the Mormon belief that certain dichotomies are necessary in
life. For example, The Book of Mormon, which is a standard text in the canon of The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, states, "For it must needs be, that there
is an opposition in all things" (2 Nephi 2:11). The passage continues, "And if ye say
there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye
shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no
happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor
misery" (2 Nephi 2:13). According to Mormonism, certain dichotomies are necessary because
they help bring about the tensions that enable human beings to make choices, exercise free
will, and experience the consequences of their decisions. Goldthwaite writes that when
Williams is asked which principle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ she most cherishes, the
writer responds, "free agency" (128). This capacity to have choice in life is brought
about, according to Mormon doctrine, through opposition.
Although Williams may have been influenced by the religion she was taught as a child,
she does not hesitate to question and examine some of its rituals and precepts. She exercises
agency to challenge some of the established hierarchies and to find ways to reconcile certain
binaries. Goldthwaite writes: "Williams is able to question authority, revising the beliefs
passed down to her" (130). She cites Williams who says, "I hear the voices of my Elders:
You can't have it both ways" -- but she answers back: "must it really be all or nothing?
Right wing or left wing? Paradise or hell?" (130). Goldthwaite explains: "Williams answers
these rhetorical questions, in part, through the unorthodox arrangement of her text [Leap]"
(130), which is influenced by her reading of Bosch's painting.
In working with binaries comes the problem of creating a false tension. Richard Hunt, in his
essay, "Integrating Science and Faith: Williams and the Erotics of Place," writes: "So
virulent a hostility between science and faith need not, and indeed cannot, exist" (178).
He credits Williams for standing out among her colleagues in environmental concerns for
"the unique way she brings science and faith together as she seeks to preserve the wildlands
of southern Utah" (178). However, Williams herself sets up a false dichotomy in her writing
when she expresses: "In this dualistic world, I have seen obedience on one hand, free agency
on the other. How do I bring these two hands opposed together in a gesture of prayer?"
(128). The true opposite of obedience is disobedience, not agency. Obedience is a choice
as is disobedience, and a person who chooses to be obedient is as free in that choice as
is the person who chooses disobedience. So while certain binaries, according to Mormonism,
create necessary tensions, there is the risk of creating false or incorrect binaries that
can be misleading.
This is an excellent collection of essays which would be of value to scholars interested
in ecofeminist writing, nature writing, memoir and autobiography, cancer narratives, and
creative writing. It could be used for personal edification as well as for pedagogical
purposes, and can stand proudly as the first collection of critical essays on the œuvre
of Terry Tempest Williams.
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