Sounds Wild and Broken

There are books that I keep around and pick up every now and then, often in the chill after a hard task finished, and I read a bit until there is something that i want to stop and chew on for a while. This book took me months to read because I was always finding something to chew on, something worth pondering, something to integrate into the being-ness of living.

I highly recommend David George Haskell's Sounds Wild and Broken if you are a thinker, someone who likes to integrate thoughts and sentences into your being. A human aware that you are just a tiny speck in a large world that is mostly inhabited by other non-human beings. Go on. Set this by your bedside, or alongside your favorite chair, with a coaster for your mug or pint, your reading glasses, and a comfy something or another. Sink into it, over time, and let these words change you.

Haskell is our tour-guide on the history of sound on earth. We learn about the first insects who learn to rub their wings together to create a buzz, and how the evolution of flowers caused a huge motivation for the development of auditory communication for winged creatures.

He takes us under water to listen to snapping shrimps, and to remote mountains to discover the geographic differences in bird song. Haskell's writing is beautiful, immerses you in the moment, teaches you to listen and to wonder.

Of course, there's no nature story without a focus on all the ways humanity is causing destruction. It's very hard nowadays to listen without noticing humanity's creations rumbling, hammering, screaming and droning. We're not only destroying animal habitats and causing biodiversity loss, our artificial noises are also invading and actively harming nature. The chapter on the effects of boat traffic and seismic measurement noise in the ocean was particularly eye opening.

A book to savour and to read while immersed in nature and its soundscape.
There was unevenness in some chapters, in the balance of poetics and science. And it could have been a bit shorter, maybe cut the chapter on musical instrument, but all in all very inspiring.
Sound and song is such a weird thing, in its ephemerality.