Picked up this book after seeing the author’s name mentioned in Tao Lin’s Leaving Society and this particular volume on Lin’s end of the year of books he read in 2023.
I’d never heard of Joyce Williams before, but this collection of essays, ostensibly about ecology, nature, etc appealed to me. I probably agree with most of Williams’ views expressed within about how human beings continue to be a scourge on the natural environment, and how we have, despite all our past and ongoing “progress” can’t seem to temper our desires to the consume and conquer everything we come across. From the get-go, however, Williams settles into a polemical mood, and barely lets up for the length of the book. At several points I was overcome by the sensation that I was reading a transcription of a George Carlin style rant - so much so was the rage and passion Williams feels about these topics practically spluttering off the page. A few of the more vitriolic essays often resort to listing human beings various ecological sins in an attempt to paint a sort of Boschian portrait of the hellscape the earth has become at our doing. I’ve never loved reading things that I simply agree with and that don’t offer me any novel nuance or intellectual challenge on a topic, and that was mostly the problem here. Maybe times have changed and the points Williams is making here just don’t seem so radical anymore, what with mass extinction and global warming all but certain at this point.

There were two essays in this collection that are excellent. The first is when Williams tells the saga of the property she owned in the Florida Keys for 30 years. The valiant effort she made to create natural oasis amongst soulless development is really cool and her description of her home set me dreaming about the way I’d like to have my house in the future (if I ever have one). The second essay that really bowled me over was the one about her dog Hawk. I had to sit my book down for several long minutes after and stare into space to mulled over a bit the bleak and poignant beauty of this one, the contradictions of being a pet owner, the crushing responsibility of taking care of another living thing, and the uncanny descriptions of the process for disposal of pet remains.

will eventually get around to reading something else by Williams. ( )

Many interesting essays on the environment, but the author is too quick to embrace and praise such characters as the Unibomber. Overall, it made me rather uneasy. ( )

Warning: this is not your typical environmentalist. No, Joy Williams is fierce. Her collection of essays is devoted to what she sees as a nature that is ailing from the wounds inflicted upon Her by humans. Ill Nature takes the reader on a ride through the world as she sees it, the world most people don't see but sometimes hear about in sound-bites—the natural world.

Williams' first essay is “Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp,” and it is about, obviously, how little attention is paid to the millions of nonhuman lives that are wiped off of earth each day because they aren't considered endangered species, as if the only reason an animal shouldn't be killed is because they are not on a list of protected animals. She digs into this presumption with style, the same way she criticizes well-off retirees that go to Africa for a safari. The thing is, she notes, that the Africa most people envision—the one with animals abound, nature running rampant, exotic plants and trees spotting the landscape—doesn't exist. Animals have been killed for food or money; what is left is what the rich get to observe on their safaris, which she makes out as a sort of grown-up Disney Land.

She attacks the romance of hunting in “The Killing Game,” claiming that humans equipped with high-powered rifles don't make for an even playing field against unsuspecting deer who don't know they're apart of a game. She dismisses the notion of hunting as a noble sport. It is nonsense, she says, intellectualized nonsense. For her opponents who would argue that what she believes is just as nonsensical, Williams writes “The Animal People.” In the essay, she skewers the image of the stereotypical environmentalist: the dreamy, naïve, non-confrontational lunatic.

Her most controversial essay, however, is “The Case Against Babies.” She believes that contemporary society values babies more than they should, and that adoption is often looked upon as dreadful, a worst case scenario after all else fails. Her argument against babies does fall a bit flat, though. She spends too much time picking on the national obsession with babies and too little time expounding her view that it is becoming a burden on the earth's resources.

It should be kept in mind that all the while she makes these arguments, she is being incredibly sarcastic, witty, and confrontational (yes, even to the reader). She directly addresses the reader, saying “You don't believe in nature anymore. It's too isolated from you. You've abstracted it.” It is entertaining to have the finger poked at the person reading, but it gets weary after a few essays. Her humor and inflammatory tone make it bearable; she's pursues the animal rights issue with ardor, arguing that reform is “conservative” and that real radicals would deem eating animals morally unacceptable. This argument is also a bit lacking because she never attempts to delve into her philosophical justification for animal rights. It's taken as-is; she never reveals the suppositions on which her argument rests, leaving people who aren't convinced by her angry voice but want to learn more a bit dry.

The least inflammatory essay of the collection is “Why I Write,” and it is the most striking of the collection because Williams isn't holding her strident tone here, rather she makes the reader comfortable and allows him or her to relax after a dozen anger-fueled criticisms. Her writing shines here most of all, and it is regrettable that she didn't put the same (loving) passion into the rest of her work.

Nonetheless, this collection by Joy Williams is a must-have for any already converted environmentalists, and something that should be checked out by anyone who's been interested in it, but have always been turned off by the more...romantic proponents of the philosophy. Don't expect a deep philosophical treatise, but do expect to be entertained; do expect to learn more about this beautiful world we live in; and finally, do expect to laugh to keep from crying when you find out who is trying to destroy it.

To put pen to paper, to type over and over again whether at the typewriter or now, the computer, can be a risk: will the words make sense to the reader? Will I communicate effectively? Will I convey what I want to convey? Will there be any beauty, any urgency, any risk with the words? Joy Williams’ Ill Nature definitely takes risks. This book is sure to inspire, outrage, piss off, and enlighten its audience. In “The Case Against Babies,” Williams writes that there’s a “plague of babies.” Using irony, sarcasm, at times, plain facts about overpopulation, she ends this essay by writing, “And we all, in denial of this unwelcome vision, decided to slam the door and retreat to our toys and make babies—those heirs, those hopes, those products of our species’ selfishness, sentimentality, and global death wish.” Well! I actually concur, have been arguing this for years, but it’s certain to be an unpopular stance. At least five of my friends have just had babies. Are they behaving selfishly? Perhaps the family with five under the age of eight, and dreams of five more to come.

Other essays seem, however, almost trite in that we’ve heard these arguments over and over again. After awhile your brain shuts down. Consider: railing against eating shrimp, or any meat for that matter, flailing away against hunters, murder for sports’ sake. These, and other essays, make for a certain to be unpopular worldview, yet the problem with writing these essays is that we’ve heard this before: from PETA, from Green Peace, the Animal Liberation Front. These aren’t new arguments, these essays. So, does the book fail to deliver? On one hand, it’s explosive writing which rises above the usual environmental clap trap. On the other, been there, done that, know it all already. ( )