Friend of Save the Sound, Patrick Paul Barrett, read books with environmental themes over the summer and is sharing his reviews in this blog series to help you find your next favorite beach read!
Book Review 1: The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka
I am lost for words. But not because I hated what I just read. It’s the complete opposite. This is, beyond a doubt, the best book I have read all the year of any kind. But there is the trouble. Masanobu Fukuoka’s The One-Straw Revolution (1975) speaks for itself with such force and clarity that to review it almost seems insulting. The author has expressed himself and his views so well, what more can the critic add? But nonetheless, I will try.
What is The One-Straw Revolution? It is labeled as ecology and filed under the nature writing section in bookstores, but that isn’t all it is. It is an environmental manifesto and farming guide, with a heavy dose of philosophy and non-religious spiritualism, all rendered with the finesse of an author who dares to challenge conventional wisdom and the reader’s views. In the span of 184 pages and five parts, Fukuoka lays out his argument. In part one (“the introductory paragraph”, so to speak) he relates his early years and how he came to establish his philosophy and find his calling. Part two is the guide to the natural or “Do-Nothing Farming” (the term makes sense in context) system he pioneered. Part three deals with eco social and political challenges in Japan in regard to everything from the end of pesticides to how to sell produce. Part four deals with diet and how and why to create a diet that is in tune with the seasons. Part five is where the philosophy that has been half hidden in the background comes to a full boil and ties everything together.
I will say I did not agree with all of it. But there was never one page where I was not intellectually stimulated and provoked in someway. Some quotes from the book that stuck with me:
- “Before researchers become researchers they should become philosophers. They should consider what the human goal is, what it is that humanity should create.”
- “Extravagance of desire is the fundamental cause which has led the world into its present predicament.”
- “To break experience in half and call one side physical and the other spiritual is narrowing and confusing.”
- “The more people do, the more society develops, the more problems arise.”
If I had to sum up Fukuoka’s views succinctly, they are best expressed by the title of a chapter in part three: “Simply Serve Nature and All is Well”. A simple statement with a web of complexity contained in it that forces even the most jaded and fixed to reassess their values.
The One-Straw Revolution made me want to examine my way of living in and thinking about the world and I hope it will make every reader do the same no matter what their conclusions are.
Recommended for: EVERYONE