Green Issues

Had a good read this week with Patrick McCusker's Planet Dancing. It's the format that's interesting - as a series of short stories, it reads as though you are ploughing through a series of well structured blog rants that you you enjoy reading whilst waiting for the next slightly over descriptive tale or Irish American stereotype. You can tell the author is not of the blogging generation, but he has managed to capture the essence of getting the point across without using 200 odd pages to do it.

The short stories paint interesting pictures in your mind and I am sure that at least one will resonate with any reader. But you know, if I hear another reference to the first nation people's of north America I think I may be sick. In one he discusses names and by somehow linking names to nature we can return to our natural past, or at least the authors romanic view of the 'first people's of North America' natural past. Of course there is nothing wrong with myth and legend, but I am not sure we should base our hopes of future conservation on this romance.

There are also signs of some innocence by the author, for example, in another chapter the children of the world donate money to one of the worst symbols of environmental and social destruction, the United Nations.

If you think of it as a better presented collection of rants from blogs then you can count it as an interesting read with a strong ecological pictures.

Adrian Hollister Sept 2011.

Posted by Adrian Hollister