This week, my mind has been akin to The Heart Of Darkness, the book which was made into the intrepid Apocolypse Now. Evidently in conjunction with the movie (which was filmed by the director's wife) there was an equally challenging documentary made to express what an arduous journey Copola signed on to create. I'd like to see it soon, but until then, I settled down to a diet of nightly reading for my english class. It was a fairly short novel and when it was completed yesterday, we were asked to examine the three stations (the upper, middle and lower) that Marlow passes on his sojurn through the Congo. Through quotes or art or descriptions we were asked to explain what effect each level of darkness had on characters.
This book tightened its grip on me, because it had a strong emphasis on the wilderness as a source for the fascination with the abomination. Marlow is magnetized to the wild and unimaginable forest.
He's told to approach cautiously. He's warned against its evils by company managers and accountants at its edge. And so he views it as a place "where pure, uncomplicated savagery (is) a positive relief," where amphibians and the unconcievable are superb reflections of the bush. Dark.
Joseph Conrad, as is the case of Kurtz (the mad ivoryman), reproaches this forest wonderland. It's far too primal for either European.
"...the wilderness has found (Kurtz) out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered on him things about himself which he did not know." This simply cements the essence of my belief in such a prehistoric necessity as wilderness (though the description is of Africa, not the Montana wildernesses I've journeyed).
But at dinner tonight as I explained this scenerio to my Pa, he defended the wilderness. He said that Conrad reflected the belief of the time. And today in 2008 the wilderness, for many Americans, represents the control variable for the human experiment; a place that exists, for the most part, with little interference from government (except for fire and legal protection and expansion), from individuals (with the exception of private hikers and horse packers) or from business interests (except minimal outfitters). It exists for the dauntingly pure experience of nature.
Anyways, my Pa is a grant-writer for a group called Wilderness Watch in Missoula, Montana, which I suppose gives me some basic insight into what the proper stewarship of public lands should look like. This relationship, coupled with a few sojourns into the Rattlesnake, Scapegoat and Bob Marshall Wildernesses, has been all I have needed to get my mind around their necessity. (In upcoming posts, I will expand on this, and hopefully come to explain why I'm so interested in the Wilderness Institute at the University of Montana.)
Wilderness Watch is one of the few interest groups that chooses to take on the mighty task of overseeing judicial actions regarding existing American wildernesses, rather than focusing on their expansions. What a very real opportunity to support something larger than human beings; Wilderness.
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