Unseen City: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness
- Sep 27, 2021
- 2 min read
★★★★☆
Jon Mooallem, author of my previous read, Wild Ones, and Nathanael Johnson have a fair bit in common: Neither is a naturalist or scientist, both are highly curious, and both are fathers of three-year-old daughters through whose lens their respective books are framed. I expected that these two books would be cut from some of the same cloth; that’s precisely why I chose Unseen City as my next book. But I did not expect that both would use the same framing device to propel their narratives.
Perhaps Johnson had read Wild Ones and thought the father-daughter matchup would work for him, too. Or perhaps it’s a coincidence, that there was simply something in the air in the mid-2010s when these books were written: a reaction to, or rejection of, the hypersaturated, hyper-paced, go-go-go-go-go world we’d found ourselves in. So, when looking for reference points for slowing down, for living in the moment, for seeing things anew, it seems obvious that we might turn to children to relearn how to capture the sense of awe and wonder and presence that comes so naturally to them.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m all for fathers encouraging their daughters to get excited about something other than ballerinas or princesses—like endangered animals or underappreciated urban wildlife—but neither book actually needed it. And, as it happens, I don’t think it worked quite as well for Johnson throughout, even if it did provide the impetus for his project and gave him a tidy and heartwarming way to wrap things up.
As for Unseen City, it’s a little uneven. It’s ostensibly a guidebook, a how-to of sorts for becoming an amateur naturalist, but I found the conceit awkward and unnecessary. The chapters (on pigeons, weeds, turkey vultures, ants, gingko, snails, and more) are a combination of citizen science, interviews with experts, and references to other books. Though all of them were filled with interesting facts and tidbits, I found some to be more engaging and better written than others (the last chapter, on snails, was my favorite). Johnson wraps things up with a brief but moving conclusion about nature, how we see it, and how we (and the earth) might be better off if we didn’t see ourselves as separate from it. It’s a powerful observation made more powerful by its seeming obviousness: nature is all around us. It can be beautiful, awkward, annoying, and even destructive, but it’s there, and we’re part of it, if only we could (or would) stop and take notice. As Johnson concludes, “We might remember that before the land belonged to us, we belonged to it. We could belong again.”
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