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Covering almost 8 percent of the earth's terrain, lichens are living beings which are familiar to everyone, known to no one. They are one of those organisms that seem to offer nothing to hold our gaze. But the more time we spend with lichens, the more they reveal their beauty, their mysteries and their strange power of attraction. Part-algae and part-fungus, lichens call into question our customary ways of classifying forms of life, and allow us to conceive of an ecology that is no longer based on distinctions between nature and culture, urban and rural, competition and cooperation.
The result of several years of investigation carried out on several different continents, this remarkable book offers an original, radical, and, like its subject matter, symbiotic reflection on this common but mostly invisible form of life, blending cultures and disciplines, drawing on biology, ecology, philosophy, literature, poetry, even graphic art. What if lichens were at the heart of some of the most pressing and topical questions of our day? Does the fact that they can live everywhere, even in very harsh environments, that they persist when almost all other traces of life have disappeared, mean that, despite their fragility, lichens are a force of resistance?
After reading this book you will never see lichens, or the world, in the same way again.
List of contents
Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Preface by Emanuele Coccia xiv
Part 1
First Contacts 1
Origins 1
Winters 2
Weeds 3
A Scientific Challenge: Remaining or Rising in the Ranks 12
Customs and Beliefs 22
Lichen Erotics 34
Part 2
To Describe, Name, Represent 45
A Challenge to Representation 45
Music = Mushroom 72
The Far East, Mosses, and Wabi-Sabi 77
Part 3
Ecopoetics: Life Force and Resistance 91
Ruderal 91
Rousseauist Walks 92
Sentinel Species 108
"Lichens of sunlight and mucus of azure" 112
"Sbarbarian" Glowworm 116
Ecological Forewarnings 124
Fragility, Resistance 132
Contemporary "Poethics" 134
"Insurrection of the Humble" 156
Micro-habitats 166
Part 4
Toward a Symbiotic Way of Thought 173
The Politics of Lichen: at the Origins of Symbiosis 175
Chimeras, Vampires, and Other Common Monsters 192
A "Third Place" 197
Cohabitation 210
Envoi: Sporules 215
Notes 220
Index of Names 255
Index of Lichens 260
About the author
Vincent Zonca is a researcher and writer who is currently living in Canada.
Summary
Covering almost 8 percent of the earth's terrain, lichens are living beings which are familiar to everyone, known to no one. They are one of those organisms that seem to offer nothing to hold our gaze. But the more time we spend with lichens, the more they reveal their beauty, their mysteries and their strange power of attraction. Part-algae and part-fungus, lichens call into question our customary ways of classifying forms of life, and allow us to conceive of an ecology that is no longer based on distinctions between nature and culture, urban and rural, competition and cooperation.
The result of several years of investigation carried out on several different continents, this remarkable book offers an original, radical, and, like its subject matter, symbiotic reflection on this common but mostly invisible form of life, blending cultures and disciplines, drawing on biology, ecology, philosophy, literature, poetry, even graphic art. What if lichens were at the heart of some of the most pressing and topical questions of our day? Does the fact that they can live everywhere, even in very harsh environments, that they persist when almost all other traces of life have disappeared, mean that, despite their fragility, lichens are a force of resistance?
After reading this book you will never see lichens, or the world, in the same way again.
Report
"Vincent Zonca has compiled a veritable pot-pourri of sympoietic intimacies. These crinkled expressions of desire and despair creep, slowly and unobtrusively, across every page, even as they breathe the air. Never has a work of literature more closely resembled its subject matter, inspiring wonder in equal measure. Welcome to the world of lichens!"
--Tim Ingold, University of Aberdeen
"[L]yrically-written. . . . there's something new and sparkling every few pages"
--Leonardo Reviews
