Meaning of several mysterious sentences

Question

The passage below is from Fathoms: The World in the Whale Hardcover by Rebecca Giggs.(In antiquity, people corresponded with spirits that took animate form, spirits that came from other realms and dictated moral lessons.)...What is at the heart of an animal, governing its behaviour, may reveal itself in time not to be a compelling mystery, but instead, a shameful familiarity: the rubble of the marketplace (still displaying its trademarks), or the polluted air. Our fear is that the unseen spirits that move in them are ours. Once more, animals are a moral force. We look to wild animals to see the history of our material intimacy with remote places, and the outer edge of our compassion. We look to animals, too, to see how we might survive the world to come; and how to cohabit with other creatures there. In the first, the author says the moving force of animal’s behaviour may reveal itself to become known, but however it may turn out, this will reveal human’s shameful environmental destruction, which is not unprecedented such as devastated marketplace still showing its signboards.Do I read right?In the second, it can be described based on the parenthesized sentence.Humans fear is that the unseen spirits that move in them(=animals) are ours(=our spirits).Am I right?The third sentence is clear.The fourth is the hardest part.I think I don’t understand the meaning of ‘our material intimacy with remote places’ and ‘the outer edge of our compassion’.Here’s my rough guess on ‘our material intimacy with remote places’.We need to look at wild animals to find out the history of our material intimacy with remote places, that is, to find out our past trace of pollution.Even if my guess is right, I still don’t know what ‘our material intimacy with remote places’. ‘Material intimacy’ seems to suggest human consumerism, but I don’t get what ‘remote places’ is doing in this context.Here’s my another rough guess on ‘the outer edge of our compassion’.Does ‘the outer edge’ in this context mean the greatly harmed realm out of our reach of compassion toward the wild?The last sentence is clear.That’s all. Sorry to bother, but thanks.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Stenka25In the first, the author says the moving force of animal’s behaviour may reveal itself to become known, but however it may turn out, this will reveal human’s shameful environmental destruction, which is not unprecedented such as devastated marketplace still showing its signboards.Do I read right?

There are composers, quite a few, who seem to think that dissonance equals profundity. There are writers who seem to think that inscrutability equals profundity. She takes a simple idea and worries it like a bear, spattering the page with random words because expressed plainly, you or I could have thought of it. I would say she writes in code, but a code has to be self-consistent and clear in the end.

I am sure you get the gist. In fact, I'll bet you've summarized the book. But I think her idea here is simpler than that. She is saying that perhaps the whale beached itself because it was ill from swallowing our floating trash (the rubble of the marketplace), and she tossed in global warming (the polluted air) for good measure. I guess this is what passes for science these days.

Stenka25Humans fear is that the unseen spirits that move in them(=animals) are ours(=our spirits).Am I right?

Right.

Stenka25The fourth is the hardest part.

That's funny, this is the only part I liked.

Stenka25Here’s my rough guess on ‘our material intimacy with remote places’.We need to look at wild animals to find out the history of our material intimacy with remote places, that is, to find out our past trace of pollution.Even if my guess is right, I still don’t know what ‘our material intimacy with remote places’. ‘Material intimacy’ seems to suggest human consumerism, but I don’t get what ‘remote places’ is doing in this context.

I hope you are aware that it is not your job as the reader to guess. It was her job as the writer to communicate.

Yes, she means pollution. I further took her to mean that we sit in our human dwellings, and all the while far away out in the wilderness that we have touched, the animals live their little lives, and it is only through them that we can connect with the wild as it has become. Both we and they are material. Their intimacy with the planet can be ours in some way, and we can read the planet in them.

Stenka25Here’s my another rough guess on ‘the outer edge of our compassion’.Does ‘the outer edge’ in this context mean the greatly harmed realm out of our reach of compassion toward the wild?

In this phrase, she seems to take a break from eco-preaching and speaks only of our relationship with the natural world. We properly feel compassion for other people. This is the core. We also feel it toward animals, but that is the outer edge. We may be saddened by the dying whale, but that sadness is as nothing compared to what we would feel if it were a human we cared about.

Meaning of several mysterious sentences

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions