海角大神

American naturalist Aldo Leopold is best known for 鈥淎 Sand County Almanac,鈥� a book that achieved a success Leopold didn鈥檛 live to enjoy. Oxford University Press accepted the collection of nature essays in April of 1948, but Leopold died unexpectedly of a heart attack a week later while helping put out a grass fire on his neighbor鈥檚 rural Wisconsin farm.

Based on Leopold鈥檚 experiences restoring his own Wisconsin farm to ecological health, 鈥淎 Sand County Almanac鈥� has sold more than 2 million copies in 10 languages. In one of the more affecting scenes in 鈥淕reen Fire,鈥� a 2011 documentary about Leopold鈥檚 life, the author鈥檚 fans can be seen clutching worn paperback editions of his master work. The tattered volumes suggest that many of Leopold鈥檚 admirers take his prose along with them on hikes and camping trips, enjoying his reflections on the outdoors under the open sky that Leopold claimed as his private cathedral.

The Library of America鈥檚 new edition, Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Conservation and Ecology, is a beautiful book, as all LOA editions are, but one can鈥檛 easily imagine throwing it in a knapsack. The book follows the LOA tradition of exquisite binding and acid-free paper, with a ribbon bookmark stitched into the spine, and the reader feels as if he鈥檚 holding a church hymnal. I felt the same way about reading this new Library of America version of Leopold as I did when I got the LOA鈥檚 Henry David Thoreau collection. There鈥檚 pleasure, of course, in seeing an American literary original inducted into the LOA鈥檚 canon 鈥� the closest thing in our national culture to a literary hall of fame. 聽But there鈥檚 a fear, too, that any personality bound up in the LOA鈥檚 reverentially executed series will seem embalmed.

It鈥檚 a concern that LOA鈥檚 staff appeared 聽to anticipate in the design of this new book, which forgoes the signature black LOA dust jacket 鈥� its in-house equivalent of a sensible shoe 鈥� in favor of a cover brightened by a photograph of ducks flying across an azure lake. A red, white, and blue ribbon underlines Leopold鈥檚 name on the cover 鈥� a not-so-subtle reminder that Leopold鈥檚 brand of patriotism had a love of the North American landscape at its center.

Born in Burlington, Iowa in 1887, Leopold expressed an early and prescient concern about the implications of development on the national ecology. As one of the first agents for the fledgling US Forest Service, he served in the Southwest, where he joined in the widespread slaughter of wolves that were considered pests. But after shooting into a wolf pack and killing the mother of the den, Leopold had an epiphany, concluding that such ham-fisted efforts to shape the natural world to man鈥檚 immediate needs would reap disastrous consequences.聽 That change of heart, documented in a chapter of the 鈥淎 Sand County Almanac鈥� called 鈥淭hinking Like A Mountain,鈥� has a distinctly mystical air: 鈥淲e reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes.... I was young, then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters鈥� paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the deer nor the mountain agreed with such a view.鈥�

Leopold鈥檚 use of natural observation to yield cosmic insight places him in the transcendental tradition of Thoreau, a comparison deepened by the thematic similarities between 鈥淎 Sand County Almanac鈥� and 鈥淲alden.鈥� Like Thoreau鈥檚 famous narrative, "A Sand County Almanac鈥� organizes its first chapters around four seasons in a wooded landscape, although Leopold, a trained scientist, places more emphasis on a specific program of conservation.

Leopold鈥檚 life straddled the 19th and 20th centuries, making him a bridge between seminal naturalists such as Thoreau and John Muir and modern commentators on the natural world such as Wendell Berry and Scott Russell Sanders. Leopold鈥檚 writing can seem antiquarian to contemporary ears; he was fond of quaint constructions such as 鈥渁bed,鈥� and he would sometimes refer to a companion as a 鈥渇ellow.鈥� Even so, many of his remarks sound as topical as the morning headlines. That鈥檚 especially true of 鈥淎 Criticism of the Booster Spirit,鈥� in which Leopold notes that the 鈥渦p-and-comingness of a town varies directly as the congestion of its billboards, luncheon clubs, and traffic, and inversely as its parking space.鈥� 聽That observation still bites today, although Leopold coined it in 1923.

Leopold鈥檚 鈥淏ooster鈥� essay is among numerous writings that volume editor Curt Meine has included to supplement 鈥淎 Sand County Almanac.鈥� Meine is diligently inclusive; a letter from Leopold to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the organization of the US Forest Service bureaucracy, for example, will probably be of interest only to scholars. But there鈥檚 enough here to delight Leopold鈥檚 existing fans and perhaps attract some new ones.

鈥淭o band a bird is to hold a ticket in a great lottery,鈥� Leopold writes near the end of "A Sand County Almanac.鈥� 鈥淢ost of us hold tickets on our own survival, but we buy them from the insurance company, which knows too much to sell us a really sporting chance. It is an exercise in objectivity to hold a ticket on the banded sparrow that falleth, or on the banded chickadee that may some day re-enter your trap, and thus prove that he is still alive.鈥澛�

Danny Heitman, an author and a columnist for The Baton Rouge Advocate, is an adjunct professor at LSU鈥檚 Manship School of Mass Communication.