Animating the Forest

An "Ent" as depicted in the Lord of the Rings film series.

There are a couple of lingering topics from my week at Andrews Forest, and I want to return to one of them today.

During a follow up conversation with Frederick J. Swanson, one of the coordinators of the Long Term Ecological Reflections project at Andrews, he expressed interest in knowing more about ‘what I had to let go of’ when trying to consider the forest from a writer’s perspective, having been trained for so long to approach the forest as a scientist.

I’d say the most difficult impulse for me to follow – to put my faith in, so to speak -- was the desire to anthropomorphize the creatures around me, to animate them with human qualities.

It is very common for story tellers (and humans in general) to anthropomorphize animals and other non-human creatures. Walt Disney’s The Lion King, for example, imposes a human social structure and human behavior on lions and their cohorts in the grasslands of Africa, so that what appears to be a story about lions is, in fact, a story about humans dressed up as lions.

Disney, of course, does this with a lot of films; but I chose The Lion King is an example because the first animal social structure I learned about when I began my study of behavioral biology was in fact the lions.

Lions live in matriarchal prides, where territory is shared among sisters and passed from mothers to daughters. Males leave the pride when they reach reproductive age and live alone or in small groups (usually pairs of brothers) until they are able to challenge and replace the reproductive male of another pride. Upon ‘taking over’ a pride, a new male kills all the cubs in that pride, causing the females to enter their reproductive cycle earlier than they would have otherwise. The new male then has about two or three years to sire as many cubs as he can (and see them safely to maturity) before he, in turn, is booted out by a younger, healthier rival, who will then proceed to kill all the cubs that his predecessor sired.

Not the stuff of Disney movies, I suppose. But it was through the lions that I first realized most animals interact with each other in ways that are difficult to understand if measured by a human world view. We must use other tools – in this case, evolutionary theory – to make sense of their behavior.

The danger, for a scientist, of anthropomorphizing is that the moment we dress up another species with human qualities, we handicap our capacity to understand them on their own terms. So as a biologist, I have for years coached myself – and all my students – away from the habit of anthropomorphizing. (I might add that this is also the approach that the Magas and Mages of Eolyn’s world take; they do not impose human qualities on the plants and animals with which they interact; nor do I as the author.)

While I was in Andrews, whenever I found myself wanting to give voice and personality to the trees and other creatures, my first instinct was to back away. But this instinct ran contrary to the number one rule of any creative writer, which is not to censor yourself. In order to honor me-the-writer, I occasionally had to let go of me-the-scientist.

Anthropomorphizing may be treacherous ground for an ecologist, but it can be a powerful tool for the story teller. If used well in the attempt to relate something as complex as the experience of walking through a forest, the occasional anthropomorphic creature allows the reader a familiar thread that can help carry him or her through otherwise unknown territory. How many children, for example, came to love lions because of The Lion King? And would they have been so quick in their affection for this imposing predator, if the first thing they had learned about it was the customary massacre of all those sweet and playful cubs every time a new male takes over a pride?

While I appreciate the benefits of anthropomorphizing, something inside me cringes every time I see a movie – or read a story – where animals think, talk and act like humans. In my own work as a writer I try to avoid this, seeking a balance between making the creatures of Eolyn’s world accessible while respecting their fundamental non-human qualities.

An "Ent" of Andrews Forest

One of my favorite examples of a skillful anthropomorphism in fantasy is J.R.R. Tolkien’s Ents, the tree shepherds, which are essentially anthropomorphized trees. Tolkien allows Ents to wander through the forest, speak with hobbits, and even go to war. He hints at a loose social structure and the one-time existence of Ent-Wives.  Ent-Wives are very cool; they are credited with having taught the people of Middle Earth much about agriculture.  Nonetheless, a 'wife' is a kind of pointless concept for real trees, most of which have both male and female reproductive parts, and because the offspring take care of themselves, there’s no need for the pair bonding we tend to see in animals.

Despite all these human-like qualities, Ents never lose their essential tree-ness. I think that’s part of what gives Ents their immortality in our imagination, and why every time I enter a forest, I half expect to see one – whether I’m thinking like a scientist or not.



This is part of a series of reflections based on my experiences as a writer-in-residence at Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon.  If you'd like to read more about my week-long stay at Andrews, check out the links under "Spring 2011 Residency at Andrew Forest" on the right-hand bar. 

Women, Epic Fantasy and George RR Martin

Who'd've thought -- just days after my celebration over the positive review for EOLYN from Publishers Weekly, I find my hackles raised over a rather scathing commentary on the life's work of one of my heroes, George RR Martin.

The New York Times published its review of HBO’s new miniseries A Game of Thrones this week. The HBO production is based on the first book of George RR Martin’s classic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.

The review, written by Ginia Bellafante, is more than a little acerbic.  She criticizes not only the HBO series, but Martin’s work and epic fantasy in general, lumping all of it into a single category of “boy fiction” that would never appeal to any self-respecting, well-read woman. From her review:

'While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first.'

Now, I haven’t seen the TV series yet (HBO will premier its rendition of A Game of Thrones tomorrow evening), so I can’t speak to whether the HBO’s interpretation of Martin’s work will leave me similarly indignant. But I am one of those “women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s”, and I must take issue with the statement that his work, and especially Tolkien’s work, is anything less than marvelous – and certainly, The Hobbit is well worth reading before picking up the latest from Lorrie Moore. (Who may be an excellent author, but frankly I had to google Moore’s name after reading Bellafante's review because I’d never heard of her…)

That’s not to say I am insensitive the relative absence of female characters in Tokien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. In fact, back when I first read Tolkien’s work, it was the perception that women didn’t have much of a place in the sagas of Middle Earth that planted one of the first seeds for my own novel Eolyn. (I talked about this a few months back in my post “Why Eolyn?” ) But that does not make Tolkien’s work any less engaging, or his prose any less powerful.

I have been reminded lately of the immortal quality of Tolkien’s words by listening to the audio book Children of Hurin, part of his unfinished tales. The appeal of Tolkien's stories isn’t just about orcs and elves and dwarves (though I find all of those elements very appealing). It’s the eloquence of his prose that captures this reader’s attention; the vivid imagery, the heartbreaking and very human conflicts, the ability to paint complex characters (male and female) with a few master strokes. As good as Moore or any other author of contemporary fiction may be, when predicting whose name will be more widely recognized fifty or a hundred years down the road, I am still putting my money on Tolkien.

Martin in A Song of Ice and Fire, unlike Tolkien in Lord of the Rings, does have female characters that play formidable roles throughout the first three books of the series. (I haven’t gotten to book four yet; and book five is slated for release sometime this summer.) To be fair, the women in Martin's world are still outnumbered by the men. But they are very important and very vivid. The eight-year-old daughter of Eddard Stark, Arya, is quite possibly one of the best female characters I’ve read in any genre.

Many of Martin’s female characters have qualities I don’t like; but then again, so do many of the male characters. They are all complex and flawed, all deeply steeped in the social structure of their world, driven by events and motivations often they themselves don’t understand.

The society Martin developed to write his tale of the Seven Kingdoms is among the most elaborate and well-crafted I have come across in all my years of reading. His work is not, as Bellafante claims, “boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half”.  It is story telling at its very best.


To read more about how George RR Martin inspired me during the writing of EOLYN, please visit the May 30, 2010 post "My Brush with Greatness".