Today I finished Anthill by E.O. Wilson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of twenty books, and a professor at Harvard. If you're a fan of novels about Southerners, nature, and the clash between the two, this is the read for you. Unless you're a woman, did not have the benefit of higher education, and/or expect very intelligent writers to write with empathy and clear insight into a variety of human beings. Then, my friend, you are SOL.
This is a coming of age novel about a naturalist, probably based mostly on the author's own life, and a patch of wilderness he becomes determined to protect. The writing is as expected from a Harvard professor: very smart, but approachable. The chapters about the disputed property and what goes on there are stellar and would fit into any nonfiction book about conservation, its importance, and why we all need to preserve unique pockets of nature. I lived for those chapters.
Now we get to the rest of the story. As my grandmother would say, and Jesus wept.
First, I'll tell you why I only rarely create characters who are writers. It's very tough to write a character who does what you love and not make them (and, by extension, yourself) into a Mary Sue. Even when I was trying to make Emma and Olivia from Ghost Writer into real writers, I found myself glossing over their flaws and over-inflating their positive attributes. Why? Because on some level I felt they were both representing me. Maybe we all want to be the heroes in our stories.
E.O. Wilson showed no such restraint. The protagonist is a superhero, highly intelligent, exceedingly clever, and has zero flaws. I mean it: No. Flaws. He's relentlessly brilliant while in pursuit of his goal, and what he does to achieve it. Even when the character missteps, someone else is slapped with the blame. Result: the protagonist is the Queen Mother of all Mary Sues.
The author, who grew up in Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, has zero love for Southerners. This is tediously illustrated by all the negative stereotypical characters in the book. The few who are shown to be admirable (two) whole-heartedly support the author's beliefs. The rest are ignorant, proselytizing rednecks.
I understand how that happens. I come from a long line of people the author would consider trailer park white trash Catholics. It would be easy to sneer at my family. Yet I have great respect for them and the lifelong struggles to overcome poverty some have endured. I don't share their beliefs, but I would never ridicule them for holding onto their faith. I am glad I found my own way, but that doesn’t make me superior to them. We simply walk different paths.
More importantly I have worked in various sectors of Southern business, and you cannot paint red the necks of everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line. If you do, like Mr. Wilson, you're the ignorant one. We have many different types of people in this part of the country -- yes, many descended from the old South, but also the offpsring of Northerners and Midwesterners and West Coasters who relocated here. My last boss was from New Jersey (so is my guy). My own family hails from Maryland.
There are countless other ethnic groups who came here over the centuries, and whose people have had a positive effect on the South without being absorbed by it. Cubans, for example, are a huge community in Southern Florida, and none of them have turned into rednecks. In the panhandle I worked with the first generation of Americans whose parents fled the war in Vietnam, and they have their own culture. Being born in the South does not automatically hang the stars and bars over one's mantel.
The author's hatred for people of the South is also directed with particular vicious contempt for every female character in the book, regardless of her role. Aka all women are evil, conniving, greedy snakes. Again! I should introduce this guy to James S.A. Corey. Finally, the wrap-up of the book is so ludicrous I almost threw it across the room. It challenges Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain for the #1 spot on my epic stupid endings list.
So, to save your walls from damage, I cannot recommend Anthill by E.O. Wilson. Off to the Friends of the Library it goes.
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