The author of several books of essays and the inspiration for the teacher in Dead Poets Sociey
offers another set of meandering journeys of imagination and discernment. A married professor (of English at the University of Connecticut) with family, he uses his representative experiences—grading papers, preparing a son to meet a prom date's parents, leading a charity auction—as essay subjects. But these affairs, however wryly recounted, are mainly springboards for forays to the imaginary town of Carthage, Tenn., where characters like Slubey Garts and Proverbs Goforth comment on life, and for intricate observations of the natural world. Through this blend of journal, flight of fancy and nature writing, Pickering sustains his thematic arc, which is the passage of seasons and, by extension, the passage of time. When he writes, "Efficiency does not matter in August" or "Snow glazed the ice, and willows shrank into switches," he offers tight phrases appropriate to his observational powers but more important, to his being of a certain age, at "the time of life when every death diminishes." Pickering has the natural essayist's intimate yet distanced take on the world that combines a devotion to particulars (like watermelon rind pickles or stems of goldenrod and joe-pye weed) with a near-indifference to the status- and achievement-mongering that marks modern life. Pickering's fans will find few surprises here; even the promise of the title is doubtful. Newcomers can sit back and enjoy Pickering's pixilated world. (Aug.)
