Tuan, Yi-Fu. 1993. Passing Strange and Wonderful. Washington, DC

Abstract

Tuan, Yi-Fu. 1993. Passing Strange and Wonderful. Washington, DC: Island Press, ISBN 1-55963-209-7, $25.00 cloth, 288 pp.Yi-Fu Tuan is professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. His vast work links together the landscape of nature with the landscape of the human mind. His thinking is philosophical its depth and his writing contains the flair of poetry. Perhaps the best known of Tuan's eight other books is Topophilia.Passing Strange and Wonderful, as the subtitle of the book reveals, is about aesthetics, nature, and culture. While Tuan does not ignore human folly, he does not dwell on the dark side of things--exploitation, greed, pollution--as many recent works on environment and society do. He summarizes, By contrast, the outlook presented here is predominantly sunny.Conventional research, such as that by Abraham Maslow, suggests that aesthetic experiences are sought only after more basic needs have been met. In this far-reaching book, Tuan advances the idea that beauty is essential to individual life and is the driving force and ultimate goal of culture.The pervasive role of the aesthetic is reflected by its root meaning of feeling and is suggested even more by its opposite, anesthetic, lack of feeling. Tuan reminds us, more attuned we are to the beauties of the world, the more we come to life and take joy it.Passing Strange and Wonderful is divided into five parts. The chapters of Part I lay foundation for the book. The aesthetic impulse is rooted nature (biology), but it is directed and colored by culture. The aesthetic mode is a mood, feeling, an emotion. However, it cannot take extreme forms like drowsy indolence or visceral states such as rage.Aestheticism, ultimately, is sophisticated response. It is cultivated posture toward life and the world. Tuan explains, Every society nurtures this impulse its young, encouraging it to grow scope, power, and subtlety. Of course, expressions of the aesthetic range widely from culture to culture. Less varying are the developmental stages of aesthetic competence and appreciation. Children, general, tend to dwell an expansive, timeless present. They are open to sensory delight and have an immense capacity for wonder. Preschoolers are enthralled by bright colors and things that sparkle, while older children begin to apprehend the world more fully and discriminately, discerning it subtleness and range of beauty, an expressiveness, an emotional and psychological depth that lie beyond the competence of the young child.Part II is titled Sensory Delights and the chapters consider the different human senses--smell, touch, taste, hearing, and sight--the building blocks of aesthetic experience. This section of the book is similar format and content to Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses.Tactile aesthetics contribute to the pleasures of being alive and to our sense of well-being, especially for children. Tuan laments that people are literally losing touch with nature. Although children still strive for intimate contact with the land, adults mostly enjoy nature by simply looking at it. The account of taste aesthetics includes discussion of Chinese cuisine and etiquette where harmony food is the desideratum, as it is others areas of Chinese life--extremes and excess are to be avoided. Next, Tuan explores the olfactory sense: Robbed of scent, life and the world become gray and passionless. He addresses fragrances nature, the countryside, and the city. In similar format, Tuan considers the sounds our lives. He provides relatively long discourse on music which in its exalted form, elevates the soul. The last chapter this part is about visual delight and splendor. Although good deal of territory is covered from composition and pattern to color, the section on ice is especially intriguing while revealing the broad scope of the book. …