Review: The Anthropocene Reviewed
A meta analysis of a deep dive into the human experience
The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
John Green
294 pages - 2021 - nonfiction, essays
March 15th, 2024 — March 21st, 2024
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Personally, I think the idea for this book is perfect, for both the author and the reader. A collection of essays where the writer gets to talk about things that they love, hate, mildly like, mildly dislike… it can be as broad or as niche as they want. One essay in the book is about sunsets; another is about Jerzy Dudek’s performance on May 25th, 2005. Those two essays are back-to-back with each other, and both are insightful, informative, and fun to read.
For the reader, too, this book is perfect, because it opens up a dialogue. John Green says that teddy bears get a rating of two and a half stars, and despite his evidence, people (including me) might have feelings about that score. It leads to the reader feeling almost as if they are a part of this book, because they can then bring their own experiences to the topic of the essay, from velociraptors to Super Mario Kart to the Internet.
I was a fan of the podcast that later became this book, albeit after the podcast had ended and the book was already published. I have a pretty vivid memory of my partner at the time telling me that his favorite episode was about the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, a bird that is now extinct and was the last species of its entire family. When I reached that episode in my feed, we listened to it together, and he was brought to tears by the story. I, too, cried at the episode on “Auld Lang Syne”, and now I get misty whenever I hear the song.
The book, while it has many of the same essays that were read on his podcast, feels different. When we read (or at least when I read), we’re hearing the voice in our head. Listening to the podcast, we’re hearing John’s words himself. I think, while those two experiences can be very different, this book is successful because his emotion still comes through in the printed words. He weaves personal anecdotes with beautiful quotes and wider musings on the human experience, and they form a tapestry that I loved poring over.
The concept for this collection of essays also works so well because it is common among anyone who reads it. I think, truly, that the only thing every single person on Earth has in common is that we are human beings. There are over eight billion of us roaming around every corner of the globe. The essays in this book can explore things that many people have not and maybe will not experience, like (hopefully) viral meningitis or the hot dogs of Baejarins Beztu Pylsur in Iceland. But we can put ourselves into the mind of someone experiencing these topics, as well as imagine what it would be like to experience them ourselves.
Some essays, however, like the ones on sunsets or our capacity for wonder, are (nearly) universal human experiences. They are things that can be admired by anyone anywhere, which are very difficult to find. And, sure, maybe there’s someone who claims that they hate sunsets or don’t think that human beings have a capacity for wonder, but I think they would be incredibly hard to find. And even then, they can read these essays and formulate their own responses to them.
In reading this collection, I found myself tearing up at a few of the essays, including the ones on humanity’s temporal range and Googling strangers. The first time I teared up, though, was the introduction. John Green has a tight grasp on human emotions and how to evoke them. In the introduction, Green speaks about Maurice Sendak’s interview on NPR’s Fresh Air. He ends the introduction with a quote from that episode:
Sendak ended that interview with the last words he ever said in public: “Live your life. Live your life. Live your life.”
Here is my attempt to do so.
Green wrote this book throughout the pandemic, exploring many facets of life that changed. He often talks about the terror and anxiety he felt, not just then, but also how it was exacerbated immensely by the events of 2020 and onward. When the pandemic struck, I was a freshman in college. I had just started getting the hang of it, just started making friends, and I finally could spend a weekend or two without feeling homesickness so intense that it was a physical sensation.
And then we were sent home for spring break, and then we were told to not come back for a few weeks, and then we were told not to come back at all. It is a common story, but it is also one that is so individualized. The fear that we all felt was shared among nearly everyone, but we could not really share it from so far apart, in isolation.
I do not remember much of 2020, mostly because of the fear and anxiety. I know at some point I started latch hooking a carpet; I watched at least three television shows in their entirety, but I do not remember which ones; I barely read, because for the first time, reading brought me to places where I did not want to go. There was something chilling about reading stories where friends had dinner parties or meet-cutes happened or adventures across foreign lands occurred. Mostly I just remember crying.
But with 2020 came a few good things as well. That is not to minimize the despair, racism, violence, fear, terror, pain that anyone felt; it was a horrible time, and still we are dealing with the aftershocks in nearly every aspect of life and society. I think, though, that focusing solely on that part, the negative part—while it definitely looms larger over the entire narrative—is diminishing to the experience.
I also got to spend more time with my family. We played cornhole in our backyard and watched old movies and did puzzles together. I played “Animal Crossing”, which offered social interaction in a wonderful, idealized world with kind, anthropomorphic animal neighbors and real live people across the globe dressed in silly outfits. I could “pass notes” in Zoom classes with friends by private messaging them. I think there are few greater joys in life than sending a message to a friend while on video calls and then seeing them smile a few moments later.
I tried my best to focus on those good things. I did not forget all the bad—how could I? A disease shut the world down, our government did not do much to assuage our fears or quell the virus, and that’s not to mention the police brutality, racism, classism… I recognize that it is a huge privilege to be able to hold that in my mind and also go about my day, think about good things, and not constantly fear for my personal safety.
I started keeping journals and notes of little things that made me smile throughout the day. Maybe I saw a ladybug or heard a bird call outside that I really liked. Maybe I got a good grade on an exam or paper that I had turned in. Maybe the sunset was beautiful, or I won a game of dominoes, or I found a cool leaf on the ground during one of my precious walks around the neighborhood.
I started to recognize all of the good things that surrounded me. They did not minimize or distract from the bad; far from it. But they helped me reach a point where I could think about both, the good and the bad, and not feel myself spiraling. I felt in control for the first time in a long time.
I think that is what The Anthropocene Reviewed is at its core. Some of the essays are about unequivocally bad things, like the plague, but they still examine those things to the fullest. The Black Death killed hundreds of thousands of people in a time when disease was not understood; it must have been devastatingly horrid. But he still examines the story of people praying together in Damascus, people of all faiths and ages. Green says, “…we see in this account that crisis does not always bring out the cruelty within us. It can also push us toward sharing our pains and hopes and prayers, and treating each other as equally human.”
The essay on our capacity for wonder is at its core a plea for readers to stop and look at the little things. There’s a beautiful moment when Green wants his son, then two, to look at the gorgeous landscape in front of them, and his son instead is excited about a single brown oak leaf in the tree right next to them. It’s a reminder that beauty can be found everywhere, even—and especially in—the mundane.
There are many things I could write essays on—”Jeopardy!”, a Taylor ham, egg, and cheese sandwich, La Sagrada Familia, the sound of dogs eating watermelon. We, as people, love intensely. I think it’s fascinating that everyone in the world has their own niche set of interests. This book is such a beautiful look into the introspection of John Green, as well as an examination of the human condition.
I am a chemist, and yet it still boggles me that I am made of atoms. Everything is made of atoms; I can believe that, somehow, although I can’t think about it for too long. But the idea that I am made of atoms, for some reason, is unfathomable. Maybe it’s because that means that these atoms are sentient and having an existential crisis, which is true whether or not I can believe it. Maybe it’s because it feels so entirely unreal, but, when you stop and think about it, doesn’t everything? The idea of us being alive at the same time is next to impossible statistically and yet, here we are.
I love being made of atoms, though. It feels so mundane, but also so ethereal. I am made of the same things as the computer on which I am typing, the books that I have read, the clothes I wear. I’m made of the same things as dirt and air. But I’m also made of the same things as the stars. My atoms have been here, in this universe, since the beginning, and they will be there until the end; we are immortal in the purest sense. And I want to study that! These atoms congealed and became a chemist, studying themselves. (That makes it sound very narcissistic.)
John Green ends the book with a sentence that perfectly captures how I feel about this. He says that Hank, his brother, often reminds him of this idea, that everything on this Earth is just made of Earth, too. The book ends with John saying:
What an astonishment to breathe on this breathing planet. What a blessing to be Earth loving Earth.
And it truly is. Being alive right now is terrifying, sure, but it is also thrilling. Because of all these little things, I am falling in love with life.
I give The Anthropocene Reviewed four and a half stars.