Hungry Hollow by A. K. Dewdney, Copernicus/Springer-Verlag, £14.50,
$26, ISBN 0387984151
HUMAN activity poses a huge threat to our natural environment. As a confirmed
“eco-worrier”, I spend quite a lot of time getting stressed out about it. (Even
to the extent of sometimes climbing trees in protest, although I’d better not
make too much mileage out of that in case someone expects me to do it again). So
it is refreshing to shelve such big concerns and voyage with A. K. Dewdney to
one small natural place, Hungry Hollow. Dewdney is a computer scientist
and mathematician, but also a biologist and field naturalist.
In his book Dewdney’s hollow is tiny: only half a kilometre of North American
riverbank. Here you’ll find a few assorted trees, a possum, a raccoon, a
snapping turtle and a (fictional) visiting naturalist, Dianne. But as soon
becomes apparent, there is much, much more living there.
In amazing and intricate detail, Dewdney explores “the astonishing variety of
life”, within the trees, below their roots, under the surface of the creek,
using formal biological classifications and complex scientific processes
throughout—always in an understandable manner.
As the focus gets smaller, the notional Hungry Hollow becomes larger. The
bottom of Hungry Creek is seen as a Serengeti Plain, teeming with fascinating
one-celled things, green and gold sparkling diatoms and alien-like sea monster
hypotrichs, “locked into acts of savagery and appetite”. Pond slime will never
look the same to me again.
As Dianne watches, and Dewdney discusses, more and more types of life, a
picture of biodiversity unfolds. Although, the book points out that there is no
agreed definition of biodiversity, surely it is this wild mix of interdependent
life forms. Here, at last, is a novel approach that helps you to grasp that
decay is life, for the fungi and bacteria that recycle dying forms.
I found that Dewdney’s scientific precision makes the picture the more
compelling. While Lotor, a raccoon, takes centre stage in the story, the author
avoids anthropomorphism by giving credible interpretations of how a raccoon
shows emotion, imagination and planning.
And it surprised me how 220 pages explaining biological phenomena can add up
to a literary image of the magic of life. Dianne, the naturalist, also discovers
that “Hungry Hollow has been having a strange effect on her lately. It has
become greater than the sum of its parts.”
By revealing worlds of life within Hungry Hollow, Dewdney’s book helps us to
recognise how hugely important small places are. The introduction is emphatic:
“Loss of habitat remains the main environmental threat at the millennium. In
North America it proceeds forest by forest, pond by pond, with little or no
notice from the media. As we nickel-and-dime the world to death, Hungry Hollow
hangs in the balance.”
We are, of course, just one species in this world, a relative newcomer in the
four billion years of history that the book covers. It is clear that the land
which the hollow inhabits will outlive us, but perhaps the life that exists
there will not.
Perhaps this book will go some way to redress the general deficiency in
judgment that allows humans to endanger other life forms: indeed, the book stops
just short of advocating jumping on the bulldozers that threaten Hungry
But it is still printed on dead trees.