Review by Ms. Carson, HHS Librarian
I admit I was skeptical picking up this book. "No impact" seemed kind of, well, inflated and egotistical. I'm not the only one who had reservations. The New York Times initially saw Beavan's blog as a sensationalistic marketing device for his book. And what's a historian living in a NYC apartment know about environmentalism anyway? How often does he dig around in the dirt?
I watched the documentary, and while I found it emotionally moving (and an interesting study on modern marriage), it wasn't particularly shocking or inspiring.
But then I actually sat down and read the book and I got it. Beavan is terrified. Not just of water running out and global warming and asthma and pollution. He totally sees the fragility of life. He knows it first hand.
Some of us experence death, sickness and loss at such an early age that it imprints on us the dreaded knowledge that everything we know and love can be taken from us at any minute and there is nothing we can do about it. So we must learn to live with uncertainty. And often that results in an obsessive-compulsive drive to control the world around us in an attempt to ward off our despair. But all this running around trying to make all these rules (no electricity or else I am guilty of contributing to the deaths of children in Africa!) without examining the horror that underlies our "magical thinking" will drive us (and everyone around us) insane. And Beavan, thankfully, took the time to climb onto his meditation cushion and ask, "How shall I live?", "How shall I serve?" and "Why the heck am I driven to try so hard when everyone else is sitting in grid-lock traffic eating fast food with the AC blasting?",
The book becomes an interesting exploration of these questions and the answers Beavan self-consciously arrives at. It is not a manifesto about how to live without toilet paper. Read it and ask yourself, "How shall I live?"
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