The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World

I read this nearly 20 years ago, and just re-read it, enjoying it even more the second time because a group met to discuss it. It is poetic, with beauty and deep meaning, helping us bridge the gap between modern technological life and our roots with the earth.

I have long loved this book. I had occasion to recommend it again, and also have a moment to write a note about it... a rare synchronicity! So this: The few other reviews do a great job of describing the framework of relationship of the human to 'other-than-human' as exemplified in the evolution of increasingly complex abstractions of our communication systems, from pictograph to alphabet. From representation to communication by agreement that a symbol, and its related sounds mean a thing.What is passed over is the weaving of the story between the technical and the experienced. So I introduced the book thusly: It is an interesting book that weaves two stories together.. One of the experienced, "Other-Than-Human" world - of all types, from animal to insect, and charting the path of the human communication from the pictorial representation of the world as experienced, to the abstractions that make up the alphabet and the dictionary of words. Most of which have little direct association w the thing they are describing. In that movement of what might be called sophistication, he posits that our human experience has become increasingly split off from the rest of the world as our filter of engagement & experiences with the Other World(s) is increasingly via the cognitive & descriptive and less of the wordless, amazed, truly "awe-some" experience. I know I feel this lack.It is split that creates so many of the large and complex problems we are dealing with today. We tend to think we understand the systems we are sometimes rather slapdashedly mucking around with... We do not. What we do not typically reckon with is how integrated life is. And that it is more than a hallmark card, or a sappy new age chant to say that everything is connected to everything...Not knowing this is central to what we call "unintended consequences", but really are more accurately "unconscious consequences". While we have also gained some learning and benefit from our reductionist science, there is no doubt of that... if we do not heed the opening introduction of this book, and its basic prescription for our consideration : That to be human... a vital, life living , life supporting person/life force we Must have some meaningful relationship with the Other-Than-Human.For other books that work out that thesis in fact if not directly I'd suggest The Elephant Whisperer, and related books. And almost anything by Carl Safina. Especially "Song of the Blue Ocean".

This is one of the most scholarly treatments of the of human disconnect from Nature I have read. From early indigenous peoples to Socrates and beyond, Abrams takes us on a journey in time to find where the disconnect from Nature begins and spells it out not only in terms of the first "civilized" humans, but also how language began to sophisticate, yet distance itself and us from that part of Nature reality or "life-world" when we knew where our sustenance and life support came from and we had a more direct and reverent sensibility of it.Realizing the dynamics of the disconnection leads us back to the reconnection and is seen in many passages throughout this book such as: "SO THE RECUPERATION OF THE INCARNATE, SENSORIAL DIMENSION of experience brings with it a recuperation of the living landscape in which we are corporeally embedded. As we return to our senses, we gradually discover our sensory perceptions to be simply our part of a vast, interpenetrating webwork of perceptions and sensations borne by countless other bodies- supported that is, not just by ourselves, but by icy streams tumbling down granitic slopes, by owl wings and lichens, and by the unseen, imperturbable wind." (p 65)"The earthly terrain in which we find ourselves, and upon which we depend for all our nourishment, is shot through with suggestive scrawls and traces, from the sinuous calligraphy of rivers winding across the land, inscribing arroyos and canyons into the parched earth of the desert, to the black slash burned by lightning into the trunk of an old elm." (p 95)"THE SENSE OF BEING IMMERSED IN A SENTIENT WORLD IS preserved in the oral stories and songs of indigenous peoples- in the belief that sensible phenomena are all alive and aware, in the assumption that all things have the capacity of speech. Language, for oral peoples, is not a human invention but a gift from the land itself." (p 262-3)This beautiful book is full of such passages and I keep it handy for continuous reference and enjoyment- it is one of the most marked-up and highlighted books in my possession. Thank you David Abrams!

Very much enjoying this fascinating book!

Lo he leido y compartido, he regalado 6 y a todos Les encanta

This book has a lot of big words and quite a lot of repetition. However, the theory david Abram propounds is highly original. it doesnt talk down to the reader, is probably taken from his master thesis.It is an in depth descrition of the state humanity has found itself in, from a really unusual perspective.The natural language of the Earth arround us, and the way indigenous languages have always spoken from within their relationship with the specifics of locaction is something he experienced firsthand. He traces how we have lost that connection, as our language has used artificial means through which to communicate. he traced the breath based script of Hebrew, and later developments, so the point where modern humans so often communicate via entirely electronic medium, and the dire effects this has had, in terms of disconnect from the natural world. We forget that our existence is housed in an "animal" body. Afascinating read.

Sehr gute Analyse von der Beziehung des Menschen zur Natur.

This is an important, possibly vitally important work. It is eye-opening and thought-provoking. The author's main theme - the intimacy with nature experienced by preliterate societies and its loss in literate ones - is nigh impossible effectively to convey in words, especially the written word (as emphasised by the author), or even to oneself in thought, as the moment one tries to do so the matter abstracts itself from that which is experienced. The author makes valient efforts and the reader does get from this an intellectual understanding of his proposition. But he uses far too many words, repeats himself endlessly (and without much variety in expression). A book a third of the length would have been more elegant, more effective, better. In his postscript to this twentieth anniversary edition, the author seems a little too assured of the noteworthiness and literary merit of his work. But read my first sentence again, then read the book.