Romantic Geography: In Search of the Sublime Landscape

Coda

167 coda Let me re­ ca­ pit­ ulate some of the key ­ points. Quest is at the heart of ro­ mance, but only if it is after some­ thing truly ­ worthy. The drive for money or rep­ u­ ta­ tion, even if it re­ quires heavy sac­ ri­ fice, does not count. Nor is the drive to sur­ vive, and since geog­ ra­ phy and the so­ cial sci­ ences de­ vote them­ selves to the art of sur­ vi­ val, they are not ro­ man­ tic. As a mat­ ter of fact, they shun the label. What, then, may be con­ sid­ ered truly ­ worthy of pur­ suit—the equiv­ a­ lent of the Holy Grail—in geog­ ra­ phy? One type of ­ worthy pur­ suit is of en­ vi­ ron­ ments that are re­ mote and in­ ac­ cess­ ible. Their ex­ plor­ ers (a few of the most dis­ tin­ guished) are sur­ pris­ ingly un­ worldly in that they de­ sire nei­ ther mon­ e­ tary re­ ward nor pub­ lic rec­ og­ ni­ tion, nor even pres­ tige for their coun­ try. When ­ pressed 168 coda for a rea­ son, the an­ swers they give are ei­ ther per­ sonal or sci­ en­ tific. At the per­ sonal level, they want to feel what it is like to be in­ tox­ i­ cat­ ingly alive in mo­ ments of dan­ ger. At the sci­ en­ tific level, they seek to know na­ ture at its harsh­ est, be­ liev­ ing (mis­ ta­ kenly as it turns out) that it is there that ­ nature’s deep­ est se­ crets lie. What else im­ pels them? A touch of mys­ ti­ cism? Why not? After all, when ­ George Mal­ lory was asked why he ­ climbed Mount Ever­ est, he of­ fered the ­ Zen-like an­ swer,“Be­ cause it is there.” In the nine­ teenth cen­ tury, geog­ ra­ phers were also ex­ plor­ ers. Their ad­ ven­ tures in re­ mote ­ places had the ex­ cite­ ment of geo­ graph­ i­ cal ro­ mance. The pub­ lic was keen to read what they wrote. By the ­ mid-twentieth cen­ tury, that keen­ ness had ­ largely faded. Ex­ plor­ ers still ­ sought ad­ ven­ ture in dif­ fi­ cult en­ vi­ ron­ ments, and they still ­ sought an­ swers to sci­ en­ tific rid­ dles, but the halo of their work was ­ dimmed by eco­ nomic con­ sid­ er­ a­ tions such as find­ ing coal, oil, and pre­ cious min­ er­ als. In our post­ re­ lig­ ious and post­ ro­ man­ tic age, ­ hardly any goal—even that of sci­ ence—is un­ tar­ nished by the sus­ pi­ cion that its real pur­ pose is eco­ nomic or po­ lit­ i­ cal. One ex­ cep­ tion is phys­ i­ cal sci­ ence in its high­ est ­ reaches. Phys­ i­ cists who meas­ ure the speed at which a neu­ trino ­ travels, cos­ mol­ o­ gists who ask what was there be­ fore the Big Bang, astron­ o­ mers who spend weeks in re­ mote ob­ ser­ va­ to­ ries gaz­ ing at stars that have long ­ ceased to exist, these sci­ en­ tists do not ex­ pect their la­ bors to im­ prove ­ people’s stan­ dard of liv­ ing or make gains in their ­ country’s mil­ i­ tary prow­ ess or add an­ other 169 coda lease of life to the ­ earth’s green man­ tle. Why, then, do they per­ sist, and not only per­ sist, but take de­ light in what they do? Can the an­ swer lie in their genes, pa­ ren­ tal en­ cour­ age­ ment, and in­ spir­ ing ed­ u­ ca­ tion? No one ­ really knows. What we do know is that ro­ manc­ ing na­ ture, lay­ ing aside the ­ body’s need to ­ please the in­ quir­ ing mind, ­ brings them hap­ pi­ ness and ful­ fill­ ment. In sharp ­ contrast to ­ starry-eyed sci­ en­ tists, geog­ ra­ phers are prac­ ti­ cal and ­ down-to-earth, their ob­ ject of study being the earth as human hab­ i­ tat. A key con­ cept is home. “Home,” what a ­ lovely,­ heart-warming word! Who can be in­ dif­ fer­ ent to home, ­ whether it be house, town, or ­ planet? Yet, ­ strangely, geog­ ra­ phy does not have much pop­ u­ lar...