SPRINGER MOUNTAIN

Scattered reflections on the intersections of humans, animals, and food.

This book is a prime example of an author not being precisely sure where he is going or why. The first half is a confounding, fragmented ramble, caroming in time, place, and subject matter from vegetarian philosophies of the 19th century to slaughtering chickens to arcane asides from around the globe. Presumably, this is all in aid of answering Williams’ fundamental questions: Why do we kill animals, why do we eat them, and how does it define us? Despite years of research, his only answer won’t be news to many readers: “We are predators, killers. We are good at it. We like it.” One would expect something more substantial and cohesive from a writer such as Williams, a former restaurant critic who has spent years contemplating food and eating, but much of the narrative suffers from self-indulgence. However, around the midway point, Williams jettisons his muddled meditations and employs a straightforward narrative that reveals his capabilities as a writer. The author’s vivid observations on the town of Barrow, Alaska, its people, and subsistence whaling are the highlight of the book. Along the way, he offers some telling insights on why we collect and display things: in part to make the world knowable, somehow less daunting in its immensity and diversity, in the way “maps, museums, books and farms try to do.” But Williams also knows the world “isn’t reducible in that way; it can’t be understood in a glance.” Near the end of the text, the author realizes his own intent, admitting that so many stories about the world are often about the person telling them. “The longer my inquiry went on, the less clear my intentions became,” he writes. One might say the same thing of the book.

Meandering stylistics undermine episodes of solid reportage.