Pine+Barrens+ES

The Pine Barrens I Emma Smith

McPhee’s “The Pine Barrens I” is a journey into a world that is close to our world, and yet so different. I’ve been thinking about McPhee as a profile writer and humanist. At first “The Pine Barrens” reads like a purely environmental piece. McPhee is explaining the need to preserve the pines. It isn’t until later in the piece that I realized the true focus of the story. McPhee gets to know the people who live in the pines, and their particular way of life. What I connected with and was touched by was these peoples’ stories, not just the land they lived on. I commented on this idea while reading “Assembling California II”. McPhee’s environmental message is nearly always tied to humans. The relationship that McPhee develops between the “pineys” and the land is at the heart of this piece. “People who drive around in the pines and see houses like Fred Brown’s, with tarpaper peeling from the walls, and automobiles overturned in the front yard, often decide, as they drive on, that they have just looked destitution in the face. I wouldn’t call it that. I have yet to meet anyone living in the Pine Barrens who has anyway indicated envy of people how live elsewhere.” Here, McPhee interjects into the narrative. He openly gives his own opinion about the people who live in the Pine Barrens, something he doesn’t often do. Throughout this story I realized how much McPhee himself respected the “pineys”. Russ mentioned in class that McPhee is often drawn to those people who exist and thrive beyond all odds. The people living in the Pine Barrens have created their own way of life, one that doesn’t follow the fast paced rhythms of the city. This piece is about a group of people. It speaks about their livelihoods and their history. McPhee recounts the stories and myths of these people, and how their lives are affected by the history of the land they are on. By talking about their stories and history McPhee is giving us the deep identity of the Pine Barrens and its people. Once we know the tales and songs we can better to relate to them. I loved hearing Fred Browns own myths and superstitions. There was something honest and tragic about this story. After reading it I felt as though I knew these people, and I had a truer sense of how they lived. But McPhee seems to be telling us a story that is already falling into memory. The Pine Barrens are a delicate, untouched forest that isn’t going to last long. I wasn’t so much sad about the land being destroyed, but the people whose lives would never be the same. There is something heroic about living a simple life built upon the land. Yet, once the land is taken over by city the stories and character of these people will be lost.