The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
by John Green
Before you read this, a small update/disclaimer—I now have an affiliate setup with Bookshop.org, including my own little shop and affiliate links. The hyperlinks you see on book titles will take you to “my” page for each one. If you buy one from Bookshop, I will get a very small amount of money. I do urge you to buy things from Bookshop, because doing so supports local bookstores. Here is a link to the shop in general. Now, onto the review.
Fair warning: it’s going to be a struggle for me to write this in my own voice, without accidentally picking up the way John Green sounds. If you’ve ever accidentally picked up an accent after watching too much British TV, for example, you’ll know what I mean. I fist encountered Green through his novel, The Fault in Our Stars, which I read because I kept seeing references to it. I felt like I was giving in to peer pressure by opening it, but I immediately fell in love. It’s hard not to love John Green.
The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet is a collection of essays that review various things and ideas in our world, from Diet Dr. Pepper to Canada Geese to Viral Meningitis on a rating from one to five stars. They are definitely about each topic, but they are also not about these things. The themes that run through the book include but are not limited to: truth, illusion, memory (“nothing lies like memory”), pain and illness (and the ethics of examining and writing about these), hope, loneliness, isolation, climate change, helplessness, and anxiety in general.
The things reviewed in this book tend broadly to either garner one to one-and-a-half stars or four to five stars. In my experience of his writing and general internet presence, John Green feels deeply and strongly. But these essays were written early on in the pandemic. Emotions were running extremely high for all of us, so it’s easy to relate. Like Green, I have a lot of experience with anxiety, but there was nothing like the anxiety of those first months of the pandemic. While reviewing “plague,” Green writes, “As the poet Robert Frost puts it, ‘The only way out is through,’ and the only good way through is together. Even when circumstances separate us—in fact, especially when they do—the way through is together. … Plague is a one-star phenomenon, of course, but our response to it need not be.”
Each essay begins by defining or outlining what it is Green is reviewing, but, as he continues, he ties that in to huge themes. The reader expects a discussion of life and death in the review of the smallpox vaccine, for example, but it’s a surprise in others. In perhaps my favorite essay, Green reviews the film Harvey, in which Jimmy Stewart plays an affable and friendly man whose best friend happens to be a giant white rabbit. The rabbit is invisible to everyone else. It’s an excellent film, and I also highly recommend it. It’s worth the money to rent or buy it (it isn’t free on any streaming service). But the essay is actually a discussion about deep depression and crippling mental illness, and the power of shared stories to save lives. While this essay is particularly revealing, a kind of memoir runs throughout all of them. By the end, we have a pretty good idea of what Green thinks of his life so far.
By the time Green arrives at his rating of the topic in question, it almost doesn’t matter how many stars he gives it. I tried to predict how many stars he would give the thing, and I was usually within .5 stars of the correct answer. Sometimes, I debated whether I agreed or disagreed with the rating. But it isn’t the subject of each essay that makes this compilation so compelling; it’s the vulnerability and earnest contemplation that runs throughout all of them. Green writes, “I know that if I’m hit where I am earnest, I will never recover. … But I want to be earnest, even if it’s embarrassing.” I couldn’t agree more.
I have notes on this one. Incidentally, I started taking them in the iOS Notes app before Green reviewed that app. I wrote down quotes that are divorced from their essays and single words that describe a theme or a feeling. With a heavy heart, I have cut most of those quotes from this review, because I can’t find a place for all of them.
I loved this book so much that it was hard to wait until I finished it to share it with you. As the time on my audiobook app ran down, I started pausing it more. I went back 15 seconds to listen to a particularly good line again. I didn’t want it to end. I recommend the audiobook, which has three bonus essays, and is read by the author. I have come to love Green’s voice via audiobook, TikTok, podcast appearances, and his general internet presence, which is too vast for me to keep up with. However you read The Anthropocene Reviewed, I hope that you do.
I will leave you with this, from the book’s post-script: “What an astonishment it is to breathe on this breathing planet. What a blessing to be earth loving Earth.”