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Wild
The Wildest Place on Earth:
Italian Gardens and the Invention of Wilderness
by John Hanson Mitchell.
Drawings by James A. Mitchell.
Counterpoint, 2001. 194 pages.
Reviewed by Michael Wilt
At first sight of the subtitle of John Hanson Mitchell’s new book, the reader can be excused for thinking he or she has picked up a scholarly book on landscape design as it relates to our understanding of wilderness. But while Mitchell is as knowledgeable as any scholar, The Wildest Place on Earth is an exploration of nature and the human heart and the wildness they have in common.
Regarding wildness and wilderness, Mitchell points out that what is perhaps Henry Thoreau’s most often-quoted statement is almost as frequently misquoted: “In wildness is the preservation of the world.” Wilderness, Mitchell explains, “is an entity, a place, and a fragile place in fact, that can be very easily destroyed.”
Wildness, by contrast, is more deeply rooted. It is an ancient, life-sustaining current, a force of nature that can be most easily experienced in wilderness, but also lurks in the wilder corners of suburbia, or even in cities, and exists as potential even in some of the most barren, devastated environments.
On this basis, Mitchell’s search for the wildest place on earth takes him not to vast, unpopulated tracts of sand, ice, or forest. Rather, he explores gardens and labyrinths and creates a hedge maze in his own garden in Massachusetts, often basing his assessment of the wildness of a place on whether it would be frequented by “the great god Pan.” He tells of his disappointment with places, such as Yosemite, that were preserved on the basis of a “spirituality, this pure force of wild nature, the unexpected religiosity of place,” but of which he can now say only that “Certainly Pan would not be found in such a place.”
Along the way he meets a motley crew of characters who, each in his or her own way, embody the search for the wild. A hitchhiker picked up out west may or may not be the escaped convict whose story he tells. A neighbor, hearing that “a new cabin is under construction about a mile from his house,” declares “It’s getting awful crowded in this valley.” There is also a “tweedy English lady on the ferry to Bellagio who quite believed in the existence of Pan,” and a retired Italian priest who listens to Mitchell’s explanation that his goal is to “recover that sense of wildness, that spirit of wild nature,” and responds,
“Oh but young man,” he said, tapping his chest with his fist. “You are looking in the wrong site. The wildest place on earth, it is here, in the human heart.”
But with all his roaming, Mitchell finds himself back in the garden: “The garden is not the end, it is the beginning, the place where you preserve the wild spirit that will save the world -- In gardens is the preservation of the world, to paraphrase Saint Henry.”
With Henry Thoreau and the great god Pan providing inspiration, The Wildest Place on Earth is a finely-tuned narrative that prompts us to rediscover and cultivate wildness, wildness of the heart and the local environment. John Hanson Mitchell’s journeys are both erudite and down-to-earth, and his prose is a delight to read. Wildness is within our reach if we will only make the effort to encounter it.
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