1559. An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong (#1559)

 

A well-read friend, Eric, an artist and landscape visionary, suggested I read a non-fiction work called An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong. Yong is Pulitzer Prize winner for I Contain Multitudes written in 2016. This book was published in June 2022, and without question, it’s the most important book I’ve read this year. Yong started by explaining the word Umwelt, and according to Wikipedia, “The umwelt theory states that the mind and the world are inseparable because it is the mind that interprets the world for the organism. Because of the individuality and uniqueness of the history of every single organism, the umwelten of different organisms differ.” He explained that all creatures have different unwelten (which is pronounced with a “v” sound, as in unvelt) whether it is your pet, a tick, or any other living creature that you can name, and yet we share the same space with all of them. It’s quite clear to me that even people from the same species may have widely different unwelten, which helps explain how some of my friends and patients perceive the world so differently.

 

Yong’s introduction to this book is fascinating as he portrays a small space that is shared by a human, a spider, a dog, a bat, and other creatures and how their different perceptive capacities impact their sense of that space. Perhaps the introduction is the most important part of the book because as I finished reading it, I felt I had been propelled into a new dimension of thinking about the world around me.

 

Chapter 1 mainly helped me understand my dog’s use of olfaction and how it differed from mine, as well how other species rely on their olfactory sense. The research that Yong refers to is incredibly extensive, and he really gets into the weeds to depict the various umwelten that he discusses as he compares the abilities of perception of so many different species. His review of all senses and research takes up Chapters 1 through 12. Chapter 13, the final chapter is about his conclusions regarding the impact that we humans have had on the world and how various species have adapted to and/or been wiped out because of such impact. The effects he discusses is not only about pollution of water and air, but about the impact of human sound and light on birds and insects, and others. If you’re not used to scientific writing/thinking, you could still get a good sense of this material if you limited your reading to the intro, and Chapters 1 and 13.

 

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all of this new information, but at least I already see the result on my relationship with my dog. I’ve found myself understanding more about what goes on for her as she stops to smell on our walks, and I’m more patient with her than I’ve been before. Since An Immense World is the most important book that I’ve read this year, I cannot recommend it highly enough. I’m sure it will have an impact on whoever bothers to read it or to listen to the wonderfully produced audiobook.