Caspar Henderson Dives Deep Into the World of Sound

 

A Book Of Noises: Notes on the Auraculous – Caspar Henderson (2023)

 

            Around eight years ago, I read and reviewed a very cool book titled “The Book of Barely Imagined Beings”, by Caspar Henderson.  Mr. Henderson explored the world of animals via the conceit of a bestiary where each chapter coincided with a letter of the alphabet, and an animal whose name begins with said letter.  It is an amazing book and one that opens the mind to the infinite variety found in the natural world around us.  Having dipped my toes into the mind of Caspar Henderson, I was very happy to find A Book of Noises while browsing the library shelves.  This wonderful book explores the vast landscape of sound, divided into chapters with titles such as Cosmophony: Sounds of Space, Geophony: Sounds of Earth, Biophony: Sounds of Life, ending with the chapter Anthropophony: Sounds of Humanity.  This is right up my alley!

            Caspar Henderson comes to the topic of sound and noise from the very best angle, that of wonder and awe.  The idea came to him after a visit to a nature preserve on the Norfolk coast where he witnessed tens of thousands of knots, a short stocky bird that migrates from the Arctic each year, flying overhead.  Within the cacophony Caspar could distinguish individual wing flaps.  He coined the term “Auraculous” to describe such experiences, the word meaning a marvel for the ear.  This is the true theme of this book.  Mr. Henderson explores the vast world of sound we live in and create and does so with a sense of poetry and beauty fitting to the magical world that sound provides to us.  As he puts it, “writing this book has been an attempt to listen more deeply and hold on to a sense of aliveness, in which each moment is a validation of what came before and a preparation for what comes after.”  We live out our lives ignoring most of the aural sensory input around us, much to our detriment. 

            My favorite chapter, Biophony: The Sounds of Life, explores the aural world of our plant and animal brethren.  I enjoyed reading about the various sounds plants make, many of which our modern ears just ignore.  One of the old Buddhist koans, meant to encourage introspection, famously reads, “If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?”  I have always found this inane.  Of course it makes a sound.  Sound exists whether anything “hears’ it.  Sound is merely the vibration of the gas, liquid, and solid matter of the world.  Sound existed on Earth far longer than life has been around and will continue to do so long after humans reach extinction.  Only the inflated egocentrism of humans (which I think is the REAL lesson behind the koan) allows us to imagine ourselves as the primal source of experience in the world.  What a disservice this is to our fellow living beings.

            Caspar Henderson uses the last chapter of this book for an exploration of the many sounds created by humanity, from onomatopoeia and musical instruments to noise pollution, and even to a rumination on silence itself.  In this chapter Mr. Henderson extrapolates the future of man-made sound, including the ability to utilize sound for healing as well as for weaponry.  As with anything in the world, whether it is used for good or evil is dependent on the human making the decision.  Sound can heal and it can harm, therefore it is up to us to determine how best to use it to improve not only humanity but the beautiful and varied world around us.  The path towards good or towards evil is one we embark on in our hearts and minds, way before any action comes.  Books such as these help us maintain our proper distance from our own ego and allow us to replace ignorance and supposition with facts and logic.  Caspar Henderson does us all a great service through his writing.  I have now read two of his works and will look forward eagerly to the next one!  To Mr. Henderson, and everyone reading this who loves to search for the Auraculous, I sign off with the rejoinder made famous on the now-defunct Sonic Youth Gossip Forum, which exhorts the recipient to live a “Sonic Life!”

 (This great book can be purchased here: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo200525016.html )

The animal life around us is more interesting than we could ever imagine

The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21^st Century Bestiary – Caspar Henderson (2013)

            Bestiaries are bad-ass.  I even like the word itself (a collection of beasts!!!).  For the most recent human history, bestiaries were collections, much like encyclopedias and atlases, that sought to compile the whole breadth of the animal life found in a specific area of the world.  Ancient Greek and Roman scholars would compile these amazing bestiaries, mostly based on word-of-mouth and accounts brought back from intrepid sailors.  Because their sources were never actually verified, many of the entries found in these old bestiaries are either for wholly made up animals, such as chimeras, unicorns, and gryphons, or they were for severely misidentified and poorly described animals, such as the rhinoceros, which was originally thought to have armored plating, and whose horn it was said would spew fire when the creature was angry.  While many of these descriptions sound poetically correct, (you do NOT want a 2 ton rhino angry at you.  You will swear he has fire shooting out its snout as it comes to wreck you up.  Also, its thick, folded skin, does indeed look like armor plating,) they were not up to the veracity needed to function as true scientific categorization.

            Around half a decade ago, author Caspar Henderson started to think about animals, specifically the ones that are surprising to encounter.  These animals are so amazing, so unique in their morphology or their behavior, and so different from the standard animals we humans find ourselves exposed to, that they may as well be mythical.  He began to do the research that led to this book.  Mr. Henderson’s love of nature shines through in his writing.  He has chosen one animal to represent each letter of the alphabet, and in each chapter he manages to not only describe the amazing animal in question, what we know currently about its life, physical properties, and behavior, but he also explores the way humans have discovered these details, how humans used to see these animals historically, and the possibilities inherent for us in studying these magnificent creatures.

            I am a huge nature nut, and I am always in awe of the seemingly inexhaustible variety of form and function that life has taken on our lovely planet Earth.  I was quite familiar with some of the animals in this bestiary, and I was completely ignorant of several of these creatures.  I learned quite a lot about or fellow animals, and was left with a distinct impression that, for all we humans know about life and the universe around us, what remains to be known is so vast, and so completely unpredictable to us, that it shines a harsh light on the selfish way we humans treat our Earth and its fellow inhabitants.  We are all in this together, whether prey or predator, scavenger, or parasite.  The more we know about the world around us, hopefully the less we will take it for granted.  When we destroy nature we are destroying ourselves.

(This book can be purchased here: THE BOOK OF BARELY IMAGINED BEINGS )

[ Review edited per the author's correction. - RXTT ]