TOW #10 - "The Brown Wasps"

This week I read "The Brown Wasps" by Loren Eiseley, and it is by far one of the most beautiful pieces of literature I have ever read. I did not have any preconceived ideas about this text, but I was also in no way expecting it to have such an impact on me. Eiseley's essay has an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia. He takes the intricate descriptions of old, homeless men falling asleep at train stations, the last few wasps still living before the first snow, pigeons and a blind man flocking at an abandoned train station, a mouse going straight for the source of earth (a potted plant) once venturing inside, and his own memory of a tree planted sixty years ago and ties them together with the common theme that, "[we] are all out of touch but somehow permanent, [it is] the world that [has] changed" (Eiseley 245). Out of all these events that the author had strung together, I found his personal anecdote to have the most impact on me, which is saying a lot because all of the said events had a great emotional impact. Eiseley writes, "In sixty years the house and street had rotted out of my mind. But the tree, thee that no longer was, that had perished in its first season, bloomed on in my individual mind, unblemished as my father's words. "We'll plant a tree here, son, and we're not going to move any more. And when you're an old, old man you can sit under it and think how we planted it here, you and me, together" (Eiseley 245). To me, it seems like Eiseley has a hard time contemplating the fact that nothing is ever infinite. From his detailed descriptions that I mentioned earlier, he is obviously an observant person, and in the moment of observing a world so tangible, it makes it hard to understand that "it" won't be there forever. This ties back to how Eiseley concludes that the world is always changing; and unfortunate realization when he discovers his longest-standing childhood memory is a lie. Overall, Eiseley's sense of nostalgia is very effective in getting this purpose across, and it creates one of the most amazing essays I have ever laid eyes on.