Mother Country

The book Mother Country is made up of two parts. The first is a history of the British welfare system. The second is about nuclear fuel reprocessing and plutonium production at Sellafield (Windscale). Both are interesting, but the author has made too little effort to address the relationship between the two. Nevertheless, there are sentences and paragraphs to be found in this book that are exquisitely written. Through the prism of Robinson's mind, some unpleasant realities are plucked out of the white background noise that culture treats as normalcy. Robinson seeks the roots of a major environmental problem by exposing what she considers to be a long-standing pattern of hypocrisy, moral weakness, and lack of courage. _Mother Country_ is an indictment of English culture. As an American, I become nervous reading a condemnation of British attitudes toward the environment, written by another American. If we are lucky, someday Robinson will apply her pen to an analysis of how American culture has produced one of our own nuclear messes, such as Hanford, Washington. The main focus of the book is the failure of British government to represent the public interest, but some of her harshest criticisms are directed at the media, where disinformation, combined with a general lack of information, are too often accepted on topics of critical importance.

In a life time of reading one may come across a book or two written with both great passion and linguistic craft. Marilynne Robinson's Mother Country is one such work. These two hundred thirty odd pages bristle and glisten with insight, logic, and control of the Mother tongue mustered in a searing indictment of the British state plutonium reprocessing business at Sellafield. The details and extent of Britain's mindless pollution of the natural environment will shock most readers. First, however, all but the Philistine will be stunned by Ms. Robinson's art, wisdom, depth of feeling, and mastery of English prose. Among a few books I unreservedly recommend