Thursday, May 22, 2025

The Measure / The Serviceberry

This book became available on May 5, and like a moth to a flame, I clicked borrow. The Measure by Nikki Erlick is probably going to scare the shit out of me, but I can’t resist. Elaine talked about it a couple years ago and I was intrigued, but I was still working and didn’t have the time to read as freely as I do now. 

Earlier this year, I read Here One Moment, thinking it was the book Elaine had recommended. The premise of people knowing when they will die is similar but handled in very different ways. My impression of that book is documented on this blog. 

Of course all the books I have on hold are ready at the same time, and last night I began reading The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of the more well known Braiding Sweetgrass. Probably, I will become either totally frustrated or wholly enlivened trying to read these two books at the same time. Let’s see how this escapade plays out.

I’m still slogging away on The Measure but last night (5/21/25) I finished The Serviceberry. The book’s subtitle says it all really: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. It’s appropriate that I finished reading this tiny book during a time when I’m losing patience with the clown in charge of our country and the posse of idiots he has surrounded himself with as they wreak havoc on the environment and the common good.

Turns out my dual reading experiment worked out nicely as I finished The Measure today (5/22/25). The books, despite being very different, were oddly complimentary. Both brought in elements of current events and the politics of humanity. The Serviceberry drives home the message of a gift economy and conservation of natural resources. 

The Measure imagines what happens socially and politically in a world where one day every adult receives a box with a string in it. The length of the string correlates to each person’s lifespan. The divisiveness between the long-stringers and the short-stringers is featured as the book shares the perspectives of several different characters. I found the flip-flopping between viewpoints distracting, the lives of the characters uninteresting, and the message about diversity heavy-handed. 

The book did not scare the shit out of me as much as it made me yawn. Especially lines like this, very overtly comparing a politician to Trump. “Your uncle may be a son of a bitch, but at least he’s tough. He could actually get shit done. Plus, he’s brutally honest. You gotta respect that.” And, am I the only one who thinks the following is corny? 

#StrungTogether—A handful of journalists and politicians had already deemed it a “movement.”




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