Lichens: Toward a Minimal Resistance

Vincent Zonca’s lyrically written book Lichens is a banquet of selections from literature, visual art, and creative thinkers or artists who have meditated on the reality and metaphors of lichens. Because of its anthologylike voices skillfully knitted together thematically, there’s something new and sparkling every few pages in this multi-dialogic text. The work is an engrossing and erudite meditation on the ubiquitous but neglected lichen. Politics are now implicated in species webs, and lichens are examples of entities on the margins struggling to overcome class divisions. Lichens do not command attention, and the inability for people to identify with species like lichens is at the heart of political aversion to environmental causes. Lichens, though common, are ignored and devalued since they are mistakenly assumed to hold no economic worth and are even associated with disease. Through Zonca’s field work and comparative readings, his mission is to give purpose and standing...