Name: Ianna Chia's review of The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
Item: The Mushroom at the End of the World
Rating: 5
Author: Ianna Chia

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

Matsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the world--and a weed that grows in human-disturbed forests across the northern hemisphere. Through its ability to nurture trees, matsutake helps forests to grow in daunting places. It is also an edible delicacy in Japan, where it sometimes commands astronomical prices. In all its contradictions, matsutake offers insights into areas far beyond just mushrooms and addresses a crucial question: what manages to live in the ruins we have made? A tale of diversity within our damaged landscapes, The Mushroom at the End of the World follows one of the strangest commodity chains of our times to explore the unexpected corners of capitalism. Here, we witness the varied and peculiar worlds of matsutake commerce: the worlds of Japanese gourmets, capitalist traders, Hmong jungle fighters, industrial forests, Yi Chinese goat herders, Finnish nature guides, and more. These companions also lead us into fungal ecologies and forest histories to better understand the promise of cohabitation in a time of massive human destruction. By investigating one of the world's most sought-after fungi, The Mushroom at the End of the World presents an original examination into the relation between capitalist destruction and collaborative survival within multispecies landscapes, the prerequisite for continuing life on earth.

On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins

The Mushroom at the End of the World

Our daily routines and habits are cyclical but not unbreakable. You can choose to seek new encounters and collisions. 

Jini R

What if our indeterminate life form was not the shape of our bodies but rather the shape of our motions over time?

Matsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the world—and a weed that grows in human-disturbed forests across the northern hemisphere. Through its ability to nurture trees, matsutake helps forests to grow in daunting places. It is also an edible delicacy in Japan, where it sometimes commands astronomical prices. In all its contradictions, matsutake offers insights into areas far beyond just mushrooms and addresses a crucial question: what manages to live in the ruins we have made? A tale of diversity within our damaged landscapes, The Mushroom at the End of the World follows one of the strangest commodity chains of our times to explore the unexpected corners of capitalism. Here, we witness the varied and peculiar worlds of matsutake commerce: the worlds of Japanese gourmets, capitalist traders, Hmong jungle fighters, industrial forests, Yi Chinese goat herders, Finnish nature guides, and more. These companions also lead us into fungal ecologies and forest histories to better understand the promise of cohabitation in a time of massive human destruction. By investigating one of the world's most sought-after fungi, The Mushroom at the End of the World presents an original examination into the relation between capitalist destruction and collaborative survival within multispecies landscapes, the prerequisite for continuing life on earth.

encounters… indeterminacy… memory and history…

aisha

tasha

This book argues that staying alive—for every species—requires livable collaborations. Collaboration means working across difference, which leads to contamination. Without collaborations, we all die.

Doug Belshaw

one of the best books i’ve read ever. an academic examination written like a real and lush narrative, so many intertwining threads on life, science, literary influences, migration and displacement, nature etc. many things probably flew over my head while reading this, but highly recommend to anyone who’s even vaguely interested in nature or mushrooms. you’re in for a wild journey

Ianna Chia

Molly M

girl that was so good and i get so grossed out by mushrooms

a little convoluted to read, but has great points about surviving in the midst of precarity. what a poignant and beautiful metaphor for finding the spaces to live in this modern world... living and loving is also an act of revolution ⭐️

minji kim

Karis Ryu

really liked the beginning and all of the terms, crises, questions, and approaches tsing posed. as we neared the ending, even as tsing argued that her intent was to write an ending that does not end (an "anti-ending"), i was not quite sure of what a clear glimpse into said life after capitalist ruins was? not asking for a full plan, of course, but the idea of envisioning a generative future is that it is somewhat concrete: that it can be real. perhaps i was just getting tired as time went on and summer work started. there were many interesting threads, some deeply explored and some not quite as? especially as we neared the end, i lost track of what the central ideas were of presenting matsutake as a symbol of our journey. would definitely want to revisit this book in chunks to more critically analyze the fascinating footnotes, variety of disciplines in the source material, and literary approaches to the research and writing of the book.

This book was painfully dry, there were definitely some interesting parts but it was so boring in-between that I am sure I missed most of them. I wonder if I might have got on better with it in written form than audiobook. This particular narrator did nothing to make the book more listenable.

Liam Richardson

Katie Chua

incredibly fascinating premise of a book, but i have no idea, for the life of me, a reason for why she organized it the way she did. is it to represent the patches or assemblages she talked about so much? either way, i did find it a bit hard to REALLY get into it, whereas if she did a standard in-depth monograph, it might have been easier to connect and follow. 

however, the ideas and theories she raises are super interesting. i have learned an astounding amount of information on mushrooms. enjoyable.

Amanda Jones

2.5 stars

not the book's fault that I don't have any knowledge of the subject. Super dense and good for people in anthropology though I can assume

Angbeen Abbas

this was ok - as many people have said, the idea of this being a description of a sort of 'post-capitalist' way of life is wrong and misleading. you can't argue that this book details a form of accumulation outside of capitalism when it very much feeds into global commodity chains, and the conditions for much of this accumulation are directly a result of capitalism. 

that said, as an anthropological account, this book was pretty fascinating. a little hard to read at times because it doesn't feel like there's a very clear direction or thesis, but not too bad all around.

Doug Belshaw &
The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

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Doug Belshaw &
The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing