Focusing on the Small Picture

The coastal temperate rain forest that stretches for a thousand kilometres north of Vancouver is a kind of geographical basilisk. It simply stalls anyone who pauses to study it. Eventually, one has to look away. Orcas plunging through schools of salmon; cedars the size and age of European cathedrals; saw-toothed mountains like the borderlands of Mordor—even a measured attempt to describe the preposterous beauty of the place lapses into self-parody. There is more loveliness here than there are words. Fjords stretch for hundreds of miles, humpback whales herd hundred-ton balls of herring together with bubble curtains: if the place is anything short of idyllic, it is just that it is so baroque. Too many notes. Too rich. Too few spare sightlines with which to view it in perspective.

This is a real criticism, actually. We have all known men and women who are excessively beautiful. This...