Loren Eiseley wrote that the brain of a writer is like an attic in which pictures from the past are stored and brought forth to be magnified or reduced in order to form a pattern. Many of the patterns he created in the sixteen books that won him international fame originated with experience he laid away during his early years in Nebraska.
Loren Eiseley's work is outstanding for its richness and the beauty of his language and metaphors; for his ability to portray the long, slow passage of time and the meaning of the past in the present; for his portrayal of the relationships among all living things; for his concern about the future, his awareness of how man's idolization of the machine, an unthinking, unfeeling material thing, was changing the world.
The Loren Eiseley Society was formed in 1982 to encourage interest in and knowledge of Loren Eiseley's work, to provide a forum for readers and scholars, and to collect and preserve material about his life and writing.
Message from Bing Chen:
Dear Eiseley Fans and Visitors to our website,
Welcome to our Eiseley website. We are pleased to have you come and visit and we hope that you will take some time to explore and to browse. The Eiseley Society (LES) has undergone a renewal and revitalization in 2007 which was Eiseley's centennial year. We encourage you to join us as there will be numerous benefits available to members such as discounted books, video length features and special materials. As you can see from the website there is a members only section.
Loren Eiseley Reader Cover We plan to have
a Loren Eiseley Reader consisting of his most popular essays in a single collection. A fund
drive is underway to obtain the publication rights with the goal of putting one copy
in every school and public library in Nebraska. A copy of the Loren Eiseley Reader cover is shown on
the right with a link to noted author Ray Bradbury who has written the foreword
to this reader. For those of you who are teachers or who know teachers, we are
developing educational packages for the K-12 classroom in order to introduce Eiseley to
a new generation of young people. Contact us if you would like to join our Caravan.
Although the vast majority of Readers are destined for Nebraska classrooms we hope to
have copies available to the members of LES. A sample lesson
is shown in our website.
In my travels to both coasts, I know that he has had a strong following over the decades throughout the United States. More than ever, with the world becoming flatter and the myriad issues regarding global warming, pollution, population growth and resource depletion, Eiseley's message may have a special relevancy today in the face of growing world uncertainty with hidden shoals that could be dangerous to our future. In fact, Loren Eiseley may very well prove to be a shaman of our times, providing his special enlightenment for all humankind.
Following the Eiseley centennial year we plan to reach out to all the corners of the globe, not just the United States, to share Eiseley's wisdom. Like Warren E. Buffett, the oracle from Omaha, Loren Eiseley is also a product of the plains, having been born in Lincoln, Nebraska. His writings are largely taken from childhood experiences growing up in the Midwest. His advice may have a more prophetic message to each and every one of us to remember our roots and to consciously "reenter the sunflower forest". He is an oracle reaching out to all of us in troubled times. Essays will also be available in audio form and downloadable from our website.
To support our activities, we are reinstituting paid memberships and donations to the Loren Eiseley Society. Please check our website for further details. Your support will go to the activities we are sponsoring in 2009 such as the publication of the Loren Eiseley Reader and the development of educational materials for the K-12 education space. One of our longer term goals is to create a Loren Eiseley Center for Nature Writing at the University of Nebraska. We intend to work closely with the University of Pennsylvania where Loren Eiseley worked for most of his professional life and where the Eiseley archives are located.
Bing Chen