Uglies Man and the Natural World Quotes

There's some hint here that the trees in the city might be genetically engineered or at least severely managed: notice how they "decorated the city," as if they were, well, decorations. Note also that the trees in the city have a purpose, like any other tool. No nature for the sake of nature here

What's funny about this quote (besides the idea that things can go terribly wrong, that's always hilarious) is that Tally has this feeling pretty early in the book—and she still wants to go back to the city and be made pretty. We learn something about her priorities: she would rather live in a pretty, fake world right now.

This is one constant argument between Tally and, well, the entire Smoke: are the pretties pretty because of biological reasons or for cultural reasons? If you buy Tally's argument, the pretty surgery just brings out what we naturally like; but if you buy Shay's argument, there's nothing natural about what we find pretty. Notice that each argument revolves around the idea of what's natural. (People love to say that their argument is based on nature, like "Mountain Dew was made by nature to be yummy." Be skeptical. We're pretty sure a caveman would think Mountain Dew was poison.)

Sometimes, the fake world has some things that we like better, like toilet paper and hot showers. Now all we need is a world where we can have toilet paper without mandatory pretty surgery. (Wait, isn't that the world we live in today?)

Here's example of Westerfeld's love of irony: Tally sees flowers and says "how nice, much better than the strange helicopter." But the flowers are actually deadly to the entire environment, and the helicopter is actually trying to save the world. (True, "saving the world" takes the form of burning large parts of it, but maybe that's Westerfeld's irony, too.)

The orchids are probably the biggest example of people messing with the natural world—er, except for the pretty surgery. As the rangers make clear to Tally, the problem started when someone altered the flowers, and the alteration worked a little too well. Does this mean that all human alterations to the natural world are ultimately bad? Or does it just mean that some alterations get out of control?

The Smokies have a complex relationship to the natural world: they plant new trees, but they also have to cut down old trees. It's a delicate balancing act, with "starving without technology" on one side and "destroying the world through meddling" on the other. (That sounds like an awesome circus.)

Here's why we love Tally, because she can see both the good and the bad in a situation. So, living much closer to the natural world means that things are more interesting and intense in a good way. (Kind of like that time she rode the roller coaster with Shay—it was intense and fun to be scared.) But on the downside, there's no good shampoo and no medspray. Love that medspray!

So the Smokies are totally good in relation to the environment, right? They hunt, but only non-native species; they cut down trees, but they plant more; and they don't even pour toxic material into the river, like normal cities. Great, but is it sustainable? What if they fix all the "Rusties' meddling"—how will they reorganize their society to maintain nature instead of changing it?

Both the city and the Smoke seem to have okay relationships with nature in some ways: sure, the city makes everyone pretty and sure, the Smoke cuts down trees. But both believe in renewable resources and other green techniques. Still, David here reminds us: every civilization is fragile. In the long run, always bet on nature.