The pastoral complexities of clifford simak: The land ethic and pulp lyricism in time and again

Clifford Simak may be in danger of being forgotten or at least written off as a simplistic sentimentalist under the oft-used and little-explored term "pastoralist." I argue that his novel Time and Again displays two aspects of Simak's work that complicate the stereotypes we have of this author: an environmental attitude that expands Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic and a lyricism that embodies the Land Ethic. Simak's work thematically and stylistically prefigures more sophisticated writers and movements and deserves reconsideration.