Reviews (1)

Poetry in Prose
This book is a treasure.Mr. Van Dyke obviously has the soul of a poet, and within his graceful prose he paints vivid and soul-stirring pictures of some of the most beautiful places on earth. He describes in fine detail observations he made on a long trip, on horseback in 1898/99, over, around, and through the lower deserts of Arizona and California.He leaves no stone unturned as he describes the magnificence and beauty of each aspect of the desert, and pulls no punches in his criticism of man's destructive intrusions. To Van Dyke, the play of light and shadow, the star-pocked night skies, the ragged and jagged ranges of mountains, the perfectly adapted plants and animals, the sometimes shifting sands, and the silent river barrier known as the Colorado are each part of the unique sum which is, in its own harsh and angular way, a paradise of color, form, and life: "The Desert."

Speaking as one who has lived on and wandered through this same desert for nearly forty years, I can attest to the accuracy of Van Dyke's physical descriptions and, perhaps more importantly, I can note that I've found here both the magic and the majesty which he so ably describes. Still, this isn't a book for everyone. Those who prefer the gleam of glass towers and the roar of jet planes to flaming sunsets and yapping coyotes, save your money. Van Dyke wrote, "Not in the spots of earth where plenty breeds indolence do we meet with the perfected type.It is in the land of adversity ... that finally emerges the highest manifestation."

Reviews (5)

Intimate & Beautiful Appraisal ofLife In a Harsh Land
The famous American-West landscape photographer, Ansel Adams and friend ofM.H.A., said of The Land of Little Rain: "The sharp beauty of The Land of Little Rain is finely etched in the distinguished prose of Mary Austin. Many books and articles have probed the factual aspects of this amazing land, but no writing to my knowledge conveys so much of the spirit of earth and sky, of plants and people, of storm and the desolation of majestic wastes, of tender, intimate beauty, as does The Land of Little Rain." (Re: "A Note on the Land and on the Photographs", from "The Land of Little Rain"- Houghton-Mifflin Co. 1950).

Indeed, M.H.A. displayed an uncanny sensitivity and understanding of the desert lands in the Owens Valley, California. Death Valley is, indeed, harsh and unforgiving, but to the astute observer who has learned how to live within the limits of sparse resources, it is an unequaled Paradise. She writes so eloquently and poetically of how the desert people and flora/fauna survive. The interaction of desert botany, biology, hydrology, geography, meteorology, and ecology come across vividly and often humorously with such lines as:

"Once at Red Rock, in a year of green pasture (a wet year), which is a bad time for the scavengers, we saw two buzzards, five ravens, and a coyote feeding on the same carrion, and only the coyote seemed ashamed of the company". (chapter 3- "The Scavengers")

M.H.A. studied the land, the flora/fauna, the weather (her "2" basic desert seasons- summer and winter) and she learned from her neighbors the Shoshone and Paiute Indians (she preferred to call the American Indians "Amerinds") , the Mexicans, the white settlers, and many colorful desert loners such as the "Pocket Hunter" (for seeker of pockets of gold)- her name for an oldprospector friend. She learned much wisdom and practical knowledge from her Indian friends like "The Basket Maker", Seyavi, whose life story is so eloquently told. The Indians shared with her their survival knowledge of how to find water from signs displayed by plants, how to read the activities ofanimals for food, how to "know" which plants are medicinal and/or edible and which plants to stay away from:

"Live long enough with an Indian, and he or the wild things will show you a use for everything that grows in these borders". (Chapter- "Shoshone Land")

This beautiful little book finishes with: "Come away, you who are obsessed with your own importance in the scheme of things, and have got nothing you did not sweat for, come away by the brown valleys and full-bosomed hills to the even-breathing days, to the kindliness, earthliness, ease of Pueblo de Las Uvas."

According to Ansel Adam's notes, Las Uvas is Grape Canyon or Creek and is part of the Tejon area south of Bakersfield, Ca.

After reading this fine book, one will come to understand why so many people have referred to M.H.A. as the "Henry David Thoreau
of the American West". Thoreau is the author of the renown classic, "Walden".

There are many different publications ofThe Land of Little Rain and many have variations from the original format, ie., different introductions, preface, illustrations, etc. The text is all that really matters, of course, but I have checked-out a few of the different copies from regional libraries so I could copythe intros by such notables as "Cactus Ed" (Edward Abbey- "The Monkey Wrench Gang", et al.). Abbey's Forward is in the 1988 Penguin Books edition. My copy is a reproduction of the original 1903 edition complete with line drawings by E. Boyd Smith who knew M.H.A. and the regions she wrote about.

Ansel Adams teamed-up with Houghton-Mifflin Co. in 1950 to give tribute to this outstanding classic by publishing a version her book with 48 of his photos taken in the Owens Valley, California region where the book was written and M.H.A. lived for sometime.

In describing the various areas and geographical locations in herbook, M.H.A. cloaked many of thepopular modern regional names with original Indian or old nicknames known only to a few to protect the privacy of those she wrote about. Adams and the editors used several resources to decipher the pseudonyms so he could match them to his photographs with the current regional names for accurate descriptions. They published an interesting glossary of all the names that could be deciphered in this 1950 edition.

More information including photographs of M.H.A. and her life can be seen at the Owens Valley Historical Society website:
www.owensvalleyhistory.com/mary_austin/page49.html

Mary Austin
I used to live write down the street from Mary Austin's old house in the Owen's Valley. I found her life very interesting and maybe from reading this book you get more of an inside on what her life was like.

Reviews (3)

In defense of wilderness
More than any book, this argues for experiencing nature and preserving wilderness.Thoreau himself saw that fewer passenger pigeons were visiting and even then was aware of threats. Though first spoken in lectures on 1851, and 1856-1857, and published in June 1862 Atlantic Monthly, a month after his death, it still speak to us in the 21st century. For example ".. what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall?", ."In wilderness is the preservation of the world." ,"To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a forest for them to dwell in or resort to.So it is with man". So lace up your shoes, grab your binoculars, and go for a walk and join the tribe of squirrels!

It Takes You To Another Place
I bought this book after reading about Henry David Thoreau in my high school literature book.He writes about his love of nature and tries to show others how to enjoy it.This book brings out the beauty of all the surroundings that many people pass by every day.It also encouraged me to get out and live up my ocasional stroll around the neighborhood. I took this book to school and it even helped relieve me a little stress.I recommend this book to all nature lovers.

Reviews (7)

Adventure or just descriptions?
I read adventure non-fiction.I can't go explore myself, so I read about what other people have done.And, I've read a fair amount of these types of books.But this particular book was a disappointment.Powell's accomplishments were certainly worthy of being considered a great exploration, and it made Adventure Magazines Top 100 list (and made it in the top 10 I believe) but the resulting book falls far short of putting that adventure into readable text.

Roughly, I'd guess that 90% (maybe more, not less) of the text describes the scene... the height of the canyon walls, the color of the rocks, the speed of the water, the methods used to portage or "line" a boat over a set of falls or through rapids, and so forth.Only 10% discuss the attitudes, thoughts and emotions of the participants.This turned out to be a "matter of fact" book, largely devooid of the human element (although not entirely).

A reader can certainly put himself in Powell's position, and imagine the perils, the emotions and so forth.But, you have to work at it.

If you want "an accounting" of the exploration, this hits the mark dead on.If you want to feel the human element in the exploration, don't waste your money.

An epic narrative by an epochal figure
John Wesley Powell, for better or worse, made the American West what it is today.He was the primary founder of the Bureau of Reclamation, the agency that has vandalized the West, and of the United States Geological Service.He also completed the last great feat of exploration on American soil when he and his cohorts undertook the voyage that is the main subject of this book.That the book combines two voyages into one epic adventure is not widely known, but it does not detract from the narrative to any meaningful extent.

Powell's narrative of the so-called Grand Canyon voyage is simply, yet powerfully, written, even carrying touches of the poetic.It is easy to sense his feelings of awe and wonder, particularly in exploring the canyons themselves. Powell never put his main function, scientific discovery, out of mind until the race through the Grand Canyon became one against the calendar as well as the power of the river.Even then, his writing evidences a sense of charity and concern toward his men.

Powell's narrative evokes many vivid memories of the beauty and timelessness of the country he explored, particularly his writings on the now-vanished Glen Canyon.It seems a pity, somehow, that much of what he saw is buried under stagnant, polluted reservoirs, the worst of which ironically carries his name. Would this brilliant, feeling man approve?I do not think so.

The growing recognition of the role native Americans have played in our country's history and development would find a more sympathetic vein with Powell, and his studies of ethnography and acclimatation to the arid habitat by native Americans may prove a more lasting memoir.These parts of the book should be read with equal care.

As to the canyons themselves, Powell would be the first to tell you that the artificial plug of stone at Page, Arizona, is only temporary, and that, as with the volcanic debris at Lava Falls, the river will soon have its way again.

Exploration of the Last Unmapped Part of Continental U.S.
On May 24, 1869, Major John W. Powell, a one-armed veteran of the Civil War, along with nine others (geologists, geographers, scouts and adventurers), set out from Green River, Wyoming to explore the last great unmapped and unknown portion of the continental U.S.No man had ever descended the Colorado river as it cut its way through 1,000 miles of incredibly rugged badlands.However, Powell and his band of men completed a remarkable journey of exploration through this country.

A passage from Powell's narrative of the expedition, after they had been on the river nearly two months, conveys very well a perspective of the challenge Powell and his men faced, the courage they demonstrated and Powell's matter of fact, but powerful writing style.

"We are now ready to start on our way down the Great Unknown.Our boats, tied to a common stake, chafe each other as they are tossed by the fretful river.They ride high and buoyant, for their loads are lighter than we could desire.We have but a month's rations remaining.The flour has been resifted through the mosquito-net sieve; the spoiled bacon has been dried and the worst of it boiled; the few pounds of dried apples have been spread in the sun and reshrunken to their normal bulk.The sugar has all melted and gone on its way down the river.But we have a large sack of coffee.The lightening of the boats has this advantage--they will ride the waves better; and we shall have but little to carry when we make a portage.We are three quarters of a mile in the depths of the earth and the great river shrinks into insignificance as it dashes its angry waves against the walls and cliffs that rise to the world above.The waves are but puny ripples.We are but pigmies, running up and down among the sands or lost among the boulders.We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore.What falls there are, we know not.What rocks beset the channel, we know not.What walls rise over the river, we know not.Ah, well!We may conjecture many things.The men talk as cheerfully as ever.To me, the cheer is somber and the jests ghastly."

Reviews (6)

A Woman's Adventure in the Wild West
A must for the reader who is searching for a first hand description of life in the Rocky's in the 1800's.It includes wonderful sketches by the author and great descriptions of characters and adventures in the untamed West.A great book for bedtime and rainy day reading.

LITERATE FIRST HAND ACCOUNT
This is a wonderful book to bring on your vacation to the Rockies.Miss Bird travels to what are now popular tourist destinations, only she does it before the convenience of a SUVs, Motels, or even plumbing.She meets overworked settlers, fascinating (and surprisingly polite) desperados, and English dandies.She revels in the mountain vistas, sunrises, sunsets and orange moonlight. Her many mile treks on horseback over frozen landscapes, alone in the wild west are an inspiration.

Reviews (13)

this is the abridged version
This is not a review, but a warning. Browsing for copies of Darwin's journal of his voyage on the Beagle, I read the reviews below. I would point out that McEvilly says that this book is unabridged; Cliffe says it is abridged.The Penguin USA web site doesn't say which it is, but the Penguin UK site says that the text of this edition has been shortened.So if you're looking for the full text, this doesn't appear to be it.

Charles Darwin as Indiana Jones
We all know Charles Darwin as a scholarly bearded old English gentleman, and like Leonardo da Vinci, Darwin has this image defining him for all future generations. Even though most everyone knows Darwin spent five years traveling the oceans on the HMS Beagle, the image of a young dynamic Darwin never takes over. Reading this book will change this.

Darwin sailed on the Beagle, a small three-mast sailing ship, and circumnavigated the globe. Over five years, he visited numerous islands in the Atlantic and Pacific and extensively surveyed the east and west coasts of South America. He hiked up and down mountains, traveled on horseback across the arid Argentinean plains, crossed the lonely Peruvian desert, and trekked the grandiose Chilean Cordilleras. He thought nothing of packing a train of mules for a two-month overland journey across the Andes going from Chile to Argentina and back again. On all his land expeditions he hired local guides, from Gauchos in Argentina to South Pacific islanders in Tahiti. Darwin's accounts of his expeditions are not only interesting adventures, they are also good portraits of the people he met. These include Latin American governors and generals, Argentinean ranchers, very primitive natives on Tierra del Fuego, and so on.

The journal begins with an account of Cape de Verd islands, then most of the book is spent on Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, and we have to wait until Chapter 17 before we get to what all Darwin fans really want to read, namely the account of his visit to the Galapagos. Though short, the account does not disappoint. We read of Darwin's finches, of two allied species of lizards, and of the giant turtles. Darwin also presents his great insight: that geographical isolation contributes to speciation. He came by this insight when it was pointed out to him that nearly identical species were seldom found on the same island. Another insight was that the fauna and flora an island depends more on that of the nearby mainland than on latitude. For example the plants of the Galapagos Islands were similar to those of the American west coast, while those of Cape de Verd, at the same latitude but in the Atlantic, resembled plants found in Africa. Darwin then continues with accounts of Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia, where we read how he thought coral reef islands were formed.

In the last chapter Darwin tells us of his visit to St-Helena and he does in fact mention its most famous resident, Napoleon Bonaparte. Though the French Emperor had already died, his remains had not yet been moved to Les Invalides in Paris. Darwin writes of the grave only in passing and is explicitly careful not too make too much of it. Apparently visitors in those days had a habit of overdoing their descriptions of Napoleon's rather simple headstone.

Travel notes like these and the descriptions of the people he met, were for me the most charming aspect of the book. The portraits Darwin paints are invariably sympathetic to human nature. Certainly Darwin was a man of his times and valued civilization very highly, but he was no racist and believed that all men could find happiness and enlightenment, and that all men had a right to be free. He despised slavery, and wrote eloquent passages attacking the prevalent institution. From this journal, we come to know a dynamic, adventurous young man, and a thoughtful liberal one who would only later shake our view of our place in the world.

Reviews (8)

Twenty-two of Muir's best scootcher's!
Lee Stetson, an actor who regularly has played Muir in Yosemite, compiled these 22 tales in this very readable, short book which I obtained in Tuolumne meadows visitor center in Yosemite National Forest. The Wild Muir has been on my Amazon wish list for a long time, so glad I bought my copy in the heart of Muir Territory, where one cannot escape some mention of his name in the many trails and areas he regularly trekked through. What a nice backyard, I constantly repeated to myself while hiking several days at Tuolumne! Every twist and turn of the trails revealed a new, pristine vista that the best panoramic camera could not capture. I felt like I needed a 360 degree camera to capture the beauty of this place, but I don't think anybody makes those these days! Muir expressed these same feelings when he writes: "Pursuing my lonely way down the valley, I turned again and again to gaze on the glorious picture, throwing up my arms to inclose it as in a frame. After long ages of growth in the darkness beneath the glaciers, through sunshine and storms, it seemed now to be ready and waiting for the elected artist, like yellow wheat for the reaper; and I could not help wishing that I were that artist. I had to be content, however, to take it into my soul."

It was here in Tuolumne and Yosemite that Muir would gather those who shared his desire to preserve this wilderness area like Theodore Roosevelt and others, and thankfully, they did just that. The waters still as clear as crystal, teeming still with trout.

Muir's "scootchers" began as a child in Dunbar, Scotland, his mountaineering prowess seemingly inbred, though his brother David, seems not to have shared the same level of fearfulness. In the first chapter, Muir writes of his home, "One of our best playgrounds was the famous Dunbar Castle, to which King Edward fled after his defeat at Bannockburn...The roof of our house, as well as the crags and walls of the old castle, offered fine mountaineering exercise." Of course, Muir would drag his brother David out of their room onto the roof after their mother put them to bed, telling them to "sleep like gude bairns". The first "scootcher" (adventure/daring) told in this book. In the same chapter, he writes that a servant girl would tell them about hell where bad people would go to live eternally. Muir exclaimed indomitably that "I could climb out of it. I imagined it was only a sooty pit with stone walls like those of the castle, and I felt sure there must be chunks and cracks in the masonry for fingers and toes."!

The other twenty-one scootchers contain similar tales of Muir rescuing others who attempted to follow his paths as well as his own hair-raising scootchers sliding down glaciers, surviving powerful wind storms and earthquakes in Yosemite and elsewhere.

It was a real treat to read these adventures in those wild, Muir woods of the Sierras.

The Wild Muir
This book is a total bore. The flowery description is beautiful for the first three sentences, but then it becomes a tranparent cover-up for a book with no plot! Even I could write a more interesting book, and I failed high school english! Muir was a great person, but he sould have stayed where he was better aquianted: the woods! Anyone who enjoys this book obviously has never seen a tree before. A whole book dedicated to them is ironic and lame.

Isbn: 0939666707
Sales Rank: 1020091
Subjects:  1. 18th And 19th Century Description And Travel    2. Essays & Travelogues    3. History: American    4. Sierra Nevada (Calif. and Nev    5. Sierra Nevada (Calif. and Nev.)    6. Travel - United States    7. United States - State & Local - General   

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A primary source for Yosemite studies
Hi,

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Reviews (51)

Good for beginners
While for those more into Whitman's work would probably want to invest in the Library of America's edition, this one is a good start for those who are just starting to read Whitman. So many people proclaim Whitman as the essential American Poet because of his lines showing the beauty of Democracy. Personally, I could have cared less whether he loved Democracy or not. He wrote about life. He wrote about the mundane world, and made it look so beautiful. He admired the human form, and praised the wonderful design of the body. His comments on life in America during the middle of the 19th century really carry a romantic outlook. He was passionate about himself, life, and the world around him. The fact that he inspired many poets around the world in the 20th century gives testimony to him being a poet with worldwide appeal. He was not just a voice for America; he was a voice for lovers of life.

An utterly worthless book
There are many other places where readers can buy the first and last editions of "Leaves of Grass."After all, this poetry is in the public domain.One obvious example of a book which provides more Whitman, in a superior binding, would be the volume from the Library of America.

The only thing which makes this book different is the introduction by professor Karen Karbiener, and that introduction is a really curious piece of work.It manages to be both a disgrace to Karen Karbiener and her profession, and to stand forth as a shining example of the deadly rot that has taken over the departments of literature in American universities.

Where to begin?Well, we might start with the fact that Karbiener is a political activist, not a scholar.She can't get through two pages of her "Introduction" without claiming Walt Whitman as a politically correct feminist, and a socialist to boot!

The historical Walt Whitman was a man who loved only the members of his own sex -- who was completely indifferent to women -- a misogynist, in fact.He was always perfectly polite to women, and placed deliberately misleading statements in his poems (e.g. "Both the love of men and the love of women enrapture my soul") -- but women played no part in his life and were never admitted to his intimate circle.To claim this man as a feminist is clearly to elevate political concerns over literary concerns -- which has been going on in literature departments ever since the radicals took over.

There is worse than this, much worse.Despite the fact that we know the names of Whitman's male lovers, and that we have tons of manuscript and love letters to and from those men, despite the fact that we know which nights he slept with them, and when he gave "wedding rings" to them -- despite Walt's penchant for male love being a historical certaintly (though Walt made attempts to conceal some of it in his old age), Karen Karbiener demotes it to a "maybe!"This stunning misrepresentation, alas, just continues the grand old tradition of stuffing Walt Whitman into the closet -- a tradition which has blackened the name of Whitman "scholarship" from its inception.

Could there be worse?Well, actually, there could be worse, and is.If you have studied Whitman and his poems, it is pretty clear that Whitman burst upon the world in 1855 as a poet of eroticism and sensuality."I Sing the Body Electric" was the least of it.For the next five or ten years, Whitman did his best to create a sexual revolution in an America which was NOT ready for it.People began to accuse him of being a sodomite, and Whitman suffered a debilitating stroke.His nerve failed, and he began "cleaning up his act," slowly transforming himself into "The Good Gray Poet" and deleting telltale clues from his later editions of "The Leaves of Grass."He also began churning out utterly second-rate poems in favor of "American democracy" and other such political abstractions.

What's the problem here?Karen Karbiener thinks that the later, "political" stuff and nonsense represents what is really valuable about Walt Whitman!One could adduce this as further evidence that she is simply a political activist, but how can anyone explain this appalling lack of literary taste?

In sum, Karbiener's "literary commentary" is about as helpful as the "literary commentary" of the King of Zembla in Nabokov's "Pale Fire!"

I am totally sorry that I spent my money on this book.My copy is going right in the trash.

By the way, the best edition of "Leaves of Grass" is the 1860 edition.That edition, of course, is not in this book.

Not recommended at all!!