Non-fiction review: Satellites in the High Country

 

 Title: Satellites in the High Country: Searching for the Wild in the Age of Man
Author: Jason Mark
Publisher: Island Press, 2015. 320 p.
Source: Purchase

Publisher's Summary: 
In Satellites in the High Country, journalist and adventurer Jason Mark travels beyond the bright lights and certainties of our cities to seek wildness wherever it survives. In California's Point Reyes National Seashore, a battle over oyster farming and designated wilderness pits former allies against one another, as locals wonder whether wilderness should be untouched, farmed, or something in between. In Washington's Cascade Mountains, a modern-day wild woman and her students learn to tan hides and start fires without matches, attempting to connect with a primal past out of reach for the rest of society. And in Colorado's High Country, dark skies and clear air reveal a breathtaking expanse of stars, flawed only by the arc of a satellite passing—beauty interrupted by the traffic of a million conversations. These expeditions to the edges of civilization's grid show us that, although our notions of pristine nature may be shattering, the mystery of the wild still exists — and in fact, it is more crucial than ever.

But wildness is wily as a coyote: you have to be willing to track it to understand the least thing about it. Satellites in the High Country is an epic journey on the trail of the wild, a poetic and incisive exploration of its meaning and enduring power in our Human Age.

 My Review:
Since this book addresses some issues near and dear to my heart (the preservation of wilderness and the pursuit of wild places), I really wanted to like it. And when the author recounts his adventures and wilderness travels, I was pulled along and enjoyed the trip. But in the end, I was disappointed, despite a number of thought-provoking moments along the way.

I think the problem may be that the author is trying to take in too much, or possibly looking too hard for the right situations to back up his argument. It's a bit hard to be sure about that, because in the end, I am not sure what his argument is. He seems to be claiming both that we are seeing (or have seen) the end of wildness/wilderness, and that we have an on-going need for it and must preserve it. Maybe those aren't contradictory arguments, and maybe I was unsatisfied because I prefer to imagine that we can have a real wilderness still, even though I know that my own ventures into "the wild" are heavily mediated by gear and infrastructure.

I'm not sure, but there's a good chance that, reading my last sentence, the author would be satisfied.

Recommendation:
This is a book that would probably bear discussion, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it as a way into the question of the wild/wilderness and it's future. In fact, for all their romantic inconsistencies, I would recommend beginning where I (and the author) did: with classics like John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Colin Fletcher. One thing is clear: the author did make the effort to put himself out there where he could experience what wildness he could find in the US, and I don't think he'd say that it's dead, however much we must (realistically) manage it.

Full Disclosure: My husband purchased Satellites in the High Country, and neither of us received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."   

X: Xanadu!

Before we begin today's post, I just want to say that I'm a guest poster over at Out Where the Buses Don't Run.  Thanks, Gus!  So when you finish reading my X-related ramblings, drop on over and show some love!



Not a whole novel.  But the only thing I could come up with for X, unless I featured my own Xavier Xanthum stories.  Besides, at this point in the month, a fairly short poem seems like a great subject!  So I have chosen Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem, "Kubla Khan," about Xanadu.  It's one of many from which I have memorized the first several lines--and no more (my brain seems to absorb up to a point without effort.  After that--bleh).   Xanadu seems to sit in the heart of wilderness, despite Kubla Khan's efforts to tame it. . .and he himself was pretty wild.  So that's my tenuous wilderness tie-in.

Instead of a review (even I don't have the chutzpah to review Coleridge!) I just going to share some of my favorite bits.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
   Down to a sunless sea.
. . .

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!

Just a reminder for anyone who thinks that the Romantic poets were all about sweetness and light and clouds of daffodils!  Turns out they (well, people of that time, i.e. early-mid 19th Century) were also the folks who largely invented the idea of loving wilderness for being wild, rather than seeing it purely as something to tame.  They were also very much into the horrific (don't forget Frankenstein!), which shows in the second except above (love that "woman wailing for her demon lover").

From Coleridge and his love of the "deep romantic chasm" you could probably draw a straight line to people like Brad Washburn, whose life story I reviewed last week.  These are the people who love nature for the very fact that it's wild and could have you for breakfast without caring a whit.   Not everyone's on board with the idea even yet, but I'm very glad enough are, and have been, that we have some wilderness left to go to.

H: the Boston Jane books by Jennifer Holm

 

H is for Jennifer L. Holm, author of a fun series about settling the wilds of Washington State.



  

Summary: 
The "Boston Jane" trilogy follows the adventures of Jane Peck when she moves from Philadelphia to Stillwater Bay, Washington (now called Willapa Bay) to be married.  It is 1853, and this is definitely wilderness, at least to the white settlers (the local Chinook Indians seem quite comfortable there).  Only 16, Jane is the sole white woman on the Bay, and discovers that the skills she learned in "finishing school" (pouring tea and coffee, the art of polite conversation, proper dress, etc.) are of little use when she finds that her fiancee has taken off and she needs to find a way to get by.   The first book is divided between Jane's childhood and conversion from the wildest of tomboys to a Proper Young Lady, and the adjustment to life in Washington.  The second book follows her adventures as she decides to settle in there after all, despite the awful weather (I grew up on Puget Sound.  I often pitied the pioneers).  In the third book, civilization comes to Stillwater Bay, and it nearly ruins everything Jane has come to love.

Review:
Jane Peck is a delightful heroine and narrator.  Her silliness and naivete through much of the first book would be annoying if it weren't just plain funny.  The humiliations Jane suffers are almost too much at times, but the humor with which they are written--Jane's own underlying recognition of her absurdity--keeps it bearable, and we watch as she gradually recovers the child she was before Miss Hepplewhite's academy taught her to be an airhead.  Once she moves beyond that, it is a pleasure to watch her grow and cope with the challenges of her new life, some of them brought on by her own hot temper.

In fact, my greatest criticism of the books is how quickly Jane takes to being turned into a lady (dazzled into it by the opinion of a male--at the age of 11!) and how tenaciously she holds to it in the face of its obvious unsuitability.  As a totally unreformed tomboy, I have trouble imagining any girl would give up thinking and speaking her mind, running, and dressing comfortably, for a few bits of praise from a blond bozo.  It's not like her own father doesn't praise and respect her for those tomboy traits.  And, having been dumped into the wilderness, she is too smart to have clung quite so long to her fine notions about what makes a "lady."  On the other hand, well, she's 16, not 50, so maybe reason is a little slower to take effect.

Boston Jane gives us a very vivid picture of what it must have been like for the early settlers in the Pacific Northwest, where the winters might not be freezing, but they are even wetter than the summers.  Ms. Holm paints the land and the inhabitants with a vivid brush, and sets up the contrast between the cities of the East and the realities of the West in a way children and adults alike can appreciate.

Highly recommended.

Full Disclosure: I borrowed Boston Jane: An Adventure, Boston Jane: Wilderness Days, and Boston Jane: The Claim  from my  library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

A to Z Theme Reveal Blog Hop!

It's almost here--the crazy exercise known as the A to Z Challenge.  Hundreds of bloggers sign on each year to blog almost daily through April (we get Sundays off.  Isn't that generous?) in a big blogging party.  Why?  There are several reasons.  One is to increase traffic and (hopefully) active followers for our blogs, because a huge part of the Hop is going about and reading the blogs of others, and following those that you like.  For some of us (okay, for me), another reason is one similar to the reason for doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month): it creates a focus on my writing in my own head and life.

Last year, doing the Hop for the first time (having jumped in at rather the last minute on an impulse), I met a number of great bloggers, and also figured out what I really wanted to do with this blog.  Not bad, for something just tossed into the hopper without much thought.

This year, with my blog chugging along pretty well (as you know, I've settled into a pattern of two reviews and a Flash Fiction each week, and yes, it does encroach on my novel-writing time, but probably in a good way, since it keeps me reading and keeps me writing fiction even when all about me is editing and formatting and marketing, oh my!) (I apologize for an inexcusably long parenthetical digression. .  . now where was I?), I am a little more conscious of what I'm doing and why.  And I have a THEME.

Yeah, yeah, you say.  Get to the point already.  What is that glorious theme?

First, I'm going to tell you what it's not.  I was sorely tempted, but my theme is NOT Ice Cream (it would have been a nice marketing ploy as my new mystery, Death By Ice Cream is launching in just a few days.  But just a little too much.  And the research would probably cause serious weight gain).

Nor is my theme haiku, though the brevity of that form made it tempting.

You could write a haiku about these almond blossoms.

I toyed with the idea of world travel.

Okay, I cheated.  This isn't in Holland.  It's a few miles from home, in Golden Gate Park.  But it originally came from Holland.

And in the end, I went with my great passion: Wilderness.

Weminuche Wilderness, Colorado

Here's what the month will look like:
Mondays: Reviews of adult books on wilderness/wilderness travel/backpacking.
Tuesdays: Original fiction and non-fiction pieces on wilderness travel.
Wednesdays: Reviews of children's books on wilderness, wilderness adventures, and settling the Wild West.
Thursdays: Photos.  I do a LOT of backpacking (the US style, i.e., wilderness travel with everything I will need on my back, sleeping in tents and cooking on a dinky alcohol-burning stove).  I will be highlighting some of my best photos from around the West (US and Canadian Rockies).
Fridays: Flash Fiction.  If possible, I will do these from the Chuck Wendig prompts, and force them to fit the letters of the day.  Should be interesting.
Saturdays: a return to something I've not done much recently: posts on writing.  I'm not sure how that will relate to the wilderness theme, except writing is all about the inside of my head, which is pretty much an untamed wilderness.  We might call it the writer's journey, too.

And, of course, as often as possible, I will mention ice cream.  Because. . . you know why!

So check out the list and hop around to see what some of the exciting themes of A to Z 2014 will be!

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In related news: only three days left to enter to win a paperback copy of Death By Ice Cream.

Click the link above or in the side-bar!  Do it by Monday or lose your chance!

Okay, I lied about that.  Because tomorrow kicks off the Death By Ice Cream blog tour and e-book give-away.  Visit jemimapett.com on March 22 for a review and a chance to enter to win!

The other participating blogs are:
Gus Sanchez
Will MacMillan Jones
Storybook Reviews
Rosalee Richland
Lisa Frieden
Finishing with Carla Sarett on April 2

Lots of cool stuff coming up this spring

I have a lot of exciting stuff coming up in the next few months, both here on the blog and in the rest of life.  Well, not so much in life, except that trip to Tucson, AZ, for the Tucson Festival of Books (find me at the Children's Tent from 2-4 on Saturday, March 15.  Not that I'm advertising or anything).

In addition to, or sometimes in place of, the usual reviews and Friday Flash Fiction for the next two months, look out for these events:

• Feb. 10: Cover Reveal for Death By Ice Cream
• Feb. 26: Blurb Reveal for Death By Ice Cream
• March 24 (give or take a little): Death By Ice Cream is released; blog-hop to celebrate the release.  We'll be adding to the fun with a Giveaway, maybe holding a party on the Internet.  Come, and bring chocolate!
• April: The A to Z Challenge.  I've picked my theme: wilderness, with a side of ice cream (guess why!), and plan to include book reviews, wilderness-themed flash fiction, and at least one day per week of pretty picture from the wilds of the Western US.  I'm still looking for kids' and adult books that fit the wilderness theme and the letters of the alphabet, but you can bet there will be more hiker narratives and some of the great adventure stories by Gary Paulsen.

In addition, in late February I'll be participating in a blog hop for The Orphan and the Thief, by M. L. LeGette, a middle grade fantasy that (based on the first two or three chapters) promises to be an exciting read!

And all the while I'm working on my next projects: major revisions for Halitor the Hero, my own middle grade fantasy (with tongue mostly in cheek), and the beginning bits of the third Ninja Librarian collection, in which we deal with the problem of Peggy, not to mention getting back to beating my NaNo novel, the sequel to Death By Ice Cream into sometime more like a book, called (at least for now), Death By Trombone.

So watch this space!

I'd like to finish with a hint at the new cover, or even some cute kittens, but I can't and won't.  Instead, I'll just use my favorite trademark, the post-hike ice cream frenzy: