Customer Reviews

California Fault

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The author takes a trip down the San Andreas fault from the North Coast to the Salton Sea, and talks about the communities (villages, San Francisco, Palm Springs) along the way. These California towns are facing the same problems with developers wanting to make a quick buck and local governments desparate for tax money to build prisons. The author's geology is lacking, but his sense of the people he's met makes up for it.

California Fault is an absolutely wonderful addition to the literature about California, and the San Andreas Fault. Clarke's tales about the state, and how the Fault has influenced it, are highly recommended.I would rate the book up with Mike Davis' "City of Quartz" and "Ecology of Fear" as some of the absolute best writing about the state.

The fear, fatalism, and futility that earthquakes inspire in Californians may be the one true element that binds them all despite their political, sociocultural and economic and, may I add, hydrological divisiveness. Still, earthquakes may not necessarily factor in the psyche of people who live a comfortable distance from the state's many faults or for people who do not think they should be affected at all. The book probably works out fine for readers who have not been to California or who are curious about earthquakes and the alleged capabilities of some people to make predictions sans scientific instruments.

The strongest message that I got from the book is this: Just as the beauty of California belies the terror that its geologic instability can bring about, the popularity of the state as a favorite destination belies the sad realities that come with unstoppable population growth: the lack of rootedness and an appreciation for history, the ever-increasing isolationism of gated communities and housing developments, and the homogenization of suburban living, shopping, and other recreational diversions. The description of teenage ennui in privileged Saratoga, the suburban anonymity of Cupertino in Santa Clara Valley and Palmdale in Antelope Valley, and the increasing hazards of spending a weekend at the San Gabriel Mountains were particularly telling.

Earthquakes may cause people not to move to, or to move out of, California, but the big challenge for Californians is to balance a viable economy with preserving what is left of this gorgeous state. The author lamented the lack of community in places that have just sprouted from what once was rangeland or farmland. Will the sense of community improve when immigrant communities are more established? The children of immigrants and transplants will have to understand the history of this vast state and listen to the voices of reason (voiced out by its eccentrics? bohemians? environmentalists?) in order to come up with a solution to preserve the attributes that make California great.

Clarke certainly came up with a novel way to get to grips with the fading California Dream. His trip along the San Andreas Fault is filled with characters and places no one would ever visit except Clarke. This makes it all the better as how else would we know there are plans afoot to turn a polluted inland sea, the Salton Sea (where?), in southern California into a resort! Or stories like the weirdly wonderful Japanese businessman who built a "shrine" to James Dean near the spot on the fault where Dean crashed and burned...the list goes on and on. Somehow Clarke is able to weave it all together into a coherent whole and despite his wish to experience a quake on his journey, he doesn't yet leaves us all with a story that will add to the understanding of the elusive California Dream.

Thurston Clarke explores the San Andreas Fault from end to end in this highly entertaining book. Along the way, he examines California and Californians, and consequently is able to offer some fresh insights into life in the Golden State.

The book is presented as a series of vignettes, based on his experiences in various locations along the fault from Humboldt County south to the Salton Sea. Not surprisingly, some sections are more effective than others. His treatment of the legacy of Indian massacres in the Eureka area is hauntingly vivid, as is his analysis of Ferndale's attempts to resist losing its soul to commercialization and yuppification. He also provides what ultimately proves to be a passionate discourse on the never-ending controversy over logging and clearcutting along the north coast.

Another excellent section of the book comes much later, when he explores the hellish new suburban landscape of Palmdale, in the Antelope Valley, His dissection of the emptiness of "the suburban dream" in that sad community is masterful.

Perhaps surprisingly, the weakest aspect of the book is his treatment of geology and earthquakes. He gives WAY too much space and credence to earthquake prediction quackery, including folks who *claim* to predict quakes through headaches, planetary alignment, and the analysis of radio waves. Here, Clarke comes across as gullible and a bit too eager to find "some grain of truth" in pseudo-science.

Also, whereas one cannot expect any book of this scope to be error-free, Clarke commits some small factual blunders here that can grate on the reader who knows better. He misterms an earthquake's "hypocenter" as its "hydrocenter," and actually, the phenomenon he is referring to is its "focus." He misplaces the feisty coastal town of Bolinas in "East Marin," and he cites the Coalinga earthquake as having occurred in 1982, instead of 1983.

In a lengthy book of this kind, I suppose such errors can be overlooked. The freshness of Clarke's insights and his skill as a journalist make this book well worth reading for any student of California history and culture.

Clarke makes it clear that he does not like California. He doesn't see why anyone would like California. He goes into great detail critcizing California and the people in California. The problem is, he NEVER suggests anything better; he never presents anything about anywhere that he *does* like. This makes for dreary, and at times infuriating, reading.

Then again, I'm from California.

....could so sharp-eyed an author collect such a crazy quilt of legends, stories, hard data, speculation, and eccentric responses to the oft-denied relationship between the San Andreas Fault he paces from north to south and the folks who live atop it. He has a reporter's knack for getting at the subtext of whatever details catch his attention--and the subtext is often deeply poignant, coming as it does from the shadow side of a given community.

My one complaint is that the book spends too much time northward. One reads 3/4 of it and gets no farther south than Hollister. I hope future editions will include more about Southern California. Highly recommended.

Mr. Clark follows California's San Andreas fault from the north to the south and documents the people he meets and the communities he visits along the way. Of special interest were his insightful comments on current residents' knowlege of local Native American history. This book is an illuminating look at California culture in the '90's. I'm sending it to my friend in Eureka who introduced me to some of the same Native American history Mr. Clark uncovers, and to my brother in Fremont to see what he thinks of Mr. Clark's viewpoint. This is a great travelogue for those who enjoy both people and geology.

San Jose, CA August '98. Being German and having moved to the bay area in `89 continuously forces me to compare the California life style to the German/European one. In a bargain sale i've bought Clark's book out of curiosity and was quite surprised to find a wealth of information on local history and politics of places i've already visited but never have learnt about their history and background information. For me more important than the description of the fault and earthquake issues were his remarks on commuter cities, vandalism, crime, non existing neighborhoods, non-existing functioning families and the problem how to bring up kids in such an environment. Are the Californians blind to all these issues? why does it need outsiders to surface all these important facts. Anyway after reading the book you definitely will have a different view of the 'golden state' and you'll probably come to the conclusion that the degrading social life is more of a problem to California than the Andrea's Fault. After all I'ld be very curious how Clark would write about my home country.