Describing mind-altering adventures on the Colorado Plateau, Paul Rea hikes through Canyonlands, Grand Gulch, Havasu, and Zion canyons, and rafts the Colorado, Dolores, Green, and San Juan rivers. He explores and celebrates the enchanted, colorful desert in sensuous, introspective, and playful ways. "Seated on a mossy rock, nude," he writes, "I wave to the California Zephyr across the river. Many years ago, riding this train home from the Summer of Love, I first beheld the red rock country in this very canyon." Even the earth comes alive in Rea's prose: "The dark gneiss seethes, then shimmers like a translucent veil across the bare-boned rock." He tells how he repeatedly returned to the desert, evolving from "greenhorn" to "greybeard" as he became bonded to the landscape. These exciting, life-affirming, and thought-provoking stories are so seductive that readers will get lost in them, just as easily as a hiker traversing the landscape itself.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The subject of Rea's first book is a marvelous one--an exploration of the colorful Colorado Plateau--but he renders it lackluster. Clearly, Rea (who teaches at St. Mary's College in California) has a passionate connection to this part of the world, for his well-trained eyes seem always open to new experiences. He pilots an 11-foot raft down the Colorado River (with his friend Jeff, who is never properly introduced), hikes through the Needles District National Park and covers many regions of the Plateau, "an enormously enchanting region, a truly magical place that takes hold of the soul." Each chapter is followed by a more philosophical interlude, which may explain why the publisher categorizes the book as "natural history/ecopsychology." Few areas of the world have attracted and inspired as many nature writers as has the Colorado Plateau. Unfortunately, Rea's narrative, hampered by prose that is choppy, dry or cliched in turn ("flat-bottomed towering cumuli sailing like clipper ships on a vivid blue sea"), does little to enhance their legacy. Ultimately, readers may feel as if they're looking at a map of the region rather than being transported to the Grand Canyon itself.
Copyright 1997 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Review
The canyon country of southern Utah is one of the most fascinating landscapes in North America, and after reading Paul Rea's eloquent book, it's easy to understand why. Rea serves up a feast of adventure leavened with sweeping landscape descriptions and spiced with the lore of human and natural history. He has traveled widely on both water and land, from the hiking trails of Zion, Dark Canyon, and Grand Gulch to the watery labyrinths of the Dolores, the Green, the Colorado, and the San Juan. This book is a lover's hymn to the canyon country; after reading it you may just want to lash a raft to the roof of your car and take off. Rea is an avid river and desert rat with an unquenchable thirst for raw sensation: the chest-hammering thrill of big rapids, the scrape of sandstone against bare feet, the caress of a desert pool, the sharp-edged songs of birds or frogs, even the shivers aroused by Anasazi graves or ruins. He relishes every color, smell, taste, and feel, luscious or painful as each may be. His adventure writing, couched in dramatic present tense, moves fast and hot enough to make you sweat. The pace never slows, although Rea lightens things up with abundant short digressions on various creatures, plants, rock formations, and historic sites he encounters. The book is a primer on canyon natural history, though the facts are strung through each story like colored beads, rather than arranged systematically as in a field guide. Rea has clearly traveled as much in the library as on the land. His natural history writing deftly combines book learning with the fruits of direct observation in descriptions of uncommon eloquence, clarity, and grace. Although each excursion is followed by a short "interlude" that meditates on some issue of aesthetic, ethical, scientific, or environmental concern, there is no overarching thesis or argument to this book. It does not tell a single story of growth and discovery, but rather presents a portfolio of journeys. In this respect it exemplifies a "practice of the wild." However, since Rea has opted for direct experience rather than reflection in telling these stories, one is left wishing for more of the wisdom and growth that his travels must have provided. There are hints, too, of complex and important human relationships unfolding in the background: friends, lovers, ancestors. All these make for an inner landscape as rich and intricate as any canyon. Perhaps his next book will venture into that wilderness as well. --John Tallmadge, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment
American literature has long been mesmerized by the desert. Many authors draw inspiration from nature in barren places, including Mary Austin who wrote at the turn of the century and Terry Tempest Williams who writes today. Paul Rea has recently joined their company, by sharing with us a set of essays that highlight the canyonlands, or "red-rock" country, in Southeastern Utah Mormon and Anasazi country, dinosaur, rattlesnake, and coyote country. Rea, an English professor and film critic, encounters the sublime in this desert landscape. "Luminous light, wild rivers, crystalline skies, expansive space, and gloriously exposed bedrock" enthuses the preface to Canyon Interludes. In thirteen chronicles Rea paints the wilderness as a garden, a texture of interacting life forms framed by rock and rivers the Colorado, the Green, the Dolores ribbons, lined with willow, cottonwood, box elder, that cut through ancient sandstones. Beaver ply these rivers, cougars prowl their banks, hawks and nighthawks share the air with swarms of hungry gnats. Rea dwells upon these creatures, caught up in their pursuits. He observes them very closely a water strider for instance, engaged in stop-and-go on the surface of an eddy. He steps back into natural history to explain their behavior once standing on the surface tension, striders cannot sink and to understand the relationships between the plants and rock formations that furnish their home. His prose frequently has the quality of well-informed "field notes." Usually this style illuminates; sometimes it distracts. However, the canyons do their work and as the book progresses, it fuses and gets lyrical. Paul Rea reveals himself as one of us. He is sensual, an esthete, who is somewhat didactic in presenting his testimony on behalf of the wilderness. He carries small notepads to write down his impressions; he smarts whenever local ranchers deride environmentalists; he pokes fun at the Boy Scouts but accepts their gift of beer; he takes charge when running rapids, and gets into scrapes. Every essay gains its energy from the drama of an adventure: lost in a maze of canyons, exhausted in the heat, almost out of water, spooked by Indian ruins, almost swept away by a flash flood. Rea's "garden" works its magic (Rea's favorite word is "mesmerize") within a theater of hardship that calls for grit and know-how. I think of the Christian ascetics early in the first millennium. Poor souls did they experience a similar magic and reject it as bewitchment? Or were they drawn, perhaps in spite of themselves, by lights and colors and desert critters by the holiness in nature? Beneath Rea's ecological message lies a deeper message: the primal world is woven with ordeals and revelations. --Carl Putz, John F. Kennedy University Literary Review
American literature has long been mesmerized by the desert. Many authors draw inspiration from nature in barren places, including Mary Austin who wrote at the turn of the century and Terry Tempest Williams who writes today. Paul Rea has recently joined their company, by sharing with us a set of essays that highlight the canyonlands, or "red-rock" country, in Southeastern Utah Mormon and Anasazi country, dinosaur, rattlesnake, and coyote country. Rea, an English professor and film critic, encounters the sublime in this desert landscape. "Luminous light, wild rivers, crystalline skies, expansive space, and gloriously exposed bedrock" enthuses the preface to Canyon Interludes. In thirteen chronicles Rea paints the wilderness as a garden, a texture of interacting life forms framed by rock and rivers the Colorado, the Green, the Dolores ribbons, lined with willow, cottonwood, box elder, that cut through ancient sandstones. Beaver ply these rivers, cougars prowl their banks, hawks and nighthawks share the air with swarms of hungry gnats. Rea dwells upon these creatures, caught up in their pursuits. He observes them very closely a water strider for instance, engaged in stop-and-go on the surface of an eddy. He steps back into natural history to explain their behavior once standing on the surface tension, striders cannot sink and to understand the relationships between the plants and rock formations that furnish their home. His prose frequently has the quality of well-informed "field notes." Usually this style illuminates; sometimes it distracts. However, the canyons do their work and as the book progresses, it fuses and gets lyrical. Paul Rea reveals himself as one of us. He is sensual, an esthete, who is somewhat didactic in presenting his testimony on behalf of the wilderness. He carries small notepads to write down his impressions; he smarts whenever local ranchers deride environmentalists; he pokes fun at the Boy Scouts but accepts their gift of beer; he takes charge when running rapids, and gets into scrapes. Every essay gains its energy from the drama of an adventure: lost in a maze of canyons, exhausted in the heat, almost out of water, spooked by Indian ruins, almost swept away by a flash flood. Rea's "garden" works its magic (Rea's favorite word is "mesmerize") within a theater of hardship that calls for grit and know-how. I think of the Christian ascetics early in the first millennium. Poor souls did they experience a similar magic and reject it as bewitchment? Or were they drawn, perhaps in spite of themselves, by lights and colors and desert critters by the holiness in nature? Beneath Rea's ecological message lies a deeper message: the primal world is woven with ordeals and revelations. --Carl Putz, John F. Kennedy University Literary Review
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant and beautiful.,
By Kyle Gardner "an avid reader" (American West) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Canyon Interludes: Between White Water and Red Rock (Paperback)
Written in the spirit of Henry David Thoreau, Ed Abbey, and Everett Reuss, Rea artfully describes mind-blowing scenery across the entire Colorado Plateau experienced while rafting, backpacking, hiking and touring. Mixing natural history with insightful philosophical reflections, Rea draws the reader ever deep into the scenery and transformative character of the Plateau. Written with passion and skill, Rea's book is a must read for enthusiasts of the Colorado Plateau, naturalists, historians, and everyone interested in preserving what little remains of the wild.By Kyle Gardner, author of Medicine Rock Reflections
5.0 out of 5 stars
In the Tradition of Abbey,
This review is from: Canyon Interludes: Between White Water and Red Rock (Paperback)
Paul Rea's book, Canyon Interludes, offers the reader more than merely environmental reflection. In the tradition of Edward Abbey, Rea offers the reader integrated moments of personal reflection while traveling into some of the most undiscovered country left in America, the canyons and rivers of Southeastern Utah, the four corners region, and the desiduous Southwest.Set deep in such amazing landscapes as these, Rea offers the reader incredibly detailed depictions of nature intertwined with very real physical tribulations - and accompanying emotional ponderings - while hiking and kayaking in the vast and remote spaces that few have bothered (or dared) to travel. This is a visceral piece that anyone who has experienced the sparcely harsh, yet awe-inspiring high desert would appreciate. Like Abbey, this author provides the reader with introspective moments to find themselves as well.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Sensual Feast,
By Elaine S. Groen (San Francisco CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Canyon Interludes: Between White Water and Red Rock (Paperback)
The author's delight in the areas he travels is palpable. Paul Rea's passion for rock, river, plants and birds unfolds as he strides through a canyon or paddles a stretch of quiet river. His prose awakens the senses and creates a strong desire to experience these places for oneself.This is not a book to be speed-read. Each sentence packs so much color, description and nuance that the reader wants to read slowly and savor each line. The enthusiasm the author feels comes through "loud and strong." In addition, he invites readers to understand that some of these wonders will not be accessible to our heirs if we do not carefully set aside/preserve these environs. His concern for the environment is balanced by a sense of fair play-trying to find solutions that work for everyone. If you are passionate about the "great outdoors," this is a book for you!
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