The Desert Year [Paperback]

Joseph Wood Krutch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1985

Now back in print, Joseph Wood Krutch’s Burroughs Award–winning The Desert Year is as beautiful as it is philosophically profound. Although Krutch—often called the Cactus Walden—came to the desert relatively late in his life, his curiosity and delight in his surroundings abound throughout The Desert Year, whether he is marveling at the majesty of the endless dry sea, at flowers carpeting the desert floor, or at the unexpected appearance of an army of frogs after a heavy rain.

Krutch’s trenchant observations about life prospering in the hostile environment of Arizona’s Sonoran Desert turn to weighty questions about humanity and the precariousness of our existence, putting lie to Western denials of mind in the “lower” forms of life: “Let us not say that this animal or even this plant has ‘become adapted’ to desert conditions. Let us say rather that they have all shown courage and ingenuity in making the best of the world as they found it. And let us remember that if to use such terms in connection with them is a fallacy then it can only be somewhat less a fallacy to use the same terms in connection with ourselves.”

This edition contains 33 exacting drawings by noted illustrator Rudolf Freund. Closely tied to Krutch’s uncluttered text, the drawings tell a story of ineffable beauty.

 

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“In prose that holds something of the clear, dry light of the land he loves, [Krutch] shares with us his discoveries and his associations. They are richly worth sharing.”—Paul Horgan, New York Times

“Krutch’s Desert Year stands, with Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire and Mary Austin’s Land of Little Rain, as a classic, must-read work on the arid Southwest. Krutch, a drama critic and professor of English at Columbia, demonstrates that professional training in field biology is not required to write evocatively about the natural world. What is required, instead, is a well-trained eye, a sympathetic heart, and an inquisitive mind. The Desert Year stands as a celebration of an austere landscape, a work of beauty and joy. I recommend this book equally to old desert hands, and to those who have not yet had the good fortune to wander among the cacti, heat blasted arroyos, and sheltering canyons of the Southwest.”—Christopher Norment, author, Return to Warden’s Grove: Science, Desire, and the Lives of Sparrows

“Krutch's Thoreauvian observations of the southern Arizona desert force a renewed appreciation for all forms of desert life.”—Arizona Highways

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Joseph Wood Krutch (1893–1970) was the Brander Matthews Chair of Dramatic Literature at Columbia University for two decades and served as the Nation’s drama critic for nearly thirty years. A Burroughs Medal laureate, Krutch published more than a dozen books, including The Great Chain of Life (Iowa reprint, 2000). A noted illustrator and artist, Rudolf Freund contributed to numerous nature guides and during the 1960s worked at Yale’s Peabody Museum.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 270 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Arizona Pr (March 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816509239
• ISBN-13: 978-0816509232
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,934,400 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #58 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Ecosystems > Deserts

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Connecticut Yankee in Arizona, June 8, 2003

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Desert Year (Paperback)

Written over 50 years ago, this classic book of nature writing captures the near timelessness of the southern Arizona desert in a series of essays describing the author's fifteen-month sojourn there. While Krutch harks back to Thoreau, his perspective, turns of thought, and style of expression are similar to the reflective essays of E. B. White. They begin with observations of plant and animal life and evolve into ruminations on the nature of human life.

Krutch writes of birds, the night sky, bats, saguaro cactus, ocotillo, and desert flowers. Considering them, he rediscovers the truth in ideas he has so long held as true that they've become near platitudes. Where there is plentitude in some things, for instance, there is no need for it in others. Nature cares for the species but not individuals, while human values tend toward the opposite. While every rose has its thorn, the blooming cactus shows us that the reverse is also true. A visit to the vastness and forbidding desert monuments of Cathedral Valley in south central Utah reminds him of the precariousness of human life.

The desert leads Krutch to contemplation of its paradoxes, as well. For instance, the struggle for life here where conditions for survival are more restrictive actually create an uncrowded and more serene ecosystem by comparison with the tropics. The varieties of bird life are vastly greater here than in more temperate climates. A species of toads can live unseen and unheard for 363 days of the year, emerging after a rain fall to sing and reproduce, then disappear and survive somehow in the waterless months between. Finally, there's one question he's never able to answer: why bats fly clockwise from Carlsbad cave.

You can't really know a place, he believes, until you have seen it both as novel and as familiar. A landscape is no more than a picture postcard until you have spent time there and discover yourself in the midst of it. "The Desert Year" is a wonderful account of that process and a celebration of the joy that can be found in settling down for a while in a place that gradually comes to feel like home.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most extraordinary insight into the magic of Tucson., July 13, 1999

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[e-mail] (Tucson) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Desert Year (Paperback)

If you have an interest in the desert and why we live here with JOY you must read this book. Krutch was an extraordinary man and he lived an extraordinary life his first year here. This book is the story of why he stayed instead of returning to New York. It is perhaps the most admired book about Tucson that has ever been written.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Crisp as the desert air, November 30, 2008

By 

Howie (North by Northwest) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Desert Year (Paperback)

Joseph Wood Krutch was a literary critique and a Thoreau scholar, so there is no surprise that his writing in this book had more than a touch of the "Thoreau flavor". There are many quotable sentences -- in the opening chapter he gave us 'A "tour" is like a cocktail party. One "meets" everybody and knows no one', and the book ends with 'Wherever one goes one has one's self fro company'. Krutch wrote with clarity, this book is probably the most "Thoreau like" book I've ever read (since Thoreau, of course). It consists of the description of the desert and its flora and fauna and the author's philosophical musing. I only wish he had done a bit more of the former and less of the latter. In some part of the book, such as "The Metaphor of the Grasslands", the philosophical contemplations feel a bit too long and dry. And overall, after reading the book, I had the feeling that there was probably still a lot more that could have been written about the desert. If the book had 50% more of observations, which would also put the philosophical contemplations to their proper proportions, it would have been more satisfying. Nonetheless, this is probably one of the best nature books as an introduction to the Desert Southwest.