Customer Reviews

Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a hard book to sum up in a few words. Fascinating and compelling, yes; heartbreaking, often; hair-raising sometimes; exasperating, occasionally. Mostly, it is a vivid reminder of what it is to be still very young, naive, and adventuresome. It's also a book that's very hard to put down.

The reader, of course, knows from the start that Everett Ruess disappears at the age of 21 while on a walkabout somewhere near the Colorado River, in the remote 1930s wilderness of southern Utah. Gifted, bright, and almost painfully sensitive, he writes letters home that are sweetly poignant, thoughtful, opinionated, and rapturously descriptive of the natural environment he loves. Starting at the age of 16, while still a high school student in Hollywood, California, he journeys to Carmel, Arizona, and the Sierras. Leaving UCLA after one unhappy semester, he returns to the Four Corners region of Arizona and drifts northward into Utah where he follows the Escalante down to the Colorado and then vanishes.

A lover of classical music, a reader of books, poet, writer, water colorist, and block print maker, he considers himself very much a misfit in a world of conformity, where people live lives of quiet desperation, pursuing material goals that make them unhappy and unfulfilled. Torn between his desire for companionship and his love of wilderness solitude, he appreciates warm and welcoming company wherever he happens upon it, and seeks it out when he can, sometimes introducing himself to established artists, such as photographers Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. During visits to the home of painter Maynard Dixon, in San Francisco, he is befriended and photographed by Dixon's wife, Dorothea Lange. One of these photographs eventually appears in a missing persons report in a publication of the Los Angeles Police Department.

It's easy to go on and on about this book. The letters provide such a rich psychological portrait of this young man, full of interesting contradictions and curious prophecies of his eventual fate. Meanwhile, there is the mystery of his disappearance and the various theories and speculation about what may have happened to him, which are also included by the book's author.

I am happy to recommend this book to anyone interested in the West, stories about coming of age and self-reliance, rhapsodic descriptions of nature, personal adventures, the desert, Native Americans, and unsolved mysteries. As companion volumes, I'd also suggest Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" and Eliot Porter's excellent collection of photographs, "The Place No One Knew: Glen Canyon on the Colorado."

This is a great book for those who love solitude in the mountains. It speakes of a boy who leaves his family in search of himself and to follow his love of the outdoors and painting. It speakes of his trials and feeeling as he is alone on the trail sometimes with only his mule. The best thing about this book is it is not some persons view on what happened to Everett. But it is Everetts letters to his family and friends. As he talked about his life and what is happening. He talkes of love and beauty. As he travles the mountains of Utah, the vallys of Arizona, the roads of New Maxico, and he speakes of the Majestic beauty of the Ocean of California. He Lived a life most of of just dream of. As people now days we tend to live the lifes of others. But by reading this book it inspired me to live my own life and live it to the fullest and take full advantage of the beauty of nature. Before it is gone. This book is put together very well and it holds your attention as you read. You become Everett. I recomend this book to anyone who has any sort of love for the outdoors and soitude. I promise your love for nature will increase. Scott Spencer Anderson

The story of Everett Reuss is an exceptional story of a most exceptional individual. Reading his letters one can really feel what it is to be alive. His passion, insight and courage are an inspiration to us all. To live life as Reuss did would be an honour. To escape the world and test one's abilities through one's own self reliance seems to be something of the past. In this media age we cannot fully understand the simplicity that Reuss lived his life. Vagabond for Beauty is an example of that simplicity. Reuss' ever present lust for life is fully evident in all of his letters. Reuss lived his life on the fringe and showed others just how amazing life really can and should be.

It may seem strange to describe something that is autobiographical as folklore or mythology. But to read Ruess' story is to read something so fantastic it is beyond belief. In the end, the story truly becomes myth as Everett meets his as yet unknown end.

I lived in Utah for 5 years and have hiked many of the canyons and deserts of Ruess' journals. Even in a more modern age I am still amazed at his adventurous spirit. The four corners region remains a vast and remote place much of which is inaccessible by 4 wheel-drive (thank goodness). To imagine a teenager venturing into such country at a time when it was still the domain of Native Americans is remarkable.

Reviewers who are critical of Ruess' journals, not only fail to recognize the remarkable nature of his story, but the beauty with which it is told. It is ironic then that Ruess often criticizes his paintings, never perhaps realizing his true talent is writing.

The material in these journals would make excellent material for a movie. I know one was made independently but Robert Redford (without his voice for narration) would truly bring these journals to life. What more cinematic ending than his leaving all earthly possessions behind and disappearing forever (at age 21) into the ether of dust and desert air. I wish someone would make a film of his story so it would finally be recognized as one of the great American stories.

Among journals of the southwest, this book is worthy of 5 stars. Among all literature it is probably worthy of 3.5 to 4.

Readers who enjoy this might also enjoy the already suggested Into the Wild, Desert Solitaire, Sandstone Sunsets, or even Mormon Country by Wallace Stegner.

This is, I believe the best book about the mysterious young artist Everett Ruess. It consists mainly of his letters to his family and friends--well-written, if slightly flowery letters--and is much better than the less-polished collection of his wilderness journals.
Everett Ruess was a twenty-year-old photographer, artist, and writer, who rambled the desert with a manic passion for nature, beauty, and solitude. He canvassed the American Southwest, including the canyons and slickrock where Lake Powell is today, on burros, on horses, and on foot; he took the trails everyone thought were too dangerous, sought out the most desolate, forbidding areas, and chased experience with a joyful craving--sought it without already having it. He just went.
Where he went last though is anyone's guess. In 1934 he carved "NEMO," and the year, at two different spots in the sandstone around Davis Gulch (in southern Utah, just north of present day Lake Powell), tied up his pack animals--or someone did--and disappeared. No verifiable trace of him has ever been found, and though most theories involve his death, he could still be alive somewhere. He'd be over ninety years old now. Leaving his burros tied up to possibly starve was just the right touch to make people think he'd died--it might be what I'd do if I couldn't take the pressures of society anymore--and there is ample evidence throughout his journals that he never treated animals very well anyway: he killed every snake he saw, beat his dog so hard it ran away, and overworked his mules until one died of exhaustion.
Besides, why would he carve "NEMO" twice--as in Captain Nemo, the character in Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," a book he loved, a character who abandons society to live under the ocean--if he wasn't planning on abandoning society? It seems like an amazing coincidence that he would carve that, and then just get murdered by cattle rustlers.
Claims have been made that his bones were found in a crevice in Davis Gulch in the 1970s and given to a park maintenance worker and then lost. A notoriously racist Indian has claimed he murdered Everett Ruess in present day Reflection Canyon, buried him there, and then tied Everett's donkeys up in Davis Gulch. People have claimed that he got married and moved to a reservation, that he became a polygamist (he always claimed to be a "pantheistic hedonist"), and that he drowned.
A local of Escalante, Utah, told me he met Everett back in 1934: Everett was grinning, beaming, walking between two Navajo men, and the men were singing. That same man told me he thinks Everett was just a dumb kid who got himself killed by being foolish, and that he explored less than people say he did.
That may be, but everything about Everett remains a mystery, and his character remains intriguing.
Everett came out West, and at least part of him stayed here, and his legend grows more and more every day. He came out west, and he's still missing. Like the Anasazi. Like a thousand rumored treasures. Like 180 miles of the Colorado through Glen Canyon.
Things and people just vanish out here.
Fans of this book might also like "Sandstone Sunsets: In Search of Everett Ruess," which contains several interesting theories on Everett's death. Scott Thybony's "Burntwater" contains a good chapter on him, as does Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild."

Everett was truly an exceptional guy who discovered just how rich life can really be as it becomes more and more simplified. Rusho does Everett justice by printing mostly the letters. His interpretations and insights are great. To experience nature as Everett did is a dream that is bestowed upon a very limited number of people. Great Book.

They should have told you that this is the same book at Everett Ruess: a Vagabond for Beauty. There are a couple of words about the recently found remains- nothing you can not get in an online article somewhere. While it is great material, for those of us that already have the aforementioned book it would have been nice to not have double-dipped.

This book is a great chronical of the last days (?) of everett ruess. It consists entirely of letters written by everett about his life wondering through the wilderness of the southwest. This is the closest that i have come to someone explaining what life is like on the trail. the blockprings included in the book are supurb. A great book for those who detest the city but love the earth.

Even though I am an avid hiker of the Four Corners area and of the Sierra, the first time the name Everett Ruess made any impression on me at all was not though reading, but several years ago through a Dave Alvin song. Then just two months ago, I saw an article in a National Geographic publication updating the story of Everett Ruess and bringing closure to a mystery which has apparently fascinated thousands over the years. The romance of Alvin's song and that article spurred me to buy this book when I spotted it in a remote visitor's center in SE Utah in May.
I'm not going to reiterate his story, most everyone reading this will likely already know at least its general outline. Though Ruess seems to have been somewhat of a spoiled kid, his observations of the hardships and pure joys of life on the trail are the stuff of daydreams for those who can get away only for short periods. His writings home bring alive both the landscapes he traverses and the people he meets. Reading Everett Ruess: A Vagabond For Beauty certainly has me wanting to hit the trail again.
As this edition was originally published in 1983, the ending recounts various speculations as to Ruess' eventual fate. Some of them are more nearly on target than what the author may have suspected. Perhaps future editions will contain a postscript to the Ruess saga that will bring it to a definitive end.
Everett Ruess: A Vagabond For Beauty contains numerous photos and samples of Ruess' blockprints. If you love being alone in the wide open spaces, then this book may just inspire adventures of your own.

I throughly enjoyed this book.

Being from No. Az. I was able to comprehend, location wise, Everett's travels and understand his artistic descriptions. Well written in chronological fashion, Rusho challenges readers to speculate on Everett's demise w/o overburdening with his own opinions.

Buy this book and be ready; Everett's a fellow that I think we would all truly like to meet and would appreciate.