Field Notes: The Grace Note of the Canyon Wren [Paperback]

Barry H. Lopez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1995

In this new collection of twelve stories, one of our most admired writers evokes the longing we feel for beauty in our relationships with one another, with the past, with nature, In these stories, we find men or women - sometimes at odds with themselves, sometimes transcendently well grounded - who have an experience that is profound, unsettling, and oddly liberating. In "Empira's Tapestry, " a gravely ill woman begins to weave a luminous cloth in which is expressed all of the fervent desire she had for her life...In "Homecoming, " a botanist has become so caught up with his academic ambitions that he forgets the names of the wildflowers in his own woods until his young daughter reteaches him...And in "The Entreaty of the Wiideema, " an anthropologist traveling with an aboriginal people finds that, because of his aggressive desire to understand them, they remain for him always disturbingly unknowable. These spare, haunting fictions, building cumulatively on each other, are marked by those qualities we have found in all of Barry Lopez's writing: a sense of the magic and marvelous strangeness of the world, respect for disparate ways of knowing and being, compassion for the human predicament, and a vibrant hope that comes from being alert and attentive to the complex beauties of landscape. Field Notes is the final book of a loosely connected trilogy that includes Desert Notes (1976) and River Notes (1979) and stands with the best of Barry Lopez's remarkably varied work.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Final book in NBA winner Lopez's trilogy of short stories (Desert Notes; River Notes), exploring the sometimes magical interaction between people and the natural world.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Infused with magic and mystery, these 12 stories are frequently more lyric than narrative. The protagonists include anthropologists, botanists, and investment counselors, and settings range from Greenland to Australia, with intermediate stops in Manhattan and inside the Washington, D.C., beltway. Within such varied contexts, Lopez skillfully develops a recurring pattern: chance encounters bring isolated individuals to moments of sharp insight. In "Pearyland," for example, a biologist travels to a remote region to study the ecology of death and acquires there a disturbing vision of life. Lopez has won prizes for both fiction and nonfiction, and this collection is the final volume in a trilogy that also includes Desert Notes (LJ 6/15/76) and River Notes (LJ 11/1/79). Recommended for general collections.
Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; 1st edition (September 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380724820
• ISBN-13: 978-0380724826
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,637,791 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Numinous, June 3, 2006

By 

John Me Wallace "Keymaster of Gozer" (San Antonio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Field Notes: The Grace Note of the Canyon Wren (Paperback)

As another reviewer noted, Lopez's fiction is difficult to describe or summarize; I'd call it terse but imagistic. The stories in "Field Notes" are beautiful and poignant. The settings are wonderfully described, but many of his characters have some kind of barrier--real or imagined--that prevents them from getting the "big picture", and alienation abounds on every page. Don't let this discourage you, though; there is always a ray of hope. In short, I see this book as a lucid argument for living in a state of pure being, as humans on a vibrant planet. *Higly recommended.*

Addendum: This was the first Lopez book I read, before going on to "Desert Notes" and "River Notes." In my op, "Field Notes" is better than both of them, exemplary of a writer ever more fully matured in his craft.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rich in images and introspection, June 8, 2000

By 

sam (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Field Notes: Stories (Hardcover)

Barry Lopez brings a unique voice to his work that is rich in observation of surroundings and living forms as well as a deeply sacred intellectual perspective. Each story in this book brings Lopez' voice to the ear of the reader as a deep intimation of experience. A writer who gives the reader a feeling of desire to listen to the storyteller as if he were speaking to you in the tradition of storytellers has transcended the special bridge from oral discourse or history to the written word. It makes me want to read all of Lopez books of which I now have four.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful stories.. each with richness of mood, July 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Field Notes: The Grace Note of the Canyon Wren (Paperback)

I found this book in a second hand bookstore without knowing anything about Barry Lopez and passed it over twice before buying it on the hint of finding something of meaning. Each story is a wonderful capsule of situation and mood and mystery leaving the reader with their own deep reflections on existence and being. It is the kind of writing that makes writers want to write. Deeply personal, but intellectually universal.