Customer Reviews

The Great Western Divide

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Spivey's book is not only philosophically rich but also a deep reflection of his homeland. His writing was triggered by a profound awareness that overcame him while finally visiting an inspirational place (Moro Rock in Sequoia National Park) that had always been there waiting to inspire him in a way that enabled him to re-vision his life. This leads him on a quest to dig up a history or narrative of the land. Through this he finds just how connected his own family history is to the narrative past of the region as a descendant of an influential pioneer family. This unearthing of history as well as a physical Journey into the depths of the back country lends him the sense of place, purpose and renewal that he had always been looking for.

Many of the places that Spivey refers to in this book are places that I am also deeply connected to and very familiar with and yet he offers the reader even more to connect with and understand about the land through interwoven personal and historical narratives. Also, his unmatched descriptions of the places and the settings that he ventures through offer those who have never been a chance to experience and connect to the land with a deep and profound sense of place which then allows readers to reflect and connect to places familiar to themselves.

It's a sort of vision quest through a dynamic landscape that parallels Spivey's state of mind. It's an inventive point of view that I believe any person could identify with but this is only because of Spivey's honest and genuine approach to writing.

Once I started reading Spivey's book, I couldn't put it down. It gripped me. I have never read anything like it and due to its overlapping of narratives ranging from autobiographical to historical to mythological as well as his deep reflective questioning of humanity, I always have a hard time categorizing it. That being said, this book is truly a work of art that needn't be categorized by anything other than its timeliness with regard our current state of being and our impact on the land.

This is a book that I will continually re-read!

The book is partly autobiographical, going back several generations to his roots in the San Joaquin Valley farmlands and the still-unspoiled lands around him. The story is subtly spiritual in his weaving of geography, Native American cultures, and our current views of development. He does all of this in an honest and witty way, while revealing his own intellectual conflicts.

The subject matter is compelling, his story-telling is gentle and engaging, and his use of language conveys depth of thought in a direct, economical writing style. It's one of those books you can savor just for its craftsmanship.

He's had some great reviews in the local media. It seems he's tapped into a subject (much of it regarding being transplanted to Santa Barbara) that will resonate with many readers.

John Spivey is a teacher at Santa Barbara Middle School. With a son entering the 10th grade this year, I feel like I missed a fabulous opportunity by not having him in a classroom with John. I can think of no higher praise.

This is an intensely personal story that is compelling in its discussion about our vanishing wilderness and our true identity. The simple observations that John Spivey makes as he tells the stories of his land and his life are brilliant. Many times as I was reading the book, I had to stop and say, "Wow!" and marvel at how Spivey is able to articulate the truth. At other times, I found the questions he poses in the book to be so thought-provoking that I had to pause before continuing with the narrative. This is a bold book, rich in myth and steeped in the history of the Great Western Divide. Spivey has the courage to "tell it like it is."

I felt like I was being taken into a beautiful, enlightened dream without losing track of myself as a flawed, hurting real person. And all the while I felt safe in the company of the authow who was present as himself, also a flawed, hurting human, and yet as a soul-baring evolved seeker/finder, like all of us. It was an incredible gift to me to read this - thank you Mr. Spivey

Spivey eloquently weaves his compelling personal history into a book that speaks to something intimate, vital, and critical in the reader. As my husband and I took turns reading the book, the discussions that ensued, prompted by Spivey's story, and his intrapersonal and existential reflections on it,brought us to personal epiphanies. In our discussions we grew in our spiritual and global consciousness. If this book can inspire such personal introspection and growth in global outlook for the two of us, imagine what it will do when it is read and discussed by larger groups of people, from book groups to classrooms.

John Spivey is a new writer emerging from the eastern part of Tulare County. He was raised in Exeter and though he currently lives in Santa Barbara, the terrain of his early life is at the heart of this, his first book.

The Great Western Divide is a traveler or trail walker's kind of literature. This is a book to carry in a one's back pack as well as to read in a comfortable chair at home. Within its text are eloquent, intimate descriptions of the section of the Great Valley that spreads out between Tulare Lake and Mount Whitney. The author knows the history of the area as well as its geography. He is a descendant of the Mehrten family, the great grandson of a German immigrant who settled near Yokohl Valley in1864. A good researcher, Spivey uses material from the early day explorers of this region. With respect to its original inhabitants, the author shares the old Gaweah, Tulumne and Wuchumne Yokuts' terms for places like Visalia, Badger Hill, and Moro Rock. He thereby gives his reader a new/old vocabulary, encouraging deeper appreciation of these localities and also of a time before our present time.

Some shorter inserts in the book, short poems and small fables, are quite charming and include a wide range of creatures. Crow and Coyote exist in text as well as title. Old Dutch Bill Mehrten finds his way into sections of the book, as does Lao Tsu. The latter philosopher seems less appropriate to the book's purely central Californian physical context, but his words suit the author's purpose and so this persona too blends comfortably and finds his place.

The book is an account of John Spivey's own life's journey. It is very much a spiritual book, a tale of awakening and an urging to Spivey's reader also to awaken to nature, his history and his own nobility. However, this pragmatic, non-spiritual reviewer was never offended by sections of the book which contain preachment and parable. The tone of the book is more sensitive than righteous.

Though the author does give the reader gentle exhortations to live better and see more clearly, he also gives the reader a richness of history and landscape. Spivey writes in an accessible and fluid style. This book is well recommended for anyone interested in the spirit and the cartography of California.

sr/5-2006

"I want to inspire you to some deep feeling, but can't tell you what that feeling should be."

John Spivey invites us to explore the landscape of our minds in this inspiring and thought provoking journey through California's Sierra Nevada. Part autobiography, part environmentalist, part history, with much philosophy, this book takes the reader on an adventure not soon forgotten.

Without sounding preachy, Spivey challenges us to see things differently; not to abandon already held religious or metaphysical beliefs, but rather to dig deeper and to question How we came to believe these things, and Why.

Open your mind, traverse your own landscape, and learn the Truths about our world, your life, and yourself... all across The Great Western Divide.

John Spivey's book The Great Western Divide is compelling and refeshing reading. It is a potent educational tool, conveying the author's profound respect for the Natural World and remembrance. Spivey takes us on a journey, and it made me feel connected to the Land that once thrived and will thrive again. The experience is well worth it !

"The Buddha once delivered a sermon by holding a single flower aloft. Kashyapa saw the flower and smiled. He understood as the others only puzzled and because of this became the first Zen Patriarch."

As with much of John Spivey's hypnotic, multi-dimensional tale of personal redemption offered to us a way to also cease being one the Living Dead, the answer to this riddle on page 104 appears at the beginning of the book. The Great Western Divide is a story of immense beauty and power, ebbing and flowing like a river, bending and heading back when meeting a barrier, rushing frantically through rapids or over cliffs to form a waterfall, or barely discernable through dry river beds.

There are multiple narratives woven through this tale interspersed with Native American, Zen, and Confucian, Tao, and other religious or philosophical thoughts. Spivey proclaims none of them as Truth but rather offers them as lessons and guides to live life fully and completely.

It is fascinating to watch-and perhaps engage in-the weaving of this tapestry without at first having a clear sense of the end product.

Spivey's is a gifted writer. He is a master story teller, creating characters and drama simply and effectively, reaching a critical point and then moving on only to return at the appropriate time later to continue the story. The same is true with his multiple narratives and themes which are taken to a critical point, only to be temporarily abandoned while he works on another pattern in the tapestry. In effect, he skillfully lays emotional, intellectual, and spiritual traps for the reader to sustain suspense.

He clearly understands the power of nouns and verbs over needless adjectives and adverbs. He has the ability to not only create a powerful and visual sense of place, but also shows, rather than tells the importance of place to his journey.

And while he is brutally honest with his personal suffering, struggles, and yearnings, he isn't seeking sympathy but rather uses them as motivation for his search. He describes without self-pity his family's long and difficult history in California just north of Sequoia National Park, but he never succumbs to the cheap writer's trick of manipulating the reader emotionally. His path through the pain of his past is offered as an example of how others can make the same journey.

Spivey's thesis is simplicity itself. "Is your mind abundant? How has it come to its present state of being? Is it full of the nuance and fluidity of life or is it rigid and barren, painful and lonely?" He seeks nothing more than to find out who he truly is. One of his martial arts teachers once told him that anything studied can be a Way, but if the end isn't an understanding of who you really are, then "it's just clever behavior. Clever, clever monkey business. Do you really Know, or are you just clever?"

To him, the lack of spirituality in the business world turns most of us into clever monkeys. There are myths and stories about the way of the king, the way of the warrior, the way of the priest, scholar, and farmer, myths and stories that explain how their social roles can lead to a spiritual path. But there are no myths or stories about business people. "Perhaps it's because there is no motivating principle of being of service to the people and to the truth beneath the surface of things. It's all very, very clever monkey business."

Spivey's lament is the lack of spirituality in modern life, that linear thinking and literalism have replaced spirituality as the dominant forces. It doesn't matter to him which myths or symbols one uses to discover one's spirituality; it matters greatly that, without them, we are "The Walking Dead." Too many of us are not whole. We are comfortable in neither camp, and we've "left so many little pieces of ourselves behind as we have drifted through the landscape of our lives." The task he has set for himself and challenges us to undertake is to go back and find all those shards to recreate who we are and present one face to the world.

One can argue about myths and stories, but it hard to disagree that our society is shrinking from one that encompasses land and people, a sense of place and of community, to one that concerns only ourselves, frightened because we long to control and dominate but find it increasingly impossible in a world that refuses to obey linear, rational thought.

It would be unfair to describe the various narratives-it would rob the reader of the joy of discovery, of watching the tapestry woven into a complete whole, but there is one element of Spivey's quest that needs to be related. There is a refreshingly selfish quality to his tale, and it's worth quoting at length if for no other reason than to reveal a master writer at work:

"If you have not made it through the demon night and faced the darkest of things, then as you walk down the street and notice some disheveled haunted person at the margin of life, stop and bow silently in their direction. In your mind ask for forgiveness. The darkness that you have ignored, your fear compounded with all other fear, echoes and vibrates through them. They suffer in part for you, for your unresolved sins.

"I cannot be fully enlightened till everyone is. We share a common mind. As free as I might be from my own fear, I am still privy to your fear, to everyone's fear. I work to keep my mind clear. It is far easier if we did it together."

The Great Western Divide is not another New Age Manifesto, filled with rigid, solipsistic, or meaningless philosophies, healing gems, or pet rocks. Personally, I hate New Age blather and treat it as a collection of lies spread by modern-day hucksters looking to make a quick book.

At the heart of The Great Western Divide is a simple message of self-discovery, but Spivey understands too well that finding one's self in the modern world is a complex, painful, time-consuming task. If one is receptive, the first reading will begin to create life change, and it will become a book that one will return to again and again for guidance.