Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World [Paperback]

Kathleen Dean Moore (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2004

Riveting, finely crafted essays about family and the natural world, and winner of the 2000 Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Kathleen Moore is many things: an academic, a philosopher, an amateur naturalist, and a subtle observer of such things as tides and lightning. From her haunts on the coast of Oregon she borrows a useful term, "holdfast," to knit together her many interests into an ethic for life. A holdfast, she writes, is a "fist of knobby fingers" that allows bullwhip kelp to cling to the wave-washed ocean floor; it is also a metaphor for her charged view that humans need to stick a little closer to home in all matters. "We professors, who should be studying connection, study distinctions instead," she writes. "When people lock themselves in their houses at night and seal the windows shut to keep out storms, it is possible to forget, sometimes for years and years, that human beings are part of the natural world." The finely honed essays in this collection speak to reclaiming that awareness, taking the life of marshes and tidal estuaries, the silence of the prairie, and the song of the canyon wren as subjects, but also paying attention to such things as baking bread with loved ones and making time to look at the world for oneself. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Reminiscent of the work of Annie Dillard and others who have combined their observations of the natural world with philosophical reflections, this collection of 21 lyrical essays by the author of Riverwalking intently probes the ways we are bound to our planet and to one another. Moore's governing metaphor is the "holdfast," a mysterious structure that glues algae to the ocean floor. In "Howling with Strangers," she describes an evening when she and six other people gathered in the Minnesota woods to listen to wolves howling and to howl in return, an exercise that left Moore with a feeling of joyful connection to the universe. In an effort to conjure the details of the boathouse on the island in Ontario where her husband's family summered, Moore calls her husband's parents in "Memory (the Boathouse)" and finds comfort as they grope together for memories (of "new pine boards and gasoline" and the beaver who lived in a corner under a pile of sticks) like "children holding hands in the dark." Although, as a philosopher, Moore does not assign special meaning to life, she takes great pleasure in the "preening, threatening, posturing" birds and the raucous chorus of frogs she observes during a visit to a marshland because "life directs all its power to one end, and that is to continue to be." (June)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 184 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1st edition (December 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592283276
• ISBN-13: 978-1592283279
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,186,686 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An uplifting, life affirming series of essays, August 5, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World (Hardcover)

I previously read Ms. Moore's book, Riverwalking and loved every word of it. Her second book is again filled with a mixture of philosophy, family remembrances and nuggets of truth. How do we find our way in this world? She seems to live every moment and to cherish what has made her life fulfilling: camping trips, watching her children become adults, remembering her parents, and knowing that the quiet, small moments usually make the most significant memories that will be remembered. I can hear the wind, smell the campfire, taste the fish on the fire and feel the texture of her sleeping bag. I can feel the grief of her father dying, her anger about the clearcutting that ravages a once pristine mountain range, the joy she feels on a snowy morning, and the love and memories that return when she revisits the place where she first met her husband. What makes up a life? Who will remember us when we are no longer alive? I treasure this little book and recommend it highly!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Connecting, November 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World (Hardcover)

I've read most of the chapters in this book twice, some three times. The three sections - Connection, Separation, Connection - enforce the metaphor of the title, the holdfast, the structure that grips the kelp to the ocean floor. So we have holdfasts in life that Kathleen Dean Moore documents here. Love, family, being in the natural world, wondering, creating, remembering, are our connectors. Fear, pain, death, destroying the natural world are our separators. These truths are rooted in what seem simplicities like baking bread, avoiding estate sales, howling with wolves, canoeing a marsh, casting a fly, mastering a field guide, but each reaches out, like the wands of kelp, toward the mysteries of our existence. There is joy here and sorrow, a celebration of life in all its forms. I'll be reading more of Moore and many of these chapters again and again.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite book so far this year., October 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World (Hardcover)

This book is part introspective -- looking inward. This book is part extrospective -- looking outward. For me, the books underlying theme was about understanding your connection (home) to all of that.

The author managed to do this all without sounding as vague and cheesy as I just did. :)

I don't want to over-hype. The book didn't revolutionalize my life. Yet, I have found myself returning to these pages for more.

If you are the least bit ponderous or enjoy natural beauty -- or would like to grow in either of those areas. I'd recommend it.