Charles Bowden has been an outspoken advocate for the desert Southwest since the 1970s. Recently his activism helped persuade the U.S. government to create the Sonoran Desert National Monument in southern Arizona. But in working for environmental preservation, Bowden refuses to be one who "outline[s] something straightforward, a manifesto with clear rules and a set of plans for others to follow." In this deeply personal book, he brings the Sonoran Desert alive, not as a place where well-meaning people can go to enjoy "nature," but as a raw reality that defies bureaucratic and even literary attempts to define it, that can only be experienced through the senses. Inferno burns with Charles Bowden's passion for the desert he calls home. "I want to eat the dirt and lick the rock. Or leave the shade for the sun and feel the burning. I know I don't belong here. But this is the only place I belong," he says. His vivid descriptions, complemented by Michael Berman's acutely observed photographs of the Sonoran Desert, make readers feel the heat and smell the dryness, see the colors in earth and sky, and hear the singing of dry bones across the parched ground. Written as "an antibiotic" during the time Bowden was lobbying the government to create the Sonoran Desert National Monument, Inferno repudiates both the propaganda and the lyricism of contemporary nature writing. Instead, it persuades us that "we need these places not to remember our better selves or our natural self or our spiritual self. We need these places to taste what we fear and devour what we are. We need these places to be animals because unless we are animals we are nothing at all. That is the price of being a civilized dude."
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Inferno is wonderful-reminiscent of Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire and Terry Tempest Williams' Leap, as well as some of Joy Williams' essays. I am also reminded of Annie Dillard's amazing work, For the Time Being. . . . I think the book is incredibly timely--there is a lot of chatter about 'the death of environmentalism,' and this work catches perfectly and passionately the sterility or lack of dirt and earth that has helped contribute to the extreme weakening of the movement. There is no one answer to the problem, but this is a beautiful and compelling treatment of the weakness. (Rick Bass )
About the Author
Charles Bowden is one of today's premier writers on the American environment and social issues along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Michael P. Berman is a photographer and artist who lives in San Lorenzo, New Mexico. His work is in the permanent collections of many American museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, and the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego.
Michael P. Berman is a photographer and artist who lives in San Lorenzo, New Mexico. His work is in the permanent collections of many American museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, and the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An artistic and a natural history celebration,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Inferno (Bill and Alice Wright Photography) (Hardcover)
INFERNO is a lovely gathering of photos by Michael P. Berman of the desert Southwest, reflecting author Charles Bowden's passion for the land he calls home. INFERNO was written while Boweden was lobbying the government to create the Sonoran Desert National Monument: it pairs his nature writing and descriptions with Berman's black and white artistic desert shots and provides both an artistic and a natural history celebration appropriate for collections strong in either topic.Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch
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