Here is Nelson's luminously wise account of his exploration of an unnamed island in the Pacific Northwest. This book revises our own relationship with nature, allowing us to observe it and also to participate in it with reverence and a sense of wonder.
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From Publishers Weekly
Anthropologist Nelson tells of his self-sufficient existence on an island near the Pacific Northwest, practicing a respect for the wilderness learned from the Alaskan native peoples. "Whether he is describing the remains of a clear-cut forest, a beached whale or a night in a petrel rookery, Nelson gives a notably sensitive portrait of island life," PW saidpk .
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From the Inside Flap
Here is Nelson's luminously wise account of his exploration of an unnamed island in the Pacific Northwest. This book revises our own relationship with nature, allowing us to observe it and also to participate in it with reverence and a sense of wonder.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Passion for Place,
By
This review is from: The Island Within (Paperback)
Here is a book that you may have to digest in small bits. Nelson's prose is dense, descriptive and charged with an intensity that occasionally makes you wonder how he can stand to inhabit his own skin. His description of the day he spent deer hunting for example - the physical strain of stalking, questioning the "rightenss" of his mental and spiritual state, worrying about having enough meat to tide himself and his family over for the winter, trying to read the signs he perceives in the woods, remembering the teaching of the elders of the Indian tribe he studied with - is exhausting for the reader as well as Nelson. This doesn't mean it wasn't worth the work; just that you may need a break every so often to catch your breath.The Island Within is about a special relationship Nelson has built with an island in the Pacific Northwest. When he is not there, studying the animals, hunting with his dog and exploring on his own or with his family, he is wishing he was and planning his next visit. The reader is treated not only to graphic physical descriptions of the island and its inhabitants, but to Nelson's ongoing internal dialog with himself, in which he seeks to balance three very different ways of life - the loner, the family man and the student of Indian ways. Perhaps the greatest gift offered by this book is a fresh look at how a human being can relate to his world. As much as I came to appreciate the island, I also enjoyed Nelson's tales of his time spent away from it. His fishing trip with his son, the days he spends working in his garden picking berries, the long runs he takes with his dog, his playful attempt to sneak up on a family of seals and his description of the day he decided to open all his windows and let the winds of a large storm blow through his home are equally fun and revealing. Here is someone who has recognized that he is part and parcel of the physical world, and has dared to tear down preconceived notions in order to interact with it in new and playful ways. The one thing you should not expect from The Island Within is a clear cut plot and story line. This book is all about sharing at an elemental level.
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mist and deer,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Island Within (Paperback)
Richard Nelson writes a lovely, haunting collection of essays, mostly set on an island off the coast of Southeast Alaska. Although this book fits into the category of literaure called nature writing, Nelson takes positions which may seem atypical in the environmentalist community, especially his support of hunting as a means of acquiring one's food. Nelson argues convincingly that people have the greatest sense of the land, the greatest sense of spiritual connection, when they subsist from the land on which they live. A cultural anthropologist who spent a great deal of time studying and living with the Koyukon people of interior Alaska, Nelson draws heavily upon these experiences as they inform his actions on "his" island. Mostly, though, the book is a chronicle of his days spent on the island, stalking deer, surfing off the western shore of the island, watching out for brown bears, and reflecting on the ambivalence many of us feel about sharing a special place with other people. Nelson's language seems to reflect the landscape itself, evoking a sense of the mist and drizzle of the island. A landmark book in nature writing.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Treasure,
By
This review is from: The Island Within (Paperback)
This book is a treasure to be cherished, to be read and reread, to be pondered deeply. An easy facility with poetic language combined with insatiable curiousity and in depth knowledge of the natural world focuses on the kind of inter-relationship human creatures are called to have with "this fragile earth, our island home."
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