Customer Reviews

The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

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The Outermost House is a classic, not just of natural history literature, but of American literature. If you love the outdoors, or the sea, or prose that flows like poetry, you should keep this small book always nearby. The harried introvert will especially appreciate it: reading even a page or two will transport you to a quiet place where the wind through the dune grass is the only sound that strikes your ear.

In addition to being a great writer, Beston is an acute observer biological phenomena, and not a bad theorist either. His discourse on the relationship other animals bear to us ("They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations...") does more to unlink the Great Chain of Being than any philosophical essay. And Beston's influence has been wide-ranging, not only among natural history writers, but among writers in general: unless I am mistaken, The Outermost House is one of the sources for the "Dry Salvages" section of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. (If no one else has noticed that before, I want coauthorship on the paper!)

Some books are so memorable that parts of them become internalized on first reading. The first time I read The Outermost House, its final sentence -- as graceful an example of polysyndeton as you will find in English -- became mine. Now, I pass it on to you: "For the gifts of life are the earth's, and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and dawn seen over ocean from the beach."

The Outermost House is one of my favorite books. Henry Beston has a wonderful writing style that produces vivid images of his year spent living in a small house on the dunes of the beach on Cape Cod in 1926. We see through his eyes a year of seasons passing, birds in migration, storms, shipwrecks, and peaceful solitude.

I've read this book several times. Beston's imagery is excellent, making it easy to picture the Cape Cod setting, see what he saw, walk where he walked, and at the same time feel the sea breeze on your face and relax.

Another tribute to this book is that you can literally open it to any page, any paragraph and find fresh and descriptive writing. Here, I'll pick a truely random page now:

"...Streaming over the dunes, the storm howled on west over the moors. The islands of the marsh were brownish black, the channels leaden and whipped up by the wind; and along the shores of the desolate islands, channel waves broke angrily, chiding, tossing heavy ringlets of lifeless white. A scene of incredible desolation and cold. All day long I kept to my house, building up the fire and keeping watch from the windows..."

I highly recommend this book, I know I will read yet again someday.

I had never heard of Henry Beston until a friend lent me--or, more accurately, pressed on me--his copy of The Outermost House. After reading this book, I understand his sense of urgency: this is a work of unique and lasting beauty, surely one of the greatest nature books ever written. In detailing his year in his cottage at Eastham Beach (now Coast Guard Beach) on the Atlantic side of Cape Cod, Beston combines a Thoreauvian zeal for nature and the examined life with a Proustian ability to record exactly the sight, sound, feel and scent of the world around him. Page after page is filled with unforgettable passages; his descriptions of the markings and songs of the shore birds alone are enough to move you to tears. His story of the plight of a doe caught in an icy flood is almost as suspenseful as a Hitchcock movie; his tribute to the courage of the Coast Guard "surfmen" who rescue shipwrecked sailors is particularly resonant to us who--after Sept. 11, 2001--have learned something about the value of those who safeguard the public. Beston is so quotable a writer that I'm shocked he's not better known. A few quotes should demonstrate:
"Nature is a part of our humanity, and without some awareness and experience of that divine mystery man ceases to be man."
"Man can be either less than man or more than man, and both are monsters, the last more dread."
"Poor body, time and the long years were the first tailors to teach you the merciful use of clothes! Though some scold today because you are too much seen, to my mind, you are not seen fully enough or often enough when you are beautiful."
"Poetry is as necessary to comprehension as science. It is as impossible to live without reverence as it is without joy."
Henry Beston found urban life insupportable in the mid-1920s; who could know the dismay he would feel in 2002, when computers, television and jet planes make the world pass in a blur! Beston is out to teach us how to slow down, to learn to live again according to the patterns and rhythms of nature. For those who are willing to read and understand, The Outermost House remains a haven of peace and beauty.

When I was about 10 years old, My father took me on a hike down Coast Guard Beach to see the Outermost House. It seemed tiny, and I wasn't sure why we walked all that way to see it. Years later, the house is gone (washed away in a nor'easter), but I understand why we took that walk. In the Outermost House, Henry Beston vividly describes the beauty of the outer beach that still exists over 70 years later. The harshness of winter storms, the magic of the wildlife and the sounds of the shorebirds are thoughtfully reflected in this classic chronicle of life on old Cape Cod.

I'm going to begin with a quote from the book:

"Hold your hands out over the earth as over a flame. To all who love her, who open to her the doors of their veins, she gives of her strength, sustaining them with her own measureless tremor of dark life. Touch the earth, love the earth, honour the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth's and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and dawn seen over the ocean from the beach."

In August, 1924, the author, Henry Beston went to his small beach house on Cape Cod intending to stay for two weeks. He ended up staying the year, and this book is what resulted from the editing down of his notes, written out longhand at his table.

I can compare this book best to Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. More than a book, it is a combination memoir, meditation and natural history of Cape Cod. The book is loosely arranged in a chronological fashion, and at various times, Mr. Beston meditates upon sea birds and shore birds, the formation of the waves at Cape Cod, shipwrecks and the coastguard, and the qualities of the sand. It is a deeply spiritual book, although not overtly religious. Mr. Beston's primary religion appears to be that of the earth and living lightly upon it, and allowing oneself to accept the rhythm of it.

Henry Beston on the trail of Thoreau's great hike along the cape stays to capture if he can "the very psyche of animals" and rises to metaphysical levels with the greatest command of the English language. Nature exists, he finds, and "creation is here and now." Everything acts, and acts characteristically, and in detailing their interactions he discovers that he is in them also. Outermost house leads inevitably to innermost house.

A book best read in dim light by a fire. This will allow you to get the feel of the interior of the "Fo'Castle", the name Beston gave of his house upon the dunes on the great beach of Cape Cod. I have traveled to the site of the Outermost House (and do so regularly) and sit upon the sands and take myself back to what it must have been like in Beston's Day. Thought the actual spot where the house once sat has been washed out to sea/eroded away...the area is still there. BUY THIS BOOK, it will soon become your favorite...even better, take it with you to Cape Cod and read it at Nauset Beach!

An enduring classic, Henry Beston's The Outermost House, takes the reader on a time journey through a year in the life of the seashore of Cape Cod. The passage of time is not recorded with the clock, but with the rhythms the sea, the cycles of the moon, and the changing seasons. The chapter on the headlong wave can make one a little seasick with Beston's undulating passages and rhythmic words. Not a leisurely stroll on the beach, The Outermost House portrays Beston's year-long observations of the sand and the sea as true partners, sometimes betraying one another, other times working in perfect harmony.

It's almost as if Henry Beston himself is reading his own words. The reader has a candor and tone that is absolutely perfect for this work and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this wonderfully executed piece from Silver Hollow Audio. I highly recommend this book to anoyne that enjoys either audio books, nature, or Cape Cod. I found myself quickly searching for the next disc as each one came to an end. The end of the last disc left me wanting for more - and with this set is a nicely done interview with Beston's biographer. The interview answered some lingering questions about both the house and the author himself. I rate this one a must have.

Since Amazon hasn't provide a link between Outermost House, by Beston, and The Winter Beach, by Charlton Ogburn (ISBN 068809418X), I would like to suggest here that, if you like Outermost House, you will almost certainly enjoy The Winter Beach, as well. From the jacket description: "A naturalist and man of rare wisdom shares with you his journeys along the Atlantic shore."