Customer Reviews

Sandstone Sunsets

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I recommend Taylor's book to you who have read W.L.Rusho's "Everett Reuss" and understand Everett's mystical nature in his exploration of himself as well as the wilderness he so loved. Also your appreciation will be greatly enhanced if you are familiar with the country Everett traveled. This book is not a serious effort to solve the mystery of Everett's disappeareance. Rather, as Taylor retraces Everett's steps he describes his own spiritual journey; his personal counterpart to Everett's quest over the same territory a half century earlier. Taylor writes, "I knew my search for Everett had become more important than finding him." Reuss was a romantic, so is Taylor. The inner exporation is what counts, the physical exploration merely the vehicle for self-undertanding. If you are literal minded this book will disappoint. Me, I enjoyed the book. I thought it well written and organized and a quick, easy read. It enriched my understanding of the spiritual journey of Everett and its parallel in my own life. A negative. I found the speculations about Emery Kolb, etc, so far-fetched as to be bizarre; but Taylor never offers these as serious possibilities. Still, it were better had they been omitted. There were some minor errors in the book as has been pointed out by other reviewers; but they appeared to me to be editing mistakes, not those of the author. All in all, for me a very worthwhile read; but then I am so in love with Everett Reuss I make no claim to objectivity.

The mystery of Everett Ruess is a cool one. A guy walks into the desert, carves "Nemo" (Latin for "nobody") in two places on the canyon walls, and then disappears. It seems as if he set up his disappearance perfectly--he'd even talked about it before--and yet lots of evidence points to him being murdered. Seventy years have passed, and still no one knows for sure.

If you're already interested in this mystery, or would like an introduction it, "Sandstone Sunsets" is a good read. It's full of interesting theories and evidences that aren't commonly heard elsewhere, and it's a fairly well written.

It's funny though, in the About the Author, it says Mark Taylor has occasionally written for "Hustler" magazine, and in the book he often describes slickrock pinnacles and mounds as phallic, or breast-like. That cracks me up.

This book is a most thoughtful and insightful view into the reasons we seek out nature and journey into the unknown. Like Ruess, author Taylor takes us on his own personal journey into one of the most breathtaking geographys in the world. The book is not meant to be a definative work on what happened to Ruess but rather a deep reflective journey into our souls. Unlike the previous reviewer who referred to the book as a novel, it is creative non-fiction and was named best creative non-fiction book of the year 1998 by the western writers of America. I have read the book three times and all the published reviews, more than twenty. All consider the writing excellent, thoughtful and filled with bits of philosophy about life. Critisms include editing errors.

I'm fascinated by the story of Everett Ruess and picked this up in hopes of finding out more, maybe a contemporary search for clues and visit to places that Ruess loved. Instead, there are glaring mistakes, some preposterous theories (Emery Kolb killed Ruess in a homosexual spat?!?!?!), and far too much attention spent on the author's problems within himself. I haven't stopped by a 7-11 or Circle K on the navajo Reservation recently and assume that alcohol is still not sold there, but he talks of helping an obviously drunk Navajo buying more in Kayenta. There are some basic errors - Cocochina County instead of Coconino, Rosebud Canyon, instead of Redbud Canyon heading toward Rainbow Bridge, but his theory that Emery Kolb had the hots for Ruess and killed him when he was spurned by Ruess, hiding the body in his boathouse at the South Rim, just about turned my stomach. Having helped to move things out of Kolb Studio after Kolb's death in 1977 (not 1978), I have no rec! ollection of anyone finding a body hidden on the property and there would be no other boathouse at the South Rim. Don't give this guy any more money.

This book is a review of various hallucinations of the author encountered during his pointless wanderings (mostly by vehicle) through the desert country of the Southwest. He never seems to get to the locations of Ruess' disappearance, and evades them by taking us to Moab and other irrelevant places where he had happened to park his car in the past. He offers several far out theories on Ruess' disappearance, but nothing useful except for the names of several persons who might have absconded with Ruess' possessions but never capitalized on them. The author is the exploiter, capitalizing on the Ruess name and story to sell a book. Nice cover.

This book is a total waste of money. I wonder if the author only drove through southern Utah once and decided to write about Everett as nothing else came to mind?
His dates are wrong several times, his place names are all screwed up as to direction and location and he spends more time wondering about homosexual fantasies and seeing sexual organs in the rock shapes then actually telling us anything about Everett or his story beyond what everyone already knows and has discussed a million times...the only original idea on Everett he has is that Everett was killed during a secret homosexual relationship by a respected member of the community.
Neither Everett nor the person named were homosexuals, so ofcourse that makes perfect sense!

If you love Canyon Country as I do, and Everett did, then DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. It will forever taint your view of a beautiful country and the people that live there.

Why in hell anyone would EVER give any stars beyond one in a review on a book of sexual perverted ideas and misinformation is beyond me.

This book is terrible, the writer is a pervert who obsesses on sex and sexual organs, and you will regret buying it as I do, the only thing I regret more is not having heeded the negative reviews, I should have skipped this book!