Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination [Paperback]

Barbara Hurd (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2008

A Los Angeles Times Book of the Year

In these nine evocative essays, Barbara Hurd explores the seductive allure of bogs, swamps, and wetlands. Hurd's forays into the land of carnivorous plants, swamp gas, and bog men provide fertile ground for rich thoughts about mythology, literature, Eastern spirituality, and human longing. In her observations of these muddy environments, she finds ample metaphor for human creativity, imagination, and fear.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Essayist Hurd posits that the creative spirit thrives in "the sodden ground of swamps where the profusion of growth defies the old image of a wasteland." Judging from this collection of imaginative, evocative essays inspired by Maryland's Finzel and Cranesville swamps, she may be right. Vivid, unusual analogies ("trying to define the edges of a swamp is like trying to put a neatly folded shadow into a dresser drawer") and clever parallels between swamp and human life provide lively and engaging reading. Reflecting on the prevalence of animal-like plants in the swamp, for instance, Hurd infers that "there's a camaraderie here, a tolerance for hybrids and mongrels, a kinship among the patrons of an all-night, half-sunken bar for cross-dressers." Knitting together such diverse subjects as Buddhist philosophy, mythology and her own childhood, Hurd evokes the landscape through a series of unexpected and sometimes fascinating physical and mental wanderings. A pair of shoes left behind in the swamp prompts musings on the allure and taboo of mud. A trip through the New Orleans bayous yields insights into the elusiveness of our thoughts and our very identities. A late fall foray into the swamp in search of a bear becomes a consideration of longing. Hurd's reflective style makes for a relatively slow pace, and the occasional digressions can seem forced. But her musings are poetic, and her loving descriptions of the wetland world will likely convince some readers that there are universal truths lurking out there in the mud and mire.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker

Swamps and bogs and their mysterious ambiguity––their perch between liquid and solid––hold a peculiar fascination for Hurd, a naturalist and poet who lives near Maryland's Finzel Swamp. Delving into these wetlands, she finds in their array of strange fauna and flora an objective correlative to the place in the mind where artistic inspiration occurs: a place of blurred borders, shifting identity, and strange odors, of rot and death, of Zen peacefulness. "To love a swamp," she writes, is to love "what shoulders its way out of mud and scurries along the damp edges of what is most commonly praised."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press (June 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082033152X
• ISBN-13: 978-0820331522
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #320,680 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Barbara Hurd's Brilliant Book, February 3, 2001

By 

Stephen Dunn (Port Republic,, New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs and Human Imagination (Hardcover)

This is a marvelous book, the best of its kind since Barry Lopez's ARCTIC DREAMS. In it, she traverses swamps and bogs with an expert's eye, and with concerns that keep resonating into the lives we live or might live, and those we repress. No one has written more lovingly (or is it fearlessly?) about sinking into the muck or enduring, even seeking out uncertainties. With language as lyrical as it is precise, Hurd speculates about "how it's possible to be on the ridge and in the thicket at the exact same time." I can't remember when I've felt so aesthetically satisfied while learning so much.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Swamp Hybrid, May 24, 2001

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs and Human Imagination (Hardcover)

Each essay in STIRRING THE MUD is a hybrid of poetry and prose well suited to its swampy, mysterious content, which often varies widely from paragraph to paragraph. In fact, Hurd sometimes weaves together several topics within a paragraph, traveling with the speed of poetry rather than prose. It is no accident that poets have written blurbs of praise for the back of this book's jacket.

This is a book in which the gorgeous paragraphs reign. Don't miss them! The one downfall is that the book does not read well as the united whole its numbered chapters would suggest it is. We consistently and disruptively at the beginning of each chapter enter the swamp, again. And again. It would have been a welcome change of pace to stay in the swamp for two consecutive chapters once or twice. Without also having edited to further diminish repetition, better to have let them stand obviously as individual essays.

I suspect that Hurd must have been torn, the naturalist in her dared not leaver her beloved swamps only to the essayist but had to summon the poet also. No wonder this multiple talent struggled with form. She created a sort of hybrid that resists categorization. I hope her next work will emerge with a form even more unique.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Luminous Mud, October 15, 2004

By 

Nico James (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination (Paperback)

"Stirring the Mud" is a series of masterful essays that wade - literally and figuratively - through sometimes fetid, always dank and uncertain territory. Hurd's tapestry of remarkable facts, fascinating lore, her own exploration of the physical world, personal recollection, spiritual journey, and elegant, luminous prose create a magic carpet flight that endures. There is nothing easy about truly entering the natural world. Like every other living thing, one earns ones momentary place, and the dangers and gifts that may be found lead us always right to the edges of ourselves. This book is a fine companion for those who are hungry for that edge, or anyone who loves a great ride of the spirit. I wholly recommend this book.