Winter in Taos [Paperback]

Mabel Dodge Luhan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0865345937 | ISBN-13: 978-0865345935 | Publication Date: July 15, 2007 | Edition: Facsimile of original 1935

Winter in Taos starkly contrasts Luhan's memoirs, published in four volumes and inspired by Marcel Proust's Remembrances of Things Past. They follow her life through three failed marriages, numerous affairs, and ultimately a feeling of 'being nobody in myself,' despite years of psychoanalysis and a luxurious lifestyle on two continents among the leading literary, art and intellectual personalities of the day. Winter in Taos unfolds in an entirely different pattern, uncluttered with noteworthy names and ornate details. With no chapters dividing the narrative, Luhan describes her simple life in Taos, New Mexico, this 'new world' she called it, from season to season, following a thread that spools out from her consciousness as if she's recording her thoughts in a journal. 'My pleasure is in being very still and sensing things,' she writes, sharing that pleasure with the reader by describing the joys of adobe rooms warmed in winter by aromatic cedar fires; fragrant in spring with flowers; and scented with homegrown fruits and vegetables being preserved and pickled in summer. Having wandered the world, Luhan found her home at last in Taos. Winter in Taos celebrates the spiritual connection she established with the 'deep living earth' as well as the bonds she forged with Tony Luhan, her 'mountain.' This moving tribute to a land and the people who eked a life from it reminds readers that in northern New Mexico, where the seasons can be harshly beautiful, one can bathe in the sunshine until 'untied are the knots in the heart, for there is nothing like the sun for smoothing out all difficulties.'

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Born in 1879 to a wealthy Buffalo family, Mabel Dodge Luhan earned fame for her friendships with American and European artists, writers and intellectuals and for her influential salons held in her Italian villa and Greenwich Village apartments. In 1917, weary of society and wary of a world steeped in war, she set down roots in remote Taos, New Mexico, then publicized the tiny town's inspirational beauty to the world, drawing a steady stream of significant guests to her adobe estate, including artist Georgia O'Keeffe, poet Robinson Jeffers, and authors D.H. Lawrence and Willa Cather. Luhan could be difficult, complex and often cruel, yet she was also generous and supportive, establishing a solid reputation as a patron of the arts and as an author of widely read autobiographies. She died in Taos in 1962.

Product Details

• Paperback: 292 pages
• Publisher: Sunstone Press; Facsimile of original 1935 edition (July 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865345937
• ISBN-13: 978-0865345935
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #718,970 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is a treasure, June 26, 2009

By 

Virginia Gunn (Richmond VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Winter in Taos (Paperback)

This book, Winter in Taos, along with its counterpart, Edge of Taos Desert are treasures in my library. I never lend them out and they have a special place in my home where I keep my favorate books. I first learned of Mabel many, many years ago through my mother, who was a niece, or great-niece of Antonio Lujan, Mabel's last husband. She told me that Mabel was an author and wrote of Taos and many people of the area, including people she knew or was related to. As an adult, I discovered these books in a library and later purchased them through Amazon to learn more about this intriguing woman. Regretfully, I never knew her, although my mother did. This is the type of book that makes you want to make a cup of hot tea, curl up on a cold winter afternoon and immerse yourself in her storytelling; and since I know the areas about which she writes, I also try to visualize what it must have been like during the 1920's, when she walked the paths and trails, before Taos became widely known to the outside world. Whenever I'm in Taos, I visit her grave and say my silent hellos, and wish again that I could have known her.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Curl up by the fireplace and settle in, December 12, 2008

By 

S. Fishburn (Fort Collins, Colorado, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Winter in Taos (Paperback)

There were two books I was delighted to come across this month. One was Winter in Taos - over 200 pages of absorbing essay, sprinkled with a dozen or so full-page b & w photos of the Mabel Dodge Luhan house and its environs. First published in 1935, when the writer, Mabel Dodge Luhan was 56, Winter in Taos is an elegant study of passing the seasons hour by hour in a landscape unequaled by the most beautifully wrought architecture of any city in the world. A good deal occurs, but in timeworn (inimitable) New Mexican fashion. The cycles of the seasons may not vary a good deal from decade to decade, but the details of daily life are nuanced and divergent. Ms. Luhan is a bit self-absorbed and uber-contemplative (not unlike her neighbor D.H. Lawrence, or contemporary F. Scott Fitzgerald), but she realizes it, indulges it (for a second or two) and moves on (almost immediately).

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you love Taos..., October 8, 2010

By 

Bay Buyer (USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Winter in Taos (Paperback)

If you love Taos then this book is for you! It's a great read, and takes you back to the history of the artists and writers of the 1920's-1950's.