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Author Scott Russell Sanders has written numerous award-winning books (including Staying Put and Secrets of the Universe) about the environmental and moral crises of the late 20th century--inspiration and fuel for all who care about the state of the world. Well, almost all. On a backpacking trip in the Colorado Rockies, he learns he has passed on to his teenage son Jesse not hope, but a paralyzing unease.
"You make me feel the planet's dying and people are to blame and nothing can be done about it," Jesse tells his father. "Maybe you can get by without hope, but I can't. I've got a lot of living still to do. I have to believe there's a way out of this mess. Otherwise what's the point? Why study, why work--why do anything if it's all going to hell?"
Sanders, taking his son's questions as seriously as any environmental quandary, sets out to locate and write about the sources of his own modest optimism. These elegant, carefully polished essays slide one into the other as smoothly as the joints of a craftsman's chair. In chapters such as "Wildness," "Body Bright," "Fidelity," and "Simplicity" Sanders calls to mind the writing of American Transcendentalists as well as Wendell Berry's essays on faith and community. He praises the bonds of family, the wildness of nature, "the lightness and purpose" of simplicity. It's a thoughtful, encouraging book for anyone who has ever found themselves wondering, Why bother? --Maria Dolan
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
In these wise and luminous essays, Sanders takes on big themes: living a centered life, our relation to animals and to nature, the survival of human values in our greed-driven commercial culture. The leitmotif is his not-quite-extinguished hope for a livable, sane world offering people a decent future?a hope he nurtures despite the ecological devastation, family breakdown and moral decay he sees. Notable among these 15 adventurous essays are "Skill," a meditation on the life-enhancing use or the misuse of one's innate talents; "The Way of Things," an attempt to reconcile modern cosmology with ancient beliefs in a divine creator; "Body Bright," a Blakean call for cleansing the doors of perception, reconnecting with the planet and our fellow creatures; and "Fidelity," which explores marriage as an arena for the fulfillment of desire. The thread through this labyrinth of ideas is Sanders's account of backpacking in the Colorado Rockies with his son whose optimism tempers the fatherly pessimism. Although these beautifully written pieces are reminiscent of Wendell Berry's essays in their economy, grace and moral passion, Sanders projects his own distinctive voice, at once recognizably Midwestern (he's from Indiana by way of Ohio) and universal. Editor, Deanne Urmy; agent, John Wright.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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