A portrait of coal country as stark and galvanizing as Harry Caudill’s classic Night Comes to the Cumberland (1962).
Reece (English/Univ. of Kentucky) spent 2003–04 closely observing the sickly, strip-mined reaches of a mountain in Kentucky’s Appalachia; his book stands witness to its devouring.
In the old days of contour mining, excavations were carried out along ridgelines. Now the name of the game is mountaintop removal: Blast the high ground to smithereens, scavenge the detritus and plow the waste into the valley below, like so much toxic dust swept under the rug. Reece chronicles these ecological scalpings in anxious chapters written with an eye for abiding, catastrophic imagery. He does not lack material. Once a superb mesophytic forest habitat with an abundant diversity of species, a crumpled and intimate landscape of weathered peaks rich in flora and fauna, the region now resembles the buttes of the American West; pretty as they are in Arizona, they are deeply alien and a sign of trouble in the East. Creeks run orange with sulfuric acid and heavy metals; wells are polluted; the foundations of local homes have cracked; and the local population suffers from illnesses obviously related to the poisoning of the environment. Union protection for workers and citizens is a laugh, government oversight under the Bush administration is a travesty: The current Deputy Secretary of the Interior, Steven Griles, is a former coal lobbyist. Orwell and Kafka in their bleakest moments would have felt right at home in Appalachian Kentucky, mired in corruption and class warfare. Reece appreciates the need for some common ground, but is there no way, he asks, that the local economy can sustain itself without destroying the cerulean warbler and the very skyline?
A portrait of coal country as stark and galvanizing as Harry Caudill’s classic Night Comes to the Cumberland (1962).Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2006
ISBN: 1-59448-908-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
A history more splendid than any maharaja’s golden howdah. (b&w illustrations throughout)
A celebration of the Indian elephant, though the animal’s current precarious circumstances make this a cautionary tale as well.
While Alter (All the Way to Heaven, 1998, etc.) has spent many years in the subcontinent, this work stems from a series of journeys he made throughout India during 2001–02, ranging from Assam to Dehradun to the southern tip. It’s a story well and fondly told, of myth and art and great Indian masterworks, with a smattering (which is all that’s really known) of natural history about the Indian elephant’s behavior and biology. Alter notes that only a small percentage of Indian elephants live in national parks; the majority roam in forest reserves and private land, leaving them vulnerable to habitat encroachment and poaching. Dividing his time equally between scouring ancient texts and observation in the field, the author finds a close braiding of intimate knowledge of the elephant with the creature’s mythological status. In some instances they are portly, playful gods, in others emblems of authority, such as war elephants. As scholarly as Alter can be, he also has a knack for describing the elephants’ landscape: a gilded-green river under a saffron sky, flowers and birds flashing orange and turquoise, groves of bamboo and ordered ranks of teak trees. He works the animal’s contradictory status as both “an emblem of desire, the image of gajagamini—a woman whose walk is as seductive as an elephant’s,” and as a marauding raider, ruining a farmer’s crop in a night. The elephant’s survival cannot be assured solely by creating sanctuaries, Alter warns: it requires a “sustained commitment” from state and citizen alike.
A history more splendid than any maharaja’s golden howdah. (b&w illustrations throughout)Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-15-100646-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2004
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
