Readers familiar with Cape Cod will deepen their view of the place by following Finch’s pages; those who do not know it will...
Lyrical essays on place from a longtime resident of the Massachusetts shore.
Finch, coeditor of the Norton Book of Nature Writing, has the nature-essay form down cold. He observes some quotidian fact of life, elaborates on it for a few pages, and closes with a sententious moral. So it is with the title essay, in which Finch describes the assassination of a yellow hornet by a spider that had hidden itself carefully away in a corner of its study; the spider, he writes, “was almost solicitous, as if ministering to the stricken hornet, as carefully and as kindly as possible ending its struggles and its agony.” The moral Finch draws is this: “There is only the stillness of an eternal present and the silent architecture of perfectly strung possibilities.” Finch repeats the formula in 43 other short pieces, all crafted at magazine-filler or radio-spot length: here he considers the behavior of migratory whales (the former mainstay of the Cape Cod economy), there he writes of ancient trees, wily fish, and passing birds. Unlike some practitioners of the nature-essay form, Finch even finds room in nature for humans (albeit in a wary, Robert Frost-ish way). For humans, he observes, are as responsible as the winds and tides for shaping places like Cape Cod, manifesting themselves in “a well-ploughed field, a well-tended garden, colorful flower-boxes, planted trees, drained bogs and swamps, and barn full of hay and a woodshed full of stove logs.” Finch is meditative and celebratory, and he almost always avoids the genre’s traps—chief among them sentimentality and self-indulgence.
Readers familiar with Cape Cod will deepen their view of the place by following Finch’s pages; those who do not know it will likely want to have a look for themselves.Pub Date: May 15, 2000
ISBN: 1-58243-049-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author skillfully fills a scholarly, historical niche, producing an environmental and biographical work with broad...
An encyclopedic, multigenerational chronicle examines a family’s extraordinary contributions to wildlife biology, conservation, and nature literature.
What the Kennedys are to politics, the less-famous Craigheads are to nature—a prolific and accomplished clan. Benjey (Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, 2011, etc.) traces their ancestry to Scottish-Irish immigrants who settled in central Pennsylvania in 1733. In 1868, a railroad bisected the family farm. A great-great grandson built a depot, Craighead Station, and started grain, lumber, and coal businesses. A mansion, still standing by Yellow Breeches Creek, connected generations of Craighead children with flora and fauna. Five siblings, born between 1890 and 1903, graduated from college. Frank Craighead Sr. became a U.S. Department of Agriculture entomologist. His brother, Eugene, became a state entomologist for Pennsylvania. Frank’s twins, Frank Jr. and John, gained fame as self-taught teenage falconers. They later studied grizzlies, devised the first radio-tracking collars for large animals, and battled National Park Service bureaucrats over bear management. They wrote the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, authored National Geographic articles, and produced lectures, photographs, books, films, and television programs. Their sister, Jean Craighead George, wrote more than 100 children’s books about animals and nature. Best known are Julie of the Wolves, a Newbery Medal winner, and My Side of the Mountain, a Newbery Honor work made into a movie. Five Craigheads achieved name recognition, but Benjey approaches the family as an ecosystem, deftly covering three dozen members over three centuries. He includes a family tree (indispensable) and a useful index and endnotes. Largely chronological, the book alternates between sections following entire generations through decades and chapters highlighting key individuals or topics. Benjey displays prodigious research skills and enthusiastic storytelling. With extensive family cooperation, he weaves interviews, letters, school yearbooks, family photos, and public records into such detailed scenes that he seems to have been present. He often sounds like a Craighead. Granular details about extended family members occasionally tread close to tedium, but overall, this comprehensive, impressive synthesis of the historical, familial, social, economic, and natural forces that created the famous Craigheads is well-told.
The author skillfully fills a scholarly, historical niche, producing an environmental and biographical work with broad popular appeal.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9909748-9-5
Page Count: 264
Publisher: The University of Montana Press
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A provocative and controversial conservationist encapsulates his opinions and suggestions for restoring the health of a planet at risk. Brower (For Earth's Sake, 1990) has reached the ripe age of 82, and this slim volume feels like a swan song—or perhaps he might prefer to call it ``goose music,'' referring to the tonic of wildness that we all must hear, appreciate, and identify with in order to save our soiled Earth. Aided by Chapple (Kayaking the Full Moon, 1993), Brower runs through a handful of eco-ideas, some more familiar than others: putting boundaries around cities, linking protected animal havens to allow natural migration, encouraging eco-tourism, reining in our overuse of the automobile, and turning to solar power. He waxes enthusiastic on the subject of reducing forest consumption, and his own words are printed here on paper made from kenaf, a hibiscus relative whose development as a tree substitute might eventually protect our last acres of old-growth forest. Brower urges that efforts be made to promote ``CPR for the Earth'': conservation, preservation, and restoration. The book is a mother lode of quotable sayings from the man best known to readers from John McPhee's Encounters with the Archdruid, and sometimes style obscures content. Brower has a wonderful, folksy voice, and though he has more enemies than most conservationists, he has also become a mythic figure in the environmental movement—so it feels almost disloyal to note that a towering ego shows through his comments. In addition, the Archdruid's prescriptions are fairly vague, though it could be argued that this is a statement of personal mission, not a grant proposal. Unapologetic and defiant as ever, Brower has penned a manifesto for those who would pick up his torch. Whether his methods have been more help or hindrance to his cause is still to be decided. (Author tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-06-252033-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1995
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