Jordan Lange Lange itibaren Santa Maria Ajoloapan, Santa María Ajoloapan, Méx., Meksika
Great book, that I think most people are able to relate to.
Not too shabby. I would have given it three stars, but my kids were so excited by it that I'll bump it up to four.
His focus is on both nature and political issues. Details evoke people and place in the Sierra foothills. From Publishers Weekly: "Slated to be drowned by a dam, the California state park patrolled by the author of this haunting memoir is a "condemned landscape" of gorgeous river canyons hemmed in by exurban sprawl and peopled by eccentric gold miners, squatting families, drug dealers and miscellaneous drunken, gun-waving rowdies, a place where "turkey vultures floated... savoring the hot air for the inevitable attrition of heat, drought and violence." In his 14 years there... Smith encountered fights, beatings, suicides, daredevil canyon divers and the corpse of a woman jogger killed and half eaten by a cougar. His conflicted task of facilitating the communion of humans with the wilderness while keeping the humans civilized and the wild places wild becomes a mission... The clash of nature and civilization is a resonant theme, but it doesn't of itself yield compelling insights, and sometimes the author's essays add up to little more than shaggy-dog stories. But Smith writes with a novelistic sense of character, atmosphere and pacing, in a prose style that's wonderfully evocative of landscape and its effects on people."
this is one of my favorite Carpathian novels. i think mostly because this is where it started to be funny and sarcastic as apposed to the first two novels. can be read as a stand alone.