About This Life: Journeys on the Threshold of Memory (Panther S.)

by Monica Lopez and Barry Lopez

Once, when asked for advice on how to become a writer, Lopez found himself replying: "Read. Find out what you truly believe. Get away from the familiar." This collection of essays stems directly from that philosophy. Here is far-flung travel (the beauty of remote Hokkaido Island, the over-explored Galapagos, enigmatic Bonaire); a naturalist's concerns (for endangered communities as well as their land) and pure adventure. Here, too, are seven exquisite memory pieces; beautiful, meditative recollections that will stand as classic examples of the personal essay.

• ISBN10: 0679309969
• ISBN13: 9780679309963
• Publish Date: 27 April 1999 (first published 19 May 1998)
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Imprint: Vintage Books Canada
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

At the intersection of that Venn diagram of my interests— community and storytelling and wilderness— here sits this book. There are some great essays here— on memory, on art, on biology and geography— and some fascinating subjects— like the essay, “Flight,” his first-hand account of riding shotgun on the boggling logistics of our global economy, or “Orchids on the Volcanos,” on the reality of the present-day Galápagos Islands, or “The Whaleboat,” on whaling from Melville and Moby-Dick to Greely and the doomed expedition to Lady Franklin Bay in 1888.

Points docked, really, only because of my adjacent reading of Rick Bass and Wendell Berry. In comparison it’s too pretty. It needs some muscle. It needs the fire in the belly. But, lest that keep anyone from picking it up, here’s a taste of what’s here, from the introduction no less, from the inconsequential part:

Stories do not give instruction, they do not explain how to love a companion or how to find God. They offer, instead, patterns of sound and association, of event and image. Suspended as listeners and readers in these patterns, we might reimagine our lives. It is through story that we embrace the great breadth of memory, that we can distinguish what is true, that we may glimpse, at least occasionally, how to live without despair in the midst of the horror that dogs and unhinges us.

(So I read this one via Rick Bass, right? It had to be, right? Nope. Elmore Leonard. These Venn diagrams, they overlap something fierce.)