Horizon

Monumental, enlightening, astonishing in scope. Masterpiece by a great writer and a very wise human being. It sometimes reminded me of books by my beloved David Quammen, but the message here is more grave and fundamental. Author writes often about wisdom represented by the elders in many indigenous communities. Well, I think Barry Lopez himself is one of the best elders our Western society can get. World would be a better place if we would listen to him.

I have been reading this book for many months, enjoying bits as I had moments to read in various locations. The writing is captivating, the stories engaging. The author will be missed.

Of 2019’s new books read or reviewed, Horizon by National Book Award-winning writer Barry Lopez can enrapture most. It journeys through remains and resurgences: the flotsam on an Oregon beach and rebirth of a nearby clear-cut forest; terrestrial fossils in Kenyan digs and extra-terrestrial ones by Lopez’s NASA team on Antarctica.The book is all about resilience – of things, species, cultures, environments, especially against harsh conditions, greedy exploitation, human irresponsibility, or evolutionary change.With significant climate change on our horizon, this timely book explores our upcoming evolutionary bumps, whether in the human species or the planet. The new emergent normal, like a planet populated by peoples with Alzheimer’s or autism, or life in a narcissistic, post-factual world. Not dwelling on how to stop the inevitable bumps, Lopez instead studies survival techniques: the tenacity of indigenous cultures facing exploitation in the Australian outback; adaptations in housing by ancient tribes fishing in the far-north Arctic.The book is a Prize contender, both for its writing and its vision.The writing is oceanic, coming in two-to-three-page waves, each with its own resounding point, but never losing the tidal theme, nor the rocking effect for the other side’s shore.It’s a macro-vision that rolls back into Blakean regard, in which each grain of sand is seen as containing the whole world. With a poet’s eye and ear, Lopez details and honors things with his scientific terminology, its microscopic, unique differentiation.The book’s ultimate message is enchantment: respect and marvel at each and every thing or being, endlessly. Hold a newborn and feel the course of all civilizations – experience exquisite delicacy amidst the awesome beauty of a vast horizon. So steeled, he implies, we can have resilience to survive major change. Aided, too, perhaps, by re-reading in this book beyond boundaries.

Overall it’s a good read but I grew tired of his constant haranguing ,and his practically willfully naive views of indigenous peoples. I am sorry to inform Barry Lopez but human conquest and subjugation of other humans is not unique to the “West”, but is what humans have been doing for millennia- probably since there were enough if us so that we regularly bumped into each other and fought over resources. As he notes briefly and but somehow passingly, Indians in the Pacific North West had slaves and a review of their potlatches clearly shows that women had a much lower status than men in those societies ( as they clearly do in some Australian Aboriginal communities because he wrote about how women were not permitted to participate in a religious ceremony which he was invited to observe). In terms of their respect for the land and nature it should be noted that the fires started by Aboriginal Australians and some N.American Indians radically and permanently altered the landscape and ecosystems - for the benefit of the People setting the fires; the pre- European Australian landscape was already devoid of certain megafauna exterminated by the Aborigines, just as Paleo Indians almost certainly exterminated much of the Pleistocene megafauna long before Westerners arrived. Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, Olmec.. all had empires and ruled brutally by modern standards, as did the kingdoms of the Sahel, and Middle- East etc- human rights is a modern concept, sadly. Hawaii, whose annexation he deplores, was unified by * force * when Kamehameha I sent out warriors to * invade * Maui and Oahu and Molokai, after solidifying his control of the Big Island. There is a ridge above Honolulu where the warriors of Oahu threw themselves to their deaths rather than face capture ( and gruesome death or enslavement ) by the warriors - imperial invaders - of Hawaii. I have read that among some families with long histories in Oahu there is still resentment towards the Big Island. I think Barry Lopez wants to imagine that pre- Industrial mankind lived in some sort of natural, egalitarian paradise, and thus far from the case. Oh, I also take issue with his use of “ terrorist” as opposed to terrorist, and his suggestion that using remotely controlled aircraft to hunt and kill them is akin to murder. * Perhaps Mr. Lopez won’t mind if he or a family member some day end up on a hijacked airliner being directed into a skyscraper but those he calls “ terrorists”. Still, the book was pretty good when he stuck to the natural world, but not as good as Arctic Dreams

I used his words as stepping stones to navigate the places he described. I went with him, though we didn’t know each other. I felt such intense kinship that whenever I read a book in the future and fall in love with it like I did, this time, I will be holding his hand while we skip stones across the ages. Is that Loren Eiseley I see there on the far shore waving to us?

Wow, Barry Lopez can write. Lopez considers his urge to look beyond the horizon of the physical world while layering ideas from his youth and his older self. The essays are thoughtful and beautiful and demand a slow read and for this reader—a second read. His thematic threads are layered and nuanced as well as direct. The world is a scary place right now: division, climate unrest, and more. Lopez doesn’t shy away from these horrors, yet he doesn’t leave us hopeless. This is the kind of book that makes one a better, more thoughtful person, because it demands attention with eloquent prose and honest analysis and reflection. It requires a cognitive interaction with a writer who combines critical thinking and compassion into a great collection of essays that work together to explore what it means to explore.

I have rarely come across a book where the prologue of no more than 3 pages has been so beautifully conceived and is so moving. It sets the tone for a spell-binding journey into the writer’s life of travel, reflection and self-discovery. I love the way each of the 5 or so chosen travel-stories all begin in cradles of quiet expectation: in the first account of Cape Foulweather on the north-western coast of the US, Lopez waits in expectation of a storm that will soon hit; in the high Canadian Arctic he begins in a moment of quiet reading.Lopez has a greater gift for evoking place and landscape than most esteemed writers of fiction I have encountered and is able to observe people and events with insightful humility.I am a big fan of Robert McFarlane for many reasons but one of the most important is that he regards Lopez as the master.

I've tried with this book and I suppose I might try again but it comes across as the travels of someone for whom money is not at all important and who probably has left a wife doing all the housework, raising any kids etc. etc. whilst he flies and drives about being artistic and imaginative with his writing, Once I get that out of my head I might persevere but at present I have no idea why people are writing rave reviews. Maybe Americans are more easily impressed.

The author died recently but has left a legacy of hugely important and inspiring books. This is his most recent and takes us on an inspiring journey about our connections with the natural world and why we simply must do more to live within sustainable limits. It's beautifully written, at times upbeat, though at times frustration and despair creep towards the surface. He is well-known in North America but his themes apply equally across the globe and he deserves to be better known on this side of the Atlantic.

I was looking forward to being riveted by this book but two pages in and I quickly realised that this book along with Midldlemarch are at least two books I will never in my life finish reading.Granted, landscape writing isn’t really my thing if that’s what tis is but I was also put off by how earnest and preachy it is. I know it’s a serious subject but I was seriously put to sleep (during the day) reading it.I did flit through it to see if I could engage with it and came across a paragraph where he describes keeping a silver Spanish coin on his desk to remind him of ......zzzz....mans corruption.

Started off hating this, finished by loving it. Has its faults (he's a place-dropper in the way other people are name-droppers, always seems keen to let you know how well-travelled he is–and he is, exceptionally well-travelled; occasionally a little pompous, once or twice absurdly so); but it really amounts to something immense in the end. Have always loved Arctic Dreams, and this is not quite that; but in long stretches it is not far off. Really great achievement.