Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
These essays include meditations and arguments on becoming a writer; on old-growth forest and the practice of clear-cutting; on the fluid dynamics and biotic diversity and mythic resonance of rivers; on the writers Ken Kesey and Wallace Stegner; on the literary genre of creative nonfiction”; on death and dying and the consolations of mortality; on the al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001; and on my allegiances to the places and region and country I call home.So writes John Daniel in the introduction to his latest book of essays, The Far Corner. Daniel writes from the ground he walks on and the landscape he inhabits, spinning narratives that seek to define how he belongs to the land and to life itself. He takes the reader to beaches, old-growth forests, and deep river canyonswild places, and places scarred by human exploitationand leads us also through inner landscapes where he explores mortality, creativity, and spirituality.
This collection extends John Daniels earlier work in the personal essay form.
Synopsis
John Daniel writes from the ground he walks on and the landscape he inhabits in the northwest corner of America, spinning narratives that seek to discover how he belongs to the land and to the wholeness of life itself. He takes his readers to beaches, old-growth forests, sagebrush steppe-lands, and deep river canyons -- wild places, and places scarred by human exploitation -- and leads us too through inner terrains where he explores mortality, creativity, and spirituality.
Both lyrical and informative, these essays are diverse in focus, various in length, and inventive in form -- one is constructed as a journal, two as linear montages. By turns playful, awed, cantankerous, and tender in tone, they deliver themselves in a style of high informality, welcoming readers to join the author as he journeys through some of the puzzlements, sadnesses, and small glories of living. This collection extends John Daniel's earlier work, The Trail Home, in the personal essay form.