Nichols’s gritty, raspy voice is a perfect reflection of the mood of the novel and the eerie darkness of the minds of its characters. In fact, the singer Ben Nichols found Blood Meridian‘s characters so memorable and iconic that they inspired him to compose an EP dedicated to the novel, called “ The Last Pale Light in the West“, after a line in the book. As the characters travel through mountains, desert, and plains ecosystems, McCarthy oscillates between expansive beauty and meticulous rawness, describing in vibrant detail the colours, light, and barren landscapes of the 1850s Texas-Mexico border region. The central character of the story is the Kid, who escapes his own violent home situation to join a series of other characters and travels around the American West. READ Three Book Recommendations for Hunter-Conservationists Along with Ishmael, few novels had the kind of lasting impact on me as Three Day Road. Joseph Boyden paints a beautiful picture of the boreal forest landscape and the naturalist reader will notice its painful contrast with the environmentally destructive landscapes of war. In our current environmental and political climate, this story has much to offer us as we try to understand the kind of impact we want to have on the world and the way we want to relate to each other and the natural world. The underlying story is one of understanding how we navigate the cultural and political legacies of the past, or in Boyden’s metaphor, “We all fight on two fronts, the one facing the enemy, the one facing what we do to the enemy”. As his Aunt Niska paddles him in her canoe back to their home in northern Ontario, she reflects on her own life and the history of her community. The main story follows an Oji-Cree man named Xavier Bird and the physical and emotional trauma he deals with when he returns home from WWI. This is a book that is as symbolic as it is literal, as raw as it is tender, and as personally powerful as it is culturally expansive. I’m not a re-reader however, I can think of a very small handful of books I will re-read and Three Day Road is one of them. I think there are two kinds of readers in the world: those who re-read books and those who don’t. ![]() The first book in this list is one of my favourite books of all time. In each of these books, you see through the characters the profound impact that experiences in nature have on the people we become. Each story deals with a sense of searching – for self, identity, escape, or understanding and meaning. ![]() ![]() ![]() While I didn’t choose these three books because they share any obvious thematic connections, there are some common threads that run through them. But if you are looking for outdoors books that dig into the depths of human morality and offer vivid descriptions of landscapes, they are wonderful.Ĭlick on these links for my Introduction to Hunting and Outdoors Writers, my first Summer Reading List for Outdoors People, and Three Book Recommendations for Hunter-Conservationists. Summer is a great time to catch up on novels, and while the two novels in this list are moving pieces of writing, they are not exactly light-hearted. There are far too many great outdoors books to keep up with, but I like to do a couple of these posts each year to highlight some of my favourites.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |