Ah, this book is something special and superb.
If you know your Norman Clyde
and read John Muir —
this book is the
third corner of that
rocky trail triangle.
The Alcuin Press
Portland, Oregon
2019
Here's what I wrote to Norman ~
"I took a week, and took the book with me everywhere, to read Records of a Broken-Down Mountaineer. It is a superb book. Every page. By the middle of the book I was ready to marry you. I could also detect somewhat of an affinity with Clarence King in the first opening pages even before you bring King into your story, almost impossible not to, since you both lived in this range of light in similar ways. I can tell you it is heartening after living and working and reading and writing and publishing for fifty years and reading through all those decades that gave us The Whole Earth catalog and its many storied pages and recommendations of books to read to better our world — whether Snyder’s Earth Household, or Wendell Berry or John Muir, Thoreau, Mary Austin, Dorothy Day, Harlan Hubbard, an endless reading list, and some you took with you as companions on your climbs, it is your book that comes so close to being a proper success story of living and learning since those heady 1960s cultural crash courses. Your writing sweeps and tangles and literally carries the reader along. It may as well be Kamo no Chomei. And is it as good and resourceful as Basho’s travels? Yes, it is. You’ve made here the hallmark of an everyman. A beautiful book."
[ BA ]
"I took a week, and took the book with me everywhere, to read Records of a Broken-Down Mountaineer. It is a superb book. Every page. By the middle of the book I was ready to marry you. I could also detect somewhat of an affinity with Clarence King in the first opening pages even before you bring King into your story, almost impossible not to, since you both lived in this range of light in similar ways. I can tell you it is heartening after living and working and reading and writing and publishing for fifty years and reading through all those decades that gave us The Whole Earth catalog and its many storied pages and recommendations of books to read to better our world — whether Snyder’s Earth Household, or Wendell Berry or John Muir, Thoreau, Mary Austin, Dorothy Day, Harlan Hubbard, an endless reading list, and some you took with you as companions on your climbs, it is your book that comes so close to being a proper success story of living and learning since those heady 1960s cultural crash courses. Your writing sweeps and tangles and literally carries the reader along. It may as well be Kamo no Chomei. And is it as good and resourceful as Basho’s travels? Yes, it is. You’ve made here the hallmark of an everyman. A beautiful book."
[ BA ]
