There are some gems here which are examples of exceptional writing. But as a whole Snyder is a better poet (read Turtle Island) than an expository writer.

The sections on logging and forestry during his youth in Washington state were the best written and most enlightening. Logging is very personal to him. He also returned to this theme, several times, of how Europeans over a millennia destroyed the Mediterranean ecosystem. A precursor to what Americans were doing.

Snyder spent many years (in the 1960’s) living and traveling in the Far East including Japan. There are many pages on Zen Buddhism. I did not find these chapters resonated with me.

4 stars.

“So we can say that New York City and Tokyo are ‘natural’ but not ‘wild.’ They do not deviate from the laws of nature, but they are a habitat so exclusive in the matter of who and what they give shelter to, and so intolerant of other creatures, as to be truly odd. Wilderness is a place where the wild potential is fully expressed, a diversity of living and non living beings flourishing according to their own sorts of order…To speak of wilderness is to speak of wholeness” (Snyder, 11-12).

West Coast zen + Eastern philosophy + PNW nature writing + hard ecology idealism + esoteric Japanese poetry + personal anecdotes + beat phrasing + Native American mythology + advocacy + moral outrage + regionalism = Gary Snyder.

Not that he's a formula, but, you know.

He's his own genre, folks.

We absolutely live in a society

If you are interested in protecting wilderness areas, endangered species and environmental issues in general, then I highly recommend reading this book. I place it with Sand County Almanac, The Abstract Wild and Wolfer, all essential reading IMHO.

honestly, this was a bit difficult for me to read. zen buddhism can be a little too 'hippy dippy' for my tastes.

regardless, a totally necessary read for me.

"all of us at the table will eventually become part of the meal"

To go back to the wild is to become sour, astringent, crabbed. Unfertilized, un-pruned, tough, resilient, and every spring //shockingly// beautiful in bloom.
Survival and Sacrament
179

DNF at 68%. Unfathomably boring and over-wordy. Complicates a topic (humans and their relationship to nature) more than I would have thought possible.

This is the kind of book that should be read selectively and/or slowly over time or while backpacking. I had to rush through to make the deadline for my book club meeting. Some of the essays resonated with me powerfully, but others were a bit of a chore to get through. I've also read several more recent books from indigenous Peoples so reading so I've been overexposed. I liked the global perspective Snyder had from living in Asia, particularly Japan, even through I was a familiar with most of the Japan content.

Possibly the best book I've ever read.

Difficult to keep up with his language use but enjoyable when you figure it out. This set of essays has to do with environmental and nature studies from Mr. Snyder's Buddhist and Northern California and other points of view. Some very interesting tales of far away and close up contact with the world. It is sad at points to how far we have strayed for his world view.

true erudition and beauty, east and west, from a polymath and true lover of this universe, someone who sees as close as anyone our true place on this wild Earth. Published in 1990