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jdintr's review
3.0
I have been on a 'desert books' kick ever since a summer adventure in the Four Corners region this year, and Desert Notebooks seemed like just the work to bring me back to the present.
In a narrative split between Joshua Tree/Twentynine Palms, California, and a residency in Las Vegas, Ehrenreich follows signs left by civilizations past. Beginning with a repeated encounter with owls during his time in Joshua Tree, he follows the owl into mythology and cultures from Greece to Guatemala. It is a nice motif, that pops up again and again.
Of course the cultures behind the myths that Ehrenreich reveals are extinct, and his attitude toward Civilization's current predicament is more resigned than plaintive. Rock paintings near Vegas reveal animals long banished from the area, as well as gods unknown. The writer is going down with a fight, but his fight isn't with the petroleum industry but ignorance of those who had disappeared before us.
Like many readers, I didn't really like Ehrenreich's references to America's 45th president. They seemed random--like diary entries intruding on erudite musings--and they dated the book too much for me. References to a near-extinct species of animal aside, I think that Ehrenreich's ideas have legs and deserve to be read and mused upon for many, many years to come.
In a narrative split between Joshua Tree/Twentynine Palms, California, and a residency in Las Vegas, Ehrenreich follows signs left by civilizations past. Beginning with a repeated encounter with owls during his time in Joshua Tree, he follows the owl into mythology and cultures from Greece to Guatemala. It is a nice motif, that pops up again and again.
Of course the cultures behind the myths that Ehrenreich reveals are extinct, and his attitude toward Civilization's current predicament is more resigned than plaintive. Rock paintings near Vegas reveal animals long banished from the area, as well as gods unknown. The writer is going down with a fight, but his fight isn't with the petroleum industry but ignorance of those who had disappeared before us.
Like many readers, I didn't really like Ehrenreich's references to America's 45th president. They seemed random--like diary entries intruding on erudite musings--and they dated the book too much for me. References to a near-extinct species of animal aside, I think that Ehrenreich's ideas have legs and deserve to be read and mused upon for many, many years to come.
poeticsinglemama's review
I have a bunch of other books on my reading shelf and I just couldn't get into this one so I returned it and I'm moving onto, hopefully, a more engaging book.
ceroon56's review against another edition
3.0
This was a tough read but I forced my way through. The contemporary parts were so accessible but the sections that dealt with historical literature and philosophy strained my understanding at times.
leighbeevee's review
2.0
I enjoyed the beginning the most, but it got very tedious pretty quickly. I wanted more about climate change. For the most part, it felt scattered and repetitive and uninteresting.
k80uva's review
2.0
Sorry to say it wasn’t a good fit for me. I tend to like books that mix memoir and journalism, I like an interdisciplinary look at America and books that get both broad and granular about particular regions or the environment. But this book was really frustrating, especially as it went on. Long sections of sort of loose meditations on philosophy and history alternating with short, needlessly anonymous personal moments—disjointed and frankly pretentious. I’m in the middle of another book right now, Acid West, that strikes this balance much better.
storybookvisitor's review
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
mobcob's review
4.0
A different genre than I've ever read, these musings were either enthralling or tedious. I found the author's cries about the Rhino entertaining, reassuringly concrete, and apocryphally understated compared to reality.