Arctic Dreams
Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape
Ratings12
Average rating4.5
15
Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape
Ratings12
Average rating4.5
Barry Holstun Lopez:
“Arctic Dreams; Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape” ( 1986)
This is an account of the author's exploration of the Western Arctic region, between Bering Strait and Davis Strait. It is an account both of the natural history of the Arctic, and equally of how the Arctic grips the human spirit and imagination.
The chapters are rich in their descriptions of the Arctic –of the physical land itself, the native peoples that the author met, the Arctic animals and plants, both terrestrial and aquatic, the ice and the Arctic light that make the region so distinctly different from the temperate and tropical parts of Earth.
But Lopez also gives us a sense of how the Arctic fascinates the mind and spirit – through his own personal experiences and through the history of the Arctic - both of the native peoples and the discovery expeditions.
Reviews with the most likes.
“No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one's own culture but within oneself. If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of a leaning into the light.” (from the Epilogue)
dense, grounded, expansive - some chapters can run on a little long or read a bit dry, but worth reading for the descriptions of sea ice and arctic tundra alone. I can't stop thinking about this book, how quietly it articulates questions of place and perception, and how it doesn't attempt to untangle the thorniness of those questions. some of the best nature writing and ecocriticism I've read.
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