The opal desert : explorations of fantasy and reality in the American Southwest / Peter Wild.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wild, Peter, 1940-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Deserts--Southwest, New.

Deserts.

Desert ecology.

New Southwest.

Desert ecology--Southwest, New.

Natural history--Southwest, New.

Natural history.

Southwest, New--Description and travel.

Southwest, New.

Physical Description:

219 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 1999.

Summary:

The opalescent deserts of the American Southwest have become romantic icons in the public imagination through the words of writers, the images of artists and photographers, and the visual storytelling of filmmakers. In this spirited, personal, beautifully written book, Peter Wild explores the lives and works of sixteen writers whose words have shaped our visions of the opal desert.

Wild begins with Cabeza de Vaca, whose Relació n of his desert wanderings sent treasure-hungry Spaniards searching for cities of gold. He goes on to discuss the works of both widely read and lesser-known nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors, including such luminaries as Mary Austin, Joseph Wood Krutch, Edward Abbey, Ann Zwinger, and Charles Bowden. He links all the writers as explorers of one kind or another, searching for tangible or intangible treasures, some finding and some losing their dreams in the opal desert.

Contents:

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Cabeza de Vaca: flaming entrails, burning trees

William L. Manly: the classic account of deserta horribilis

J. Ross Browne & Samuel W. Cozzens: happy travelers through lost lands

Charles F. Lummis: the showman with the shining right hand

Mary Austin: beauty, madness, death, and God

John C. Van Dyke & the desert aestheticians

William T. Hornaday: the happy travelers, part 2

John Wesley Powell & William E. Smythe: God smiles on the irrigationists

J. Smeaton Chase: our Araby

Joseph Wood Krutch: the pronuba moth and the modern dilemma

Edward Abbey: Ned Ludd arrives on the desert

Ann Zwinger & Charles Bowden: pondering these things in her heart; Tacitus flips out

Peter Reyner Banham: wheeled voyeur from overseas

Epilogue: the mountain, a beetle, and the thief in the night

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [203]-[211]) and index.

ISBN:

0292791283

0292791291

OCLC:

40762502