Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
February 5th, 2010
- ISBN13: 9780679740247
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
In the spring of 1983 Terry Tempest Williams learned that her mother was dying of cancer. That same season, The Great Salt Lake began to rise to record heights, threatening the herons, owls, and snowy egrets that Williams, a poet and naturalist, had come to gauge her life by. One event was nature at its most random, the other a by-product of rogue technology: Terry’s mother, and Terry herself, had been exposed to the fallout of atomic bomb tests in the 1950s. As it interweaves these narratives of dying and accommodation, Refuge transforms tragedy into a document of renewal and spiritual grace, resulting in a work that has become a classic.
Amazon.com Review
The only constants in nature are change and death. Terry Tempest Williams, a naturalist and writer from northern Utah, has seen her share of both. The pages of Refuge resound with the deaths of her mother and grandmother and other women from cancer, the result of the American government’s ongoing nuclear-weapons tests in the nearby Nevada desert. You won’t find the episode in the standard history textbooks; the Feds wouldn’t admit to conducting the tests until women and men in Utah, Nevada, and northwestern Arizona took the matter to court in the mid-1980s, and by then thousands of Americans had fallen victim to official technology. Parallel to her account of this devastation, Williams describes changes in bird life at the sanctuaries dotting the shores of the Great Salt Lake as water levels rose during the unusually wet early 1980s and threatened the nesting grounds of dozens of species. In this world of shattered eggs and drowned shorebirds, Williams reckons with the meaning of life, alternating despair and joy.
Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
February 5th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Unless you have an intense interest in birds, that component of the book is rather dull reading. I grew up in Utah and remember the flooding. I have breast cancer that has metastasized so the reading of her mother’s illness and death was poignant and painful to read.
I was disturbed by the author’s distortions of the Mormon religion. She hasn’t heeded her great-grandmother’s counsel on pg. 197, “Faith, my child. It is the first and sweetest principle of the gospel.” She has twisted the concept of obedience and doesn’t recognize the great reverence and respect the church has for women and that women in the church have for themselves.
To her credit, she is “anxiously engaged in a good cause.”
The scripture says, “he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant…men (and women) should be anxiously engaged in a good cause and do many things of their own free will..” (D&C 58:26). This hardly supports her claim that the church discourages “independent thinking.”
Her criticisms prevent her from appreciating the greater truths the religion offers, including God’s marvelous plan for our salvation. I think her mother knew these things. In the narrative, the author admits that she does not accept her mother’s dying the way her mother does, nor does she understand her mother’s peace. By harboring her rage, I fear she never will.
Perhaps her passion/obsession for the stark desert landscape relects the emptiness of her own soul.
Rating: 1 / 5
February 5th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
Unless you are an avid bird watcher with an interest in birds and their habitats, you will find this book difficult to understand. It is even harder to piece together the ideas the author is trying to convey. The ideas are disjointed and read worse than the diary of a thirteen year old in how everything is organized. This book was a mandatory read for a class I took and I would not have read it otherwise. The reading is monotonous and a chore to continue. Although factual in its reporting it is difficult to understand what the author wants you to know. If the ending was placed at the begining it might provide enough incentive to continue readig the book.
Rating: 1 / 5
February 5th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
This book is overrated and self-indulgent. If you do read it, don’t feel compelled to like it just because you’ve heard so many good things about it.
Rating: 1 / 5
February 6th, 2010 at 12:21 am
Terry Williams mother is dying of cancer…and she milks this for about as far as it will go.
Don’t get me wrong….dying of cancer is a horrible way to go, and I’m sorry that anyone has to go through this….BUT….when you try to somehow link this with watching birds, and Mormonism with the glue of nonsensical verbose sentences you get a book that is better thrown into the fire you keep you warm on those cold winter nights.
I HATED this book and her obvious attempts at being deep.
Rating: 1 / 5
February 6th, 2010 at 3:16 am
Terry Tempest Williams is a naturalist living in Utah who has the history of cancer in her family. Cancer in this novel is paralleled with the flooding of the neighboring Great Salt Lake. Overall this book goes to show that cancer goes deeper than the person who it is diagnosed to. I would suggest this book on limited circumstances: One-if you can get past the strong feminine presence and domination of this novel. Two-do not read the last 60 or so pages. I approved of this book up until that point. If the book ended at that point, leaving out the harassment of the government it would be ten times better. To anyone who is in the process of reading Refuge, you won’t want to read past around page 230. Enough said.
My rating(first 230 or so pages): 7.5/10
My rating(after page 230 or so) 2.5/10
Rating: 3 / 5