I just returned from a long weekend visiting my folks in Louisville, Kentucky. In Kentucky, tobacco is a major cash crop, bourbon is the beverage of choice, and green hills roll along like ocean waves. Being there reminded me of the contrast between the mountains I live in now and these wide-open spaces from my younger days. Mountains are amazing, sublime spaces, but sometimes I feel cramped living in a tight valley. The rolling hills and horse farms surrounding Louisville felt vast, and being there gave me some room to breathe. I also stumbled upon a book of poetry written by Gerard Manley Hopkins on the dresser in my old room, and he seems to express some of my love of these special rural scenes. “Binsey Poplars, felled 1879” struck me as I was already thinking about these things, so I’ll post it here:

MY aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew—
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being só slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will make no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc únselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.

Citation:
Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Poems. London: Humphrey Milford, 1918; Bartleby.com, 1999. www.bartleby.com/122/. [December 15, 2009].

Final Day. Well, I made it to Como, Italy—but not walking the entire distance from Chamonix, France as William Wordsworth and his friend Robert Jones did in 1790. I hopped on trains, busses, and boats in order to reach my final destination, and while all of this was good and fun, I’m disappointed to report that long-distance walking trails seem to be a thing of the past in northern Italy. My through-route became patchy after I crossed the Simplon Pass from Switzerland into Italy, but several sections of footpaths through France and Switzerland were simply unforgettable. The Col de Baume and the Col de la Forclaz stretches from Chamonix to Martigny were brilliant, as was the Simplon Pass (the absolute highlight of this journey).

Once I got to Como, I decided that I’d go out exploring on foot, even though I knew that I wasn’t able to walk a long distance to or fro. I picked a day route straight from Como’s city center, and it turned out to be an urban adventure through some side streets:

The footpath led up some steep switchbacks to the town of Brunate, which sits high above Como on a hill. A funicolare (cable car) also runs from Como to Brunate, and one of the footpaths zigzags right underneath it. I suppose lots of people take the funicolare up to get a glimpse, as I did, of Como from this scenic spot:

From Brunate, a fantastic woodsy trail continued at a gentle slope all the way to the summit of Montepiatto. I didn’t go all the way to Montepiatto’s summit, but instead took a sidetrip to another interesting natural feature called the Pietra Nariola. Basically, this was a big boulder you could stand upon and get the same view of Como as the one above.

I made it back to Como in time to do a little lounging around at the Villa Olmo pool…

…and the following morning, I took a train down to Milan station (below), where I connected to another train that took me back north to Switzerland and then west all the way home to Chamonix.

In eight days, I covered a distance of around 210 miles. I was able to explore the modern landscapes that prompted William Wordsworth to write some of the most inspired poetry in the English language. I came home with raw feet and with a greater understanding of how adventurous Wordsworth and Jones were…they walked for fourteen weeks, after all, and then took a ferry back across the English Channel, where they returned like good lads to their studies at Cambridge.

Note: this post is the final one in a series of posts about my recent attempt to retrace William Wordsworth’s footsteps from Chamonix, France to Como, Italy on the walking holiday the poet took with his friend Robert Jones in 1790.

“And Como! thou, a treasure whom the earth / Keeps to herself, confined as in a depth / Of Abyssinian privacy, I spake / Of thee, thy chestnut woods, and garden plots / Of Indian corn tended by dark-eyed maids…” –William Wordsworth, in The Prelude

William Wordsworth told his sister Dorothy in a letter that he and Robert Jones often traveled between twenty and thirty miles on foot each day during the European journey they took in 1790. Sometimes more. He wasn’t lying. As I researched their route, I became scared by this fact because I knew that I would try to do the same. They were hot-footing it through the Alps, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to keep up.

I couldn’t. Once I crossed the Italian border, I’d mostly abandoned my dreams of walking the entire distance that Wordsworth and Jones had, mostly because footpaths have disappeared and superhighways have been paved in their place sometime within the past two hundred years. After the late night out in Locarno, I had no choice but to take a train or bus to Como, my final destination for this portion of the journey. The train proved to be the best option.

The Italian trains have a retro-cool appeal, don’t they? Although I had spent the previous day traveling by bus and boat to Locarno, this day’s train ride to Como was much more simple. However, I showed up in Como in the muggy summer heat—temperature was around 90-degrees Fahrenheit—and didn’t know where I would stay the night.

My accommodation search took much longer than the train ride, but I settled on a super-tiny room in the Albergio Del Duca, which overlooks the brilliant Del Duca piazza. This day turned into one of those days on which the reality of travel can’t possibly keep up with the dream of it. I simply had to take a nap and then write in my journal and go out for pizza. It seemed like Wordsworth and Jones didn’t have a day like this in their fourteen-week adventure, but I needed to rest if I were to continue walking the following (and final) day…

Note: this post is one in a series of posts about my recent attempt to retrace William Wordsworth’s footsteps from Chamonix, France to Como, Italy on the walking holiday the poet took with his friend Robert Jones in 1790.

Title: Triple Cross // Author: Mark T. Sullivan // Publisher: // St. Martin’s Press // 390 p.

I recently read Mark T. Sullivan’s new thriller, Triple Cross, and even though I’m not massively into thrillers, I really liked this book. I felt personally drawn into the story, as the action takes place at a private ski resort in Montana called the Jefferson Club. Living in a ski resort myself, I couldn’t help but laugh at Sullivan’s descriptions of the Jefferson Club’s super-rich guests floundering around on the slopes, flailing in deep powder.

In Triple Cross, the Jefferson Club comes under attack on New Years Eve when a terrorist organization called the Third Position Army takes hostage the seven wealthiest men in the world. Each of the hostages gets “tried” live on the Internet for his crimes against humanity, and viewers are invited to submit their votes to determine the fate of the defendants. It’s a disturbing but plausible scenario. Tension mounts as the Jefferson Club’s security chief tries to rescue his children who remain hiding inside the club after other guests have been released. Sullivan does a great job turning the mountain landscape into the place for this book’s action. The snowstorms, helicopter drop-offs, snow-colored camouflage, and ski scenes all add to this book’s adventure appeal, and mountain-lovers will delight in these things.

To read my more formal-type review of Mark T. Sullivan’s Triple Cross on NewWest, click here.

“There were lies we told to save ourselves, and then there were lies we told to rescue others. What counted more, the mistruth, or the greater good?” –from Jodi Picoult’s Handle With Care

Title: Handle With Care // Author: Jodi Picoult // Publisher: Simon and Schuster // Date: March 2009 // 496 p.

I’ve been reading a more fiction than usual: one excellent collection of short stories…and before that, Jodi Picoult’s so-so new novel. You’ll have to wait for the next literature post to hear about the fantastic, amazing, super-great collection of short stories…and in the meantime here’s a bit about Picoult’s new novel, Handle With Care. This book shot straight to the top of the bestseller lists, and it remains this week #2 on the NYT Best Sellers list.

Plot in a nutshell:
In her morally charged new novel, Handle with Care, Jodi Picoult again explores questions relevant to our times. When Charlotte O’Keefe finds out that her unborn daughter Willow has a collagen defect called osteogenesis imperfecta—OI—she knows that her child will suffer physically from brittle bones and hundreds of breaks during her lifetime. But Charlotte cannot foresee the ways that debate over Willow’s care will fracture her family.

With mounting medical bills and ongoing concerns over Willow’s future, Charlotte buys into a lawyer’s suggestion to file a wrongful birth lawsuit as a way to offset the financial burden. Even though the case rests on the grounds that Charlotte’s obstetrician missed some of the defect’s early clues while Willow was still in the womb, filing it requires Charlotte and her husband Sean to admit under oath that it would have been better for their smart and beautiful daughter to have never been born. And the obstetrician that the couple must sue happens to be Charlotte’s best friend. Such a situation begs questions about the value of life and the care of loved ones born with debilitating conditions.

Pros:
The book’s major characters take turns telling their sides of the story, one chapter at a time. This collage of voices adds variety to the narrative, and a pastry chef’s recipes sprinkled throughout serve to sweeten the deal.

Cons:
Mid-book, the tension lags as Willow’s parents—divided over the implications of a wrongful birth lawsuit— seem to repeat the same argument over and over again, without resolution.

Final Word:
Handle with Care provides multiple entry points for book club conversation, and its final pages offer readers an unexpected twist. Such a surprise conclusion makes up for some of the midsection slowness.

Title: The Nation Guide to the Nation // Publisher: Vintage // Editor: Richard Lingeman // 2009 // 400 p.

A book with last week’s political turnover in mind: The Nation Guide to the Nation, edited and compiled by Richard Lingeman, other editors from The Nation, and readers of the United States’ most popular lefty magazine. If you’re a Democrat, this book will help you find friends in cool, funky, intellectual, activist, left-leaning places all over the counrty. If you’re a Republican, this book will help you identify places you might want to avoid for a while…or maybe eventually start exploring if you’re feeling compelled to align yourself with the party in power.

The Nation Guide is written for those of “left-liberal-radical persuasion,” as the book’s Introduction calls The Nation readers. It covers topics such as culture, media, advocacy, goods and services, and social networks. Interesting sidebars with relevant historical tidbits are sprinkled throughout, along with additional commentary by respected topical experts. Each section is further subdivided into categories, and then detailed listings follow, generally offering a description and contact information.

Released just in time for Obama’s inauguration, The Nation Guide to the Nation might be the best book to help the new president’s supporters find others united in celebration. Part catalog, part handbook, part almanac, The Nation Guide is the ultimate resource for liberals seeking community in something as small as a cup of fair-trade coffee or as large as a 30-acre radical homestead…click here to continue reading my review of The Nation Guide to the Nation on the About.com Contemporary Literature website…

Title: Extreme Landscape: The Lure of Mountain Spaces //Editor: Burnadette McDonald//Publisher: National Geographic Adventure Press//2002//249 p.

I haven’t read much good (life-changing, mind-blowing) fiction lately, so I’ve reverted back to what I love best: nonfiction, on topics related to nature, outdoors, place, adventure, travel, etc. A few weeks ago, I was browsing the used book shelves at the Boulder Bookstore and saw a copy of an essay collection edited by Bernadette McDonald titled Extreme Landscape: The Lure of Mountain Spaces (2002). This book had been previously recommended to me, and it proved to be a good find. Terry Tempest Williams writes the book’s introduction, and essays written by Barry Lopez, George Schaller, Gretel Ehrlich, and Yvon Chouinard are included, among other writers who do great justice to the places that inspire them. As McDonald explains in the foreword, “Each of the authors in this collection is a specialist: a scientist, ethnobotanist, mountaineer, philosopher, or photographer. Each has focused on particular mysteries and issues of extreme landscapes and each of them draws creative inspiration from the high peaks and icy expanses of some of the wildest terrain possible.”

A few of the standout essays include Wade Davis’s “Culture at the Edge,” which involves the author’s experience as a park ranger in Canada’s Spatsizi Wilderness, where he learned the stories of its native people. “Dumbstruck,” by Dermot Somers, is a beautiful meditation of the loss of language and Anglo-Americanization in Ireland and Nepal. Others are more academic in tone, and some—such as Yvon Chouinard’s final essay—are all over the place and back, but they all pay homage to mountain spaces. I recommend this book for any lover of the great outdoors, so if you run across it in a local bookstore or spy it on a friend’s bookshelf, snatch it straightaway.

A few gems:
“When we encounter mountains in wild places, we experience the peak of our own humility.” —Terry Tempest Williams

“The truth lies in the telling of the stories, not in the stories themselves.” —Ed Douglas, on being told stories by those he met in the Himalaya

“For [Alex], the sweeping flight of a hawk was the cursive hand of nature, a script written on the wind.” —Wade Davis, on Alex, a man who tells him stories of Gitksan lore

“To reach back through language, looking for our origins, is to cup the hands in a funnel and shout, and when the shout returns, distorted, a conversation with our earlier selves goes on.” —Dermot Somers

“When we reshape an extreme environment to suit our needs, we lose the ability to experience it on its own terms.” —Bernadette McDonald

Photo: The Royal Societies, part of Antarctica’s Transantarctic Range, on a summer night.