The Far Side of Eden : New Money, Old Land, and the Battle for Napa Valley

Rating:
Summary: Smart and Writerly
Review: Anyboy who has ever had a sip of Napa Valley wine would do well to read Conaway's lyrical expose of the new (and a few old) Napa Valley vintners.

You will understand, immediately, why the new Napa Valleyites tried to prevent Conaway from giving a reading when he visited the area this fall.

As a journalist, I can tell you this story is beautifully reported and written. Sadly, the story is not just about Napa Valley. It is about the American West: Traditional Westerners who have their souls rooted in their landscape are being squeezed out by wealthy newcomers with no taste, and, worse yet, no respect for the place they have invaded.

Next thing we know, Rosy O'Donnell will be a Napa Valley vintner. Or the Bush twins. Or Ted Turner.

Get this book. Read it.

Rating:
Summary: Well written???
Review: As a former Napa vinter, I eagerly looked forward to reading Conway's excursion into my home county. While there are interesting ideas in the book, they lurk beneath the soil like potatoes, never springing forth to see the light of day. Many of my neighbors (and, I should add, close friends) are presented in this book as gross parodies; this, I suppose, might be expected from an outsider to the region, but I had a difficult time getting past these rough characterizations.

Rating:
Summary: Gulp This
Review: Conaway's first book on the topic, "Napa, the Story of an American Eden," held a mirror to a beautiful place and the wonders of American winemaking. This sequel goes through the looking glass into a world of greed and self absorption, where a monoculture rapes land, trophy homes blight ridgetops, egos swell and rot like grapes too long on the vine.
Finely reported, elegantly written, "The Far Side of Eden" would be depressing -- if the tale weren't told with such wit and good humor. The hubris of winemakers like Pahlmeyer and Staglin and Copolla emerge as hilarious, the self-righteousness of both the winos and the ecos as ridiculous.
It's quite sad, and hugely funny.
I think this is an important book. It spotlights Napa, but it could be anywhere in America where riches come too fast and too much and the result is look-at-me-look-at-me development.
Read it slow, and let it breathe, it's a treat.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Read, Even if Biased
Review: I enjoyed reading this book a lot, even though I felt Conaway was clearly biased in favor of the most extreme environmentalists there, Malan/Mennen as he called them, or in other words the Sierra Club. He also managed to make everyone look bad, and I don't think people there are not as bad as they look in this book. For example, the long term residents love the valley and get along famously for the most part.

Having said that, it does make for entertaining reading, and if you have any interest in the Napa Valley at all it will enlighten you to the local culture and to the issues that are in the forefront of people's minds there as far as land use goes. Although a true story it reads like a page turner novel, there are a lot of colorful characters.

I am also dubious about the claim that this may be a precursor for other land use battles across the country. I sure hope not, I don't think most other places are so willing to listen to extremism as they are in California, and will work out their issues with more comity and more reliance on actual and not junk, politically based science.

Rating:
Summary: About time
Review: It's about time somebody wrote a good book about what goes on in the wine industry and behind the scenes in stuck-up Napa Valley. We hear a lot about wine and culture but in reality what it's all about is money and snobbery, as this book shows in colorful, hilarious and sometimes heart-breaking detail. It reminds me of a beautifully-written novel about the manners and foibles of rich Californians, with a good story (and lawsuit) underlying it. This is the perfect gift for anyone still steamed about the excesses of the nineties who also enjoys a very good read.

Rating:
Summary: Well written???
Review: Reading the other reviews, I cannot help but shake my head in astonishment...."Well Written"??? Ideas move in and out of paragraphs with no real logical flow of ideas. Few dates are presented to help the reader follow the timetable (which is likely because the scenes are re-sequenced for dramatic effect). I am an avid reader of literature, but found myself constantly rereading passages to try and decipher the idea being presented or the scene being described. I finally decided that the editor either gave up or never tried. Much of the book reads more like a stream of consciousness than a documentation of events witnessed by the author.

Furthermore, this book is an amalgam of ad hominem attacks on everyone who dares to make money in the wine industry. Those with family money are dismissed as "lucky spermers" unless like, Peter Mennen, they use their money to stop big business. Mennen is portrayed as the noble hero but seems to be more a naive idealist. Certainly, there are forces of good and bad in any capitalist industry, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Ending vineyard development would lead to one of two things - more houses in place of vineyards or higher and higher prices for vintners as the scarcity increased their profits. Certainly, there is a middle ground yet Conaway, by following the bull-headed extremists, would have us believe that there can be no compromise.

Check this book out from the library if you must read it, but support more even-handed works with your dollars.

Rating:
Summary: Smart and Writerly
Review: This book was a complete disappointment to me, it was all I could do to finish it. I actually enjoyed Conaway's earlier "Napa" quite a bit. Although the mediocre writing was annoying at times and the level of detail out of whack across some topics, overall it provided a solid and fascinating social history and I gave it 4 stars. But Eden seems to me like a bad sequel to a movie, trying to squeeze life and extra pages out of an idea beyond its time. Yes, I wanted to know the details of the decade since Napa left off, but the writing went downhill, the trivial gossip increased, there was way more exaggeration and oversimplification, and too much dumb cuteness, e.g., "lucky spermers". Who among us is not a lucky spermer, and was it really necessary to repeat this phrase over and over again? Although I am definitely a slow growth-er and am saddened by some of the overdevelopment that has occurred in the Valley, I suggest reading Mondavi's book and Kolpan's "A Sense of Place" about the Niebaum-Coppola winery to at least hear the other side (also biased of course) to Conaway's one-sided hypercriticism and overly negative biases.

Rating:
Summary: How can he type with a massive chip on his shoulder?
Review: This is a book for people who hate Starbucks and complain incessantly about gentrification (while drinking expensive boutique coffee and loving the appreciation in their real estate). After reading half of it I got tired of the constant pot-shots and nasty, one-sided characterizations and had to put it down.

I'm not clear on who the author approves of, but he's clearly against anyone who lives, builds, or conducts business in Napa Valley -- plus anyone crass enough to actually visit for a weekend and enjoy the place.

If you are a part of the Napa community then you might enjoy the gossipy anecdotes in this book. If you are a hard-core, disgruntled environmentalist then you might find validation for your views. But if you are just interested in the region and land issues in general then you'll find a pissy, overblown screed that irritates more than it informs.