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Rating: 
Summary: A compelling exploration of nature and the spirit
Review: Gary Snyder is an American treasure - a great writer and poet whose thoughtful approach to life and literature will enrich the spirit of anyone who reads him. This collection of essays explores the relation between nature and the spirit in a way that might be thought of as part-Beat and part-Thoreau but is, ultimately, very original and thoughtful. The first few essays in the book seemed a bit difficult and inaccessible compared to the last several, which were clear and brilliant.
Rating:
Summary: A compelling exploration of nature and the spirit
Review: Gary Snyder is an American treasure - a great writer and poet whose thoughtful approach to life and literature will enrich the spirit of anyone who reads him. This collection of essays explores the relation between nature and the spirit in a way that might be thought of as part-Beat and part-Thoreau but is, ultimately, very original and thoughtful. The first few essays in the book seemed a bit difficult and inaccessible compared to the last several, which were clear and brilliant.
Rating:
Summary: what a life he led
Review: In much the same way as other reviewers I found Gary Snyder's book "Practice of the Wild" a very enjoyable read, I was originally pointed to it through the amazing work of Jack Turner's "The Abstract Wild" where he refered to it. Although nowhere near as intense or so purely full of power as Turner's book it is fluid and poetic. One of the first things that strikes you is Snyder's astonishing grasp of just about anything, his knowledge of foreign languages is acute, the width of understanding boggles the mind. It must also be remembered that he spent some years in Japan studying as a Zen monk, this would of course have introduced him to Japanese and through it Chinese characters, poetry etc. Snyder seems a remarkable man, this book as well as illuminating the human condition and its need for true wildness, not in the ordinary sense of the term but as native peoples perceive it or rather live it, is a kind of autobiography, maybe I should say a telling of the story of Snyder himself. You become intimately connected to his life, which is really quite incredible, the sort of life where he could no longer say in old age that "I never did what I wanted to", Snyder has really lived, a lumberjack, a monk, an anthropologist, poet etc etc. The book is interspersed with scientific detail of the living world and then up comes a very poetic passage somehow interconnected without one feeling it is incoherent as he slips from poetic to hard science. What a life he has lived, what experience that simply cannot be ignored, "The Practice of the Wild" is written by someone who must be heard, whose message is human in every way, an ecologist, conservationist, logger, rancher. Too bad other people : politicians, law makers, company executives etc etc haven't lived like this, maybe their own similar experience could really change the world, maybe through this book they will decide to live at least in more than an abstract way when it comes to the natural world.
Rating:
Summary: what a life he led
Review: In much the same way as other reviewers I found Gary Snyder's book "Practice of the Wild" a very enjoyable read, I was originally pointed to it through the amazing work of Jack Turner's "The Abstract Wild" where he refered to it. Although nowhere near as intense or so purely full of power as Turner's book it is fluid and poetic. One of the first things that strikes you is Snyder's astonishing grasp of just about anything, his knowledge of foreign languages is acute, the width of understanding boggles the mind. It must also be remembered that he spent some years in Japan studying as a Zen monk, this would of course have introduced him to Japanese and through it Chinese characters, poetry etc. Snyder seems a remarkable man, this book as well as illuminating the human condition and its need for true wildness, not in the ordinary sense of the term but as native peoples perceive it or rather live it, is a kind of autobiography, maybe I should say a telling of the story of Snyder himself. You become intimately connected to his life, which is really quite incredible, the sort of life where he could no longer say in old age that "I never did what I wanted to", Snyder has really lived, a lumberjack, a monk, an anthropologist, poet etc etc. The book is interspersed with scientific detail of the living world and then up comes a very poetic passage somehow interconnected without one feeling it is incoherent as he slips from poetic to hard science. What a life he has lived, what experience that simply cannot be ignored, "The Practice of the Wild" is written by someone who must be heard, whose message is human in every way, an ecologist, conservationist, logger, rancher. Too bad other people : politicians, law makers, company executives etc etc haven't lived like this, maybe their own similar experience could really change the world, maybe through this book they will decide to live at least in more than an abstract way when it comes to the natural world.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful Exploration of Nature
Review: This is a wonderful discussion of the concept of nature, delving back into ancient Chinese and Japanese concepts of nature. Snyder defines what nature has meant through history and what it means today to be losing it.
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