High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never by Barbara Kingsolver (review)

W A L 3 3 (1 ) S p r in g 1 9 9 8 with Four Mile R anch’s windmills, defines the author’s place in time and space. Like Thoreau, Romtvedt often stops to examine objects, thoughts, and feelings as he saunters along. The essays and commentary are interesting and enjoyable but sometimes distracting in their disconnected way. In “Sim on,” the concluding essay, the author, speaking of a branding iron his father-in-law has given him, says, “The branding iron, like the stories, makes tangible something that is just beyond our ability to articulate, something that, though not invisible, is hard to see.” And finally, “W hatever we’re doing, we’ve done it before and will do it again. It’s true of Four Mile and everywhere else— a little joke life plays. But the joke doesn’t have to be at our expense. The windmills break; we repair them. They break again. We repair them again and they break yet again and— H a!— it’s a pleasure each time.” Life goes on. We endure. High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never. By Barbara Kingsolver. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. 273 pages, $22.00. Reviewed by Lois Ann Goossen Grand Haven, Michigan Barbara Kingsolver in her book High Tide in Tucson leads readers out of the front door of her home in Tucson to locations far and near. While on this written travelogue, she shares her thoughts and feelings on a med­ ley of topics. The trip begins in Tucson, travels to her hometown in Ken­ tucky, and then moves to more exotic locales. W hile the locations change to encompass the wider world, the themes remain close to home— mothering, self-realization, property ownership, environm entalism , divorce, multiculturalism. The first essay, from which the book takes its name, explores adjust­ ing to one’s environment. Like Buster, the hermit crab who eventually finds his own tidal rhythms in Tucson, Kingsolver takes us through her life and the discoveries of her own rhythms and truths. Kingsolver is honest and passionate, revealing feelings that come straight from her heart. She confesses throughout the book her deep affec­ tion for her daughter and for motherhood. Her attitude on how Americans view children and parenting (that we do not rank high as nurturers, either individually or collectively) emphasizes this zeal. Her honesty may make some readers uncomfortable at times. She does not hesitate to point out the things in this world that most trouble her, disclosing attitudes that do not always follow popular trends. Her essay on leaving the United States B o o k R e v ie w s during the G ulf War may initially distress readers with a traditional patri­ otic bent. Yet in the last essay Kingsolver is back in Tucson with Buster the her­ mit crab. W hile she covers many topics, some launched from far-flung ports, each essay has her personal point of view that brings the topic back home. These essays by a western writer start in the West but reach readers wherever they live. It doesn’t take living in the West to understand what it means to be a parent, a woman, a human, and a person who cares deeply about the world. A ll of us can share in these common human feelings. In Kingsolver’s words, ‘“ It’s not so much what happens,’ I try to explain, ‘but how the words fit together, and what carries over from it into your own life.’” These essays carry over very well. D. H. L aw ren ce: F u tu re P rim itive. By D olores LaC hapelle. Philosophy and the Environment Series 5. Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press, 1996. 223 pages, $26.50. Review ed by Alan Brew University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill In a 1974 article for Planet Drum, Jeremiah Gorsline and Freeman House coined the term “future primitive” to describe a potential condition of symbiotic balance. In this condition, culture would be “integrated with nature at the level of the particular ecosystem” and individuals would be “awakened to the richness and complexity of the primitive mind which...