If HISTORY I s the narrative of humankind on earth, geology is a longer tale—that of the foundations that allowed or succored human existence. Unfortunately we hear little about it. Blame its length or the boring technicalities of some of its chapters, but geology is perhaps the most excerpted tale ever told. In grade school we hear of the rise and fall of dinosaurs, the swamp vegetation that turned to coal and diamonds under the pressure of time, and the volcanic formation of mountain ranges, but we never get the whole picture and the science of geology is rarely applied to our own backyards. John McPhee has changed that. The land—the landscape, the people, the history, and the geol ogy—is the basis for this extended essay. McPhee shows in startling detail the hidden richness of the most barren plains by relating the events that produced the rocks he stands on and holds in his hands. Shunting the reader back and forth across the eons and shifting his perspective from that of the geology expert, to the freshly graduated schoolmarm, to the geologist raised on this landscape, he builds up his essay layer by layer like strata of accumulating sediment. McPhee follows a few pages of geology, with a couple of stories about the Love family ranch, an overview of life on these plains four million years ago, adds quotes from the master geologist telling of his personal experience with the geology of this land which in less skilled hands would have produced a shattered unfocused piece. Yet the closures and beginnings set up a natural cycle. From the opening paragraph he lays down the layers of his narrative. “This is about high-country geology and a Rocky Mountain geologist. I raise that semaphore here at the start so no one will feel misled by an opening passage in which
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O n T h e M o r n in g o f Nanette N etherton’s eighty-ninth birthday she woke with a hollow, nervous feeling that something bad had happened the day before. She woke exhausted and sad, as if she’d cried all night. The m ore she tried to rem em ber yesterday, the angrier she got with herself for having such a slow brain and finally resolved it was better to let the incident surface than become upset. Nanette did no t wait for her daughter-in-law, Rose, to come dress her tiny, thinned body or push her petite hands through sleeves, o r tie her shoes. W hen a young woman, Nanette had been so delicately fashionable in neat suits, long gloves, rakish hats with plumes! There were sepia photographs to testify. H er fingers now had shrunk and her knuckles swelled; the ring on her third finger dangled large but would never fall off its w orn groove. H er blue-veined skin was parchm ent paper, speckled brown in places as hand-made maps are burned with a match to look ancient. Against the light, she was nearly transparent. The droopy-cornered eyes, the blue-filmed brow n eyes closed often. Still she sat straight, stood straight, held up her white-haired head under an invisible book. She looked like a proper, willful, but terribly wizened child. W ith slow precision Nanette put on a blouse that buttoned down the front, her dark blue skirt with the two large front pockets, a red cardigan sweater. She slid her puffed feet and ankles into stockings and slippers. Today was her birthday, let her have what she would. W hat she wanted: a walk outside if the weather was nice, and a coconut cake. To look a litde dressy for the occasion she put on a pair o f clip earrings. A pair. A pair. But that was it! A shiny, golden pear, balanced on a pyramid o f others in a basket on the dining room table, surfaced in her mind. Yesterday Nanette had nibbled that pear and been shocked—it tasted like poison! Nanette N etherton rem em bered clearly she had nearly been poi soned to death. Hand tracing the bannister, she descended indignant. To the dining room. To the pear, still in its spot, teethm arks carefully turned downward. Yester day, hadn’t Rose left it here intentionally! H adn’t she not fed Nanette lunch knowing she would eat the pear! Nanette felt in her skirt pocket for the sticky piece she’d bitten off but wisely not swallowed. Luckily not swallowed.
{"title":"These Are the Binds that Tie","authors":"Laura Gray","doi":"10.17077/0743-2747.1163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17077/0743-2747.1163","url":null,"abstract":"O n T h e M o r n in g o f Nanette N etherton’s eighty-ninth birthday she woke with a hollow, nervous feeling that something bad had happened the day before. She woke exhausted and sad, as if she’d cried all night. The m ore she tried to rem em ber yesterday, the angrier she got with herself for having such a slow brain and finally resolved it was better to let the incident surface than become upset. Nanette did no t wait for her daughter-in-law, Rose, to come dress her tiny, thinned body or push her petite hands through sleeves, o r tie her shoes. W hen a young woman, Nanette had been so delicately fashionable in neat suits, long gloves, rakish hats with plumes! There were sepia photographs to testify. H er fingers now had shrunk and her knuckles swelled; the ring on her third finger dangled large but would never fall off its w orn groove. H er blue-veined skin was parchm ent paper, speckled brown in places as hand-made maps are burned with a match to look ancient. Against the light, she was nearly transparent. The droopy-cornered eyes, the blue-filmed brow n eyes closed often. Still she sat straight, stood straight, held up her white-haired head under an invisible book. She looked like a proper, willful, but terribly wizened child. W ith slow precision Nanette put on a blouse that buttoned down the front, her dark blue skirt with the two large front pockets, a red cardigan sweater. She slid her puffed feet and ankles into stockings and slippers. Today was her birthday, let her have what she would. W hat she wanted: a walk outside if the weather was nice, and a coconut cake. To look a litde dressy for the occasion she put on a pair o f clip earrings. A pair. A pair. But that was it! A shiny, golden pear, balanced on a pyramid o f others in a basket on the dining room table, surfaced in her mind. Yesterday Nanette had nibbled that pear and been shocked—it tasted like poison! Nanette N etherton rem em bered clearly she had nearly been poi soned to death. Hand tracing the bannister, she descended indignant. To the dining room. To the pear, still in its spot, teethm arks carefully turned downward. Yester day, hadn’t Rose left it here intentionally! H adn’t she not fed Nanette lunch knowing she would eat the pear! Nanette felt in her skirt pocket for the sticky piece she’d bitten off but wisely not swallowed. Luckily not swallowed.","PeriodicalId":205691,"journal":{"name":"Iowa Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125959425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fathers ought to avoid utter nakedness before their sons. I did not want to know—not, anyway, from his mouth—that his flesh was as unregenerate as my own . . . I did not want to think that my life would be like his, or that my mind would ever grow so pale, so without hard places and sharp, sheer drops . . . I wanted the merciful distances o f father and son, which would have perm itted me to love him .—James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room
{"title":"To Embrace or Kill: \"Fathers and Sons\"","authors":"Richard Mccann","doi":"10.17077/0743-2747.1026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17077/0743-2747.1026","url":null,"abstract":"Fathers ought to avoid utter nakedness before their sons. I did not want to know—not, anyway, from his mouth—that his flesh was as unregenerate as my own . . . I did not want to think that my life would be like his, or that my mind would ever grow so pale, so without hard places and sharp, sheer drops . . . I wanted the merciful distances o f father and son, which would have perm itted me to love him .—James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room","PeriodicalId":205691,"journal":{"name":"Iowa Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128961823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Do Young People Say \"Lord Ham Mercy\"","authors":"Keith Westbrook","doi":"10.17077/0743-2747.1362","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17077/0743-2747.1362","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":205691,"journal":{"name":"Iowa Journal of Literary Studies","volume":" 6","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120832581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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