Land of Clear Light by Michael Jenkinson

Abstract

Reviews Land of Clear Light. By Michael Jenkinson. (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1977. 305 pages, illustrated and indexed, $13.95.) The contents of Michael Jenkinson’s new book is pretty well summed up by the book’s subtitle — “Wild Regions of the American Southwest and Northwestern Mexico: How to Reach Them and What You Will Find There.” Like his previous book, Wild Rivers of North America, the approach is by geographical area, and the treatment systematic and com­ prehensive. Very few areas of interest and importance have been omitted, except for places like Death Valley and Big Bend, which lie on the bound­ aries of what is generally considered the “Southwest” and therefore belong to other regions. Most of the book deals with national parks and primitive areas in southern Utah, New Mexico and Arizona; there are also tw'O chap­ ters describing parts of Mexico’s Baja California, the Sea of Cortez, and the great barrancas of the western Sierra Madres. Each chapter is followed by a section called “Guide Notes,” outlining concisely and precisely what most people would want to know in preparing for a venture into these places, that is, location, access, getting around within the area, camping, supplies (what’s needed and where available), features of unusual interest, and local sources of further information. As a guidebook, Land of Clear Light could hardly be improved. At $13.95 the book is expensive but it is a durable volume which should last for many years of use and enjoyment. Maybe I should stress the word enjoyment. Jenkinson’s book is much more than merely a guidebook of the sort put out, for example by Sunset Magazine in California. Not only does the author describe what you will find today in these various wild places, he also goes into the human as well as natural history of each, enriching every chapter with anecdotes of his own experiences, with quotations and views of earlier writers and explorers, and with the stories passed down and told him by the people — ranchers, fishermen, Indians, rangers — who live and work in these remaining wild regions. 150 Western American Literature The author will be criticized by some for giving more publicity to marvelous places which might be better left unknown. Anyone who writes about the wilderness has to face this question. The answer is that scarcely a square foot of the earth’s surface survives anywhere which can truly be called unknown; the real threat comes, not from recreational use (within reasonable limits), but from the destructive demands of the ever-expanding industrial machine. Unless the higher value of human recreation is recog­ nized, “the land of clear light” will become, like most other places, a land of smog, noise, and confusion. EDWARD ABBEY, Moab, Utah The Cowboy; Six-Shooters, Songs, and Sex. Edited by Charles W. Harris and Buck Rainey. (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976. 167 pages, $9.95.) The Cowboy: Six-Shooters, Songs, and Sex is a collection of eight essays, all useful but of uneven quality. The purpose of the book, which first appeared as a special issue of the Red River Valley Historical Review, is to discuss elements in the character of the American cowboy that have received scant attention. Two essays, Guy Logsdon’s “The Cowboy’s Bawdy Music” and Clifford P. Westermeier’s “The Cowboy and Sex” would seem to do exactly that. But they do not. The former merely maintains that cowboys did sing bawdy songs. Professor Logsdon evaluates various collec­ tions of cowboy songs and ballads, but hardly any space is devoted to what the essay ostensibly concerns. Over the years, Professor Westermeier has done much fine research and writing and his essay begins well. In mid-essay, however, the mention of Rudolph Nureyev, Yves Saint-Laurent, and Burt Reynolds posing nude is something from which the article never fully recovers. But this is probably too harsh since the footnotes alone are a valuable source of information. Philip Jordan’s “The Pistol Packin’ Cowboy” is an intelligent, welldocumented account of the cowboys’ use, misuse and non-use of firearms, and Lawrence R. Borne writes informatively about the cowboy and dude ranching. “The...