Gary Thorp

This book is so poorly written that I couldn't finish it. At the sentence level, the prose is not great, but nor is it terrible, however reading paragraphs is where it all falls apart. The ideas just don't hang together from one sentence to the next eg. "And, somehow, thoughts of mountain lions obliquely led me to a consideration of the fine arts of Japan." Wait, what? Although at least in this example the author acknowledges his segue. Generally he just marches from binoculars to learning to Gary Snyder to cougar biology without even taking a breath. Beyond that, very few of the chapters have any narrative structure and the book doesn't hold together at all. If you threw all the chapters up in the air and placed them in the book as they fell, it wouldn't lose anything in cohesion. The ideas are trite eg. "Part of the delight of looking for something is not knowing when it might turn up," and the very few interesting ones are introduced with so little context you might as well be reading fortune cookies

Also, don't be fooled by the title of the book into expecting some sort of tense climax with the cougar finally caught in fading light, or the author caught in fading light. There's no fading light at all except the gradual loss of the will to live as you read, "I remembered, then, another story..." for the hundredth time.… (mais)

Upon rereading in 2018:
I have read this book a number of times over the years and it always brings on a calm state of mind. With this reading, the calmness was more short-lived, this has nothing to do with Gary's book, but more to do with my state of mind.
He wrote this book before the word mindfulness became so overused in books of this kind, and the lack of the word here makes this work seem more easily accessed by people into their everyday life. Vicky and I were lucky enough to host Gary for a signing of this book, in June of 2000, and the crowd seemed to relate to Gary and his book with ease.
I have utilized many of the practices discussed in the book for many years. Being in the moment and focused on an everyday task at hand eventually came naturally to me, most of the time. There was an activity where I wasn't always successful. During the early years of our bookstore -- before purchasing a large paper cutter -- I tried to find a Zen in the job of cutting out thousands of my custom bookmarks. Because this went on for hours on end, I would many times fail and realize that I was trying to find the Zen in something that was actually more correctly labeled the boredom of the scissors. It was a mindless job, but my mindfulness let me down. You can't always get what you want.
It is an easy job to recommend this older book, especially if you want a very direct and human explanation of this line of thought. I now own two copies of this title, as our original and signed copy has been packed away in storage units for many years, and Vicky had picked up this copy to re-experience the book a few years back. How's that for a recommendation, it's good enough to buy twice.… (mais)