For the Beauty of the Earth: Birding, Opera, and Other Journeys - Softcover

Urquhart, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1593760930 ISBN 13: 9781593760939

Publisher: Counterpoint, 2006

Synopsis

Today, when most personal memoirs involve misery and dysfunction, it is exhilarating to encounter a life of modesty, happiness, and immeasurable stability.

Often when we think of nature writers and naturalists, we think of the rough-hewn rural, rugged, outdoor type wrestled into epiphany by the arms of Mother Nature. Thomas Urquhart found a different path. He combined a classical education with a lifelong passion for opera, literature, and art. And from his earliest days he is a devoted, devotedly amateur naturalist.
In For the Beauty of the Earth Urquhart begins with the lives of his ancestors, among them his grandmother, "a patron saint of lost causes" who cherished her signed photo of Robert E. Lee, his great aunt Catharine, arrested along with Edna St. Vincent Millay and Marianne Moore while protesting what she considered the judicial murder of Sacco and Vanzetti. From the hills and fields of England—both old and new—he takes us to Italy for "birding through the Renaissance," then invites us to the wild landscape of Camargue in Provence, and the villages of Mali in West Africa. Through the years, birding provided Urquhart with opportunities for travel, a practical education, and a passionate place in the natural world.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

The former executive director of the Maine Audubon Society describes his most intriguing trips around the globe, his insights into the aviary world and his personal history in this amiable but disjointed memoir. Urquhart is at his most focused and persuasive when writing about nature. He celebrates exotic locations, as well as others close to home, arguing that "the countryside in which we live each day ... should be lovingly husbanded, not taken for granted." People need such everyday places "as never before," he writes, "but they are increasingly hard to find." The author’s recounting of many unusual bird sightings will be of particular interest to birders, and his account of a visit to Africa is also keenly detailed and purposeful. Unfortunately, these worthwhile moments can be rather hard to find; Urquhart’s book covers a lot of personal ground and is handicapped by uninspired editing. The author’s most intriguing comments are often relegated to footnotes, and the family history is both vague and repetitive. Urquhart’s relatives are rarely named, and readers are given little overall context for the time periods that he describes. Such needless mystery can seem almost cruel, as when the author reveals the juicy fact that his grandmother wrote a "best-selling romantic novel" yet discloses little else about her. Urquhart’s passion for the majestic world of nature has been a driving force in his life; it’s too bad that the prose expression of that passion can feel like rambling walk in the woods.
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Review:

"'Charming' is one of those words we don't use anymore--"it implies quaint or precious. But not in this case. I haven't read a book in a long time that let me drift so easily into that other, larger world around us, that managed to say serious and useful things with such grace and gentleness. My evenings with it felt, well, charmed."

About this edition

• Publisher: Counterpoint
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1593760930
• ISBN 13: 9781593760939
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320