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20 Works 309 Membros 4 Críticas

About the Author

Robert Root is a visiting professor in the MFA program in creative writing at Ashland University and professor emeritus in the Department of English Language and Literature at Central Michigan University. Three of the essays in Postscripts have been cited as Notable Essays in the annual Best mostrar mais American Essays collections. Root's books include Landscapes with Figures: The Nonfiction of Place and Recovering Ruth: A Biographer's Tale, both available from the University of Nebraska Press. mostrar menos

Obras por Robert L. Root

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Conhecimento Comum

Sexo
male

Membros

Críticas

After reading “John Muir: Selected Writings” (see my review) I decided to follow up with “Walking Home Ground: In the Footstep of Muir, Leopold and Derleth”. This work is divided into two parts. In the first part author Robert Root walks the home lands of John Muir near Ennis Lake and the Muir family farm, Aldo Leopold’s country shack and August Derlich’s meanderings in and near Sauk and Prairie du Sac. Each chapter follows his subjects. John Muir’s “Story of My Boyhood and Youth”, Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac” and Derleth’s journals each provide road maps for tardy explorers to follow. Their times were sequential, Muir who left Wisconsin in the nineteenth century, Leopold until his death in 1948 and Derleth to the end of his life in 1971. Their environments were varied. Muir arrived as a child to an untamed wilderness and observed it, Leopold bought a worn-out farm and tried to restore it to its original habitat and Derleth lived in the same villages that his family had inhabited for generations.

In part two the author relates walking around his home ground, much of it along the Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin. The weather, rivers, flora are described and compared to what he had experienced while living elsewhere in the country.

I was most familiar with Muir’s writings and appreciate having them woven into the accounts of the specific places where Muir lived. The quotes from Leopold and Derleth whetted my appetite to read their own stories. I like the way Robert Root employs picture words to paint in the readers’ minds the scenery he is seeing. The persistent reference to the effects of glaciers in Wisconsin is a tie-in to Muir’s western writings and give me something to look for during my next visit. The occasional photographs complement the text. This tome is a short and easy but stimulating read. I recommend it to anyone interested in the conservation movements or who wants to learn how to walk through nature, not to get somewhere but to let nature stream into you.

I did receive a free copy of this book without an obligation to post a review.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
JmGallen | 1 outra crítica | Jun 24, 2020 |
Summary: The author hikes the "home grounds" in Wisconsin of Aldo Leopold, John Muir, and August Derleth, and records his reflections on the landscape then and now, and his observations of the Ice Age Trail, and his own home grounds of Waukesha, Wisconsin. I've long appreciated "writers of place." I love the work of Wendell Berry writing from nearby Kentucky, Wallace Stegner writing about the American west, and especially fellow Ohioan Louis Bromfield writing about his beloved Malabar Farm. It is one thing to live in a place; another to carefully observe it, to understand its past and present--geologically and topographically, the ecosystem of the place, and the land's inhabitants. This is another work in that vein. I picked it up because my work frequently takes me to Wisconsin, a state I'd love the chance to explore more. Robert Root has given me some ideas of places that it might be interesting to explore. After moving to Waukesha, located on the western edges of Milwaukee, he conceived the idea of walking the "home grounds" of three fellow "writers of place" who either grew up or lived in Wisconsin--John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and August Derleth. He began with John Muir, hiking the lands around Muir's childhood home in Marquette County, much of it now within John Muir State Natural area, centering on Ennis Lake with bogs, oak openings, and prairie. He then goes on to the "shack" rehabilitated by Aldo Leopold and the Leopold Center and surrounding lands along the Wisconsin River in Sauk County that Leopold helped to restore from a worn out farm to wetlands, forests, and prairie. From there he goes to nearby Sauk City and Sac Prairie, the home of August Derleth, a prolific writer of science fiction, horror, and regional fiction and non-fiction, including journals of his walks through his home town and surrounding lands. In all three instances, he compares what he sees in their writings with what he witnesses as he walks the home grounds today, noting how land is in a constant state of change, sometimes for the better, and sometimes not. He also explores the geological and ecological history of these lands, including how they were shaped by glacial inundations. He returns in different seasons to see the land in all its moods. This leads into the second part of the group and some of the walking of "home ground" of his own the author does, including hiking parts of the 1000 mile Ice Age Trail that winds its way from the Door Peninsula in the east through the heart of Wisconsin to its northwestern border with Minnesota. Along the way he spots drumlins, kettle moraines, and other evidence of glacial action. Most fascinating to me was a discussion of the Niagara escarpment, reflecting glacial depositions stretching from southwest of the Door Peninsula, into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, across Ontario to the Niagara Falls and western New York where the author had previously lived. References to dolomite deposits and a mine reminded me that I have seen this on visits to a conference center in the eastern part of the Upper Peninsula where we would drive past Port Dolomite, just before arriving. He introduces us to Increase Lapham, who recorded the first topographical history of Wisconsin, wrote numerous papers on the flora and fauna of Wisconsin, and helped create the U.S. Weather Service. Lapham probably studied the "home ground" of this state more exhaustively than any man before or since. I read this work in e-galley form. This version included photos of a number of the places where Root walked. What might have been helpful and I hope is incorporated in the print edition are some maps of the areas where Root hiked for those of us not familiar with Wisconsin geography, and perhaps a glossary of terms, particularly related to glacial geology. The book concludes with the author's observations and reflections as he walks the "home ground" around his home in Waukesha, walking along the Fox River through the city, including some fascinating history about when the town was known for its springs. His walks help him become aware of the history of his own home ground and how development is re-shaping this land as well. Root's conjoining the past and present of the land in all of these reflections makes us think about what our home grounds will be and the impact our own care, or lack of care, may have. He piques my interest to explore some of the places he walked, but even more, the places I call "home ground." ____________________________ Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through Edelweiss. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.… (mais)
 
Assinalado
BobonBooks | 1 outra crítica | May 10, 2018 |
The University of Iowa Press has given us another instant classic in Robert Root's uniquely crafted memoir, HAPPENSTANCE. I was immediately drawn into Root's story which takes you from the 1930s all the way up to the present day as the author artfully attempts to unravel the extended history of his troubled family.

A dreamy kid who often lived in his imagination and fantasies, Root grew up in a home filled with tension, acrimony and a family secret that smoldered for decades. He traces a bit of ancestral history and how his parents met as children, married too early and then were separated for three years by the events of WWII.

The story really grabbed me when he began recounting his childhood memories of growing up in Lockport, New York, and his early fascination with comics, radio and TV shows, movies and books, all of which fired his own fantasies. Root traces his earliest interest in writing to some short story plots he painstakingly pecked out on his mother's typewriter after seeing the film, SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE MEN. Hey, I remembered that film! I read many of the same books too, and I also remember my own first attempts at writing stories, around the same age that Root did. In fact Root's stories and anecdotes triggered countless memories of my own, which is, I think, the mark of a skillfully written memoir.

Sadly, Root's childhood and difficult adolescent years were darkened by divorce, a mother who was secretive and selfish, and a father who was often cold and distant. His high school years were undistinguished and lonely, made bearable by books and movies. However, once he found his particular niche - as a writer and teacher - he turned out to be something of a late-blooming overachiever, at least professionally. Unfortunately his personal life seemed doomed to repeat some of the same mistakes of his parents, his first marriage ending in divorce.

HAPPENSTANCE (which gets its title from Root's frequent meditations throughout the narrative on the role of chance in one's life) is scrupulously thorough, honest and - perhaps most importantly - kind in its minute examination of the evolution - and dissolution - of one family.

In the end, Root is a survivor who has made a good life for himself as a respected scholar, teacher, and a wonderful writer. I enjoyed his story immensely. Highly recommended.
… (mais)
½
 
Assinalado
TimBazzett | Nov 13, 2013 |
This is one of the worst textbooks on writing that I've ever encountered. Shows lack of imagination on the part of the instructor.
½
 
Assinalado
foxglove | Feb 7, 2006 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
20
Membros
309
Popularidade
#76,232
Avaliação
½ 3.5
Críticas
4
ISBN
36

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