On 09December 2014, I created a folder for the following. You can look them up. Annie Proulx's memoir is the one that added the most new words to my vocabulary: cadastral, migmatite, Newfoundland’s Wreckhouse winds, ooids, piece-sur-piece, scorbutic, talavera, tatami, tuckamore, volant.Sentences to enjoy and emulate: I stumble into and around poetry, frequently knocked sidewise. Sometimes I don’t know what poetry is, and it seems as plentiful as sagebrush on the steeps, and other times it seems that no poem has yet been written, just images and a few joined words flaring in some people’s minds. What of David Nash’s wildwood sculptures, are they not poems? And I suppose that a kind of animal poetry illuminates the Clark’s nutcracker jamming yet another pine seed into its mouth. In the east the towering bulk of the storm was a sulky purple-blue the shade of new denim, but in the west the sky was opening, showering a tender blue like the lining of an antique Chinese robe. Finally the cities of the east floated up from the rim of the earth as electrified jellyfish. The air shuddered with volant snow like bead curtains in an earthquake. & A few days after the elk roundup I was in New York where the only corrals were at street corners, waiting for the light to change.We wandered through the stacks of stone, every polished slab more beautiful than the last, Dave the geologist giving a running description of the kind and source of each. I thought I wanted a dark green but then saw a slab of streakily wavering, striated peach and grey and umber that resembled ancient dry riverbeds seen from the air. That was The One. Dave said it was a migmatite granite at a transitional stage between metamorphic and igneous, formed when the deep rock was the consistency of toothpaste, which cased the swirling, sinuous banded effect. In the river a hug trout leapt five feet out of the water. Was it chased by a bigger trout? Could there be a bigger trout? Or was it making an impossible try to snag the low-flying redtail? The resident jackrabbits rolled their eyes seductively at Gerald and lay on their backs like cats. Once again to the grill and the vine.[to describe entertaining her guests]We sat by the river slapping mosquitoes that ignored our smudge fire smoke and cheered on the swallow ballet pursing the insects over the river corridor. Knots of bird exploded, coalesced, twisted in ribbons, doubled and slid sideways, mounted in loose circles, became winged bobbins hurtling through a random warp of mosquitoes. Their numbers increased until, in the orange afterglow of sunset, thousands and thousands were gliding past the cliff’s vertical canyon and crevasses. Many birds knock themselves out and then come back from apparent death rather groggy and confused, but alive. The big, handsome northern flicker is an aggressive bird that often hurls itself at its reflection, falls like a stone, lies on its back with its feet curled up for a while, opens one eye, gets shakily up and staggers through the air to a nearby branch where it spends an hour or two thinking black thoughts—and then flies into the window again. The extra pair of ravens came from nowhere, like black origami conjured from expert fingers. As darkness swelled up from the east a full moon rose and illuminated great sheets of thin-cloud like wadded fabric drawn across its pock-marked white face. The early bird gets the mattress stuffing. It snowed again just before Christmas, deep and beautiful snow that lay quiet in a rare calm. The hero sun came out for a quarter hour, then fell as though wounded. The next morning was very cold, trees and shrubs frosted with the last night’s mist. In the pre-sunrise light they took on delicate pink and violet hues. The cliff showed pinkish beige as if wearing a peach-skin cloak. In the pastures the black cows crowded around the haystacks, their coats as frosted as the willow twigs. The sun cleared the edge of the world and the wind shot forward, kicking the peachy rose snow hills into glittering explosions. What's not to like about Annie Proulx? I found the beginning fascinating, I should have guessed from her name that she had French-Canadian roots, Acadian to be precise. She talks about her father, growing up, and another author with Acadian roots, Jack Kerouac. The audio cd plays "Un Canadien Errant" very appropriately.She then talks about the building of her home, Bird Cloud. The trials, the tribulations, the set-backs, the high and low points. I was completely taken in (and I never want to build a home after reading about her experiences.) The bird and nature watching was captivating and almost makes up for the building adventure (or misadventures.) A worthwhile read!
What do You think about Bird Cloud (2011)?
A very detailed description on a few specific topics that are near and dear to the author.
—DAbears0327
Well written but I found this incredibly boring. A shame as I love Annie Proulx's fiction.
—beauteous
Part biography, part nature book and part home build biography of an American writer"
—pune
