[at-l] Paul Theroux on Baxter WIlderness

[rickboudrie at hotmail.com (rick boudrie)]

I was  dissappointed that one of my very favorite authors, Paul Theroux, 
didn't get a chance to write about the AT before Bryson.  Theroux's 
non-fiction travel wrintings are brilliant, even when he is being 
condesending, judgemental, grumpy and annoying.

Anyway, I somehow missed a book of his collected short writings until last 
night (fresh air fiend), which included an essay on winter camping in Baxter 
State Park. Since his books have given me so much pleasure,  I thought I 
would post a excerpt.

As he was skiing in Baxter, he was struggling with how to sum up his trip, a 
task wich he described as "simply impossible to explain except in 
metaphisical terms, yet who wants to hear of a camping trip deconstructed as 
a critical aspect of enlightenment?"  But then finds a way as he cludes with 
this:

"Still, I was leaving with regret, because I felt I was being driven out by 
the terrible weather.  And I had no single image for this place (Baxter 
Stater Park), only the sense of the wilderness as an enormous natural 
labyrinth in four dimensions.  But, skiing that morning back to 
civilization, I saw a bird chirping in a tree.  I had time to study it; it 
was wild and fearless and took nonotice of me.  It was a rare bird for these 
parts, an evening grossbeak, looking like an overgrown finch, with a yellow 
visor over its eyes.

Seeing it was a stroke of luck.  It was hard to describe the experience of 
wilderness, but this bird was the answer-- it was rare, it was beautiful, I 
had never seen one before, and so it could stand to sum up the trip. What 
was your trip like? people would ask.  And I could reply, I saw an evening 
grosbeak, a goldfinch bigger than my whole hand"

_________________________________________________________________
Get MSN 8 Dial-up Internet Service FREE for one month.  Limited time offer-- 
sign up now!   http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup