Field Notes: Stories

As another reviewer noted, Lopez's fiction is difficult to describe or summarize; I'd call it terse but imagistic. The stories in "Field Notes" are beautiful and poignant. The settings are wonderfully described, but many of his characters have some kind of barrier--real or imagined--that prevents them from getting the "big picture", and alienation abounds on every page. Don't let this discourage you, though; there is always a ray of hope. In short, I see this book as a lucid argument for living in a state of pure being, as humans on a vibrant planet. *Higly recommended.* Addendum: This was the first Lopez book I read, before going on to "Desert Notes" and "River Notes." In my op, "Field Notes" is better than both of them, exemplary of a writer ever more fully matured in his craft.

Barry Lopez's short stories are challenging in their simplicity. They are also challenging to describe to anyone who has never read any Lopez. Deceptively sparse, they are at the same time heavy with meaning, and rich with imagery from the natural world. This twelve-story collection opens with "the burbling call" (p. 10) of a cactus wren resonating through "the stony, cactus-strewn land" (p. 4) of desert arroyos, and ends with a run down the "really old trails, the Anasazi trails" (p. 154) of the Grand Canyon. In "Teal Creek," Lopez's narrator curiously witnesses a hermit living beside a creek in "complete stillness, a silence such as I had never heard out of another living thing, an unbbroken grace" (p. 22). In another story, a paleontologist discovers "phantoms" (p. 41), a black bear, a herd of deer, and a "tawny panther hunkered in the tawny grass" (p. 47) in an empty, city lot. I was even surprised to find a reference to my small hometown, Bisbee, Arizona in this collection.Although some are stronger than others, each of these stories offers its protagonist a sacred encounter with the natural world we too often ignore. Each story has its own unique grace note that will leave you with a sense of wonder.G. Merritt

Barry Lopez brings a unique voice to his work that is rich in observation of surroundings and living forms as well as a deeply sacred intellectual perspective. Each story in this book brings Lopez' voice to the ear of the reader as a deep intimation of experience. A writer who gives the reader a feeling of desire to listen to the storyteller as if he were speaking to you in the tradition of storytellers has transcended the special bridge from oral discourse or history to the written word. It makes me want to read all of Lopez books of which I now have four.

I found this book in a second hand bookstore without knowing anything about Barry Lopez and passed it over twice before buying it on the hint of finding something of meaning. Each story is a wonderful capsule of situation and mood and mystery leaving the reader with their own deep reflections on existence and being. It is the kind of writing that makes writers want to write. Deeply personal, but intellectually universal.

We lack pieces like these in Australia. Lopez has a style that shows an intense fascination with the world around him. He's knowledgeable, courteous to nature and not overly preachy. He's sensational.