The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky (Pulitzer Prize Finalist)

No one writes the feel of the southest like Ellen Meloy. Reading her is second only to being there.

This is an interesting book all about an unusual subject:Turquise, as a mineral and as a color. One thing I liked is that each of the essays is self contained so one can put the book down and pick it back up at a later date if you like and you don't miss anything. Another thing I liked is that I learned quite a few things, for example the mineral Turquise is not only found in the American southwest. Read the book and find out where else it is minned. This is a book I will keep and reread. In fact the first thing I did upon finnishing it was to order a copy for a friend! If you like this book you will like her other books as well. Raven's Exile: A Season on the Green River After I finnished reading the book I discovered she has fund in her name that suppoerts desert writers: http://www.ellenmeloy.com/.

There are three reasons to possess this book. The first reason: You want to read an author whose prose verges on poetry... "On the Colorado Plateau... nights come less as a smooth pause than as a steep, enduring purity of eye-blind dark. (In the day) The mesa's colors in their flanks - terra cotta, blood-red salmon, vermilion - bear the temperament of iron." Second: Color for you, as for flowers, are a part of your being. You draw colors into your life as an elixir to defeat life's monotony. Ellen Meloy is a master wordsmith. She, more than most, knows that colors "challenge language to encompass them", yet, unabashedly, she tracks down the colors of nature, feels them, tastes them, holds them in her mind and then vividly gives them life. No color is sacrosanct to her. Yes, orange, red, blue, green will all find an expression, but Meloy seeks, not the plebeian, but the unusual, unique, even ruthless colors: burnt sienna, magenta, burgundy red, Prussian blue and of course turquoise, "the stone of the desert," "the color of yearning,". For Meloy; "Colors bear the metaphors of entire cultures. They convey every sensation from lust to distress. Flowers use colors ruthlessly for sex. Moths steal them from their surroundings and disappear. A cactus spines glows red-gold in the angle of sun, like an electrocuted aura." Life is good. Finally, you will find in Ellen Meloy a forthright lover of nature. She is a south westerner, lover of the desert and outdoors woman who sees in desert life the paradoxes of being. She calls for attention as she expresses the damage to the earth that we are so thoughtlessly committing. She points out how we, Homo sapiens, are the first species to witness and will our own extinction. Her social - naturalist commentary is balanced with humor and memoirs; her narrative is both captivating and informative. She is at her best when she sticks to the southwest, but the chapters that chronicle her forays to the Bahamas and the Yucatan are nonetheless engaging. This is a well-crafted work that is filled with captivating metaphors, naturalism, travelogue, memoirs and humor. If you seek award winning writing, are captivated by colors and find sustenance in the natural world this is a highly recommended read. 4.5 stars

While reading this book, I was amazed and exiliharated with the descriptions of the desert country and the Caribbean (what a juxtiposition) and their charms. Turquoise and other colors in nature are lovingly examined in endless forms and their response in humans is probbed. Meloy is a gutsy, warm, funny, slightly crazy and exceedingly gifted author. When she talks about her encounters with nature, the descriptions are sensual and palpable. I was wishing I could be as courageous; taking solitary rafting trips on the San Juan River and camping out wherever she found herself; a modern day wanderer, a female John Muir. The book is a uniquely personal account of a beautiful relationship with nature, that inspires and challenges. The deep richness of relationships, both human and environmental, are within our grasp and Meloy beautifully shows you her way.

I first became aware of Ellen Meloy in a excerpt from this book in a recent Patagonia catalog. That seems to have been a appropriate venue as I have since discovered she is as sensible and durable and dependable as a pair of Talus pants and presents herself with the best of Patagonia's whimsical flair.Her writing is Edward Abbey without the macho polemic, Annie Dillard before she lost her way in the incomprehensible, Terry Tempest Williams with a playful and self-deprecating sense of humor and without the Salt Lake City-Cosmo angst. (If you spent a week in the desert backcountry with TTW, I think you would begin to wonder how she stayed so CLEAN. Ellen Meloy IS the desert!) Anyway, sprinkle in a little Loren Eisely (literally in this case) and I think you have it.So this probably sounds like a "women's book", and in many ways it is. But know this guys, this lady had three brothers, rows I would guess at least Class IV, and has roofed her own home. Any guy who has done at least two of those things and has done them with grace and dignity and good humor is welcome to take a bye. (But probably won't.)But here's how to tell if you would want to read this book. Open the back cover. Look at the photograph on the dust cover flap. If this is a face you would drive by at high speed with the air-conditioner roaring and the punk rock blaring, drive on. If, on the other hand, it is the face you sense in the willow shade of a deep redrock river canyon...