The Spell of New Mexico

I love New Mexico. I actually fell in love with the state before visiting it through Hillerman's mystery novels. Having been to Navajoland, Los Alamos, Espanola, Santa Fe, etc. but not having the ocasion to return, I bought this book to bring me back there as an armchair traveler. The word pictures created by the different authors are so vivid that I feel I am back there when I read them. Hillerman's foreword is an excellent description not only of the book but of his love for New Mexico. Sadly, Hillerman passed away in October of this year. Happily, his works and New Mexico, endure.

There are not many books that stay in print for thirty five years, especially one with such a narrow ambit, but this one deserves the honor. Tony Hillerman has done an exceptional job of writing the Preface and the Introduction, and in collecting the eleven other essays contained in this excellent compilation. It's impossible to summarize the treasures; here are a few of the fragments I particularly enjoyed. Tony Hillerman: "Pretentious as it sounds, and tough as it is to prove, there does seem to be something about New Mexico which not only attracts creative people but stimulates their creativity." Oliver La Farge: "What is New Mexico, then? How to sum it up? It is a vast, harsh, poverty-stricken, varied, and beautiful land, a breeder of artists and warriors. It is the home, by birth or by passionate adoption, of a wildly assorted population which has shown itself capable of achieving homogeneity without sacrificing its diversity." Winfield Townley Scott: "The breadth and height of the land, its huge self and its huge sky, strike you like a blow." Ernie Pyle: "We like it here because we're on top of the world, in a way; and because we are not stifled and smothered and hemmed in by buildings and trees and traffic and people. We like it because the sky is so bright and you can see so much of it. And because out here you actually see the clouds and the stars and the storms, instead of just reading about them in the newspapers." Oliver La Farge: "If you stay on, and if you keep quiet, the rhythms of drum, song, and dance, the endlessly changing formations of the lines of dancers, the very heat and dust, unite and take hold. You will realize slowly that what looked simple is complex, disciplined, sophisticated. You will forget yourself. The chances are then that you will go away with that same odd, empty, satisfied feeling which comes after absorbing any great work of art." In a compelling way, this collection constitutes a "work of art", informed by an appreciation that D.H. Lawrence describes as "for greatness of beauty I have never experienced anything like New Mexico.... It had a splendid silent terror, and a vast far-and-wide magnificence which made it way beyond mere aesthetic appreciation." If you have any interest in seeing New Mexico as a number of excellent writers do, this is the book for you. Robert C. Ross 2008

This is a must read for anyone seriously interested in the state of New Mexico.