Winter in Taos

There were two books I was delighted to come across this month. One was Winter in Taos - over 200 pages of absorbing essay, sprinkled with a dozen or so full-page b & w photos of the Mabel Dodge Luhan house and its environs. First published in 1935, when the writer, Mabel Dodge Luhan was 56, Winter in Taos is an elegant study of passing the seasons hour by hour in a landscape unequaled by the most beautifully wrought architecture of any city in the world. A good deal occurs, but in timeworn (inimitable) New Mexican fashion. The cycles of the seasons may not vary a good deal from decade to decade, but the details of daily life are nuanced and divergent. Ms. Luhan is a bit self-absorbed and uber-contemplative (not unlike her neighbor D.H. Lawrence, or contemporary F. Scott Fitzgerald), but she realizes it, indulges it (for a second or two) and moves on (almost immediately).