The Real Work - Interviews and Talks 1964-1979

by Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder
The Real Work
Interviews & Talks 1964-1979
1980 New Directions
First Edition
8vo Hard Cover in Unclipped Dust Jacket
Ex-Library Copy

VG- VG+ IOBA Book Grading Standards; Library 'Discard' Markings to Front End Page and Mylar Book Cover Spine, Dust Jacket Cover Taped to Front and Back Boards, Light Staining to Back End Page, Light Age Toning To Text Block and Boards, Tight Sound Binding, Clean Complete Unmarked Text. Light Age Toning to Unclipped Dust Jacket Kept in Mylar Book Cover.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Environment, Essays, American, Philosophy, Nature

189 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Gary Snyder is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate of Deep Ecology". Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the American Book Award. His work, in his various roles, reflects an immersion in both Buddhist spirituality and nature. He has translated literature into English from ancient Chinese and modern Japanese. For many years, Snyder was an academic at the University of California, Davis, and for a time served as a member of the California Arts Council.

Reviews

[Mat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, wow and....wow! What a book this is. There is so much wisdom and knowledge and good ol'fashioned common sense in here.

Gary Snyder, in this great collection of interviews, tells us how we are on the wrong track and gives us hints, just like a mysterious guide giving you clues about how to find an old forgotten overgrown track in the bush, about how we can re-find the path - a path which will help us narrowly avoid many of the problems we are currently faced and some even greater ones such as nuclear disaster and even extinction of the species.

Snyder is always intelligent, witty, informed and articulate in these interviews and boy is his message powerful - if you are keen to listen. I learnt more from this book than I did in my five years of high school studies. Seriously. This should be TEXTBOOK in any class of biology or anthropology or even philosophy because it overlaps all of these somehow interrelated field and strands.

There is so much to learn from this book. Here is one example from page 130,
"As the evolutionary model dominated nineteenth and early twentieth-century thinking, henceforth the ecological model will dominate our model of how the world is - reciprocal and interacting rather than competitive".

Now many have charged Snyder with being an incorrigible idealist and given the current conditions you might be able to see why. But I figure that that is rather a cynical view and Snyder is just an optimist who wants us to refind our roots and get back to not necessarily simpler ways but more SENSIBLE ways of living. As he points out in this book, our current track of material corporate capitalism is unsustainable over the long-term with our limited resources and benefits certain classes whereas a return to a more community-based lifestyle with co-ops etc., and this is what he really means about finding your roots, would be healthier because communities are more protective of their own resources, own local people (people's families and salaries) as well as their own immediate environment for which they depend upon for their livelihood and survival. If the profits are going to a corporation in a big city, like New York, they will just exploit the area and the resources and the people and leave with the profits.

I was totally, totally blown away by this book. I have read quite a lot of Snyder's poetry before - sometimes it's great, sometimes it's baffling. This book is kick-ass easy-to-understand modern anthropological and ecological philosophy that all of us should read and learn about it.

As I have said before, I can't think of someone whom I respect more than this guy. Brilliant stuff.

[Patrick Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be read every year

[Marya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm savoring this again, it's so good. Gary Snyder rocks. His illucidations on "The Mind of the Commons" are fabulous.

[Geoff Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this in the mid-'90s and probably didn't understand it as well as I might have. Now I understand it all too well, though I'll doubtless need several more passes to unpack all of its wisdom, which is more relevant now than ever before and which I must return to with some regularity.

[David Sasaki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this while living in Kathmandu. I have a whole journal full of quotes from this book. I was determined to work as a trail builder for at least a summer.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice way to get to know Snyder a little better although I think it's all there in his poetry(and essays). Especially illuminating for a fan with even a passing interest in Zen Buddhism.

[Sean A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was gifted this book from an old friend (literally, about 40-some years older than I am) who has a wide working knowledge of the beat generation, and, at least in his literary persona, seemed to have lived quite close to the shadow that the beats cast during the 60s-70s. So I already considered this a somewhat special book before I opened it. It did not disappoint.

This is a series of many interviews and talks in which Snyder hits on a wide variety of subjects which could be pigeon-holed these days as "deep ecology" or "hippie" even, but these don't do justice to the breadth of Snyder's worldview. His primary talking points are indeed Zen-mind and Buddhism, anti-civilizational or pro-primitive anthropology, philosophy, analysis, trajectory and speculation, and poetic craft. He speaks candidly of his experiences rooting down in the woods of Northern California with a family, finding a sense of place in which to resist monoculture, the redeeming value of Buddhist clarity and surprisingly somewhat less about his poetry itself. His tone could easily be misconstrued as snide, cocky or borderline contemptuous, however, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt since I almost always enjoy what Snyder is talking about. He has an encyclopedic/near autodidact knowledge of almost every topic I've referred to, but all n all, he seems to be more just speaking his mind with the interviewers than trying to impress.

[Alex Compton · Rating 5 out of 5]

non cringe buddha nature

[skye · Rating 4 out of 5]

More great Snyder. I especially liked this passage from an interview:

"The only hope for a society ultimately hell-bent on self-destructive growth is not to deny growth as a mode of being, but to translate it to another level, another dimension. … Nobody can move from Right View to Right Occupation in a vacuum as a solitary individual with any ease at all. The three treasures are Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. In a way the one that we pay least attention to and have least understanding of is Sangha – community."

Excellent and varied insight from a great thinker/doer of our relationship with the earth and other animals (including human animals).

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this little book. It’s an odd thing - an artifact almost. Gary Snyder and his viewpoints followed in this collection of odds and ends. One of the reasons I find this interesting - is seeing the ways in which he has talked about things having actually played out across the years. When he talks about poetry - you can see his clear love for words and language - the power they have. When he talks about the earth - you realize how honest he is as he himself works on the land, literally. This was an interesting read. I’m glad I read it.

[Dim Blue · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book contains some of Gary Snyder's finest statements; on poetics, on nature and on life. To read him in conversation is an absolute joy; his sheer intelligence and deep compassion shine through every word, and his characteristic charm is ever-present. For fans of Snyder's poetry, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

[Mitch Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to review this type of collection as the interviews cover various topics and are of different quality. It's a fine way to hear Snyder in his own voice tell some of his personal history and stories, and to gain insight into his thinking at the early stage of his career.

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

[Victoria & David Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

I particularly like his 'throwing rocks from both sides of the wall': speaking and working academically and as a practical homesteader and engaged member of his community.

[Jay Callahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wisdom clearly expressed by a great writer.