Restless Fires: Young John Muir's Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf in 1867-68

by James B. Hunt

Restless Fires provides a detailed rendering of John Muir s thousand-mile walk to the Gulf based on both manuscript and published accounts. Hunt particularly examines the development of Muir s environmental thought as a young adult. Muir experienced delight in seeing nature anew after recovering from partial blindness due to a factory accident. He witnessed the Civil War s devastating impacts and efforts towards Reconstruction on towns, villages, and people. This is one of the first books on John Muir s thousand-mile walk that places his journey in the context of the Civil War and Reconstruction, to which Muir gave only passing witness. Through these experiences and reflections, Muir came to radical views regarding humankind s relationship to nature, death, and faith. Muir suffered hunger, felt pangs of loneliness, slept five days in a cemetery, slogged through swamps, and nearly died of malaria. The legacy of this walk is found in Muir s perceptive insights generated in part by his background and reading, and by his experience with the Southern environment and its people and plants during the walk. His journal gives evidence of a young man resolving what he wants to do with his life. Muir comes to profound insights as to how human beings fit into nature. A walk in nature gave humans a sense of their limits, a lesson in humility. In Muir s view, nature provides humans a moral touchstone when they recognize their small part in the divine harmony. Muir wrote that when he simply went out for a walk in nature, he was really going in. This book explores what Muir meant.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Nature, Biography

235 pages, Hardcover

First published November 30, 2012

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a pleasant read, but it has quite a few copy-editing errors and mainly there are a lot of ways it could have been deeper or more substantial. The author takes us on an entertaining journey along with John Muir but doesn't do enough to contextualize Muir's developing ideas about the environment he encounters. The author could have done a lot more to flesh out Muir's education, the cultural role of the books he had with him and their reception in the larger society, and the role of nature in various strains of religious thought at the time. He could have talked more about botany as a developing scientific field, about the tension between industrialization and agrarian society that Muir was clearly struggling with, or any number of other things. Instead, he mostly chalks Muir's development up to vague realizations from seeing nature up close. This book would have benefited from a comprehensive, David Reynolds-like approach, where the author deeply enmeshes himself in trends of the time and then explains how John Muir reflected and/or resisted those trends.

[Ann Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned some interesting things from this book--I was previously aware only of Muir's California/West-based writings and early preservationist/environmentalist concerns. It is interesting to compare this 19th-c journey south with the 18th-c journey William Bartram took; they seem kindred spirits in some way (though there is no indication from this book that Muir was familiar with Bartram's work).

I don't love the book, though, because the writing is pedestrian. Hunt needed a better editor: too much repetition, some egregious punctuation and syntactical errors, and prose full of cliches (Muir "strode" into just about every town he visited...and was "alone, and lonely" about a dozen times). The book is well-researched, despite its shortcomings as a pleasure-read, and has made me interested in seeking out the Bade version of Muir's journals so that I can read Muir's own words.

[Stuart Baxter · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent biography about one of my heroes.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can appreciate the journey of our young John Muir who in spite of harsh upbringing and events that caused him to detour and change his course, he always plugged on and never gave up. Always focusing on his dreams and the beauty of nature, he found his own spiritual path and guidance for the future. Jim Hunt has done a excellent job of weaving the letters, and drawings into a very beautiful story. He really shows the value of a pilgrimage in young people's lives that helps clarify their purposes and goals. John Muir was flexible, and used careful observation and written reflection to center him...

[Kate Belt · Rating 4 out of 5]

About how a long walking journey shaped Muir's life and beliefs. Hunt believes that we should encourage young adults to pursue avenues of service, study, and reflection before they engage vocational responsibilities. Mentions an organization that supports such ventures, Krista Foundation for Global Citizenship. Looks like grants are available.

[Lane · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book that focuses on a period that has not had much written about John Muir. Very interesting view of Muir but also the period after the Civil War recovery in the South.