Listening to the Savage: River Notes and Half-Heard Melodies

by Barbara Hurd

Barbara Hurd's Listening to the Savage weaves rich explorations of science, history, mythology, literature, and music. The listening of the book delineates and champions a kind of attentiveness to what is not easily heard and is written in language that is as precise as it is poetic, providing original ways of engagement in the natural world. As in Hurd's other books, the previously unknown or the barely known become less mysterious but still retain the quality of mystery. The book presumes that nature is a mix of the chaotic and the wondrous. It addresses worry and advocacy-worry about our carelessness that can destroy the balance of that mix and a cry for us to pay more attention to humanity's relationship to natural history. Listen, be alert, it says without hectoring. Rivers, ferns, streams, birds all have a life that is delicate and worth preserving. Barbara Hurd is one of our finest environmental writers, and this book will please the choir and persuade those on the ambivalent edge.

Genres: Essays, Nature, Nonfiction

144 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2016

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little uneven—perhaps not my favorite (which I think might be Walking the Wrack Line). But, some essays were over the top extraordinary, and a few I felt so associative, so personal that perhaps they were not as clear to me. Perhaps, too, reading late at night might have influenced this! But, really, her ideas and the way in which she almost crosses over into nature— hmm, now that’s unclear! What I mean is that she seems less to write about nature in this book than to fully live inside it, and I admire her so much for that. If in places, then, she becomes less clear, oh well. The overall project is beautiful and in fact useful, particularly when she is thinking about social responsibility but also just listening to the Savage River, being out in nature, which was restorative for this reader.

[Gerry LaFemina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Barbara Hurd's lyric essays on sound in the natural and human world, are refreshingly smart with their quiet attentiveness and rhythmic interchange between observation and meditation. She weaves narrative fragment with a naturalist's eye, a scientist's curiosity, and a poet's sensibility. Sublime.

[Josephine Ensign · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely book and a pleasure to read. Never preachy about environmental issues and therefore likely even more effective in getting her message across.

[Alana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of local references that brought me back to my Maryland days. Poetic. Insightful. Humble questioning of the human condition with nature as an accompanist.

[Jacqueline (Fall In Love With The Sound of Words) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love nature, and I love science; however I do not like anything new agey or bordering on philosophy. Some might disagree with this description of the book, but I don't know how else to explain it.

I loved all the little science tidbits, the explanation of the frogs, and palm fronds seeding. I even enjoyed reading her little adventures into the wilderness with her granddaughter. This book, however, was not what I was expecting. It dealt a whole lot with sound, resonance, and I guess how we connect to our surroundings through sounds. Honestly, I am lost through this. I don't like sounds. I know this seems weird. Who doesn't like sound? Well...me. So I rarely pay attention to the normal sounds of wilderness; creeks babbling, trees swishing, etc,. I only pay attention to the abnormal sounds that happen once in a while…like the roar of a bear ready to eat me. You know the dangerous stuff.
Anyway, I thought this book was beautifully written, Hurd has an excellent voice. I was just a little less interested in her accounting of sounds and I found myself often thinking of other things throughout the book.
I received this novel from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review