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Fiber
A acclaimed nature writer offers a moving portrayal of the attempt to save the pristine Yaak Valley of Montana through a fictional overview of the personalities and steps necessary to build the concern and active support necessary for preservationist action. UP.
57 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1998
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89 people want to read
About the author
Rick Bass
119 books483 followersRick Bass was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up in Houston, the son of a geologist. He studied petroleum geology at Utah State University and while working as a petroleum geologist in Jackson, Mississippi, began writing short stories on his lunch breaks. In 1987, he moved with his wife, the artist Elizabeth Hughes Bass, to Montana’s remote Yaak Valley and became an active environmentalist, working to protect his adopted home from the destructive encroachment of roads and logging. He serves on the board of both the Yaak Valley Forest Council and Round River Conservation Studies and continues to live with his family on a ranch in Montana, actively engaged in saving the American wilderness.
Bass received the PEN/Nelson Algren Award in 1988 for his first short story, “The Watch,” and won the James Jones Fellowship Award for his novel Where the Sea Used To Be. His novel The Hermit’s Story was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year in 2000. The Lives of Rocks was a finalist for the Story Prize and was chosen as a Best Book of the Year in 2006 by the Rocky Mountain News. Bass’s stories have also been awarded the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Award and have been collected in The Best American Short Stories.
Bass received the PEN/Nelson Algren Award in 1988 for his first short story, “The Watch,” and won the James Jones Fellowship Award for his novel Where the Sea Used To Be. His novel The Hermit’s Story was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year in 2000. The Lives of Rocks was a finalist for the Story Prize and was chosen as a Best Book of the Year in 2006 by the Rocky Mountain News. Bass’s stories have also been awarded the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Award and have been collected in The Best American Short Stories.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 9, 2016
A book this small has no right to pack this kind of punch. It’s essay-sized. It’s anger and joy and passion and humanity. “Environmentalists,” he says, “a long, nasty word for which we should start substituting ‘human fucking beings.’”
August 26, 2018
Wow! Can Rick Bass write or what? I'm using this one for class.
January 22, 2017
An interesting, and seemingly heartfelt, short story/novella that calls for environmental protection in the guise of a story of a man's transitions in life and his current attempts to psychologically repay some of the debt within his own mental framework. I had no idea what to expect when I randomly picked this slim volume up, but I liked it.
September 22, 2017
Still rolling this one around in my head... It's my first Rick Bass book, recommended by a fellow lover of the land and water... I might just re-read it before I return it to him. It is short enough to do so.
November 14, 2019
Yes. I really enjoyed the hard, pure, unapologetic spirit of Rick’s message. So meritorious to have the COURAGE to live your life in this way. Come what may, he presses forth with his values that attempt to protect what should/is/will always be precious to all of humanity.
August 14, 2007
Bass uses an interesting format for telling the personal story of his transition from geologist to writer to environmental advocate.
June 20, 2009
Save the Yaak! Yeah! Think I'll write a letter this weekend.
December 16, 2024
A powerful cry for help to preserve the nature of Yaak Valley, Montana written 26 years ago. And just as timely now, sadly.
September 9, 2011
It takes a true master to take something so brief as 50 pages and leave an impression. Part of what truly intrigued me about Fiber was how slender it was... when I opened it, and saw the text size, the pictures, the margins, I was dumbfounded. What could anyone feel was worth saying in such small space?
The book is sectioned into four parts, and one easily presumes it is to represent four parts of the narrator's life. And through the first three, you get glimpses into his time as a petty thief, his time as artist and writer, and his time as an activist, all while living in his current life, a logger on the run. You dive into quirks and pathos. You get the peaceful feeling of solitary woods. The crisp air seems to fill you. And you ponder the man's philosophies. You feel drawn to his eccentricities. You turn to part four amazed at what you've gotten out of this book, and hoping to tie up loose ends to this cryptic narrator.
But it was all a dream! The most tired deus ex machina in literature, where none was needed! Part four starts by stating that all the truly interesting parts of the narrator's dialog are a lie. The things that made you want to dive deeper were but mirages, and you're sputtering up sand. He's just a logger in the woods, and hoo boy is he pissed that no one is protecting his woods. Part four reads like the tired political pamphlet it is. It calls out names and actions. It shames and reviles. It begs and pleads. And it turns what could have been a tiny hidden gem into a pretty meaningless vehicle. I believe in ecology and conservation, but I also believe that politics should build a story, and not halt it. I would be more interested with a legit closing, and a brief (very brief) afterword about how I can find out more about the woods in question. The first chunk of book created a great sense of place... I was already interested. When that narrative becomes nothing more than a hook to hammer home an agenda, positive or not, I feel duped. And when the book is as brief as this was, that can be enough to smash its relevance and interest into bits.
The book is sectioned into four parts, and one easily presumes it is to represent four parts of the narrator's life. And through the first three, you get glimpses into his time as a petty thief, his time as artist and writer, and his time as an activist, all while living in his current life, a logger on the run. You dive into quirks and pathos. You get the peaceful feeling of solitary woods. The crisp air seems to fill you. And you ponder the man's philosophies. You feel drawn to his eccentricities. You turn to part four amazed at what you've gotten out of this book, and hoping to tie up loose ends to this cryptic narrator.
But it was all a dream! The most tired deus ex machina in literature, where none was needed! Part four starts by stating that all the truly interesting parts of the narrator's dialog are a lie. The things that made you want to dive deeper were but mirages, and you're sputtering up sand. He's just a logger in the woods, and hoo boy is he pissed that no one is protecting his woods. Part four reads like the tired political pamphlet it is. It calls out names and actions. It shames and reviles. It begs and pleads. And it turns what could have been a tiny hidden gem into a pretty meaningless vehicle. I believe in ecology and conservation, but I also believe that politics should build a story, and not halt it. I would be more interested with a legit closing, and a brief (very brief) afterword about how I can find out more about the woods in question. The first chunk of book created a great sense of place... I was already interested. When that narrative becomes nothing more than a hook to hammer home an agenda, positive or not, I feel duped. And when the book is as brief as this was, that can be enough to smash its relevance and interest into bits.
January 18, 2015
Comme toujours, je me suis prise dans la toile à la fois magique et hyper-réaliste tissée par Rick Bass dans ses écrits.
Cette courte nouvelle, fiction sans aucun doute basée sur la réalité de Bass et de sa famille, mêle aussi les vies successives de l'auteur : géologie, art et activisme. Chacune des trois premières parties représentent ces vies suivant la fibre du bois qu'il coupe, liant cette fibre à celle qui fait l'homme, rappelant que l'homme est inséparable de l'environnement naturel, même si notre monde fait que nous nous percevons à part.
Une étrange nouvelle mêlant poésie et mélancolie, qui se termine sur une courte partie chargée de colère et de frustration, retour à la réalité de Rick Bass, artiste et activiste, impuissant devant l'inaction gouvernementale, le refus de protéger les derniers espaces sauvages du pays, tout particulièrement la vallée de Yaak, si chère à Bass.
En lisant cette dernière partie, on comprend mieux l'accueil mitigé de cette nouvelle-essai teintée de mélancolie, de contradiction, à la limite du désespoir. Bien que présente dans les trois premières parties, accompagnées des encres d'Elizabeth Hughes Bass, la magie des autres œuvres de l'auteur est brusquement étouffée par la colère.
Une nouvelle-essai que je relirai tout de même.
Cette courte nouvelle, fiction sans aucun doute basée sur la réalité de Bass et de sa famille, mêle aussi les vies successives de l'auteur : géologie, art et activisme. Chacune des trois premières parties représentent ces vies suivant la fibre du bois qu'il coupe, liant cette fibre à celle qui fait l'homme, rappelant que l'homme est inséparable de l'environnement naturel, même si notre monde fait que nous nous percevons à part.
Une étrange nouvelle mêlant poésie et mélancolie, qui se termine sur une courte partie chargée de colère et de frustration, retour à la réalité de Rick Bass, artiste et activiste, impuissant devant l'inaction gouvernementale, le refus de protéger les derniers espaces sauvages du pays, tout particulièrement la vallée de Yaak, si chère à Bass.
En lisant cette dernière partie, on comprend mieux l'accueil mitigé de cette nouvelle-essai teintée de mélancolie, de contradiction, à la limite du désespoir. Bien que présente dans les trois premières parties, accompagnées des encres d'Elizabeth Hughes Bass, la magie des autres œuvres de l'auteur est brusquement étouffée par la colère.
Une nouvelle-essai que je relirai tout de même.
June 4, 2010
This book both in form and character is a force to which we can all aspire.
Something this warm, intimate and known doesn't usually keep you so off-balance. What at first seems imprecise slowly becomes singularly exact.
And it begs peripheral mention that his message and stated aims are among the most important you will hear.
Something this warm, intimate and known doesn't usually keep you so off-balance. What at first seems imprecise slowly becomes singularly exact.
And it begs peripheral mention that his message and stated aims are among the most important you will hear.
May 24, 2011
A small book from Rick Bass on his love for the Yaak Valley in Montana and trying to preserve it. Although it is fiction it follows his personal life and how he has become an activist in trying to save our environment and his plea to our government for help.
January 29, 2012
A writer of incredible talent, Rick Bass says in 50 short pages what takes a life of perceptive living to experience. There is a sincerity in his writing which I always appreciate, but especially when he writes about the amazing Yaak Valley.
February 23, 2008
Boston, MA
June 17, 2018
"We--all painters and writers--don't want to be political. We want to be pure, and artistic. But we all know, too, I think, that we're not up to the task. What story, what painting, does one offer up to refute Bosnia, Somalia, the Holocaust, Chechnya, China, Afghanistan, or Washington, D.C .? What story or painting does one offer up or create to counterbalance the ever-increasing sum of our destructions? How does one keep up with the pace? Not even the best among us are up to this task, though each tries; like weak and mortal wood under stress, we splinter, and try to act, create, heal. Some of us fall out and write letters to Congress, not novels; others write songs, but they are frayed by stress and the imbalance of the fight. Some of us raise children, others raise gardens. Some of us hide deep in the woods and learn the names of the vanishing things, in silent, stubborn protest."
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews