Zemědům

by Gary Snyder

Both Pound and Williams have shown a good poet can revitalize prose style. Earth House Hold (a play on the root meaning of 'ecology') drawn from Gary Snyder's essays and journals, may prove a landmark for the new generation.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Nature, Essays, Buddhism, Philosophy, Religion

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1969

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

[Kristen Vlahiotis · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first started reading this book I thought it was strange and I didn’t understand it. It seemed like the writer was just stringing unrelated thoughts together and slapping it on the page. I’ve realized that things are only beautiful and interesting because we assign them these labels. Usually the things I find beautiful are the things that I understand or can clearly see. Just because I don’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful or good. I’ve been trying to understand things I find strange and I’ve found that they eventually become quite beautiful to me. By the end of the book I thought the writing was rather lovely and I really enjoyed the quirkiness. Things don’t have to be exquisite and beautiful in order to be enjoyed. By just existing, writing is still art, even if it doesn’t have a 5 star rating on goodreads.

[Mat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apart from the 'Four Cycles' section at the back of his Pulitzer-prize winning book Turtle Island, this was the first prose I have read by Gary Snyder.

Throughout this book I both marvelled at the incredible wisdom and insight of his essays and scratched my head at the unfathomable sections where Snyder did not deign to offer further explanation.

'Buddhism and the Coming Revolution' and 'Why Tribe' to me were the real stand-outs. The journal sections of the book were sometimes beautiful (especially 'Suwa-no-se Island & the Bunyan') but at other times rather esoteric with rather cryptic references or allusions. Having said that, I did find the extremely terse haiku-like style of journal writing here very endearing, as it leaves much space for the mind to fill in the gaps like a good song leaves space for the ear to fill in the missing notes.
However, Snyder seemingly presumes that the reader shares his sometimes rather academic knowledge of flora and fauna and Indian spirituality and mysticism. At times I was quite lost in this book as to what he meant and if Snyder had included more footnotes, this would have been an easy five-star book for me I believe.

As a previous reviewer has already pointed out and correctly so, the state of the world's affairs has most probably become worse since Snyder wrote this volume. I found his ideas beautifully (but also hopelessly) idealistic and reminded me of the buoyant optimism I carried within myself in my 20s. What Snyder says is very true - we need both elements of western and eastern thinking - but if Snyder seriously thinks that today we are headed towards a world which will espouse "free-form marriage, natural-credit communist economy [and] less industry..." he is sorely mistaken. At least, this is not the case for the foreseeable future unfortunately. However, as seen in the 60s, a time of great optimism and change, this could be possible on the micro-level. Disengagement, once again, may be the only choice we have from a civilization which is becoming increasingly unruly and insane.

As it is, Earth House Hold (a play on the etymology of the word 'ecology') without the references or footnotes, yet deeply intrigued (once you enter Snyder's world, you want to dig deeper), I am sure I will find myself returning to this book many times. My copy will be seriously dog-eared in a couple of years from now I guarantee.

[Craig Werner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Snyder exemplifies the very best of a certain current of sixties countercultural life and thought. The key's in the combination of the two. For Snyder, the return to simplicity--phrased variously in zen, Native American, feminist mythological, Jungian terms--wasn't an abstraction. EHH consists of a montage of fragments--poem/journals from his time as a lookout in the California and Oregon mountains; notes on his experience as a sailor; a report from the Japanese island where he lived as part of a "tribe" which included Japanese poet Nanao Sakaki; essays on the relationship between poetry, storytelling, and the life we're living now. Horrifying in a sense to reflect on how much more oppressive the "outside" world has become in the forty or so years since this was published. Some of Snyder's claims would be "critiqued" by academics today as naive; the essential truths remain.

[Anthony Jacobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Earth House Hold' is a collection of poems, essays and journals by Gary Snyder. Beneath its prototypical eco-hippie exterior are romantic notions on existence and spirituality that I found very enlightening. Snyder implies a global consciousness in this book, a worthy topic for consideration in the disparate climate we find ourselves in late 2011. I particularly dug the poetic style of Snyder's prose. He makes each line worthy of standing on its own as a distinct piece of art. Elsewhere, he uses gorgeous but economical language to convey intimacy, with lines like "we'll lean on the wall against each other stew simmering on the fire as it grows dark drinking wine". His writing is sensual, warm and vivid. This is something I will try to incorporate into my own writing, probably for the rest of my life.

[Woody Debris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most poetry is for pussies. Gary Snyder's poetry is for cool cats.

[Jade☆ · Rating 5 out of 5]

the prettiest most enchanting love letter to the rhythm of the living world

[Keith Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a reread. I did it after receiving the brand new "Essential Prose" in the Library of America series. I went back to the original because I wanted to see what Snyder [and Shoemaker] had left out.

Kept a couple of the journals, but axed others. I think they probably felt repetitive, and some of the comments by ship's crew in the others felt misogynistic now, and Snyder probably didn't want to associate himself with that anymore. Some of the essays felt repetitive, and Snyder probably didn't want to feel that anymore; I mean the last thing he wants to do is bore us, even when he is dealing with difficult material that most of us in the New World don't know anything about. But he has kept the "essentials," including that last essay, "Suwa-no-se Island and the Banyan Ashram," which remains one of his best personal essays.

He did get rid of some of the material that felt a bit dated, but kept "Passage to More than India," and "Poetry and the Primitive," both of which feel as if they were from a very different time [late 60s], but I think he probably kept them because they are important markers along his journey.

All in all, it still felt important -- both because it is important to Snyder, for his poetry, and for the road that leads to "Practice of the Wild." Snyder continues to fascinate me, perhaps even more so now than ever, and I've been reading him for almost 60 years!

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like Gary Snyder. Yes. A cool guy who brings it together with poetry.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Snyder is, as always, right on.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible.

[David Partikian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please see Bartleby the Sailor's Substack for this essay in a better format.

One way for a budding young writer to avoid the obvious clichés of a “young man goes to sea novel” is for him to forego such a literary effort entirely while surrendering to other pursuits, scholarly or spiritual perhaps. In such an instance, the young man is incredibly focused and primarily using the seagoing venture as a job, a means-to-an-end. The paycheck is ultimately more important than the “experience,” though the latter is not to be entirely overlooked. Let’s call it sea time over sea experience. Such a person does not work in the engine room to write a novel, but for the funds eventually to gain experience elsewhere, even if the voyage naturally becomes an impetus for later prose and poetry.

Poet, anthropologist, folklorist, essayist, translator, carpenter, and scholar Gary Snyder fits this description perfectly.1 Born in 1930, Snyder joined the Marine Cooks and Stewards in 1948. This affiliation was to cause him considerable annoyance later as his membership with that union led to government suspicions of his alleged communist sympathies during the McCarthy era.2 Snyder found himself unwelcome as a fire lookout in the Northwest Cascades, a job he held for the two previous fire seasons, due to his membership with the Marine Cooks and Stewards.3 However, Snyder made the best of this blacklisting and eventually ended up in India and Japan, where he spent considerable time for over a decade as a Zen disciple and language scholar. Early in his ex-patriot era, on August 29, 1957, Snyder signed on the tanker Sappa Creek as a fireman (fireman being a stoker who helps attend to steamship boilers among other responsibilities). He remained on the vessel almost 8 months, signing off—presumably—in San Pedro, CA in mid-April 1958 with a tidy payoff that helped fund further adventures abroad.4 Although little is known about Snyder’s early maritime jobs in 1948, his stint on the Sappa Creek in a grungy unlicensed engine room position cements his bona fides as a deep-sea mariner. Those looking for a vicarious description to dissuade them from ever stepping foot in an engine room need look no further than Snyder’s THE SIX HELLS OF THE ENGINE ROOM: (The Back Country page, 82).


Poems recounting his experiences—presumably—from his stint on the Sappa Creek would appear in various books of his, most notably his 1967 collection The Back Country, which, including the one above, contains at least six voyage-inspired prose pieces. Among those poems is “The Wipers Secret,” a brief poem virtually every well-read mariner has chuckled over with knowing relish; I know one Oiler who committed it to memory. Anyone who has ever worked in an unlicensed capacity has painted over rust or grease in exasperation of the absurdity of the work or just because they are pissed off. And the officer in charge does know or often doesn’t give a shit because the task looks complete, which is good enough for his written summary for the company. However, enough of my layman’s literary analysis, the poem stands on its own without any commentary whatsoever.


Much like any intelligent young sailor with literary aspirations, Snyder also kept a journal while on the Sappa Creek, which he later released as “Tanker Notes,” a 15-page selection from this journal, in section of short prose pieces and essays titled Earth House Hold (1969). From my experiences rehashing “young man goes to sea” maritime writings, “Tanker Notes” deserves more than honorary mention as part of the genre and fits well in the trajectory of Gary Snyder’s other writings. Although it is not a novel and “only” a journal, presumably an edited and revised one, it emphasizes many of the same themes that other, mostly neophyte, mariner authors have. However, Snyder’s position in the engine room gives his experiences a more hardened feel. Unlike the other authors including Melville in Redburn, there is never a sense that Snyder is in an alien milieu in which he is just passing through.

Off Singapore 6: IX

Flying fish and a few bob-tailed shoreside-looking birds. Pulled a hot one today and sprayed hot oil around the fire-room. Now they say I’m a real fireman.

--(Page 55).

Due to finding myself on a watch with Chief Mate (later Captain) Tony Mociun, one of Snyder’s neighbors and good friends for decades, while sailing as the 4*8 AB on the SS Maui during the summer of 2011, I had the fortune of meeting Gary Snyder that fall for dinner at Tony’s place in the San Juan Ridge area of the Sierra Nevada foothills.5 I am not accustomed to meeting famous people, especially one for whom I have the utmost respect, so I reread "Tanker Notes" and brushed up on Gary Snyder’s major writings before the dinner. Gary had already had a less than fortuitous interview that afternoon and was into just hanging and enjoying a good meal. Although I asked plenty of questions, the dinner was not an interview, nor have I ever intended to publish any account of it. Regrettably, among sailors reminiscing and sea stories,6 I lapsed into sailor mode and put away more than a bottle of good wine (Gary brought his own bottle) and had ingested Seattle caliber THC, so my recollections of the evening are hazy. What I do remember, is that the three of us talked maritime and that Gary enjoyed being asked questions that focused, not on his scholarly accomplishments, but his experiences as a laborer. He emphasized his lifelong affinity with the labor movement throughout the evening.7 As I look back and read a note Gary sent me before the meeting I realize that he welcomes such focus:

I can do justice to all you guys have written and the thoughts and issues you raised right now, but I wanted to get these two copies of Earth House Hold back to you pretty quick and so I’ll send them and just say thank god for those who read a little bit and work a whole lot, so there’s a place to exchange real feelings and real ideas. [. . .]. I noted your mention of B. Traven and Malcolm Lowry-and I’m moved to be put even remotely in their company. This is all representative of the fact that American literary life for many decades has no place for real work. --Letter from Gary Snyder included with the copy of Earth House Hold he signed for me.



Despite Gary’s humble protest over my including him in the same company as B. Traven and Macolm Lowry, I beg to differ. He has earned his place in that pantheon. Although little is known about B. Traven or his maritime experiences excepting what he wrote in a work of fiction The Death Ship, I am surmising that Gary Snyder worked longer in an engine room than Traven. Lowry worked as a deckhand, a slightly less grungy position, for only one stint, although for about the same duration as Snyder on the Sappa Creek, the better part of a year. And like these two literary labor predecessors, Snyder recorded his experiences as prose and poetry. Since the novel was never his chosen genre, he, like a literary escape artist, manages to avoid the clichés of “a young man goes to sea” narratives by only publishing selections from his journals and a handful of poems.

Much like Lowry, Snyder has an ear for dialogue and the inane yammering of bored crew members too jaded to even care whether a crew member cares to listen to sexual boasts: Jack the Wiper: Japanese whores are the kindest, cleanest in the world. And Goddammit, you really can’t ever understand them or can they you. (Page 54). Or union bashing shoptalk:“You talkin about the S.U.P.—that’s a fuckin fink union all the way down the line.” (Page 58).9

Instead of being bogged down in a timeless plot and the pitfalls of cliché maritime narrative, there are just snippets of the eternal enticing beauty of life on the middle of the ocean or during brief periods ashore interspersed with descriptions of the inhospitality of steel, the smell of grease, and the intense heat of the engine room. Thus, the collection of prose pieces, Earth House Hold,, and the poetry collection The Back Country should be included in any serious discussion of 20th Century maritime authors and literature.

**************************

1
This list is by no means complete. Snyder is also recognized as a member of the Beat Movement, though his accomplishments and environmental activism largely eclipse his Beat era persona.

2
For a detailed account of Gary Snyder being blacklisted and his travails getting his passport, see Poets on the Peaks: Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen & Jack Kerouac in the North Cascades by John Suiter, Counterpoint Books, 2002. I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone interested in Snyder and his fire lookout era.

3
The Marine Cooks and Stewards, the National Maritime Union (NMU), and the Seafarers’ International Union (SIU) all had a lot of members with communist sympathies in the late 40’s and 50’s. This in no way excuses red baiting and blacklisting. The American labor movement should naturally embrace such ideologies. The fat that labor no longer does is indicative of its moribund status in the USA.

4
Tanker Notes commences with the entry: “At Sea 29: VIII: 57.” Snyder, throughout his career records dates with day preceding the month, which is listed as a Roman numeral. The last entry in Tanker Notes is “15: IV: 58” I assume Gary signed off the Sappa Creek in Pedro, because there are no further entries. However, in an email to Tony Mociun on the Kauai clarifying my conversations with CM Tony, Snyder clearly writes: “. . .and Tanker Note are a bit of what I kept from my 9 months in the engine room of the Sappa Creek.” All mariners remember voyages as being longer than they are, especially if longer than 6 months.

5
I will address this dinner in a future Substack essay. Tony Mociun remains a good friend to whom I am eternally grateful in that he provided the impetus for me to eventually get my Unlimited Tonnage Mate’s License a little more than a year after my meeting with Gary Snyder at Tony’s house on the San Juan Ridge.

6
Not that I needed my arm twisted.

7
This remains my strongest impression of Gary Snyder. He understands and empathizes with the working class.

8
Note, Gary Snyder was on the Sappo Creek as a member of the National Maritime Union (NMU), not the Marine Cooks and Stewards, with whom he was affiliated in the late 1940’s. Eventually, the NMU became a predominantly black union. The SIU remained white. The unlicensed unions became largely segregated. In the late 90’s the NMU merged with the SIU.

9
The line from Tanker Notes on the S.U.P. is emblazoned in my memory because I joined the S.U.P. in 1998 and it was a marked improvement over my time in the Seafarer’s International Union (S.I.U.). However, despite the better working conditions and higher pay, the S.U.P. has been known as a Republican Union since its secretary and treasurer from the 1950’s, Harry Lundeberg, endorsed Dwight Eisenhower who appeased workers and whose policies would be considered “socialist” by knee-jerk no nothing “Republicans” today,(9a) if there even is such a party with values of the traditional Republican anymore. Gary Snyder wrote me (in the letter I photographed above) that this line in Tanker Notes was a result of the other unlicensed maritime unions considering the S.U.P. “anti-communist.”

9a This essay, unfortunately, being generated in the dark times of the MAGA cult of incompetence and cruelty.

[Kai Dennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

My enjoyment of this was a little “pick and choose.” The fire tower watchman logs were quite beautiful, alongside some of the essays; Dharma and the Coming Revolution, specifically. Towards the end some of the themes started to feel repetitive, however, this was an issue caused by the sheer amount of work and its consistently changing format. The quality of the writing stayed consistently high throughout, and revisiting the later pieces outside the context of this book I think would be allow them to be dealt with more objectively.

[Maughn Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was moved by Snyder's poetic journal episodes and inspired by his short essays, especially 'Buddhism and the Coming Revolution' and 'Why Tribe.' His counterculture message, attitude and lived experiments were the only hope for the planet in 1957 when this was first published, and remain so now.

[Marc Fendel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most important books in my small collection. Amazing...

[Rasmus Tillander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gary Snyder on kyllä ihastuttava ajattelija, ehdoton lempihippini, antropologi ja mystikko. Earth House Hold on kokoelman Snyderin erilaisia kirjoituksia 1950-1960 -luvuilta: päiväkirjoja, esseitä, käännöksiä, kirja-arvosteluita. Kirja olisi lukemisen arvoinen jo ihan Snyderin päiväkirjamerkintöjen perusteella. Niissä hän kuvaa työtään metsänvartiana, töitään öljytankkerilla, vuorikiipeilyä Kaskadiavuoristossa ja pariskuntamatkaa Intian joogamaille.

Kovinta kamaa ovat kuitenkin Snyderin esseet: meditaation vallankumouksellista potentiaalia kuvaileva "Buddhism and the Coming Revolution", vapaata rakkautta promoava "Passage to More than India", 'Suuren alakulttuurin' vaikutuksia luotaava "Why Tribe" ja runouden ylisukupolvista tenhoa maagisesti valoittava "Poetry and the Primitive". Ihan sydän leikehti näitä lukiessa. Reiluuden nimissä on sanottava, että näissä on kyllä hieman alkuperäiskansojen eksotisointia, mutta on sen verran hyvää hippimeininkiä, että ehkä sen voi antaa anteeksi.

Kirjassa on hyvin monta lainattavaa kohtaa, mutta ehkä nyt tyydyn tähän yhteen, jossa Snyder nostaa esiin kristillisen ajattelun ja vapaan rakkauden suhteen:

"Love begins with the family and its network of erotic and responsible relationships. A slight alteration of family structure will project a different love-and-property outlook through a whole culture ... thus the communism and free love of the Christian heresies. This is a real razor's edge. Shall the lion lie down with the lamb? And make love even? The Garden of Eden."

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Quick Reflection

Well worth reading again. The richest parts were his journal entries detailing his life in the Cascadian Peaks, Japan, by the ocean and beyond. Some of the poetry and prose is very lovely. Synder really takes you into the geography of his life. He weaves together countless details to create a gesalt: birds, plants, scraps of what he's reading. The journals make up the bulk of the book. He also has a lucid anthropological reconstruction of a Zen temple and a ceremony, which is excellent stuff. He translates some old Zen prose which is very important philosophy. I am an atheist but still enjoyed the book. The text attains many moments of sharp realism, ghostly ambiance, and historical power. There are beautiful notes on women, nature and the ecstasy of the wilderness. Synder also throws in some references to psychedelia, as well as to his working class roots. He recounts the hippy Human Be-In in San Francisco. Highly recommended.

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The mercy of the West has been social revolution; the mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self/void."

I thought that many of the exposed thoughts of this collection were creative and beautiful. Gary Snyder is an imaginative thinker, and lays this out very well in many passages. Some of the other material in this book was not as exciting to me, so a slight downgrade on rating secondary to my own personal perspective.

[Logan Teder]

I got used to the unique style of delivery here faster than I expected, and came to enjoy it greatly. Some powerful insights to be found within. I found the ending to be a bit tiring: many obscure references along with predictions of the future that today seem tragically overoptimistic. In the late 60s I imagine it would have seemed far more probable/oncoming. Perhaps best considered as a poetic diary of the developments in his spiritual thinking and scholarship over a decade's time.

[Dominika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Snyder, stará mánička, kámoš Allen Ginsberga, to jsem prostě musela mít. Přelouskat tuhle tenounkou knížečku mi zabralo maximum času, protože zabere maximum koncentrace. Byly chvíle, kdy jsem hltala každou větu a chápala přesně, jak věci jsou a jak autor přemýšlí a byly chvíle, kdy se mi kroutily nehty a skřípala jsem zubama, kdy už tenhle dada blázinec skončí. Gary byl asi částma na LSD, jen škoda, že já nebyla taky. 3,5/5

[Ethan Abelar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contains some extremely beautiful writing as well as some more self-indulgent passages. But the book also feels very personal as it centers on Snyder's daily experiences and observations as a laborer and Zen monastic. So even the parts I didn't like felt very sincere, and I'd maybe also be this preachy if I lived through the 50s.. who knows?

[Morgan (Turbo) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part travel journal, part history of religion. This book has a lot of great snippets interspersed through 140 pages of poetry and prose. It's inspiring stuff just not the most organized and easily accessible. There are sure of a lot of things to check out tho

[Holger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meditations and retellings, mountains and dales.
"Don't be a mountaineer, be a mountain"

[Grady Ormsby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last month I discovered Left Bank Books in Hanover, New Hampshire. Left Banks is a funky little store up a narrow staircase off Main Street and features used and out-of-print books. When I walked in the door, I was struck by the distinct aroma of old books. The shelves were also used and out-of-print, overloaded and sagging with books of every kind, each section labeled with a homemade sign. I headed straight for the poetry section, looking to see if I could find some volumes by some of the Beat poets. There was no Ferlinghetti, Corso, Bukowski, Patchen or Rexroth, but way down on a shelf near the floor I found Earth House Hold: Technical Notes & Queries To Fellow Dharma Revolutionaries by Gary Snyder. The fourteen chapters are drawn from Snyder’s essays and journals. They are poetic renditions in prose style. They cover a wide and varying range of times and locations: lonely notes written while on duty at an isolated fire tower and notes written at sea on a tanker, journal passages from a first trip to Japan, a journey to Rishikesh and Hardwar with Ginsberg and Orlovsky, hiking at Glacier Peak Wilderness Area. I found two essays to be most interesting. The first was a short essay entitled ”Buddhism and the Coming Revolution” written back when many thought a revolution was actually coming. The other “Poetry and the Primitive” was a critical examination of the primitive world view, scientific knowledge and the poetic imagination as related forces. I enjoyed the book. I don’t recommend that you run right out a get a copy for yourself. It wasn’t that great. But I do recommend that if you are ever in Hanover, New Hampshire, take some time to check out Left Bank Books. On the bottom of the receipt from the store was the following, “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” --George Orwell

[Dirk · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoy and admire Gary Snyder, but this book is the sweepings from the cutting room floor. It's a hodgepodge, which includes, for example, diary entries from forest fire watching and working in the engine room of a steamer crossing the Pacific, a scholarly review of a book of Indian tales by Jaime de Angulo, descriptions of life in a couple of Zen schools, a translation of the rather fascistic rules of a Zen order, and some essays on the state of culture in the 60's. It is less than the sum of its parts, and some of its parts aren’t much. If you are a dedicated Snyder fan, you will treasure the good parts and some of the personal anecdotes. The description of Allen Ginsberg climbing in the high mountains gives me pause. Snyder is always a good writer and some of his essays have an expansive, visionary and intelligent but dated breadth that is touching, for instance:
"The human race as it immediately concerns us, has a vertical axis of about 40,000 years and as of 1900 AD a horizontal spread of roughly 3000 different languages and 1000 different cultures. Every living culture and language is the result of countless cross fertilizations - not a rise and fall of civilizations, but more like a flowerlike periodic absorbing - blooming - bursting and scattering of seed."

[Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m a big fan of Gary Snyder’s poems about man in nature, and particularly fond of hearing him recite his own poetry. This early book is mostly prose. It’s partly a journal of Snyder’s travels, his work in the wilderness as a fire lookout, and his experiences in a Japanese Zen monastery. Most of the chapters are highly personal and don’t necessarily make a point for the reader. It seems that Snyder is beginning to synthesize his studies of philosophy, religion, anthropology, and psychedelics into a whole, but is not quite there yet.

A few chapters are quite enjoyable. “Journey to Riskikesh and Hardiwar” gives the reader a satisfying sense of time and place in just a few pages. Many of the succinct musings in “Japan the First Time Around” are thought-provoking vignettes that foreshadow Snyder’s future works. “Suwa-no-se Island and the Banyan Ashram” creates a sensual picture of daily ashram life as well as recording Snyder's unusual and lovely marriage ceremony.

Readers who enjoy Gary Snyder’s later works might be interested to read this book to get some perspective on his early literary development, and to enjoy a few brilliantly-told tales in the mix.

[Ginna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is what the title claims, a collection of flotsam and jetsam, life-notes, queries, a kind of patchwork that made me feel like I was beginning to know the Gary Snyder that existed during the span of its writing.

I think the way snyder dates his journal entries (mostly on the freighter to japan) is really charming: days in arabic numbers, month in roman numerals, year in arabic numerals - so today would be 22i2010

"Buddhism and the Coming Revolution" is a fabulous manifesto and one I will return to.

I still love The Practice of the Wild best of all Snyder's work I've yet encountered, but this, which predates it, seems to be taking steps toward it.

The voice of these ramblings reminded me of the character Kerouac based on Snyder in Dharma Bums, Japhy Ryder. Sort of fabulous and free and open and beautiful.

[Richard O. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The original 1969 cover image of Earth Household was of a spiral seashell. It was an apt image for a poetry preoccupied with ecology, nature, the interconnectedness of things, the practice of Buddhism, journal entries from when Snyder was a forest ranger, and serious essays like "Buddhism and the Coming Revolution" in which the poet noted the absence of a social justice dimension in the religion. In a way, I tend not to associate Snyder with the other Beat poets. His work is discursive and economical, spontaneous and epiphanic. From all accounts, he lived his Buddhism in Kyoto and the Sierra foothills with his family. I respect the work enormously.

[AlexWatson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice mixup: travelogue through mostly eastern and marginalized cultural topographies. Some manifestoes. I've never been terribly drawn to his verse but this prose work is that fresh archetypal beat trip passage to india whitmania, song of the green man bumming it to Tibet or Glacier to beg dharma.

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

[Dylan Cabus · Rating 5 out of 5]

That’s right Gary