可借阅:*
图书馆 | 资料类型 | 排架号 | 子计数 | 书架位置 | 状态 | 图书预约 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
正在检索... Branch | Book | 979.4 CLARKE | 1 | Stacks | 正在检索... 未知 | 正在检索... 不可借阅 |
链接这些题名
已订购
摘要
摘要
"I became interested in earthquakes when one almost killed me," begins acclaimed travel writer Thurston Clarke, "and in California when I discovered it almost killed my ancestor. . . ." His fascination propelled Clarke to take a journey and begin a brilliant exploration of the physical and social landscape of a mythical state.
California has seduced millions with its breathtaking beauty and rich resources. For decades it symbolized the good life: perfect weather, spectacular beaches, agricultural bounty, limitless opportunity, endless optimism, "a new start, a kinder providence, a rebirth of soul and body." Yet the social problems and natural disasters of recent years have tarnished the image of the golden state. To find out what really happened to the California dream, Clarke set off on a remarkable journey down the San Andreas fault, searching for the places and the people who could enlighten him and perhaps answer the provocative question: What is it like living in a place that no matter how beautiful, might suddenly, while you opened the cereal, combed your hair, or bathed the baby, strike you dead?
On this incredible excursion, Clarke discovers the tragic fate of the Wiyot Indians and their earthquake legends. . . meets Jerry Hurley, an earthquake "sensitive" whose headaches predict earthquakes with uncanny precision. . . investigates the bitter conflict between California's logging industry and environmentalists. . . uncovers a fascinating conspiracy surrounding the 1906 San Francisco earthquake that rewrote history. . . visits Palm Springs, the glamorous desert hideaway of gated communities, now beset by gangs. . . and stops by the desolate Salton Sea, shaking hands with a determined dreamer who hopes someday to build a blue-collar resort along the abandoned shores.
With wit, irony, and a keen eye for observation, Clarke weaves together sociology, history, personality, and seismology. What emerges is a unique portrait of a fascinating, slightly loony, appealingly complex state, with its allure, eccentricity--and optimism--still wonderfully intact.
评论 (2)
出版社周刊评论
Travel writer Clarke has an original and entertaining angle on California in this meandering odyssey: the death-defying souls who live atop the most earthquake-prone regions of the country. With geological fault map in hand, he visits endangered communities from Eureka in the north to the Salton Sea in the south, and talks with such improbable characters as the man whose recurrent headaches and stomach upsets forewarn and pinpoint an unusual number of severe and minor quakes; the folks at Bodega Bay who consider the San Andreas fault their "patron saint" because it prevented Pacific Gas & Electric's astonishing plan to build a nuclear power plant on the fault, and kept away offshore oil drillers and strip miners; or the woman in Los Gatos who refused disaster relief for her quake-damaged house because she didn't want government computers to know the color of her panties. Interspersed with such irreverent tales are geological data, history and portraits of endangered communities in denial, still cleaving to the optimism of the "California dream." (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
In this thoroughly entertaining travel narrative, Clarke (Pearl Harbor Ghosts: A Journey to Hawaii Then and Now, 1991, etc.) takes the measure of the San Andreas fault, that 750-mile scar running head to foot through California, and finds residing along the crack a sideshow's worth of oddballs, shysters, and ugly memories. The fault comes ashore in rugged, remote Shelter Cove, where Clarke picks it up. One of those real-estate diddles classic to coastal developments, the cove is the source for an endless river of cranks, misfits, eccentrics, and garden variety weirdos running down the fault line: folks with headaches that predict earthquakes (perhaps the magnetite in their inner ears picks up electromagnetic signals from grinding tectonic plates); the insane Hoods gang members who commit meanness in Saratoga; garlic thieves in Gilroy; vicious counterculturalists in Bolinas; a pathetic, bloated flasher with a car full of Wendy's wrappers. More gratifying is the Anderson Valley Advertiser, ``the funniest, nastiest, most high- minded and vulgar, entertaining, and addictive small-town weekly newspaper in the nation,'' and its editor Bruce Anderson. Then again, Clarke never shrinks from serious business: He chronicles the devastation of the Wiyot Indians around Eureka and experiences the brutal clearcuts of Humboldt and Mendocino counties, where the land has come to resemble the ``fur of a sick cat'' (unhappily, since redwoods can be used as seismic timetables--Clarke is forever on the quake beat). Knit through the journey, pretty much stealing the show, are Clarke's tack-sharp landscape sketches, for the San Andreas is a genius at ``creating razorback ridges, folded green hills, soaring sea cliffs, pink mountains rising from desert, and jumbled wine-friendly valleys.'' A nearly edible travelogue--smooth as mousse, full of savory tidbits, and memorable.