具体描述
Longtime residents of the Sonoran Desert, the Tohono O'odham people have spent centuries living off the land—a land that most modern citizens of southern Arizona consider totally inhospitable. Ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan has lived with the Tohono O'odham, long known as the Papagos, observing the delicate balance between these people and their environment. Bringing O'odham voices to the page at every turn, he writes elegantly of how they husband scant water supplies, grow crops, and utilize wild edible foods. Woven through his account are coyote tales, O'odham children's impressions of the desert, and observations on the political problems that come with living on both sides of an international border. Whether visiting a sacred cave in the Baboquivari Mountains or attending a saguaro wine-drinking ceremony, Nabhan conveys the everyday life and extraordinary perseverance of these desert people in a book that has become a contemporary classic of environmental literature.
Review
“People often find science boring and ill written. Not in this book. Here the reader is lured into botany, ethnology, hydrology, and a couple of million acres by vivid writing, good pictures, and a beautifully produced book. . . . Anyone ignorant of the desert should begin their cure here.”—Tucson Citizen
“The humor, spice, charm, insight, and compassion with which Gary Paul Nabhan weaves his tale make for enjoyable reading.”—Rio Grande Sun
“Nabhan's point is that we transplanted desert dwellers have a great deal to learn from longtime, environmentally conscious inhabitants if we are not to destroy our fragile home. . . . A remarkably humane essay on nature and respect for it.”—Bloomsbury Review
“The Desert Smells Like Rain offers a remarkable insight, sensitive but unsentimental, combining the sound perceptions of a scientist with ecological concerns, matching humor and a sense of human frailty with tentative hope for the future.”—High Country News
“His eyes are those of a scientist, his prose and vision a poet's: spare, evocative, respectful of both facts and mysteries.”—Orion Nature Quarterly
From the Back Cover
Longtime residents of the Sonoran Desert, the Tohono O'odham people have spent centuries living off the land--a land that most modern citizens of southern Arizona consider totally inhospitable. Ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan has lived with the Tohono O'odham, long known as the Papagos, observing the delicate balance between these people and their environment. Bringing O'odham voices to the page at every turn, he writes elegantly of how they husband scant water supplies, grow crops, and utilize wild edible foods. Woven through his account are coyote tales, O'odham children's impressions of the desert, and observations on the political problems that come with living on both sides of an international border. Whether visiting a sacred cave in the Baboquivari Mountains or attending a saguaro wine-drinking ceremony, Nabhan conveys the everyday life and extraordinary perseverance of these desert people in a book that has become a contemporary classic of environmental literature.
作者简介
About the Author
A MacArthur Fellow and recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Conservation Biology, Gary Paul Nabhan is Director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University.
目录信息
Acknowledgments
O’odham Sounds
The Desert Smells like Rain: An Overture
CHAPTER ONE
On the Trail of I’itoi—A Pilgrimage into the Baboquivari Mountains
CHAPTER TWO
Throwing Up the Clouds—Cactus Wine, Vomit, and Rain
CHAPTER THREE
What Do You Do When the Rain is Dying?
CHAPTER FOUR
Changos del Desierto—Growing Up on the Reservation
CHAPTER FIVE
Raising Hell as Well as Wheat—Papago Indians Burying the Borderline
CHAPTER SIX
Plants Which Coyote Steals, Spoils, and Shits On
CHAPTER SEVEN
Where the Birds Are Our Friends—The Tale of Two Oases
CHAPTER EIGHT
Gathering
CHAPTER NINE
Given Over to Santos and Spices—Magdalena’s Fiesta
CHAPTER TEN
You Make the Earth Good by Your Work
Notes
· · · · · · (收起)
读后感
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用户评价
这本书简直是一场精神的洗礼，那种细腻到让人心头发麻的笔触，仿佛能透过纸面，将读者直接拽入作者构建的那个光怪陆离的世界。我得说，作者在叙事节奏的把握上达到了一个近乎完美的平衡点，时而疾风骤雨般将你推向情节的高潮，让人屏息凝神，生怕错过任何一个微小的暗示；时而又慢下来，像一位经验丰富的调香师，精心调制着场景的氛围，让那些原本可能被匆匆略过的细节，散发出令人沉醉的香气。尤其让我印象深刻的是他对人物内心世界的刻画，那种复杂纠结、充满了矛盾的挣扎，完全不是那种扁平化的“好人”或“坏人”的简单标签可以概括的。每个角色都有着自己深埋于心底的秘密和无法言说的痛楚，他们的每一次选择，都像是在迷雾中摸索前行，充满了不确定性，但也正因如此，他们的形象才显得如此真实可触，让人忍不住想要伸手去触碰，去理解他们行为背后的真正动机。读完之后，很多画面和对话依然在脑海中反复播放，那种挥之不去的余韵，是真正优秀文学作品的标志。
评分语言的魔力在这部作品中得到了淋漓尽致的展现，作者的文字风格简直可以称得上是“雕塑感”的。他选择词汇的精确性，以及对句式长短的灵活运用，使得整部作品在阅读时产生了一种独特的回响。你会注意到，在描述那些宏大或令人窒息的场景时，句子往往变得修长而富有韵律感，如同古典乐章般层层递进，将情感的张力积蓄到一个临界点；而在描摹角色内心最脆弱、最私密的瞬间时，他又会突然切换到极其简洁、甚至有些破碎的短句，这种强烈的对比，使得情绪的冲击力加倍。更令人称奇的是他对感官细节的捕捉能力，那种对光影、质地乃至温度的描摹，细致到仿佛你真的能闻到空气中弥漫的味道，触摸到桌面上粗糙的纹理。这种强烈的代入感，使得这部小说超越了一般的文学阅读，更像是一次全方位的感官沉浸体验。
评分我必须承认，这本书的开篇非常慢热，甚至可以说有些“劝退”。它不像那些追求即时满足感的流行小说那样，一上来就抛出爆炸性的冲突或引人入胜的悬念。相反，它要求读者投入大量的时间去建立对这个世界的基本认知，去理解那些看似冗长却至关重要的背景铺垫。然而，一旦度过了最初的适应期——我个人认为大概在全书四分之一左右——你会发现，之前所有的耐心铺垫，都在为后半段的爆发积蓄能量。这种慢热并非缺点，而是一种高明的策略，它确保了当冲突真正来临时，其影响力和破坏性是极其深远的，因为读者已经完全融入了角色的生活和他们所处的环境，他们的命运与你息息相关。这种需要“耕耘”才能收获丰厚阅读体验的作品，才是真正值得我们投入时间的宝贵财富，它奖励了那些愿意沉下心来细细品味的读者。
评分我向来对叙事结构新颖的作品情有独钟，而这本书在这方面所展现出的创造力，绝对值得被单独拎出来大书特书一番。它摒弃了传统线性的叙事模式，转而采用了一种近乎碎片化、多重视角的拼贴手法，一开始读起来可能会让人有些许的措手不及，仿佛在玩一场需要耐心拼凑的复杂拼图。然而，一旦你适应了这种跳跃式的时空转换，你会发现作者的匠心所在——每一个看似不相关的片段，其实都是为了最终揭示一个宏大而精妙的结构主题而存在的。这种叙事的高难度操作，稍有不慎就会沦为故作高深，但这套书成功地将“晦涩”与“引人入胜”拿捏得恰到好处。它要求读者主动参与到意义的构建中来，而不是被动地接受既定信息。这种互动感极大地增强了阅读的智力体验，每一次“啊哈！”的顿悟，都来自于读者自己努力串联起那些散落在不同章节中的线索，这种由内而外的满足感，是阅读其他平庸之作所无法给予的。
评分如果说有什么作品能够让我思考当代社会中的权力结构与个体自由之间的永恒张力，那么这部作品无疑是其中翘楚。它巧妙地设置了一个看似封闭却又无孔不入的社会背景，在这个背景下，主流叙事对边缘声音的压制，以及个体在面对系统性不公时所展现出的那种既顺从又暗自反抗的复杂心态，被刻画得入木三分。作者并没有简单地给出对错的评判，而是将我们置于一个道德的灰色地带，让我们亲眼目睹环境如何塑造人性，以及人性如何在绝境中寻找微弱但坚韧的出口。我特别欣赏它对“记忆”这一主题的处理，记忆如何被官方重塑，又如何以一种私密、非线性的方式对抗着既定的历史，这种对历史阐释权的探讨，让这部作品的深度远远超出了普通的虚构故事范畴，它更像是一则关于集体心理解剖的寓言。
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