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74
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
82/100Critics
67/100Scholars
Author:
Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher:
Little, Brown and Company
Date:
May 10, 2022
Kim Stanley Robinson first ventured into the Sierra Nevada mountains during the summer of 1973. He returned from that encounter a changed man, awed by a landscape that made him feel as if he were simultaneously strolling through an art museum and scrambling on a jungle gym like an energized child. He has returned to the mountains throughout his lifeâmore than a hundred tripsâand has gathered a vast store of knowledge about them. The High Sierra is his lavish celebration of this exceptional place and an exploration of what makes this span of mountains one of the most compelling places on Earth.
What The Reviewers Say
... wants to be a hybrid: a personal memoir and a hiking journal, a geology lesson and a history lesson about one of the truly epic nature spots in the world. The book’s structure attempts to create order from Robinson’s sheer exuberance and enthusiasm, but only half-delivers on that promise.
... gives Robinson the room to write at great length about a wilderness he cherishes, and he brings an idiosyncratic perspective in describing its wonders, large and small, in this unique memoir and guidebook.
The Robinson fluency is here: the compact, mobile sentences; the narrative ease; the technical detail. Prosy perhaps—he’s talking right at you—but only literally pedestrian.
It’s hard to think of another writer who can touch upon climatology, geology, Gary Snyder, LSD, Aristotle, botany, zoology and Spinal Tap in a book about a mountain range.
