Review by Wayne Sheldrake
Western travel – January 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Soul of Nowhere: Traversing Grace in a Rugged Land
by Craig Childs
Published in 2002 by Sasquatch Books
ISBN 1-570-61306-0
TO WRITE THIS BOOK Craig Childs immerses himself in the open spaces that we too easily revere from afar. And with a forensic attention to detail, he captures the emotional nuance of these abandoned desert places.
Childs has climbed and walked and studied enough to piece together a world view that presents culture as an existence headed for the tatter and rubble of artifacts.
Sounds far fetched, but The Soul of Nowhere explores the barrens of the American Southwest where this is exactly what has happened. The desolate sites, vacated architecture, and remnant routes Childs visits indicate that sophisticated, land-conscious cultures once lived in almost every now-desolate spot you can imagine.
He finds skulls, baskets and pots submerged in the dirt foundation of Time. The owners — canyonland cliff dwellers and tethered nomads — became one with the dirt long ago.
Far from being mystic nowheres, all of these places were once Somewhere to Someone — the Anasazi, the Seri, the Patayan. Even a tiny, foreboding fishing- camp island in the Sea of Cortez once had people living off the land of its barely habitable interior.
The secret of this book is that no matter how far we think we have to go to find true wilderness, wilderness is forever seeking us. We like to think our impact on the land is profound. In fact, we are exiles of Geologic Time. Wilderness isn’t the place where we try so hard to leave no trace; it’s the place that leaves hardly a trace of us without even trying. Childs observes that the land has its own desires. It’s paying attention, even if we aren’t.
Need evidence? Skulls, baskets, pots sunk in the dirt.
Nowhere follows the author as he clambers through chasm, canyon, and crag. But often the reader squeezes through a stone crevice with him only to get caught between the rock and the hard place of what words are and what their connected utterances mean. Temporarily snagged, the reader accompanies the writer through remarkable passages that are readable but also logically and cognitively disoriented. If you’re willing to hang in there, however, those words climb into fresh, lucid sentences that build ceremony, accept sanctuary, celebrate emergence, and whisper epiphany.
Childs’ method is one part liturgy, one part captain’s log, and one part mirage.
The author traverses bleak and beautiful landscapes confronting danger and the elements; his journey mingles adventure, reflection, and risk. If everyone saw the land as Craig Childs does, there wouldn’t be anyone left; we would all melt into the landscape, filled to the eyeballs with stone and sand. But that’s the plot: redemption by surrender.
Be not afraid, but beware. I enjoyed feeling my way through the vivid settings and micro-climaxes of this book. But if you decide to truly follow in this author’s footsteps, you might become one with the land sooner than you planned.
— Wayne Sheldrake