Dakota: A Spiritual Geography

by Kathleen Norris | Other |
ISBN: 039571091x Global Overview for this book
Registered by florafloraflora on 9/23/2004
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6 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by florafloraflora on Thursday, September 23, 2004
From the publisher: "An evocation of the Great Plains and its influence on the human spirit, Dakota describes the harsh, desolate, yet sublime landscape that embodies the contradictions of American life as lived in the small towns where history and myth have become indistinguishable."

Verlyn Klinkenborg, New York Times Book Review: "A remarkable work of nonfiction... a deeply spiritual, deeply moving book."

I love love love this book. It explains a lot about why North Dakota was my favorite state on a cross-county drive a few years ago. Kathleen Norris, a poet, writes about inheriting her grandmother's house in South Dakota and moving there from New York City, and about the spiritual riches she finds in the vast spaces and skies of the Great Plains.

Here's a paragraph I opened to at random:
"The silence of the Plains, this great unpeopled landscape of earth and sky, is much like the silence one finds in a monastery, an unfathomable silence that has the power to re-form you. And the Plains have changed me. I was a New Yorker for nearly six years and still love to visit my friends in the city. But now I am conscious of carrying a Plains silence within me into cities, and of carrying my city experiences back to the Plains so that they may be absorbed again back into silence, the fruitful silence that produces poems and essays."

I'll probably send this out on a bookray.

Journal Entry 2 by florafloraflora on Monday, September 27, 2004
Here are the chapter headings for the book:

The Beautiful Places
Weather Report: January 17
Deserts
Weather Report: February 10
Dakota: Or, Gambling, Garbage, and the New Ghost Dance
Patagonia
A Starfish in Mott
Weather Report: March 25
Gatsby on the Plains
Weather Report: April 14
Closed In
The Holy Use of Gossip
Weather Report: May 19
Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town?
Weather Report: June 30
Ghosts: A History
Evidence of Failure
Shadows 'n' Owls: A Message from Jim Sullivan
Cana
Where I Am
Star-Time
Frontier
How I Came to Drink My Grandmother's Piano
Status: Or, Should Farmers Read Plato?
Weather Report: July 3
Rain
Sea Change
God Is in the Details: Shortgrass
Seeing
Weather Report: August 9
Getting to Hope
In the Open
Blessing
Weather Report: September 3
My Monasticism
God Is in the Details: Winter Wheat
Weather Report: October 2
Is It You, Again?
Weather Report: November 2
Dust
Monks at Play
Blue
Weather Report: December 4
Weather Report: December 7

Journal Entry 3 by florafloraflora on Wednesday, September 29, 2004
This book is going out on a bookray to:

RikkiDD (Germany)
tania-in-nc (North Carolina, USA)
megi53 (Virginia, USA)
irishajo (Indiana, USA)
Suefitz (California, USA)
ArizonaFyre (Arizona, USA) received February 24th
writergrl (New Mexico, USA)
mrsjones (Ohio, USA)
mommajones?
WingedMan (Kentucky, USA)
[your name here]
(back to me if necessary for mailing abroad)
Olifant (Netherlands), and
...into the wild!

This order is tentative. I'm still taking more names for the list, but I wanted to start the book right away on its long trip to Germany.

Just a few rules:

- When you receive the book, please post a journal entry that it has arrived and PM the next person on the list for her address.
- When you finish reading, make another journal entry (or else edit the first one) with your comments.
- No need to post a release note when mailing a book - please just note the next recipient in your journal entr(ies).
- Photos of the book in the place where you are reading it, posted with your journal entry, are always welcome.
- Happy reading!

Journal Entry 4 by RikkiDD from Dresden, Sachsen Germany on Sunday, November 7, 2004
After 6 weeks the book received in Dresden. I'm really looking forward to read about this region (I've never been to before) although it will still take a few days before I can start it.
Thanks to Florafloraflora for sending.

Wow, what a book. The region of Dakota is really new to me, but not anymore. The author is able to bring the mentality of the people and the area closer to the reader.
I loved to read the book and sometimes I thought a lot about the words and searched for my own feelings to my hometown and was surprised how close I am to "my" city.

Journal Entry 5 by RikkiDD at mail in By mail, A Bookring -- Controlled Releases on Thursday, November 25, 2004
Released on Thursday, November 25, 2004 at about 11:00:00 AM BX time (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) at mailed to a fellow bookcrosser in N/A, A Bookring Controlled Releases.

RELEASE NOTES:

The book goes by surface mail back to US to the next reader.

Journal Entry 6 by tania-in-nc from Mooresville, North Carolina USA on Thursday, December 2, 2004
This book safely made it this side of the ocean again. Thanks for sharing it. I'm currently reading Starting Over by Robin Pilcher , c. 2002 -- link goes to blog as the book is from booksfree.com -- see entry of Nov 30th, 2004. This is next on the pile! Shall journal in due course.

Journal Entry 7 by tania-in-nc from Mooresville, North Carolina USA on Saturday, December 4, 2004
I have to say that one of the great things to life is finishing one great book with the anticipation of reading another good one. Shall start this one within the hour.


Journal Entry 8 by tania-in-nc from Mooresville, North Carolina USA on Tuesday, December 7, 2004
Thanks for the fun and lessons I received with this book. Gave me things to ponder for sure.

I collect quotes as I read. These ones are fun, poetical, or even philosophical. Take what you like, and leave the rest. Note that these aren't necessarily the "best" in the book. These happen to be close to the spot where I stopped reading each night.

Suddenly fir trees seem like tired old women stooped under winter coats. I want to be light, to cast off impediments, and push like a tulip through a muddy smear of snow. I want to take the rain to heart, let it move like possibility, the idea of change. p44

Maybe the desert wisdom of the Dakotas can teach us to love anyway, to love what is dying, in the face of death, and not pretend that things are other then they are. The irony and wonder of all this is that is the desert's grimness, its stillness and isolation, that brings us back to love. Here we discover the paradox of the contemplative life, that the desert of solitude can be the school where we learn to love others. p121

Some [monks] tell me that guests are important to them because as they struggle with the daily grind in the small world of the monastery, they can lose sight of the big picture. A guest can remind a monk that the monastic life has purpose and meaning. p200
[comment: I've always wanted to visit a monastery]

Sent it off to megi53 12/7/04

Journal Entry 9 by Megi53 from Danville, Virginia USA on Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Just came in the mail -- beautiful book! I plan on finishing it by Jan. 17! Sorry to take so long -- my Christmas vacation interfered with reading bookring/ray books, 'cause I decided not to take any of the three I had in mid-December with me on the trip.

Journal Entry 10 by Megi53 from Danville, Virginia USA on Saturday, January 15, 2005
This book was different from what I expected. There was not nearly as much writing about landscapes and history as I thought there would be. Instead, the first part was devoted to sociological analyses, which I appreciated since they reminded me of, and explained much about, the dying mill town I live in.

From page 60: "It is the community that suffers when it refuses to validate any outside standards, and won't allow even the legitimate exercise of authority by the professionals it has hired."

The second part of the book described the Benedictine monastery where Norris is an oblate. It got to be oppressive for me to read and I was appalled about the monks sliding down banisters, having pillow fights, and giggling as one of them described his predecessors castrating Abelard.

I absolutely loved the chapter "Getting to Hope", though, about the small Presbyterian church in the middle of the plains.

And here's another favorite quote from page 80: "The world will continue to give more and more responsibility to any woman who will accept it."

Someone has put a bright pink Post-It at the front, which I finally figured out was an assignment of numbers to the chapters.

I gave the book a "9", even though I found the second part upsetting, because all of it was so unique and well-written, and because the socioeconomic details in the first part were so validating for me.

Mailing to irishajo later this morning.

Journal Entry 11 by tania-in-nc from Mooresville, North Carolina USA on Saturday, January 15, 2005
>>Someone has put a bright pink Post-It at the front, which I finally figured
out was an assignment of numbers to the chapters.

Hmmm - puts hands up bashfully -- that would be me! I forgot to remove it :)

Journal Entry 12 by irishajo from Teachey, North Carolina USA on Wednesday, January 19, 2005
I received this today, and look forward to getting started on it soon. Thanks!

Journal Entry 13 by irishajo from Teachey, North Carolina USA on Wednesday, February 16, 2005
I kept this book longer than I intended because I had trouble tracking down someone to send it on to! Looks like Suefitz is MIA so ArizonaFyre will be getting it next.

I did not read the entire book, only the first few chapters, and I found myself drifting off to sleep each time I did. I don't know if that had more to do with my lack of attention span or the author's writing style (probably the former) but at any rate, I am sorry I did not enjoy it as much as others have. Just the thought of being so far from 'civilization' freaked me out a little! Anyway, this is going out in the mail today.

Journal Entry 14 by ArizonaFyre from Superior, Arizona USA on Thursday, February 24, 2005
Received today and am looking forwarding to starting this journey.

Journal Entry 15 by florafloraflora on Saturday, December 24, 2005
OK, let's try this again.

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