Fire Season by Philip Connors

Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout

By Philip Connors

Copyright 2011

HarperCollins - Nature/Memoir/History

256 pages

I started out writing down quotes only, thinking I'd break up a review of Fire Season into 2 parts because it is the most Post-it filled book I've read in a long time. And, then I got overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of quotes that I loved and couldn't figure out how to narrow down so I thought, "Okay, I'll skip on to the review."

Let me just say this: Fire Season is now my #1 read of 2011. I loved it so much that I am ridiculously intimidated by the prospect of reviewing it and I've been putting it off for over a week. I've decided there's little hope unless I shoot for the self-interview, my salvage method of choice. Today, I will be interviewed by Isabel because she's handy. For anyone who happens to be dropping in and who may be unfamiliar with Isabel, she's the youngest of my two cats.

Bookfool: Welcome, Isabel. I hope you've recovered from playing with your bird-on-a-stick.

Isabel: Y-A-W-N. It's very possible that was not "play" but "torment". Okay, human, on to the interview. Tell us a little about Fire Season.

BF: Fire Season is the memoir of a man who has worked as a lookout in the Gila National Forest for 8 summer seasons, watching for fire. But, it's not just about what it's like living alone and keeping watch in the tower, why he has chosen this job and what he does to fill his time.

Isabel: What else is Fire Season about?

BF: It's also about the history of wilderness preservation and fire suppression, the beauty of nature (including how we humans have, a.) screwed it up and b.) made a lot of excuses about people needing what's in nature for our use to justify destruction), people who have fought for nature or worked as lookouts in the past, how the author spends his time off in the wilderness, and the kind of people who hike through his remote lookout area.

Izzy: How is the book laid out?

BF: Each section of the book is divided by month, beginning with April and ending in August. While you're learning about all that other nature/history/bio jazz, you're also spending a season in the Gila with the author.

Izzy: Must take bath.

BF: Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Back?

Izzy: Yes. How about a quote or passage to show what it was that you loved about the book?

BF: Okay. Here's one:

In early afternoon I follow the formation of dust devils through my field glasses. Their manic life and sudden death seem to me a fruitful field of inquiry when the mind bogs down in solipsism. Far off on the desert floor, where once a great inland sea bubbled, the earth rises to the dance. Scorched by sun and scoured by wind, the ancient seabed surrenders itself to points east, eventually to be washed to the Gulf in the current of the Rio Grande.

Amid a forest that burns and a desert that dances -- 20,000 square miles of cruel and magnificent country -- I turn back, at the end of the day, to the earth beneath my feet. As May begins, wild candytuft bloom beneath the pine and fir, the first of the season's wildflowers to show their color. A relic turns up one evening in the dirt, not far from the base of my tower: a Mimbres potsherd, white with black pattern, well more than 800 years old. I am given to understand that the people once gathered in the high places and brought with them their crockery. They sacrificed their pots by smashing them to earth in hopes the sky gods would grant rain. Clearly I am not alone in my communion here with sky. Far from it. The ravens and the vultures have me beat by 200 feet, the Mimbrenos by most of a millennium. And who's to say the motes of dust don't feel joy, if only for a moment, as they climb up into the sky and ride the transport winds.

--from p. 68 of Fire Season (Uncorrected Proof - some changes may have been made to the final print version)

See how he seamlessly places you in the wilderness, blending his experience with a little nature, a little history? There is such a vivid sense of place. Wait! One more paragraph . . . the next one, actually:

Like all lookouts, I pursue diversionary measures, little games or physical routines or time-devouring hobbies that give form to the days and let me escape the holding cell of my own thoughts, particularly when those thoughts begin to circle on the metaphysics of whirling dirt. Gary Snyder practiced calligraphy and meditation. Edward Abbey pitched horseshoes with his pa on the rim of the Grand Canyon. Jack Kerouac studied the Diamond Sutra, wrote an epic letter to his mother. If I were a more dutiful son I'd do the same. Instead I shoot Frisbee golf.

--pp. 68-69

Don't you love the author, already? He somehow not only manages to give meaning to every flower, tree, fish, mammal and puff of smoke; he also has a sense of humor. Also, I need to go back and write down a few vocabulary words, which is always a positive. I think most of us love it when an author challenges us with a higher-minded vocabulary, don't we? Care recently mentioned and defined the word "sinecure", which she found in a book she read, The Doctor's Plague; and, I was surprised to see it on page 99 of Fire Season:

How could I refuse such a sweet summer sinecure? Sinecure means (in case you're too lazy to hit the link), "A position requiring little or no work but giving the holder status or financial benefit."

Izzy: Tell me the worst-best thing about the book.

BF: For you: the dog. The author's dog, Alice, accompanies him to his lookout job. It's great fun to read about Alice's adventures, how she becomes an entirely different creature from the dog that she is at home when she leaves her house for life in the Gila. She does a lot of exploring, sometimes getting a little too close to creatures like bears, but no harm comes to her. She's a great character. Unless, of course, you're a cat.

Izzy: Ewww. Dogs. Uck.

BF: You'll like this quote:

Experience with the dogs of family and friends indicated that they were odoriferous, overbearing beasts, dedicated to immediate gratification of whatever urge bubbled up in their tiny little brains, their owners perversely in need of unconditional love and mindless diversion. But Martha [the author's wife] kept telling me her existence felt unnatural without a dog -- she'd had one all through her childhood and most of college -- and what kind of husband would I be to force an unnatural existence upon my wife, or at least more unnatural than the one I've already foisted on her? My hundred-day sojourn on a mountain each summer makes our marriage unusual enough. I suppose in some way Alice represented a compromise, whereby I'd continue to be that rare creature, a married lookout, and Martha would be compensated with a canine companion in the family unit. Now that Alice has been in our lives for three years, I see her for what she truly is: an odoriferous, overbearing beast dedicated to immediate gratification of whatever urge bubbles up in her tiny little brain, and a reliable and even comforting source of unconditional love and mindless diversion.

Also, she's pretty cute.

--pp. 109-110

Izzy: It was great until he said she's cute. So, what's the bottom line? Your brief opinion of the book?

BF: Deep breath. Sigh. Wonderful, beautifully written, informative, entertaining, often humorous . . . a book I love so much that I want to buy the hardback and put it on the good shelves.

Izzy: Confessions?

BF: While I am not good with the great outdoors because of allergies and a distaste for bugs (they like to eat me!) and therefore am a Camping Failure and could not possibly fathom doing Philip Connors' job -- apart from the solitary aspect, which I'm pretty good at handling -- I loved being there with him, experiencing the beauty through his eyes. And, I appreciate the fact that I didn't have to smell awful to do so.

Also, I am a nature freak; let's face it. I love his philosophies about nature and life. I have no trouble putting aside my cell phone (this is, according to husband and Kiddo, "a problem") and I don't even like television. I'd much rather be in a cabin in the mountains -- taking photos and dipping into nature, taking long walks . . . and then sleeping in a bed at night -- than hopping in a car to go everywhere. So, Fire Season is a book I can embrace not only because of the wonderful blend of history, memoir and nature, but also because I agree with just about every word the author has to say about conservation.

I am, at heart, a tree-hugger. I'm all for preserving what little is left to save and people who have no interest in saving nature frankly baffle me.

Izzy: Wow, opinionated, aren't we? Also, thank you for letting me use your toes as a boost to climb into the window when you bored me, during this interview.

BF: You're welcome. Thank you for letting me use your fuzzy belly to photograph my copy of Fire Season for the sake of showing why my readers would be here all night long if I copied every quote I love.

Izzy: Oh, dear. That looks kind of rude. I forgive you. And . . . I have to go chase rattle balls, now. Goodbye!

BF: Bye, tiny kitty. Closing words: If you like solidly written nonfiction about nature or history, memoirs (the good kind, lacking arrogance), or can think of any other excuse . . . buy this book!!!

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