Customer Reviews:
 Arctic Dreams. Barry Lopez. March 27, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Arctic Dreams is an extraordinary book, immediately a classic work of its genre, environmental nonfiction. Chapters focus on muskoxen, polar bears, narwhal, the migration of birds and of caribou, the otherworldly temporal states and unusual lighting and light-bending phenomenon of the northern polar regions, the mental and perceptual states of the northland's human residents and visitors, and the history of European and American/Canadian exploration, and exploitation, of the arctic. Lopez examines the artic with a careful and attentive eye, recognizing its subtleties and mysteries and not demanding that they be reduced to something that the reader will feel he has brought fully within his or her understanding. The writing is appropriate to the subject in view; alert, unhurried, and deliberate.
"One of our long-lived cultural differences with the Eskimo has been over whether to accept the land as it is or to exert the will to change it into something else. The great task of life for the traditional Eskimo is still to achieve congruence with a reality that is already given. The given reality, the real landscape, is 'horror within magnificence, absurdity within intelligibility, suffering within joy,' in the words of Albert Schweitzer. We do not esteem as highly these lessons in paradox. We hold in higher regard the land's tractability, its alterability. We believe the conditions of the earth can be changed to ensure human happiness, to provide jobs and to create material wealth and ease. Each culture, then, finds a different sort of apotheosis, of epiphany, and comfort in the land." (from the epilogue)
On page 406 of my 1986 edition, Lopez writes, "The European culture from which the ancestors of many of us came has yet to . . . understand the wisdom, preserved in North America, that lies in the richness and sanctity of a wild landscape, what it can mean in the unfolding of human life, the staying of a troubled human spirit." If there is a 'short list' of great environmental nonfiction, this book is on it.
Good Arctic Study January 18, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a really good book. I think the author's ability to describe the Arctic environment and its inhabitants in glorious detail. Each chapter is devoted entirely to an Arctic creature or an environmental characteristic or to some historical context. My favorite chapter by far is "Ice and Light". In this chapter we get, I think, the most detailed description to be found on the colors of icebergs, flora, fauna, sea, and general landscape of the Arctic. In addition to that, we get an added bonus (especially for you astro-geeks out there). Lopez delves into the atmospheric phenomena that occur in and around the Arctic. I found this section to be truly amazing. The occurrence of these atmospheric effects resulted in some unique sightings by early explorers only to be later attributed to these phenomena. All in all, this is a really good read.
One of my favorites... January 8, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
My favorite book, since I was in high school, has been Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire. I never thought any book I ever read could trump the drama and emotion of that book, but Arctic Dreams is its equal, if not its superior. I do admit I am biased. This book is like a life story of a person I have been in love with for my entire life. I've read a ton of books on the Arctic, and this is one of the best.
Each chapter encompasses a different part of the Arctic: to name a few, polar bears, narwhals, muskoxen, migration patterns, ice and light, Pingkok Island...every chapter, every word, every phrase in this book sticks. You cannot read this book without imagining an intensely beautiful place. The book also contains large chunks of Arctic history, of which Lopez seems to be a huge fan. He refers to expeditions, scientists, discoveries, famous explorers and researchers of the North, and also speaks of everyday people, everyday encounters, and thoughts and feelings all people experience at one point or another. The book is written with a combination of frankness and fascination that is difficult to describe. The book's chapters also touch on many different places in the North, from Alaska to Banks Island to Baffin Island to Greenland, Svalbard, Franz Josef Land, Kendall Island, and many more. The book is a story of an enormous part of the world, combining history, philosophy, science, literature, sociology, and a great deal of personal reflection.
Maybe only someone completely obsessed with the Arctic could enjoy the book so completely. Maybe not. I've read some other reviews, and people who have read the book simply to learn something new have enjoyed it just as much as avid fans of the Arctic. There are a million things that make Arctic Dreams one of the best books I've ever read in my life. There is currently a copy on Amazon for $5.10. You can't buy anything as good as this for such a small amount. It's impossible. I'll read and re-read this book over and over throughout my life, and find something new every single time..
Extensive account on wildlife too.... September 7, 2005
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I especially liked his account of polar bears, harp seals and whales and their intermingling relationships. His description of how he perceived his surroundings made me feel as if I was there! In fact, it made me book a 10-day trip to Alaska in order to escape the stresses of city-living for a while! I was somewhat surprised by the chapter on Eskimos and a thorough discussion of their origin since I had expected this book to be a travelogue at best. Of course, it is much more. The chapter on Ice and Light, for instance, is outstanding and has probably the best description I have read on the Northern Lights (or Aurora Borealis)!!!
Desert Island book April 28, 2004
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
Funny that a book about the Arctic would be on my "Desert Island" list, but this is one of the most effecting things I've read in my life. It's one thing to write a book about a region that explains it to the reader. It's quite another thing to write a book about a region that truly makes you feel as if you are there, that you understand it, that you "get it". The Eskimos have something like 25 words for snow. They can draw incredibly detailed maps of coastlines, from memory. On and on, the people and places are introduced to you, like visitors to your home, and you really begin to understand what it is to live in such a cold, beautiful place. The story of one Eskimo hunter will never leave me: he was hunting, and somehow became stranded on a broken off piece of ice. It floated away, with him on it, into the mist. All he had was his knife, made of bone. His friends searched for him, to no avail, and he was given up for dead. But he came back, years later, in a kayak he'd made, fully outfitted with warm clothes he'd also made, fat and happy and completely in tune with his environment, absolutely as at home there as the polar bear. He could make everything he needed, just from what this supposedly "barren" wasteland provided. That may not sound like much, but put yourself in his shoes (or mukluks) and you'll begin to feel the cold and the quiet close in around you. That's what this book does for you. It puts you there.
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