44th out of 174 books
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160 voters
The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature
Anthropologist and naturalist Loren Eiseley blends scientific knowledge and imaginative vision in this story of man.
Paperback, 224 pages
Published
January 12th 1959
by Vintage
(first published 1946)
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Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and History of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, Loren Eiseley (1907–1977) was a prairie child growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska, son of a hardware-salesman father and a deaf mother, his parents living together but estranged. Something in their relationship made a tortured poet out of Eisely, for in his books there is a quest, a haunted imagination of eternity and the infinite, all of it filtered through the long shadow of geological epochs and...more
i have fond memories of reading loren eiseley in the late 1960s. one of my fondest memories is that i was reading either this book or 'night country' when i first met the late science fiction writer, philip k dick.
a friend at cal state hayward [that's what it was called long before it changed names to it's present one -CSUEB] felt that eiseley was 'too deep' for me at the grand old age of 21. he brought this friend of his to one of our 'nickolodoen nights' - a group of us played gin rummy and e...more
a friend at cal state hayward [that's what it was called long before it changed names to it's present one -CSUEB] felt that eiseley was 'too deep' for me at the grand old age of 21. he brought this friend of his to one of our 'nickolodoen nights' - a group of us played gin rummy and e...more
I have never seen anything like this guy in science (fiction) writing. This writing is a kaleidoscope of space, time, and evolution. Bizarre, dense, Klein-bottle twisted metaphor flies by so quickly one is, at first, tempted to dismiss what he is saying as mystical nonsense. Then it starts to make sense, after you stare at it for a while, in the manner of those 3D stereograms I always saw inverted. Or how, in darkling light, rough ground can look like it is flat with a 2D pattern on it. Could he...more
3 1/2 stars.
This is a hard book for me to rate.
It started off really strong (first five essays), I lost a little bit of interest & got annoyed around the middle, and it ended strong--the last three essays being especially good.
I guess this means, looking back over the chapters, that what worked for me was his perspectives on nature as a whole--water, earth, plants, animals, the long process of evolution, wonderings about various aspects of our world. What I didn't like so much was when he st...more
This is a hard book for me to rate.
It started off really strong (first five essays), I lost a little bit of interest & got annoyed around the middle, and it ended strong--the last three essays being especially good.
I guess this means, looking back over the chapters, that what worked for me was his perspectives on nature as a whole--water, earth, plants, animals, the long process of evolution, wonderings about various aspects of our world. What I didn't like so much was when he st...more
A little less revelatory than The Night Country, my favorite Eiseley book so far; still worth reading.
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With the rise of the truly human brain, Wallace saw that man had transferred to his machines and tools many of the alterations of parts that in animals take places through evolution of the body. Unwittingly, man had assigned to his machines the selective evolution which in the animal changes the nature of its bodily structure through...more
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With the rise of the truly human brain, Wallace saw that man had transferred to his machines and tools many of the alterations of parts that in animals take places through evolution of the body. Unwittingly, man had assigned to his machines the selective evolution which in the animal changes the nature of its bodily structure through...more
A 1940s thunderclap of imagining evolution and countering people who don't want to believe it. Thoughtful, sublime anecdotes. Eiseley writes longingly about his desire to see intelligent life crawl out of the mud, literally. It made me want to go look at the mud, in a good way. I had to keep reminding myself that this was originally written in 1946, and how strange it must have seemed to readers then. It compares nicely to Annie Dillard and even Michael Pollan, both writers I've read and admired...more
"Some lands are flat and grass-covered, and smile so evenly up at the sun that they seem forever youthful, untouched by man or time. Some are torn, ravaged and convulsed like the features of profane old age. Rocks are wrenched up and exposed to view; black pits receive the sun but give back no light. It was to such a land I rode, but I rode it across a sunlit, timeless prairie . . ."
Breathtaking landscapes and language, prompting "nostalgic yearnings for some islands outside of time" where creat...more
Breathtaking landscapes and language, prompting "nostalgic yearnings for some islands outside of time" where creat...more
I read this book many years ago and enjoyed it just as much this time. Eiseley was a paleontologist who thought deeply and vividly imaged the past. With his mind uncluttered by electronic noise he would spend long days digging in remote areas, imagining the ancient creatures and their environments whose bones he was uncovering. His reflections are full of awe for the workings of nature, for the amazing reality of life, wondering about the process of evolution. His insight into the process of the...more
Eiseley is a soulful scientist. He looks at the natural world with a good measure of soulful fascination and wonder along with the empiricism which should be the trademark of every true scientist. These essays tell, in essence, the story of humans. It's a story full of pitfalls as supposedly empirical scientists hold on to fixed beliefs (play the dogmatic scholar if you will) as they interpret the fossil record. Beyond the details of the story is the passion Eiseley feels for it. One of the essa...more
Although the sexist language of the book and its scientific positivism dates it somewhat, Loren Eiseley's The Immense Journey remains a classic. He narrates a history of the human species in the context of life on this planet throughout the scope of time. Glimpsed through his eyes, we can see the improbable and amazing persistence and adaptability of life in the face of eons of inhospitable conditions and successful and failed experiments. I found it a fascinating lens with which to consider exi...more
Simply the most beautiful science writing I have ever read. An “imaginative naturalist,” according to the cover of his book, The Immense Journey. An anthropologist, a scholar, a poet, a genius. Eiseley wears all of these hats. He observes the story of life unfolding throughout history, recounting some of it to us in his own story. “Forward and backward I have gone, and for me it has been an immense journey” (p 13). By the time we read these words we have come to realize that Eiseley is not just...more
Aug 10, 2007
Dan
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
people interested in biology, Jared Diamond Fans
I really liked this book.
This book is the story of life on planet earth, it is a discussion of evolution. It is high level, and doesn't really go into lots of detail. But what it lacks in detail it more than makes up for in its narrative style, which is very well applied to the story of evolution. This story has what some may label a tendency to "anthropomorphise" animals, because he discusses animals making decisions. However, I think that this is a misnomer. This book casts evolution in the co...more
This book is the story of life on planet earth, it is a discussion of evolution. It is high level, and doesn't really go into lots of detail. But what it lacks in detail it more than makes up for in its narrative style, which is very well applied to the story of evolution. This story has what some may label a tendency to "anthropomorphise" animals, because he discusses animals making decisions. However, I think that this is a misnomer. This book casts evolution in the co...more
A series of essays by a notable figure who died in 1977, some of which feel quite out-of-date. Nevertheless, this particular volume published first in the nineteen forties was the writing that catapulted Eiseley into the limelight as a humanist-scientist for several decades. He wrote extensively and left a mark that may have lessened, but has not been lost. I much preferred reading his Excavation of a Life, a sort of memoir, as a way of getting acquainted with the person and his writing.
This week someone on the radio said that the public can't help make wise decisions about science unless there are scientists who can write about it very well, for non-scientists. Very true, and here is such a book. Though it was written in the 1940s and 50s, it's a beautiful, poetic account of natural history. The two most startling things I learned are that humans have extended childhoods (compared to other animals) in part because it takes that long for the brain to grow enough (it has to treb...more
A beautiful work of meditations on the natural world and the human journey through it, pervaded by a kind of tragic sensibility that isn't usually associated with nature or science writing, but is thoroughly wise and appropriate. This book sat unread on my shelf for years, what a loss! I'm so grateful I finally picked it up; it's a touchstone now.
Aug 09, 2010
Michael Moore
added it
If you like naturalist Stephen Jay Gould then you'll like Eiseley who is sort of like a prequel to Gould. Eiseley's enthusiasm for nature is catching. His chapter on how flowers changed the world might be dated to the new crop of naturalists but I'll bet none of them have his awe. I would call Eiseley a prose version of Mary Oliver.
First published in 1957, this book was a huge influence on me and my writing.
Eiseley illustrates the fine line between science and art. He was an anthropologist, ecologist and poet and wrote what he called “concealed essays.” And I might add, they were beautifully written.
In “The Immense Journey,” principally about the history of humanity, Eiseley’s lyric prose flows. Here’s an excerpt:
"Perpetually, now, we search and bicker and disagree. The eternal form eludes us—the shape we conceive as ours...more
Eiseley illustrates the fine line between science and art. He was an anthropologist, ecologist and poet and wrote what he called “concealed essays.” And I might add, they were beautifully written.
In “The Immense Journey,” principally about the history of humanity, Eiseley’s lyric prose flows. Here’s an excerpt:
"Perpetually, now, we search and bicker and disagree. The eternal form eludes us—the shape we conceive as ours...more
"Every spring in the wet meadows and ditches I hear a little shrilling chorus which sounds for all the world like an endlessly reiterated "We're here, we're here, we're here," And so they are, as frogs, of course. Confident little fellows, I suspect that to some greater ear than ours, man's optimistic pronouncements about his role and destiny may make a similar little ringing sound that travels a small way out into the night. It is only its nearness that is offensive. From the heights of a mount...more
A beautiful collection of essays by scientist-philosopher-poet Loren Eisley. My favorite is the one where Eisley floats down the Platte River. I wish I could write like this: “The sky wheeled over me. For an instant, as I bobbed into the main channel, I had the sensation of sliding down the vast tilted face of the continent. It was then I felt the cold needles of the alpine springs at my fingertips, and the warmth of the Gulf pulling me southward. Moving with me, leaving its taste upon my mouth...more
A collection of essays on evolution, the history of science, and nature in general. The harmony of intellect and emotion is something really special. Eisely has a way of taking the seemingly commonplace and making you look at it as if for the first time - and of course, it suddenly doesn't seem so commonplace anymore. Sometimes he uses this gift to challenge anthropocentrist or racist ideas in a way that seems ahead of his time, though he is not entirely free of them himself. Some of the science...more
This is one of my favorite books. If I could give it 12-stars I would! Loren Eiseley was a naturalist and anthropologist but beyond that, he received numerous awards for his beautiful writing style and was considered a man of letters. Each chapter is a complete story and accounts one of his many fascinating adventures. If you're an animal and nature lover, and fascinated by anthropology, you too will love this book. It touched my heart.
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Loren Corey Eiseley (September 3, 1907 – July 9, 1977) was a highly respected anthropologist, science writer, ecologist, and poet. He published books of essays, biography, and general science in the 1950s through the 1970s.
Eiseley is best known for the poetic essay style, called the "concealed essay". He used this to explain complex scientific ideas, such as human evolution, to the general public....more
More about Loren Eiseley...
Eiseley is best known for the poetic essay style, called the "concealed essay". He used this to explain complex scientific ideas, such as human evolution, to the general public....more
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“The need is not really for more brains, the need is now for a gentler, a more tolerant people than those who won for us against the ice, the tiger and the bear. The hand that hefted the ax, out of some old blind allegiance to the past fondles the machine gun as lovingly. It is a habit man will have to break to survive, but the roots go very deep.”
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“This is the most enormous extension of vision of which life is capable: the projection of itself into other lives. This is the lonely, magnificent power of humanity. It is . . . the supreme epitome of the reaching out.”
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Oct 22, 2012 02:01pm