Raban, Jonathan. The Bad Land: an American Romance.
In honor of both the month Montana became a state and National Train Month I put Bad Land on my list. It reads like a river. Some parts read like racing rapids while others slow to languid pools of near stillness. Then there are the waterfalls, where the language is cascading awe-inspiring. It was during these “waterfall” sections that I wanted to pack a bag and head west, just to see it for myself.
Raban helps you look at Montana from the point of view of the immigrant (emigrant), the artist, the ancestor, the traveler, the naturalist. Like standing back from a canvas to discover hidden colors. It’s a historical story, lyrically descriptive and informative. It’s a biography of the landscape as well as the people settled there at the turn of the century.
Favorite lines:”…mouth like a mailbox” (p 67).
“Mrs. Nemitz, scenting sarcasm, put his face on trial for a split second, but found it not guilty” (p 104).
“It’s exhilarating and scary, to lighten ship every so often, to kiss goodbye to the accumulated tonnage of ones life so far” (p 114)
“now the book is full of brittle ghosts” (p 136).
BookLust Twist: Mentioned twice in Book Lust. Once in the chapter called “Montana: In Big Sky Country” (p 156)…in which Pearl calls Bad Land “the best book about Montana by a non-Montanan” (p 157); and “Riding the Rails: Railroad History” (p 201).
~*LunaSea*~ 