Let's reflect on the halcyon days of July, when we had a lovely outdoor meeting at Deuce's "home place." The patio reflected the festive season, with star spangled banners and red, white, and blue tablecloths. The food was delicious, the wine was refreshing, and the Novel Spirits gathered to fellowship and discuss the biography of Mr. John Muir.
As the conversation turned from old and new business (see Baron's previous post wittily discussing same), things took a turn to the more confrontational nature that lies just beneath the surface of the jovial Novel Spirits. Cat, who submitted the book that was the topic of discussion, very thoughtfully emailed a crossword puzzle about John Muir's life in advance of the meeting. A brief awkward moment passed as the Spirits confessed one by one that each had not completed the assigned task. Fortunately, the tension was broken as Cat herself confessed that she, too, had not completed the crossword puzzle. (JB gets a gold star because I believe he was the only one to complete the puzzle. Cat also gets a gold star for thinking outside the box for a book discussion tool!)
The next note I have is "hated sheep (hoofed locusts)." It looks like Diesel had been taking note-taking lessons from me. If I recall correctly this comment refers to John Muir's hatred of sheep because of the damage they do to the land.
JB and Cat shared some photos of visiting John Muir's childhood home in Scotland. This led the discussion to how harsh John Muir's father was because he forced his children to work the farm and went through phases of barely feeding them. Luckily, John had his sister, Margaret, who was his best friend and who helped him pursue his interests. JB and Cat also visited John Muir's Wisconsin homestead, and in 2012 they visited his Northern California home.
Speaking of his Northern California home, we discussed how John Muir married rich, but wasn't comfortable managing his father in law's orchard business, even though he was very successful at it. Instead, he brought in his brothers to help with the business. Today a trail, a mountain, and a forest are named after him. Chief also shared with the group that John Muir appears on the California quarter.
From an early age, John Muir did not like being indoors. Some of his earliest encounters with nature were walks with his grandfather in Scotland when he was 2 years old. John's grandfather was much gentler and more tolerant that John's father.
We discussed many of John's early inventions - clocks, thermometers, and the bed that was displayed at the fair. An important turning point in John's life occurred when he feared he might lose his eyesight due to an accident that occurred while he was working at a sawmill. This led to John's most notable contributions, which were arguably his explorations of uncharted wilderness. He was an integral part of Yosemite becoming a National Park, and he was the first person to discover that Yosemite was formed by glaciers. John wrote about many of his discoveries and explorations, but, interestingly, writing did not come naturally to John, and he struggled to perfect his writings. A rift formed between John and one of his once close friends (whose name I have now forgotten, about the role of National Parks and how best to preserve the land. The other guy was in favor of preserving the land, but using it to benefit the people, by allowing animals to graze or by harvesting the timber, while John believed it should be preserved in its natural state without interference from mankind.
Somehow, over the past two months, I have misplaced the star rating that the spirits gave, but I think we all agreed that it was an interesting book about and interesting man. There was a bit of discussion about some of the criticisms that have been leveled at the biography, namely that the biographer was influenced by John Muir's family to write the biography in a flattering way and that she relied upon oral accounts with no corroboration. In my opinion, the book did seem a bit heavy on hero worship, but was an interesting read nonetheless.
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