Monday, December 21, 2009

foreboding

"It was still hot back in Mississippi and in Texas, where I used to live, but it was already cold up in the mountains, up in the North, in this place where I was going to start a new life. The immediate, pressing problem, I realized, was that winter was perhaps a month away. I knew nothing about winter. I had never seen it before, and I felt dizzy with fear, giddy with wonder, anticipating it.

The dogs, I could tell, were worried too, and missed Mississippi. I could tell they thought I was making a mistake."

Rick Bass, "Winter"

3 comments:

Andrew Campbell said...

MDMNM: thanks for quoting from what, I think, is Rick's best book. He has always had a great sense of place -- arguably what makes 'Winter' such a great book is the understanding of how much season changes a location into someplace else.

A.

mdmnm said...

Andrew,

I enjoyed "Winter" a lot as well. I started reading Bass back in the 80's with "The Deer Pasture", which is a really nice piece of Texicana, and "Wild to the Heart", essays about a wilderness junkie living in Mississippi and grabbing bits of mountain time whenever he could.

Andrew Campbell said...

Same here... I have more of Rick's books than any other author... His accent is pretty funky as an ex-pat Texan, but hearing him read (from 'Colter') added a whole lot to how I read/heard his books.

all best for 2010
Andrew