2008 Woodie Awards
'Truth' goes wild for a while
Ann Colwell - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 2/21/08 Section: Metro
Try this: go outside tonight, when it's bitterly cold and crisp. Get away from streetlights, and look up at the sky. If you can't contend with the frigidity, consider how close you are with some of your best friends or family members.
Iowa doesn't have much in the way of mountains or oceans, so it's easy to think of the wilderness as something far-removed from the life of the average resident. But when we contemplate the greatness of the things in our lives, writer Doug Thorpe says we're able to encounter a very tangible profundity. Thorpe reads Friday at Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque, from his book *Rapture of the Deep: Reflections on the Wild in Art, Wilderness and the Sacred*.
"This book is not specifically about the wild in a literal geographical sense of what we think of as wilderness," Thorpe said. "There's some kind of experience that a lot of people have when they are in the mountains or in the desert or by the ocean, that feels profound, feels deep and feels spiritual to some people."
*Rapture of the Deep*, released in Sept. 2007, comprises a series of essays about Thorpe's time spent in the Pacific Northwest, exploring nature with his wife and daughter on family backpacking vacations. The essays developed out of being together in such remote territory.
"Perhaps you can imagine what it's like to be in very remote wilderness in the mountains at night in the dark," he said, elaborating to create a vivid mental picture. "We did a lot of family reading on those trips, so sometimes there's nobody around, and you're many miles from the road. You're in a tent with your flashlight, reading aloud."
Don't be fooled by the stereotype - his themes may pay homage to Thoreau, and he definitely sounds like he could contend against Bear Grylls when it comes to intense survival. But Thorpe said he has to be honest: he doesn't know if he qualifies.
"I've really learned to love being outdoors, and backpacking has been a wonderful learning experience for me, but it doesn't come naturally," he said, chuckling a bit. A natural-borne Chicago suburbanite, Thorpe was an athlete, not a boy scout. "There's a lot of literal wilderness in the book, but I wouldn't want anybody to think I'm an expert in wilderness survival or whatever. I'm pretty normal actually - if I can do this, you can do this."
In fact, Thorpe insisted that these deep experiences are not limited by fresh air and sunshine. He picks up on a lot of similarities between the outdoors, great art and spirituality, and his book touches on the same kind of encounter in human relationships - "the most direct way we experience such depth."
"Those are the places where we are invited to be in the truth, which we long for and also avoid," the Seattle resident said. "There is a sort of sentimental understanding about falling in love and relationships. I think relationships can be very deep roads into experiencing our own truth and the truth of another person."
E-mail DI reporter Ann Colwell at:
ann-colwell@uiowa.edu
Iowa doesn't have much in the way of mountains or oceans, so it's easy to think of the wilderness as something far-removed from the life of the average resident. But when we contemplate the greatness of the things in our lives, writer Doug Thorpe says we're able to encounter a very tangible profundity. Thorpe reads Friday at Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque, from his book *Rapture of the Deep: Reflections on the Wild in Art, Wilderness and the Sacred*.
"This book is not specifically about the wild in a literal geographical sense of what we think of as wilderness," Thorpe said. "There's some kind of experience that a lot of people have when they are in the mountains or in the desert or by the ocean, that feels profound, feels deep and feels spiritual to some people."
*Rapture of the Deep*, released in Sept. 2007, comprises a series of essays about Thorpe's time spent in the Pacific Northwest, exploring nature with his wife and daughter on family backpacking vacations. The essays developed out of being together in such remote territory.
"Perhaps you can imagine what it's like to be in very remote wilderness in the mountains at night in the dark," he said, elaborating to create a vivid mental picture. "We did a lot of family reading on those trips, so sometimes there's nobody around, and you're many miles from the road. You're in a tent with your flashlight, reading aloud."
Don't be fooled by the stereotype - his themes may pay homage to Thoreau, and he definitely sounds like he could contend against Bear Grylls when it comes to intense survival. But Thorpe said he has to be honest: he doesn't know if he qualifies.
"I've really learned to love being outdoors, and backpacking has been a wonderful learning experience for me, but it doesn't come naturally," he said, chuckling a bit. A natural-borne Chicago suburbanite, Thorpe was an athlete, not a boy scout. "There's a lot of literal wilderness in the book, but I wouldn't want anybody to think I'm an expert in wilderness survival or whatever. I'm pretty normal actually - if I can do this, you can do this."
In fact, Thorpe insisted that these deep experiences are not limited by fresh air and sunshine. He picks up on a lot of similarities between the outdoors, great art and spirituality, and his book touches on the same kind of encounter in human relationships - "the most direct way we experience such depth."
"Those are the places where we are invited to be in the truth, which we long for and also avoid," the Seattle resident said. "There is a sort of sentimental understanding about falling in love and relationships. I think relationships can be very deep roads into experiencing our own truth and the truth of another person."
E-mail DI reporter Ann Colwell at:
ann-colwell@uiowa.edu
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