Baer’s Phineas Poe trilogy, three loosely-connected novels about their titular dysfunctional detective, ache with Baer’s precise analogies, knife-like turns of phrase, and literary experimentalism that is so à propos as to make the novels unimaginable otherwise. Baer doesn’t stop there: His novels are deeply rooted in both the modernist and the noir traditions, and he marries both the solid storytelling and plot-centricity of the pulp novel and the language-driven psychoanalysis of James Joyce at his finest. Baer is a literary mastermind fit to usher in our favorite “authors out-of-the-mainstream.”
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Wade Davis: A Scholar’s Moving Literary Masterpiece
January 4th, 2011
It is a rare occurrence that a profound thinker, writer (and in this case, a National Geographic Anthropologist) can put words
to paper that vehemently destroy our ability not to feel. And when this happens – it’s magic.
Passage from Light at the Edge of the World by Wade Davis:
The Penan are so profoundly different… They have no writing, so their total vocabulary at any one time is the knowledge of the best storyteller. There is one word for ‘he,’ ‘she,’ and ‘it,’ but six for ‘we.’ There are at least eight words for sago, because it is the plant that allows them to survive. Sharing is an obligation so there is no word for ‘thank you.’’ They can name hundreds of trees but there is no word for ‘forest.’ Their universe is divided between… ‘land of shade’…‘land of abundance’…’ land that has been destroyed.’ …
LIGHT AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD >>
Wade Davis has degrees in anthropology and biology and a Ph.D. in ethnobotany from Harvard. He has accomplished many other works including two of our personal favorites: The Serpent and the Rainbow and the Clouded Leopard. All of his books have been rated between 4 1/2 and 5 stars by Amazon readers – we rate him at ten across the board.
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