UGA Press: Always the Mountains • Rothenberg


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Always the Mountains
David Rothenberg

A writer embraces the tough and often ignored questions about our place on earth

Over the past decade, David Rothenberg has emerged as one of our most eloquent observers of the interplay between nature, culture, and technology. These nineteen works exemplify what has been called Rothenberg's "amiable" mix of interests, styles, and approaches. He moves effortlessly among nature writing, Eastern and Western philosophy, and environmental advocacy. "Go against the grain of species," Rothenberg beckons to us, "and think for more than for ourselves."

In settings that range from wildest Norway to his own front porch in upstate New York, Rothenberg discusses the Hudson River School of painters, the hazy provenance of Chief Seattle's famous speech, ecoterrorism, suburbia, the World Wide Web, and much more. He asks if we can save a place less obtrusively than by turning it into a park. He muses on the plight of a pacifist beset by a swarm of mosquitoes. He ascends Mt. Ventoux with Petrarch and Mt. Katahdin with Thoreau.

In Always the Mountains, Rothenberg dares us to "enjoy the fundamental uncertainty that grounds human existence," to wean ourselves from the habit of simple answers and embrace the world's vastness.

David Rothenberg is a philosopher, musician, and writer. He is the author of Why Birds Sing, which will be published in five languages and has been turned into a BBC television series. His other books include Sudden Music (Georgia), Hand's End, and Blue Cliff Record. His essays have appeared in such publications as Parabola, The Nation, Wired, Dwell, Sierra, and Orion. Rothenberg's five CDs, on which he plays clarinet, include Before the War and Bangalore Wild. Rothenberg is professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

November 2002

ISBN 082032454X cloth • $29.95

296 pp. • 6 x 9 in.

"Engaging and profound, Always the Mountains marries information and imagination."
—Satish Kumar, author of Path Without Destination:The Long Walk of a Gentle Hero

"Years ago, I decided that I would never get to the center of things unless I went to the edge. David Rothenberg has changed my mind. He takes us on a leap off the edge and convinces me that this act is our only hope of finally getting some solid ground underneath our souls. Read this book and find a path to the only essential geography we can ever have. Song, of course, helps, as does love. But honesty is essential and this book has plenty of that. Here is the way to go home."
—Charles Bowden, author of Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder, and Family

"Rothenberg's mountain excursions are absolutely the best since Thoreau's Katahdin and Muir's The Mountains of California. His prose is effortless, yet anchored in granitic truth. Truly an inspiring alternative to the 'peak bagging,' heroic mountain climber tales that dominate the market. Every climber should read this book."
—Max Oelschlaeger, author of The Idea of Wilderness

"Stirring . . . Rothenberg explores our evolving attitudes-in literature, in philosphy-toward the lofty peaks that surround and inspire us."
—Jim Motavalli, E Magazine

"Rothenberg is concerned with what it means to be human, both in and out of nature; what it means to remove ourselves from nature, yet strive to preserve it. . . . Rothenberg's writing is by turns challenging, poetic, insightful."-Todd Paul, Chronogram

"Reading Always the Mountains is like hiking a trail with both friend and mentor, with every step a new discovery and subsequent, exciting conversation."-Terrain.org

"Philosopher, musician, and world traveler David Rothenberg uses this complex and perplexing human/nature dynamic as the organizing theme of his excellent new collection of eighteen essays and one poem, Always the Mountains."-David Keller, Catalyst

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