THIS
HOUSE
OF SKY
Landscapes of a
Western Mind
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THIS
HOUSE
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"This haunting, magnificently written book introduced an important American writer. Ivan Doig grew up in the rugged, elemental Montana wilderness with his father, Charlie, and his grandmother, Bessie Ringer. His life was formed among the sheepherders and the characters of small-town saloons and valley ranches as he wandered beside his restless father. What Doig deciphers from his past with piercing clarity is not only a raw sense of the land and how it shapes us, but also of the ties to our mothers and fathers, to those who love us, and our inextricable connection to those who shaped our values in the search for intimacy, independence, love, and family. This powerfully told story is at once especially American and quietly universal in its ability to awaken a longing for an explicable past."
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So reads the cover of the book for which this web page is named. "This House of Sky," by Ivan Doig, along with "A Prayer for Owen Meany," by John Irving, "Love Medicine," by Louise Erdrich, "The Hobbit" by JRR Tolken and "The Bible," are all books that have brought me to a realization of who and what I am. Each of these books led me to new understanding of my life, it's weaknesses and strengths, it realities and unrealities, it's built-in pain and joy. Reading is always a pleasure, and reading a great book, like any of the afore mentioned, is close to perfect. I hope you have had the opportunity to read all of these great books. If you haven't, do yourself a favor and borrow one from the library today. |
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This is an excerpt from "This House of Sky." I put it here so that you can get a taste of Doig's style and flavor. This is only the beginning......
A moment, cup your hands together and look down into them, and there is a ready map of what these homesteading families had in mind. The contours and life lines in your palms make the small gulches and creeks angling into the center of the Basin. The main flow of water, Spring Creek, drops down to squirt out there where the bases of your palms meet, the pass called Spring Gulch. Toward these middle crinkles, the settlers clustered in for sites close to water and, they hoped, under the wind. The braid of lines, now, which runs square across between palms and wrists can be Sixteenmile Creek, the canyoned flow which gives the entire rumpled region its name--the Sixteen country. Thumbs and the upward curl of your fingers represent the mountains and steep ridges all around. Cock the right thumb a bit outward and it reigns as Wall Mountain does. prowing its rimrock out and over the hollowed land below. And on all that cupping rim of unclaimed high country, the Scots families surely instructed one another time and again, countless bands of sheep could find summer grass (Doig 23-24)Doig, Ivan. This House of Sky. HBJ: New York. 1978.
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