Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona by Tom Zoellner

A boundary is not that at which something stops, but that from which something begins. -- Martin Heidegger

In Heidegger at the Grand Canyon, an essay, in Rim to River, about his trek through, the awesomeness of, and some history of the Grand Canyon, Zoellner admits his defeat, just as every writer, photographer, painter and every other artist, to capture the magnificence of Arizona's geographic icon. Nevertheless, this author does, perhaps better than anyone, capture the essence in words.  

[One's] first view into the gorge assaults the eye with detail and color, overwhelming the mind's capacity to focus on any one point... a geological supernova quilled with soaring pillars, rounded temples, fallen battlements, gigantic toadstools, and high walls lacquered in colors of apricot, lava, bisque, mulberry, and umber. The canvas is so orchestral the viewer almost expects to hear urgent cymbals, bellowing woodwinds, and shouting arias from a Wagnerian end of the world. But the canyon keeps a terrible silence.

And there goes another attempt to translate the inexpressible sight of the Grand Canyon into the sanity of language. [...]

The Grand Canyon is only an extension of one of the oldest ontological questions, which most people confront at some point. How can we understand anything at all? "A view of the canyon puts that matter directly in front of the visitor like a sledgehammer to the face, the question usually shelved away into the far corners of conscious thought." pgs 24-26

Perhaps it is merciful that we cannot really see the Grand Canyon. It is Arizona's most famous signpost into the unspeakable, the death of rationality, which is really just an unwelcome challenge to our tiny human view: the drunkenness of ordinary life jolted for a brief moment into awestruck sobriety. p.33 

 

Tom Zoellner has the legs of Muir, the heart of Steinbeck, the eyes of Didion, the pen of Caro. Masterful must-read. -- Gustavo Arellano, author of Orange Count: A Personal History (from the back cover of Rim to River)