A Conscious Stillness: Two Naturalists on Thoreau's Rivers

by Ann Zwinger

Book Overview

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060150025
• ISBN13: 9780060150020
• Release Date: January 1982
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 243 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Two rivers flow into one

The Assabet and Sudbury rivers begin on opposite edges of the town of Westborough, Massachusetts, and eventually wind around to meet in Concord to form the river of the same name. That's the short version of the story. On maps and in real life, their paths and histories are much more intricate. In the late 1970s, naturalists Edwin Way Teale and Ann Zwinger decided to follow the course of each river -- piecemeal, and mostly by canoe -- from its source to the confluence. Their experiences and observations culminate in this natural history and travel narrative. But this is not just the story of two divergent rivers, one industrial and one agricultural. It's also the tale of two naturalists, both of whom grew up in Indiana. Here Teale was at the end of his career -- indeed, he died before this book was finished -- and had made his home in Connecticut. Zwinger was closer to the beginning of her work and spent her time at a homestead called "Constant Friendship" in Colorado. He was an observer, she was a collector. She cheered for the predators; he, for the prey. Yet their devotion to nature and to Thoreau brought them together to make this journey. The book begins as both authors survey the eastern Bay State landscape from above, in an airplane that cruises over the rivers at 3,000 feet. From that point on, the chapters follow an unusual pattern: Teale describes their encounters on the Sudbury, then Zwinger does the same for the Assabet. In this see-saw fashion, the chapters advance the trips on both rivers from Westborough to Concord. It's a disconcerting style to get used to, and it takes a bit of adjustment and savvy on the reader's part to switch back and forth between the two voices and the two rivers. Zwinger's outline maps help us keep track in that regard. And so they travel, telling us of the townspeople and histories, birds and bridges, plants and insects, turtles and frogs, and the way the water ripples around the canoe. There are some gems here, and we hear about them in spite of meeting recurrent highway noise, dams, mills, wastewater treatment plants, bobbing shotgun shells, and discarded washing machines and baby carriages along the way. Appropriate observations from Thoreau are interspersed throughout. The text is accompanied by Teale's b & w photos and Zwinger's signature plant sketches. We get a full picture of the landscape as a result. When the two riverine paths meet at Egg Rock in Concord, it's anti-climactic. The chapters break off, and we're left wanting more. Teale and Zwinger had planned to finish the book with a section on the Concord River, but it was not to be. The younger naturalist assembled a book from the notes that they both took -- certainly a daunting task, given the circumstances. Knowing that, the reader can probably forgive the abruptness of the ending. 25 years have passed since Teale and Zwinger traced these rivers. What changes have taken place since then, one wonders? Are portion