The Real Work: Interviews and Talks, 1964-1979

By Gary Snyder

Book Overview

The Real Work is the second volume of Gary Snyder's prose to be published by New Directions. Where his earlier Earth House Hold(1969) heralded the tribalism of the "coming revolution," the interviews in The Real Work focus on the living out of that process in a particular place and time--the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California in the 1970s. The talks and interviews collected here range over fifteen years (1964-79) and encompass styles as different as those of the Berkeley Barb and The New York Quarterly. A "poetics of process" characterizes these exchanges, but in the words of editor Mclean, their chief attraction is "good, plain talk with a man who has a lively and very subtle mind and a wide range of experience and knowledge."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811207617
• ISBN13: 9780811207614
• Release Date: August 1980
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Length: 189 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Knots in the grain: exploring 30 years of "the real work"

This collection is a companion volume to "Earth House Hold," his earlier group of interviews published up to 1969. "The Real Work" pulls together interviews from The Berkeley Barb, Road Apple, and East West publications, as well as an interview with John Jacoby of Southern Methodist University on the forms and functions of poetry. It's as far-ranging a collection as Snyder's lifelong interests -- the "real work" of living, creating, and conserving, the connection between spirituality and what Snyder calls "the bioregional ethic." For more formal essays on the individual's role in conservation, Snyder's 1990 book, "The Practice of the Wild," continues many of the themes explored in "The Real Work."

A different perspective

I've always preferred Gary Snyder's prose over his poetry. That is why this book is so good -- filled with essays and interviews, it manages to be simultaneously insightful and revolutionary.This work would be a great introduction to the work and politics of Gary Snyder. Even if you dislike, or are unsure of his poetry, I would encourage you to at least check out this book; a knowledge of his poetry is not a prerequisite for enjoying and learning from it. Only one work from this volume, "The East West Interview" was excerpted in the Gary Snyder Reader that was recently published. So, even if you have that book, there will not be much repetition.