A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC

At first, the timbre of the elderly reader, Stewart Udall, is disconcerting. We even hear a little gasp of air between sentences. Udall’s stilted speech makes us think we made a mistake choosing this tape. But the story is by a professor, naturalist, and conservationist, speaking in poetic prose about his surroundings and his perceptions of it. Udall, in turn, was Secretary of the Interior during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, thus, adds credibility to Leopold’s naturalistic observations. Since we are gleaning hard-earned wisdoms from the end of a bright life, the narrator's patina of age becomes appropriate. After some adjustment to this genre of writing, compared to that of Thoreau and John Muir, one realizes that Udall is using poetic cadences and timing intended by the author. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 01]