This is a story written in diary format by the author who after a year as an exchange professor at Tokyo University spent part of the next year living with native activists fighting the resistance to Japanese logging, and Japanese timber camp managers, on Borneo,the third largest island on earth which lies just north of the Indonesian archipelago in the South China Sea. This is a poignant travel narrative as well as a serious environmental study of the exploitation of third world resources. The true irony of the story of Borneo's rapdily disappearing rainforest, and the local corruption and greed which siphon off most of the profits, while native rights and land uses are obliterated, (sounds like America in the early 19th century!) is that most of the timber shipped to Japan is used to feed Japan's wholesale adoption of American habits: buy it, use it, throw it away, buy another! Much of the wood is being used to make cheap furniture and plywood forms for concrete that are thrown away after several uses. Unlike America's own trees on vast land masses,Japan has little to support such habits. This is really another story which is symptomatic of first world countries exploitation of third world resources - and the hypocrisy of the United States' condemnation of such practices.

Bevis clearly presents both his own expertise on Western (specifically Montana-based) literature and the theories of the writers he presents. Reading this book will remind you of all the wonderful aspects of the books he analyzes and make you yearn to read those you haven't yet. Bevis is certain to present multiple opinions on a work, while still admitting his own preferences in a lyrical, charming fashion that surprisingly never seems to undermine his critical thoughts. The analysis of A River Runs Through It, one of my personal favorites, is refreshingly honest in its attack, even while the author unabashedly displays his own love of the work.