Marjory Stoneman Douglas' " The Everglades: River of Grass" provides an encapsulated view of Florida; its geology, geography, people, climate and fragile environment. While a worthy undertaking for the River Series of books about the Rivers of the United States, it reflects the unevenness of writing dependent on the authors' viewpoint, ability and what stump they intend to preach from. Ms. Douglas simply tried to cover too much ground in so short a book of some 300 pages. She touches on familiar topics that a resident or visitor will recognize as site-locations or landmarks, people and events, both past and current. Ms. Douglas ends on the environmental disaster of man's (and most noteworthy the Corps of Engineers) attempts to change the Everglades. What is missing is her failure to accept the fact that the problem is simply the result of too many people attempting to live the good life in a fragile ecosystem.
She is at her best when she writes from first hand experience. Her "folk-tales" related to her by Floridians have a freshness and flavor of Florida that will soon be forgotten. I remember being cautioned to "hallo the house" before entering the front gate of a rural home. That was the most private of private property and you entered at your own risk if not invited. How I wish she had given more to the Florida Crackers and recorded how they did and are scratching out an existence in a very hostile environment.
Here is a thread that should be picked up on: In her writing about the exploration and exploitation of the West Coast of Florida, she mentions the findings of Franklin H. Cushing of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, M. W. Stirling of the Smithsonian and Clarence Moore, a private businessman. Artifacts found were shipped to the two museums. Now not much later in the development of the Sarasota area, dredges were at work draining the coastal area and making way for the real estate boom that was to come to that area of sugar white sands, gentle breezes and unbounded fishing sport. James Moore (unrelated to Clarence Moore), a local real estate developer and his wife spent many days following the dredges and scouring the spoil banks for evidence of past Indian culture. Mr. Moore, the father of Jim Moore who is the author of the book on shells, "There for the Taking", found a fossilized and intact skeleton which was named "Phillippi Creek Man". At the time scientist scoffed at the idea that Indians inhabited the area in a time period that would permit fossilization of remains. The skeleton was shipped off to the Smithsonian where it was cataloged and them shipped to Harvard. There the trail ends as alas, it has simply disappeared. My wife, the granddaughter of James Moore has tried in vain to find out what happened to this most important link to Florida's past. Just when this thread to the past was about to be swept away, divers in the 1980s exploring the underground matrix of sink holes, discovered on a ledge, yet another skeleton. Researchers at Florida State University, using carbon dating and other means, confirmed the age of the Phillippi Creek Man as being some 15,000 years old (by analogy with the sink hole finding). This has been reported in the journal, Science.
Back to Ms. Douglas. One is given the impression that she wrote much of the first six or seven chapters with a thesaurus in one hand, a dictionary of synonyms in the other and a number of other books in her spare hand. It is only when she begins to flesh out here story with real people that her writing comes to life.
I sometimes wonder if every author must include a Faulkner piece where a single sentence occupies an entire paragraph. MSD succeeds only too well. Try this on for size:
"For that reason, very early in the history of the Indian, wherever the unknown stood ranged about his life, wherever birth was, and death after all, and every chance and change that can come to man and woman in their progress between the two, and against all unexplainable things, the fall of stars in the night, and lightning, and the cry of birds, and the terrible force of the sun, and the wind that is the breath in a man's nostrils, and the spirit in his body, there this puny and naked creature who walked erect among the beast and knew himself as something other than they, set up his belief and his rituals". Huh!
Having said all this, I still recommend "The Everglades: River of Grass" as a tribute to the people and the state of Florida. I also remind those that care, of the writings of William Bartram and Jim Moore and Ms. Matschat's river series book about North Florida and South Georgia.
A good fictional read is Robert Taylor's Journey to Matecumbe which is a sort of Huckleberry Finn - Tom Sawyer story which takes place in Florida.. Particularly useful are the well documented sources of the material in the back of the book. Cross Creek is another book which has much to say about the early settlers around Gainesville Florida. By the author of The Yearling, Marjorie Rawlings. ABOUT Joe Wortham