Entering the Stone

Reviews / Votes

Reading Entering the Stone is not unlike exploring a cave system. The layout may be unclear. Some quarters may be confined. But then, unexpectedly, a seemingly unconnected chamber will converge with other passages and you find yourself in an expansive space and feel you've encountered something enlightening. -- <i>New York Times Book Review</i> In this profound and beautifully written exploration of caves and caving, Hurd describes not only her initiation into the stony earth but also the full range of human depths. Geology and spiritual discovery in this book are one, the evolution of Hurd's knowledge of stalactites and sightless cave fish inseparable from her encounter with fear and mystery, invisibility and intimacy, eros and grief, life and death. Entering the Stone is a masterpiece of the interior world. -- Jane Hirshfield * author of <i>After: Poems</i> * [An] exquisite meditation on caves and their peculiar power . . . While plenty of writers have navigated this territory before, Entering the Stone seems destined to stand out among books on spelunking. There is a natural link between caves and the stalactite-covered hollows of the human heart, which Hurd plays up with elegant restraint. -- John Freeman * <i>Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</i> * An often unnerving exploration of stone . . . A wild cave is an inscrutable space, writes Hurd, heavily symbolic, weirdly inhabited, full of squirmings. You can't see what you feel, but you sure can feel it. . . . Hurd knows she'll never understand the exact source of a cave's power, but the underground works for her. -- <i>Kirkus Reviews</i> This is not a sensationalist adventure story but rather a sometimes mystical journey of discovery into the hidden recesses of the mind. -- <i>Library Journal</i> Here was an outdoorswoman who also thinks; a naturalist who, back indoors, reads and then writes. But bog turtles were just a prelude. All this while Hurd has been into something larger and darker-caves. -- James Bready * <i>The Sun</i> * Hurd chronicles her experiences in these dark spaces and her intertwining journeys into fear, loss, intimacy and spirituality. Along the way, she opens our eyes to the beauty and fragility of this subterranean world. -- <i>Nature Conservancy</i> Using a venerable literary device, Hurd explores her inner life through her fascination with caving. Her meditative, flowing prose pauses on sundry people and events in her life, which she illuminates through descriptions and comparisons with her physical surroundings in the subterranean world. -- <i>Booklist</i>