Synopses & Reviews
A modern
Walden—if Thoreau had had three kids and a minivan—
Cabin Fever is a serious yet irreverent take on living in a cabin in the woods while also living within our high-tech, materialist culture.
Try to imagine Thoreau married, with a job, three kids, and a minivan. This is the serious yet irreverent sensibility that suffuses Cabin Fever, as the author seeks to apply the hermit-philosopher’s insights to a busy modern life.
Tom Montgomery Fate lives in a Chicago suburb, where he is a husband, father, professor, and active member of his community. He also lives in a cabin built with the help of friends in the Michigan woods, where he walks by the river, chops wood, and reads Thoreau by candle light.
While he divides his time between suburbia and the cabin, Fate’s point is not to draw a line between the two but to ask what each has to say about the other. How do we balance nature (picking blackberries) with technology (tapping BlackBerrys)? What is revealed about human boundaries when a coyote wanders into a Quiznos? Can a cardinal protecting chicks from a hungry cat teach us anything about instincts and parenting? Fate seeks a more attentive, deliberate way of seeing the world and our place in it, not only among the trees and birds but also in the context of our relationships and society.
A seasonal nature memoir, Cabin Fever takes readers on a search for the wild both in the woods and within ourselves. Although we are often estranged from nature in our daily lives, Fate shows that we can recover our kinship with the earth and its other inhabitants if we are willing to pay attention.
In his exploration of how we are to live “a more deliberate life” amid a high-tech, material world, Fate invites readers into an interrogation of their own lives, and into a new kind of vision: the possibility of enough in a culture of more.
Synopsis
A modern Walden--if Thoreau had had three kids and a minivan--Cabin Fever is a serious yet irreverent take on living in a cabin in the woods while also living within our high-tech, materialist culture.
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About the Author
Tom Montgomery Fate is the author of four books, including the collection of essaysBeyond the White Noise and the spiritual memoir Steady and Trembling. His essays have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Orion, Iowa Review, Fourth Genre, Christian Century, and many other publications, and they often air on NPR's Living On Earth and Chicago Public Radio. He is a professor of English at College of DuPage in Illinois, where he lives with his family. His cabin is in southwest Michigan.
Table of Contents
Author’s Note
Deliberate Life A Search for Balance
Spring
Chapter 1 Picking Blackberries Nature and Technology
Chapter 2 In Plain Sight Vision and Revision
Chapter 3 Fathers Watching Sons Windows and Mirrors
Chapter 4 Saunter Reason and Instinct
Chapter 5 The Gay Cardinal Love and Instinct
Summer
Chapter 6 Cabin Fever Alone and Lonely
Chapter 7 In the Time of the Cicada Patience and Passion
Chapter 8 Mushrooms Love and Sex
Chapter 9 Lake Glass Childhood and Parenthood
Chapter 10 A Box of Wind Nature and Religion
Autumn
Chapter 11 Trimming Trees Self-Reliance and Self-Destruction
Chapter 12 Constructing Truth Wood and Word
Chapter 13 Falling Apart Death and Birth
Chapter 14 Coyotes at the Mall Predators and Prey
Chapter 15 The Art of Dying Art and Activism
Chapter 16 Cougars in the Corn Facts and Truths
Winter
Chapter 17 A Familiar Darkness Desperation and Deliberation
Chapter 18 Traveling at Night Seers and Seekers
Chapter 19 Slow Pilgrim Walking and Praying
Acknowledgments
Notes
Credits
Reading Group Guide
Questions for Discussion
- Is it significant that Fate is undertaking these meditations at the age of 48? Why, if he had read the book at 19, is Thoreau's message only now calling to him with more "urgency?" (pg. 1)
- In each chapter, Fate tries to balance two competing parts of his life. Which chapters seem to be the most difficult "balancing acts?" Why? Which balancing acts in your own life are the most difficult?
- Though the goal is balance, Fate doesn't seem to achieve it, instead living "in between" things—country and city, technology and nature, aloneness and loneliness. He seems forever between departure and arrival. Does this seem like a healthy attitude or a destructive one? Why?
- "Progress: the constant redefinition of fast and convenient." (pg. 11)
- Does this progress have the downside of making us feel disconnected from the natural world? If so, in what ways have you found the middle ground?
- How can, as Fate says on page 67, something be "less fact than truth"? How does he illustrate this difference in "Cougars in the Corn?" Are truth and fact the same thing, or are they different? Is one sufficient for the other?
- "Spirit is natural, of Nature. Religion is not. It is human made." (pg. 101)
- Considering Fate attended seminary and has been active in the church community for much of his life, do you find this statement surprising? How do you define the difference between spirituality and religion?
- Fate writes that "amid the decimated woodlands and farms and sprawling suburbs, developers and nature often collide." As green space diminishes and the human population grows, what responses or solutions does he suggest? What solutions have you discovered in your own community?
- In Chapter 17, Fate describes his own depression as a "familiar darkness" and eventually expresses what seems to be a resolve to accept, or at least tolerate it. Is this decision another form of balance? Why?
- "I watch the fire thankfully, thinking of how my solitude here does the same thing- slows the burn of time." (pg. 181)
- Fate characterizes his (and the woolly bear's) present as "unending and fleeting." In what ways does the author encourage a slower pace of life? How does he accomplish it? Is it necessary to remove oneself from city life, or can it be achieved through reflection?