The Far Side of Eden: New Money, Old Land, and the Battle for Napa Valley
Author: James Conaway
List Price: $28.00
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ISBN: 0618067396
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co (24 October, 2002)
Sales Rank: 33,294
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
About time
It's about time somebody wrote a good book about what goes on in the wine industry and behind the scenes in stuck-up Napa Valley. We hear a lot about wine and culture but in reality what it's all about is money and snobbery, as this book shows in colorful, hilarious and sometimes heart-breaking detail. It reminds me of a beautifully-written novel about the manners and foibles of rich Californians, with a good story (and lawsuit) underlying it. This is the perfect gift for anyone still steamed about the excesses of the nineties who also enjoys a very good read.
Rating: 5 out of 5
A Great Read, Even if Biased
I enjoyed reading this book a lot, even though I felt Conaway was clearly biased in favor of the most extreme environmentalists there, Malan/Mennen as he called them, or in other words the Sierra Club. He also managed to make everyone look bad, and I don't think people there are not as bad as they look in this book. For example, the long term residents love the valley and get along famously for the most part.Having said that, it does make for entertaining reading, and if you have any interest in the Napa Valley at all it will enlighten you to the local culture and to the issues that are in the forefront of people's minds there as far as land use goes. Although a true story it reads like a page turner novel, there are a lot of colorful characters.
I am also dubious about the claim that this may be a precursor for other land use battles across the country. I sure hope not, I don't think most other places are so willing to listen to extremism as they are in California, and will work out their issues with more comity and more reliance on actual and not junk, politically based science.
Rating: 1 out of 5
Well written???
Reading the other reviews, I cannot help but shake my head in astonishment...."Well Written"??? Ideas move in and out of paragraphs with no real logical flow of ideas. Few dates are presented to help the reader follow the timetable (which is likely because the scenes are re-sequenced for dramatic effect). I am an avid reader of literature, but found myself constantly rereading passages to try and decipher the idea being presented or the scene being described. I finally decided that the editor either gave up or never tried. Much of the book reads more like a stream of consciousness than a documentation of events witnessed by the author.Furthermore, this book is an amalgam of ad hominem attacks on everyone who dares to make money in the wine industry. Those with family money are dismissed as "lucky spermers" unless like, Peter Mennen, they use their money to stop big business. Mennen is portrayed as the noble hero but seems to be more a naive idealist. Certainly, there are forces of good and bad in any capitalist industry, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Ending vineyard development would lead to one of two things - more houses in place of vineyards or higher and higher prices for vintners as the scarcity increased their profits. Certainly, there is a middle ground yet Conaway, by following the bull-headed extremists, would have us believe that there can be no compromise.
Check this book out from the library if you must read it, but support more even-handed works with your dollars.
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