[cross-thread alert]
I'm now reading Peter Mattheissen's stirring and frightful chronicle of the struggle for survival of our world's crane populations. I'm going along, minding my own (and the cranes') business, when suddenly, out of nowhere, I encounter this:
Northwest of Beijing, the teeming plain is left behind, the soft farm greens cut off abruptly by dark forest jades on the evergreen slopes of sudden mountains. Here the Great Wall--begun in the third centruy B.C., and the one evidence of man said to be visible from the moon--winds like a stone serpent along wooded ridges. Soon the mountains descend to the drier, less fertile landscapes of Inner Mongolia, which subside in turn into the harsh grays and yellows of the Gobi Desert.
I hope I can forget that one unfortunate throwaway aside and continue to appreciate this book.
