Showing papers in "Western American Literature in 1984"

Annual Bibliography of Studies in Western American Literature

Abstract: W hat London seems to be suggesting, then, in “T o Build a Fire,” is not any kind of animalistic return for man to a presymbolic state of existence in order to survive; on the contrary, he seems to strongly imply that animals survive through instinct; men of limited mental capacity fail; and that human beings who exercise good judgment, tempered with emotional insights are the human beings who win out over a hostile environment. J a m e s K . B o w e n , Southern Oregon College

The Buffalo Book: The Saga of an American Symbol by David A. Dary (review)

Abstract: The American buffalo, as David Dary points out, is an omnipresent symbol in American culture. Cities, rivers, athletic teams, and bars bear the name “buffalo.” Its likeness adorns the seals and flags of several states as well as the seal of the Department of Interior. The University of Nebraska Press uses it for their books dealing with the American West, although they have chosen to use the correct term bison. Although the American buffalo is not a buffalo, Dary’s research shows the name “buffalo” in use since the early eigh­ teenth century. The bison has been ingrained on the American consciousness as a buffalo. It took Dary ten years to research and write this book. He covers every conceivable aspect of the buffalo, from Bison latifrons, a Pleistocene buffalo, to the domestic cattle and buffalo cross, “cattalo.” In three appendices he gives hints on raising buffalo, recipes for buffalo meat such as buffalo stroganoff and buffalo stew, and an up-to-date (as of 1974) listing of where to see buffalo in North America. In writing of the natural history of the buffalo, Dary had to face a number of major problems. First, there are no more wild buffalo and no scientific studies were made before the last wild buffalo were killed or cap­ tured. Second, the early observers of the buffalo and the later buffalo men such as C. J. “Buffalo” Jones tended to “windiness.” Thus many of their stories are more fiction than fact. Third, there has not been much scientific study on the captive buffalo. Despite these obstacles, Dary is able to paint a picture of the buffalo that is a far cry from “humped, sullen beasts” as Peter Matthiessen referred to them in Wildlife in America. A tale about two buffalo and a marching band in Dodge City should dispel any rumors about buffalo lacking playfulness. The main thrust of the book is on the human-buffalo interaction in American history. The slaughter of the buffalo for robes, hides, tongues, and pleasure is well told through first hand accounts and grim statistics. The saving of the buffalo by Charles Goodnight, Buffalo Jones, James Philip, and the American Bison Society, among others, offers quite a bit of humor. Buffalo have been milked, ridden, hitched to plows and carts, and used as “bucking buffalo” in rodeos. For the disbelievers, there are pictures of buffalo involved in these and other, similar acts. The book is well-annotated and Dary has compiled a fine bibliography.

The Professor's House and "Rip Van Winkle"

Abstract: Am ong the acknowledged literary influences on W illa C ather’s T he Professor’s House (192 5), only one, the French nouvelle, relates directly to the structural design of the novel.1 C ather herself explained this associa­ tion in a now well-known open letter to Com m onweal m agazine in which she also identified the sonata and certain D utch paintings as sources of ideas about the form her novel should take.2 O ther literature cited by scholars as having left an im prin t upon T he Professor’s House — works like Anatole F rance’s Le M annequin d’Osier, T w ain’s H uckleberry Finn, and H enry Adam s’s T he Education of H enry Adam s — contribute p ri­ m arily to our understanding of them e and point of view.3 Missing, how­ ever, from this impressive catalogue, and somewhat surprisingly so, is a work which itself gave an im petus to H uck Finn and T he Education and

In Defense of Lillian St. Peter: Men's Perceptions of Women in The Professor's House

Abstract: C ather’s T he Professor’s House is told from Professor Godfrey St. Peter’s point of view; he feels society has become m arred by greed and m aterialism — partially represented by his own family — and thus justi­ fiably isolates himself from these people and values. St. Peter believes he has long loved his family and th a t he has had an excellent relationship w ith his wife and daughters for m any years; their growing concern with m aterialism, however, has caused his recent retreat from them and from w hat they represent. Critics frequently have adopted St. P eter’s point of v iew : for them , the book becomes a critique of an A m erican society filled w ith “am bition and greed,” w ith a “social malaise . . . [that] finds its focus in [St. Peter’s] relationship to his own fam ily;” 1 it tells of the Professor’s “disgust w ith the m aterialistic m oney-grubbing of the Am erica of the twenties” and his difficulties in dealing with daughters who no longer need him and w ith a wife whose concerns are increasingly worldly.2 W hile the effect of money is an issue in the work, another m ajor concern is the P ro­ fessor’s point of view. His observations appear to be objective bu t are no t; readers find ou t as m uch about St. Peter’s prejudices as they do about w hat his family actually has done. O ne of these prejudices — shared by m any m en in the book — is against w om en: women are representative of a m undane world th a t destroys artistic capabilities. General statem ents by other m en in the book as well as specific statements the Professor makes

An Account of a Voyage to the North West Coast of America in 1785 and 1786 by Alexander Walker (review)

Abstract: believe) that Walker met Carson in Independence in 1826 and thereafter “took an avuncular interest” in him. Gilbert defends Walker for having ordered his men to fire upon the Digger Indians in 1833, when these Indians had never seen guns before. Thirty-nine of them were killed. All the trappers believed in and acted upon the principle of retaliation, but only Walker acted on the principle of “the preventive strike” and most people then and now find this principle hard to justify. It is not true that Lucien Fontenelle committed suicide at Fort Laramie in 1838 while drunk, nor that Gantt and Blackwell went broke in 1831, and it is distressing to find these old mistakes repeated here, as well as to find Marcellin St. Vrain’s name changed to Marcellus. The author located Bent’s Old Fort “near the present Kansas-Colorado line” (p. 10) and “on the head­ waters of the Arkansas River” (p. 156). Neither is anywhere close to the correct location. Tecumseh did not go “down to his final defeat in Michigan” nor did this “shatter his coalition” (p. 53), which had been shattered by the battle of Tippecanoe. St. Clair’s defeat occurred on the Wabash River, not the Maumee, and the battle lasted three or four hours instead of two days (p. 35). General Pope did not command the Union Army at the battle of Antietam (p. 242). These errors arise from dragging in material that has no connection with the life of Joseph Walker. Readers will find almost everything that is known about Walker between the covers of this book and a good deal more besides. It is all presented in a readable but rather tendentious style. Readers should be alert for special pleading and overstatement.

Conversations with Wallace Stegner on Western History and Literature by Wallace Stegner and Richard W. Etulain (review)

Abstract: woman activist. These works are posed by the authors as examples of “narra­ tives to come,” a significant insight. Actually, in not dealing with them, the authors reveal their incapacity to come to grips with the reality of Indian life today. Despite its weaknesses and problems, the book is to be credited and praised. The University of Nebraska Press is also to be complimented for the errorless text and beautiful jacket, a painting by Navajo artist, Barbara Goodluck.

Alternative Publishing in the West

Abstract: Small Press Review was founded by Len Fulton in the spring of 1967. The initial issue featured a long tribute to Alan Swallow written by M artha H. Hume, a symbolic linking of the old western small press scene and the new. “Alan Swallow worked night and day. It was not labor, but a con­ tinuing romance with publishing,” wrote Hume. The same could be said about a contemporary western publisher such as Art Cuelho of Seven Buffaloes Press, a farmer who fell in love with letters and who works out of his home, night and day, living on what his books realize plus whatever gainful employment he can find, and who continues scouting for promising writers. Theirs — Swallow’s and Cuelho’s — is a labor of love, a romance in the noblest sense. Despite the overwhelming rise in numbers of alternative publishing outlets, at the core of the movement remain dedicated individuals such as Swallow and Cuelho, John R. Milton, Glena Luschei, Albert F. Gegenheimer, Margaret Hartley, and Marvin Malone, the best of them tough as well as talented, for they must buck seemingly overwhelming financial odds, as well as popular tastes, in their continuing quest for excellence. Nonetheless, it is the very number of alternative publishers that is most astounding. The current issue of Fulton and Ellen Ferber’s The International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses is nearly 600 pages long and features over 4000 entries such as:

An Interview with John R. Milton

Abstract: M i l t o n : I was an editor in high school. The class prophecy said that I would become an editor. I was peeved because it did not say writer. Years ago I edited a monthly church paper in Minneapolis, then a fly-bynight literary magazine in North Dakota in the late 1950s, but got really serious about it when I went to the University of South Dakota as English department chairman and used my position to start the South Dakota Review. The magazine soon took up so much time that I had to make a choice, and I resigned the chairmanship to hang onto the magazine. SDR started in December, 1963.

The Troll Garden by Willa Cather (review)

Abstract: poetry which assimilated the Japanese poetic view 50 years ago. The Imagists and others. I believe this is how your work receives its Japanese feel, not from your being Sansei. Tanaka, you’re going to have to stand or fall as a plain American poet. We are not exotic anymore, we are mainstream like everyone else. I’m curious to read your Systems Models for Literary Macro-Theory and your Metaphysical Foundations of a Sansei Poetics.

Symposium of the Whole: A Range of Discourse Toward an Ethnopoetics ed. by Jerome Rothenberg and Diane Rothenberg (review)

Abstract: only in passing and such women SF writers as Ursula Le Guin are ignored. Tucker’s devotion to the positive values of frontiers — “To have no frontier at all would be a consummate tragedy” (p. 56) — may lead him to see fron­ tiers where there aren’t any, or to accept as a frontier whatever someone (anyone?) calls a frontier. One is reminded of Robin Winks’s comparative studies of frontiers and his suggestion that some countries seem to have appro­ priated the frontier myth because they needed it. Possibly Webb (in T h e G rea t Frontier , 1951) was too restrictive when he limited the frontier to a geographic area of land in excess of the population; but at least his approach prompted a careful consideration of what truly constitutes a frontier, or in what ways frontiers differ from each other. Tucker’s concluding paragraph contains this admonition: “Be of good cheer about the menaces to individuality. In this regard, remember, things have been turning out well enough in the literature and the media: the hero of the Old Western type still rides off into the sunset, or blasts off into the cosmos, with freedom unimpaired and wanderlust unweakened” (p. 325). Some of us may not find these words entirely cheerful or encouraging.

The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Greg Matthews (review)

Abstract: feature that can be faulted is the form of documentation; Benson never pro­ vides a bibliography of primary and secondary sources but lists sources sep­ arately for each chapter, making the reader hunt and seek among them. The only other fault is the price; at $35.00 the book is too expensive for the average reader, who will have to check it out of the library or wait for the paperback edition. But Benson has given us the definitive biography of an American writer whose major status has never been in doubt with readers, while Edmund Wilson’s embarrassingly bad novels have long been forgotten.

The Bonner Boys: A Novel About Texas by Campbell Geeslin (review)

Abstract: Somehow this well-written, bittersweet novel slipped past many reviewers a couple of years ago. Too bad. It evokes serious questions about growing up, growing old, growing away, and does so with an eloquent indirection. Its effect is a little like the sound one character heard: “a soft paperlike rustle that made him shiver. Under the quilt was a dry snakeskin, intact.” Campbell Geeslin reveals a number of dry snakeskins in this tight novel. Geeslin, who grew up in West Texas, sets The Bonner Boys in his native area where five middle-aged brothers and their momma assemble. His gentle probing, often humorous, makes clear that he, too, is coming to grips with how much West Texas dwells in him and what it means. This is a good, interesting novel, one well worth reading. One hopes it isn’t Geeslin’s only venture into the form.

Necessary Ecstasy: An Afterword to Cawdor

Abstract: The poem “Cawdor” came from more diverse and remem­ ber able sources than others that I have written. The name occurred to me first for use in another narrative, which was planned and discarded; the story derives of course from the tale of Phaedra and Hippolytus; one of the incidents relates itself to a mountain-lion skin we have in the house; another to a broken­ winged hawk that I kept and fed. The emotional atmosphere comes more than half, certainly, from the earth full of sea-shells and chips of flint, left by the Indians on this hillock by the sea where we live, and on the coast southward. The domed rock in the poem is one that I saw in the Sierras and only imagined in a coast canyon; but there is plenty of naked granite about here, so that it is not out of place. The great red­ woods fill every canyon of the coast southward for fifty miles.