A Western Sun Sets in the East: The Five “Appearances” Surrounding John C. Van Dyke’s The Desert

Abstract

P E T E R W IL D University of Arizona A Western SunSets inthe East: The Five “Appearances”Surrounding John C.VanDyke’s The Desert Lawrence Clark Powell declares that “All Southwestern book trails lead to The Desert” (315). So secure is the little volume’s position that students point to it as the predecessor of most desert writing since its publi­ cation, from works by Mary Austin, Joseph Wood Krutch, Edwin Corle, and on down to those by Edward Abbey and Ann Zwinger. In short, few books appear to have spawned such a rich progeny.1 Well does the book deserve itsfame. Though surely The Desert (1901) did not single-handedly change the nation’s attitudes from almost universal scorn for “worthless” cactus sweeps of sand and rock to appreciation for the subtleties of the Southwest’s expanses, nonetheless it did what few books do. As the first work to praise the desert for its beauty, it led the way in a major shift of the culture’s outlook on the arid portion of its natural heritage.2 Not only this, but Van Dyke led the way with a work still read for its deft combination of science and romance.8 At a time when arid-land studies were still in their infancy, The Desert’s pages accurately introduced readers to the Southwest’s strange phenomena, describing the region’s mirages, sand storms, flora and fauna, and other features considered exotic to most Americans of the day. Yet the book soars beyond solid fact into a wealth of imagery, of “misshapen” moons (104), “indigo lizards” (173), and sand dunes flowing with the grace of “running water” (53). To Van Dyke the desert was “the most decorative landscape in the world, a landscape all color, a dream landscape” (56), and it’s a measure of the work that the book continues to transport readers. But despite the continuing enthusiasm, we may be missing a large part of the book’s richness by reading the volume out of its intended context. The Desert was but one in a series of six books that lay at the heart of Van 218 Western American Literature Dyke’scareer. And we may miss, too, the importance of the American West to the man and much of his writing. Bringing such issues to the fore requires a brief excursion through the little-known details of John C. Van Dyke’s life.4 First of all, literary success can cause problems. For years, students wondered about the eulogist behind the first celebration of the desert (Powell 316). The book itself gives few glimpses of its author as he rides over the Southwest’s uninhabited lands and almost no clues about his back­ ground. This has left the way open for active imaginations. Not allowing the few available facts to temper his judgment, critic Peter Reyner Banham places The Desert’s author in the tribe of “desert maniacs,” curmudgeons preferring solitude to human companionship (158). On a somewhat dif­ ferent tack but for little better cause, historian Patricia Limerick questions the “authenticity” of Van Dyke’s sentiment (110).5Not until 1974 did a portrait of Van Dyke based on solid scholarship emerge when Powell began unearthing biographical information (315— 327). John C. Van Dyke (1856-1932), neither a madman nor a fake, was a professor of art history at Rutgers University (then College) and concur­ rently the head of the architecturally august Gardner A. Sage Library, perched across the street on the “Holy Hill” of the New Brunswick Theo­ logical Seminary. A lifelong devotee of the Art for Art’s Sake movement, Van Dyke looked on wild nature as his summum bonum, the source of his highest esthetic pleasures. To him, nature presented a canvas rich in the delights of forms and colors, and when in mid life he went to the desert in hope of curing his nagging respiratory problems, he did what he always did when he traveled: he described the nature before him in terms of high passion and colorful imagery. And, as we shall see, far from being a mis­ anthrope, the professor was a familiar of some of the most fashionable salons...