Gold Rush: A Literary Exploration ed. by Michael Kowalewski

Abstract

3 0 8 WAL 33(3) FALL 1998 While Sanders picks at the scabs of our lives, he wastes no time in sen­ timentality. That is, perhaps, one of his finest techniques. In never showing the tears, he evokes them. N o divorced parent can fail to connect with such lines as those from “Phoning the Children Long Distance”: ‘“Good-bye, Dad. I love you, Dad. Good-bye’ / is mortuary music, a severing benediction.” On closing the cover of Before We Lost Our Ways, one realizes that indeed, Mark Sanders does write poetry that makes things happen— inside us. Qold R ush: A Literary Exploration. Edited by M ichael Kowalewski. Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1997. 477 pages, $18.48. Reviewed by Lawrence I. Berkove University of Michigan-Dearbom A wholesome counterbalance to the recent trend to “reinvent” or “reimagine” the West is Michael Kowalewski’s anthology, Gold Rush, which solidly reinforces the position that there was a historical West, with some irreducibly factual people and events. The discovery of gold in California, which, everyone knows (and is exactly reflected in the price of the book) occurred in 1848, is one of those events. It was truly epical, attracting many thousands of nineteenth-century argonauts to a quest for fabulous riches. This discovery, in turn, accelerated the grand emigration to the West that was already under way, which in turn settled the land, spurred development, founded cities, brought on the railroad, and shaped both the future of the young nation and its character. But so richly dramatic was the gold rush that it passed into legend even in its own time, and subsequent generations of authors, artists, and movie producers have capitalized upon its fictile possi­ bilities; by retrospectively projecting the mores and sensibilities of their own times, they have continuously reinvented it into countless new forms. That is why Gold Rush is such a valuable book. It reminds us that the gold rush was real and particular. But if it was particular, it was not simple. Kowalewski and his collabo­ rators have put together an impressive collection of extracts of writings about California in four categories: before the rush, getting there, gold rush life, and “legacies” or literary ramifications of the gold rush. These conspire to demonstrate an enormous range of experiences caused directly or indi­ rectly by the gold rush. Some of the authors are more or less predictable: for example, Richard Henry Dana Jr., J. Ross Browne, Bret Harte, Mark Twain, John Muir, Frank Norris, and Gary Snyder. Some are well known but unex­ pected because they had no firsthand experience of the gold rush and could only reflect it from their vantage points across the continent or across the Atlantic. Emerson, Thoreau, and Charles Dickens represent these authors. Others may be well known as historical personages, but it is somehow sur­ prising to learn that they wrote about the event: John Sutter, the Indian Book Reviews 309 scout Jim Beckwourth, Brigham Young, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, and Mariano Vallejo. But the bulk of the selections comes from diarists or letter writers who have little or no fame but whose varied backgrounds ereate a gripping diversity of incident, detail, and perspective: reports by or about common miners, criminals, clergy, doctors, high-born and educated travelers, Europeans, Mexicans, Chileans, Blacks, Chinese, Japanese, Jews, Indians. There are fond memories recorded as well as bitter memories, admi­ ration and horror, humor and tragedy. It is difficult to summarize such variety except to say that this collec­ tion is, in parvo, a kind of gold rush itself. In it, truth once again has outrun fiction. It is hardly necessary to reinvent or reimagine a phenomenon with such a rich and real historical and biographical diversity as this collection demonstrates, that has yet been so slightly tapped. W hen P a st M et Present: Vintage Colorado Short Stories. Edited by James B. Hemesath. Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1997. 191 pages, $19.95. Reviewed by Jam es H . M aguire Boise State University In 1994, James B. Hemesath compiled a sampling of Colorado fiction and titled it Where Past Meets Present: Modem Colorado Short Stories; now, in the book under review, he gives...