Louis L’Amour by Robert L. Gale

Abstract

268 Western American Literature The picture Harrell builds of the actual Mesa Verde area circa 1915 is important not because it shows whether Cather had her facts right or wrong, but because it shows the creative process at work. Although Cather claimed to have “followed the real storyverycloselyin Tom Outland’sstory,”Harrell shows how she transformed the realityofthe archaeologist into the vision ofthe artist, and howthatvision ofthe cliffcitywith itsharmonious union ofnature, life, and art, illuminates the story ofthe professor’sdiscordant houses. The lastchapters of the book trace the connections between Tom Outland’s story and the first and third parts of the novel. Unlike those critics who see Tom and his story standing in idealized contrast to the professor’s story, Harrell shows Tom’s faults and his similarities to the professor, especially in the tendency of both men to withdraw from human relationships; the stories of Tom Outland and Godfrey St. Peter are unified by their struggle to enter and to live in the kingdom of art. KARI RONNING University ofNebraska-Lincoln Louis L Amour. Revised edition. ByRobert L. Gale. (NewYork: Twayne Publish­ ers, 1992. 159 pages, $20.95.) Professor Gale had a difficultjob to begin with, in covering such a prolific popular writer as Louis L’Amour in a Twayne volume (1985). Then, after L’Amour’s death in June 1988, Gale had the additionally difficult task of updating the book in the same amount ofspace. As Gale tells us in the preface, sixteen more books by L’Amour appeared between Gale’s first cutoff date of 1984 and his revision. There was clearly a need to incorporate new material. In the biography chapter, Gale adds an interesting section on “The Final Years.” He provides brief commentary on short story collections that have appeared, and he provides ample discussion of Passin Through (1985), “a dusted-off and insufficiently polished chestnut from L’Amour’s apprentice years”;Last oftheBreed (1986), to which he gives a generally positive review; The Haunted Mesa (1987), which he receives less favorably; and Education of a WanderingMan (1989), the memoirwhich L’Amour “left in the rough,”as Gale generously puts it. Additionally, Gale has updated the notes, references, and index. To make room for these worthwhile additions, Gale has shortened the rest of his commentary by thoroughly revising it—deleting a sentence here and there, shortening and sometimes combining paragraphs, and quietlycorrecting typos. As always, Gale is thorough, patient, and meticulous. His commentary shows appreciation for his subject but also good-spirited criticism. Like the first edition but more refined and complete, this book gives a fair and considerate Reviews 269 treatment to an authorwho has been idolized byreaders and derided bycritics. Gale’sis a hardjob well done, twice over. JOHN D. NESBITT Eastern Wyoming College Six Literary Lives: The Shared Impiety of Adams, London, Sinclair, Williams, Dos Passos, and Tate. ByReed Whittemore. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993. 236 pages, $29.95.) Reed Whittemore’slatestbook isone ofthose stimulating treatments rarely found in contemporary writing. Lively, engaging and provocative, it offers a surveyofsixmajor twentieth-centuryliteraryfigures in an accessible and persua­ sive style both pleasurable and challenging. Whittemore revives the neglected literary mode ofbiographical essay, and in an era promoting anotherversion of Daniel Bell’s “end of ideology” thesis, it is refreshing to read Whittemore’s excavation of a lost literary art. Analyzing six diverse, but culturally related, figures, he emphasizes the various social concerns linking these authors’ literary and ideological issues. The authors’common impiety derivesfrom a Socratic skepticism applied to the issues of their era, issues which produced insightful contradictions rather than false resolutions. Whittemore “kindly” ridicules various positions but in an understanding manner. As he notes, “Much strength, energy, and talent were released by the climate of impiety of the time, a climate fostering contradic­ tions.” One pitfall endemic in such a survey approach involves sweeping generali­ zations. Each author deserves a separate book. In surveying such diverse figures in brief chapters, inaccuracies usually occur. While Whittemore acknowledges the definite links between Jack London’s People ofthe Abyss and the later new journalism ofNorman Mailer and Tom Wolfe, he dangerously follows the now discredited work of Irving Stone in equating the author...