Paul Horgan by Robert Gish

Abstract

Reviews 265 Paul Horgan. By Robert Gish. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983. 145 pages, $16.95.) Publishers, it seems, prescribe for authors the size of their works, just as the canvas sets the boundaries for the painter. In this work, Gish has the largest canvas to date in which to present an important American author, Paul Horgan. And even so, he presents here a study which is “introductory by nature, necessarily brief.” To paraphrase Thomas Wolfe: “You could spend a lifetime getting to know Paul Horgan, and even then you wouldn’t know it all.” Gish’s theme is to depict Horgan as a, “humanist,” rather than as a historian, painter, musician, poet, or fiction writer. Horgan is all of these things, but he is foremost a humanist, who “reveres the spiritual, intellectual, and aesthetic capabilities of mankind.” Horgan “accepts humanity as it is, with all its beauty and blemish, and he affirms it.” The bulk of this work identifies and analyzes Horgan’s novels, shorter fiction, and history as biography (non-fiction). Here Gish has done good work. Using previous biographers and critics to good advantage, Gish has added a blend of his own to make a good stew. As he identifies and analyzes, the fact becomes clear that Gish has seen more of the subject than others. He had the benefit of personal interviews with Horgan before writing, which is both a blessing and a curse, for Horgan is an eminently personable man. The only previous attempt at an analysis of Horgan and his works is seventeen years old; during the intervening years, Horgan has produced a book a year. Gish’s work points out that the time for another more complete study has arrived. Paul Horgan is based on thorough research, and it has interesting notes. Its chronology of Horgan’s life is good. The index, though, is incomplete and inadequate, and the bibliography does not attempt to list Horgan’s short stories. There are a few typographical errors, but for the most part the manu­ script reads smoothly. The work has at least one irksome stylistic problem in that there seems to be something unconsecrating about shortening Horgan’s title, The Return of the Weed, to simply The Weed. Paul Horgan is worth reading and studying and Robert Gish is worth reading. The book is recommended as a study in humanism. JAMES M. DAY University of Texas at El Paso The Magic of Words: Rudolfo A. Anaya and his Writings. Edited by Paul Vassallo. (Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico Press, 1982. 83 pages, $7.95.) The Magic of Words is an appropriate title for a consideration of Rudolfo A. Anaya and his writings. Anaya is, like his own novelistic counterparts in his New Mexico trilogy, something of a magician with words—in awe of their beauty and their power to move souls to action, and, like a Latino Prospero, ...