Truck by John Jeromne

Abstract

Reviews 239 (1894) , his use of Active doubles, and his empathy with certain Western types, Gish then discusses in some detail the better Far-Western fiction, novels like The Eagle’s Heart (1900), The Captain of the Grey-Horse Troop (1902), Hesper (1903), .Money Magic (1907), and the belated story collec­ tion, The Book of the American Indian (1923). Gish rightly contends that the Far-Western writings are integral to our understanding of Garland and to our appreciation of the relationship between Western regionalism and American realism, and Gish’s cautious qualification — “regardless of one’s judgment of their intrinsic worth” — shows that he well understands their severe aesthetic limitations. To show the underlying continuity of Garland’s career, Gish relates Garland’s metaphors of journeying and climb­ ing (and even his travel essays) to the Far-Western fiction, a type of “iden­ tity or vision quest” which, after twenty-two years, would lead Garland back to his youth and into the “purer autobiography” of his final phase. Author of a forthcoming book on John G. Neihardt (1881-1973), Lucile F. Aly has written a splendid pamphlet, a timely addition to the Neihardt revival churned up by American Indianmania and Neihardt’s wizardry on the Dick Cavett Show a few years back. As a former instructor at the University of Missouri (when Neihardt taught his popular courses in epic and poetics), I can vouch for the nicety of Aly’s portrait of the little lion from Nebraska who seemed to us to live in a dimension of time and poetry out of step with the tighter world of university poets like Donald Drummond and Thomas McAfee. In a style firm and clear Aly weaves biography, criticism, and methodology to tell the story of Neihardt’s “glorious” life and twenty-eight-year-long creation of his massive Cycle of the West (1949). Receptive to “Otherness,” Neihardt lovingly penned his American epic of Westward expansion in “rhymed blank verse,” in “musical utterance intended to communicate to all readers deep truths of the human heart.” Charges of sentimentality, archaism, inversion, grandiosity, and indecorum — these Aly plausibly absorbs into her resonant assessment of Neihardt’s Homeric achievement. MARTIN BUCCO, Colorado State I!niversity Truck. By John Jerome. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977. 145 pages, $6.95.) John Jerome has written a story of his two loves — his New Hampshire farm and his truck. The two involvements bring him insight into the conflict between the natural and mechanized worlds, the qualities of country living, and what a truck really is. John Jerome, an ex-New York careerist, bought a farm in New Hamp­ 240 Western American Literature shire, lured by its enchanting beauty and his own dream of living off the land. During his first summer he energetically rebuilt the old farm house and put in an organic garden. When he needed assistance with the heavy work, he bought a 1950 pick-up truck and here the story begins. Buying a pickup is a simple task for most people but for Jerome it is the beginning of a love affair. In chapter one he is revealed as a “greaser,” not as the Thoreau he thought he was, for he quickly becomes immersed in the thought of completely disassembling and then meticulously rebuilding the old pickup into a gleaming piece of machinery. His second love, which he “circles nervously,” is the countryside. The rebuilding of the truck is the matrix of the book and is absolutely intriguing, for it resembles a creatively written Dodge workshop manual, and is also a suspenseful techno-adventure. Throughout the book I was reminded of Hunt’s “The Ascent of Everest.” Exchange Sears tools for ice axes and a successfully assembled truck for the summit of Everest and there is little difference. Both achieve­ ments were painful and exacting and in both idealism transforms into wisdom. Truck is also rich in obscure information such as where to get a timing chain cover for a 1950 pickup. The force of the book is that it explores just what technology is, thereby giving us insight into our fabricated age. Jerome sees technology as a creative problem-solving process with minds ticking. For instance, he...