Understanding James Welch by Ron McFarland

Abstract

1 8 8 WAL 3 6 . 2 SU M M E R 2 0 0 1 Wolff, “engaged in a kind of parody of society’s dichotomous definitions of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine,’” and her primary inspiration was, in fact, “the con­ temporary stage” (200-201). Romines appropriately titles the epilogue section of the anthology “Leaving the South?” because Wolff’s essay moves beyond the larger theme of the collection. Willa Cather’s Southern Connections and Willa Cather’s Canadian and Old World Connections while not exclusively concerned with western American literature are important resources because each establishes significant connec­ tions between themes of Western literature and Cather’s nonwestem novels by offering new interpretations from both established and beginning scholars. U nderstanding Jam es Welch. By Ron McFarland. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2000. 212 pages, $29.95. Reviewed by Eugene T. Carroll Billings, Montana Ron McFarland’s UnderstandingJames Welch is a unique book in both size and scope, particularly the latter. With one book of poetry, four novels, and one nonfiction study on Custer and the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Welch has evolved as a distinctive and provocative Native American writer for the last twenty-five years of the twentieth century. McFarland’s volume adds to Welch’s enduring stature by offering close readings of the various themes, structures, and individual focus of each book: McFarland suggests, for instance, that Winter in the Blood offers the picaresque, that tragic inevitability is the focus for The Death ofJim Loney, that Fool’s Crow shows epic qualities, while intrigue is the basic quality in The Indian Lawyer. But McFarland’s book is more than close reading. For the person just start­ ing the Welch canon, or the beginning college student, or the graduate English major, or even the voracious reader who wants to be well-rounded in all kinds of literature, Understandingjames Welch is the right book for a particularly right time. From an opening chapter devoted to Welch’s career as a poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer to a concluding summary of his work, each chapter takes on specific works beginning with his only venture into poetry, Riding the Earthboy 40. Welch was brought to his poetic writing by Richard Hugo, his strongest influence at the University of Montana, which Welch attended but did not graduate from. The volume’s unusual title refers “to the name of a family that owned a ranch where Welch’s parents lived, and the number forty indicates the acreage of the allotment” (25). The poems, in general, are surrealistic in nature and fall somewhere, in tone and tenor, between the New Formalists and the Language Poets, groups of writers so evident in the anthologies of the 1990s. In his novels, according to McFarland, Welch includes a dilemma profil­ ing landscape and the inner life of each character, insight, or vision, and, finally, a resolution to stories that are straightforward with action and event. BOOK REVIEW S 1 8 9 McFarland’s work is excellent in many ways, offering interviews with Welch, reviews of his books, reflections and reactions from a growing body of critics, a well-rounded and annotated bibliography, and a close analysis of the Welch canon. Alvar Núñez, Cabeza de V aca: His Account, His Life, and the Expedition of Pánfilo de N arváez. 3 vols. By Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. 1,552 pages, $275.00. Reviewed by Sandra L. Dahlberg University of Houston-Downtown Much concerning Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s life and his relación (account), according to Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz, has been mired in myths and misperceptions incorporated into the historical and tex­ tual records. They contend that over the past four and a half centuries Cabeza de Vaca and his relación have been misinterpreted, decontextualized, and appropriated to suit prevailing ideologies. In Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: His Account, His Life, and the Expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez, Adorno and Pautz provide an exhaustive archival study of extant data pursuant to Cabeza de Vaca. They examine over five centuries of historical and legal manuscripts rel...