Nonfiction Prose Research Articles

Director's Notes

Adrienne Rich is the author of more than sixteen volumes of poetry and four nonfiction prose books. She is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including a MacArthur Fellowship and the 1999 Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement AwardThis article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

XII * The Nineteenth Century: The Romantic Period

This chapter has seven sections: 1 . General; 2 . Poetry (excluding Blake and women poets); 3 . Women Poets; 4 . William Blake; 5 . Prose Fiction; 6 . Non-Fictional Prose; 7 . Drama. Section 1 is by Orianne Smith; section 2 is by Matthew Scott; section 3 is by Ana Alicia Garza; section 4 is by Jason Whittaker; section 5 is by Felicity James; section 6 is by Gavin Budge; section 7 is by Amy Muse.

Nonfictional Romantic Prose: Expanding Borders (review)

Reviewed by: Nonfictional romantic prose: Expanding borders ed. by Steven P. Sondrup and Virgil Nemoianu Pere Gifra-Adroher Nonfictional romantic prose: Expanding borders. Ed. by Steven P. Sondrup and Virgil Nemoianu. (Comparative history of literatures in European languages 18.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2004. Pp. 477. ISBN 158811452X. $238 (Hb). Even though much of the best romantic writing present in the literary canon has been traditionally and predominantly circumscribed to poetry, over the past two decades many critics and scholars have turned their attention to a handful of lesser genres hitherto considered unworthy of critical scrutiny. The twenty-four essays collected here contribute to a textually richer notion of romanticism not only by examining multiple forms of nonfictional prose, but above all by doing so also from a comparatist perspective that illuminates the crosscultural nature of this movement. Virgil Nemoianu opens the volume with an introduction that charts the breadth of the terms romantic and romanticism; then several sections follow, each devoted to the main types of nonfictional prose writing. The longest in the book, Part 2, tackles romantic theoretical and critical prose. It begins with Monika Schmitz-Emans’s analysis of romanticism from a historical and transnational perspective, and continues with John Isbell’s argument on how romanticism was disavowed by some of its very originators. Gerhart Hoffmeister, on the one hand, and Manfred Engel and Jürgen Lehmann, on the other, subsequently study the influence of Hegel and German Idealism in European romanticism. To close this section Mary Anne Perkins reviews theoretical texts influential in the reassessment of several national languages and literatures, and Carolyn Buckley-Larocque probes the ethnological discourse behind Sir Walter Scott’s project of Scottish cultural recovery. Part 3, on political writing, features an essay by Michael Gassenmeier and Jens Martin Gurr that traces the influence of Edmund Burke’s conservatism, and another one where Steven P. Sondrup examines how the Scandinavian countries resorted to their ancient mythologies in their nation-building processes. In the geography-based Part 4, Mircea Anghelescu dissects the genre of the travel narrative, while Joselyn M. Almeida surveys the nonfiction produced in Spanish America between 1780 and 1850 and how it contributed to raising its independent consciousness. Two further sections focus on private and public matters. The genres that most relevantly developed the notion of romantic subjectivity are tackled in Part 5: Frederick Garber first examines the role of diaries, Eugene Stelzig then explores the autobiography, and Carol Strauss Sotiropoulos and Margaret R. Higonnet finally investigate several minor textual forms like teaching tracts, letters, and treatises that were used to shape women’s social roles. In contrast to this concern with the self, Part 6 expands toward the public sphere. While Frederick Garber considers the importance of the familiar essay, John Boening, Madison U. Sowell, and Monica Spiridon, respectively, concentrate on the periodicals, almanacs, and pamphlets that played such an important role in shaping civic opinion. Equally important was the short sketch, whose influence [End Page 231] in Spain and other European countries José Manuel Losada discusses. Relevant examples of scientific and artistic prose fall under scrutiny in Part 7. Alan Richardson and Joel Black document the connections between romanticism and early psychological and cognitive studies; Gerald Gillespie and Steven P. Sondrup likewise provide separate readings of significant texts on music and the visual arts. Finally, Part 8 concentrates on religious writings: Virgil Nemoianu examines several movements of theological renewal undertaken in the early nineteenth century, stressing their links to the aesthetic category of the beautiful, and José Manuel Losada in turn offers a comparative analysis of the myth of the fallen angel. Romanticism, as Virgil Nemoianu argues in the conclusion, was a turbulent yet extremely fertile cultural movement that, despite its contradictions, had a far-reaching impact beyond elitist circles. If its influence still remains so visible in today’s popular culture, it is not only...

Remembering inheritance: David Malouf and the literary cultivation of nation

Report is presented on Malouf's fictional and non-fictional prose as interventions concerned with cultivating Australia's national imaginary. His writings reflect and reproduce a conservative cultural politics even he ventures into deeper questions of Australian nationhood.

Untitled/Halcyon

Untitled / Halcyon Rodney Saint-Eloi translated by Marie-Ovide Gina Dorcely Untitled pour épeler ma ville, j'ai compté les arbres que j'ai croisés dans mes fugues et s'il y a un oiseau qui chante, je m'assieds au seuil de cette ville à moi à venir dans l'urgence des miracles avec des feuilles d'automne qui ne savent plus mourir [End Page 343] Halcyon To recipher my city I lay bare the names number the trees I greet on my mad processionals When a bird sings I sit on her wings, from her verges, better enter the fleece drown in her miracles Annihiling death, I am lanced by stately leaves and their forgetting. from I have a tree in my canoe Rodney Saint-Eloi, a native of Haiti, lives in Montreal, Canada. In 1991, he founded Editions Memoire in Port-au-Prince, which was followed by Memoire d'encrier in Montreal in 2003. He is also a poet and critic of art and literature. Marie-Ovide Gina Dorcely is a poet, translator, and nonfiction prose writer. She has received awards for her writing from the Cave Canem Foundation and the Breadloaf Writers Conferences. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Caribbean Writer, and The Portable Lower East Side. She was born in Haiti. Original French reprinted here with permission of the author.

Anhinga

Anhinga Marie-Ovide Gina Dorcely (bio) Dawn of night Slur on the lips of the bearded Open the mountains Stanch the gallows of the seas [End Page 112] Find us a place in your wings Lie with us Bearer of prayers and crosses Snare the clasp of my fingers [End Page 113] Climb up the whip and the vines Twine with our veins Take me to the dawn of the dawn [End Page 114] Eye of the open Slay the seas with your eyes Free the stunting shackles Anhinga The fiber of sorrow is broken by the plow of your wings Marie-Ovide Gina Dorcely Marie-Ovide Gina Dorcely is a poet, translator, and nonfiction prose writer. She has received awards for her writing from the Cave Canem Foundation and the Breadloaf Writers Conferences. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Caribbean Writer, and The Portable Lower East Side. She was born in Haiti. Copyright © 2007 Charles H. Rowell

Earning the Cross, Revelation

Earning the Cross, Revelation:Columbus Beached, Jamaica, August, 1503 Marie-Ovide Gina Dorcely (bio) Squat bills riddle palms like clear fever shivers on liana's brittle pores, this, the languishment of shoals. Rain comes: palm, frond, palm, trespasses each ligature, snaps spines smooth with the emollients of the bay. Blind, the Icarus breathes through one dead eye, rides—skirts, curls, a wisp—to this cartouche. The dark side of up, this progress, the quickening blade. Xto ferens, "if it please God to rescue me from this place I will go to Rome and other holy places." Marie-Ovide Gina Dorcely Marie-Ovide Gina Dorcely is a poet, translator, and nonfiction prose writer. She has received awards for her writing from the Cave Canem Foundation and the Breadloaf Writers Conferences. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Caribbean Writer, and The Portable Lower East Side. She was born in Haiti. Copyright © 2007 Charles H. Rowell

Hudson River School

Hudson River School:On Asher B. Durand's "Early Morning at Cold Spring" (1850) Marie-Ovide Gina Dorcely (bio) A swish of ribbon holds the curtain Asters creep along the green carpet In the foreground: a spotted cow In its red, brown, orange, cream resplendence, A question: How did you arrive, here, on the body's shadow: Were you a whisper sent to plumb these fields— Come to melt our mettle? No matter, In this land of fiddles and cloudhoppers, One arrives to make a poetry of distinction. Here, all are found under the cloth Live or die in the aerie of fallen leaves. Marie-Ovide Gina Dorcely Marie-Ovide Gina Dorcely is a poet, translator, and nonfiction prose writer. She has received awards for her writing from the Cave Canem Foundation and the Breadloaf Writers Conferences. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Caribbean Writer, and The Portable Lower East Side. She was born in Haiti. Copyright © 2007 Charles H. Rowell

Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Literatur 1900-1918: Von der Jahrhundertwende bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs by Peter Sprengel

II78 Reviews precipitated by the political upheavals of the twentieth century, Hugo Aust suggests that even in their time Viebig's historical novels were already out of date. For read ers in search of a good read in city literature of the past, Viebig's Berlin novels face massive competition from Fontane through Georg Hermann towomen authors of a more modern tendency than Viebig such as Irmgard Keun, Gabriele Tergit, or Vicki Baum. These last have attracted renewed interest in the context of feminist literary history, which might offer another path to rediscovery. In an illuminating survey of awhole gallery of female characters, Bland acknowledges a radical edge inViebig's sympathetic depiction of unmarried mothers, but draws out too the stereotyping ten dencies in the different versions of womanhood Viebig constructs depending on the class, ethnicity, and, most interestingly, also the religion of the character. Here Bland andWojtczak, coming from different angles, detect the ideological vision of a Protes tant German writing about Catholic Polish characters. In an interesting comparison with Stefan Andres as awriter of theMosel region, Guntermann convincingly argues that Heimat discourse offers the context most likely to generate interest inViebig as author of the Eifel novels and stories which explore with liberal openness the impact of modernization upon provincial life. The volume closes with a plea by Hermann Gelhaus for a reissue of Viebig's anti-war novels. UNIVERSITYOFNOTTINGHAM ELIZABETH BOA Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Literatur I900-I9I8: Von der Jahrhundertwende bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs. By PETER SPRENGEL. Munich: Beck. 2004. xiii+924 pp. E49.90. ISBN 3-406-52I78-9. Anyone familiar with Peter Sprengel's monumental history of German literature from I870 to I900 (reviewed inMLR, 96 (200zI), 574) will have high expectations of this complementary volume. Once again, Sprengel offers a virtually comprehensive overview of his period, with deft and subtly personal accounts of innumerable major and minor works. After the introductory 'Portriit einer Epoche', including sections on literary movements, intellectual currents, and the institutions of literature, there are four large chapters on genres (narrative prose, drama, lyric poetry, and non-fictional prose), followed by an invaluable seventy-page account of First World War literature. Inevitably this scheme creates difficulties. While many subsections bear the names of individual authors, there are only a few-mostly those who died prematurely, such as Trakl, Heym, Stadler-whose entire euvre can be discussed. To counterba lance this fragmentation, Sprengel includes many sections and subsections on specific literary types which include enlighteningjuxtapositions. Thus a section 'VomMyste rienspiel zum Stationendrama' links Hofmannsthal's Yedermann with mystery plays by Alfred Mombert and Rudolf Steiner, and, via Kaiser's H6lle Weg Erde, with Ex pressionism. His major chapters also deal separately with Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and while the assignment of Rilke to the Austria he hated could be questioned, Swiss writers are thus ensured generous coverage. They include not only Carl Spitteler (whose epic Olympischer Fruihling is treated sceptically) and Robert Walser, each given his own subsection, but such figures as Jakob Bosshart, Peter Ilg, and Friedrich Glauser, who are so unfamiliar outside Switzerland that none of them makes it into the Oxford Companion toGerman Literature. Regional writers within Germany, such as the Bavarians Ludwig Thoma and Lena Christ, receive less gener ous treatment: to learn about their work one must consult several sections, finding, for example, brief mention of Thoma's socially critical rural novels under 'Heimatroman und Bauerngeschichte' and a paragraph on his Lausbubengeschichten under 'Kinder und Jugenderziihlung'. MLR, 101.4, 2006 I I79 Although this in some ways is best regarded as a reference work, it also provides an individual perspective on the epoch. Sprengel begins with the questioning of author ity in the Empire, the home, and the school. His starting-point is thewell-documented fact of frequent suicides among schoolboys: both Rudolf Ditzen ('Hans Fallada') and Johannes R. Becher attempted suicide in adolescence, and itwas thematized inHesse's Unterm Rad, Emil Strauss's Freund Hein, and of course inWedekind's Friihlings Erwachen (first performed in I906). From there Sprengel moves adroitly to the Ex pressionist critique of the family, to the literature of colonialism, and to the battle of the sexes, though the authors...

Wordsworth Stranded: The Prelude and Mark Strand’s “The Untelling”

Say, I said. If translation kind of reading, assumption or transformation of one personal idiom into another, then shouldn't it possible work done in one's language? Shouldn't it possible Wordsworth or Shelley into Strand? You will discover, said Borges, Wordsworth refuses translated. It you who must translated, who must become, for however long, author of Prelude. That what happened Pierre Menard when he translated Cervantes. --Mark Strand, Translation, Continuous Life (54) Given risks, one would probably forgive Mark Strand if he chose not translate Wordsworth. In fact, he seems renounce any such project in W entry from Poet's Alphabet: Think if I had written first hundred or so lines in Book XIII of 1805 Prelude, what great poet I would be. I would have destroy everything else I had written keep people from saying, What falling off there has been in Strand's work. So I wouldn't and I would not have my poems, and I would have nothing worry W for Wordsworth, who wrote what I didn't and couldn't and won't. (Weather 15) With mixture of defiance and regret, Strand acknowledges that he would rather be me, even though being me means being lesser poet than Wordsworth and, therefore, having something to worry about. Of course, only Wordsworth ever ran risk of actually becoming Wordsworth; and some might argue that even Wordsworth occasionally escaped that peril. But for all its playfulness, Translation articulates some real concerns about writing in shadow of poet too powerful, too much himself, amenable translation--Translation deals, that is, not just with practical and theoretical concerns of an experienced translator (which Strand is) but with something like an anxiety of influence. One would have doubts, of course, about poet who, when writing under influence, produced that remained too literal or transparent, that lacked any character of their or proved unfaithful grammar and of translator's language. Strand implies as much elsewhere in Translation; he suggests that the translation of poetry best left poets who are in possession of an English they have each made their own and who can therefore engage in a transaction individual idioms (Continuous 53). A work that failed complete such transactions might prove analogous almost perfect translation of Heine's Du bist wie eine Blume produced, after much dogged perusal of Mathilda Schwantzhacker's German-English dictionary, by Paul Hiebert's fictional Sarah Binks: You are like one flower, / So swell, so good, and clean; / I look you on and longing, / Slinks me heart between (40). (1) Translation offers solution anxieties of translation: when speaker's four-year-old son, hunched over, polishing [the poet's] shoes, complains that his of Palazzeschi are going poorly (Continuous 48), startled parent advises him find young poet translate, someone [his] age, whose poems are no good. Then, if [his] translations are bad, it won't matter. Strand himself has yet follow this advice. It matters if his translations are bad, since he has been translating Wordsworth (among others) into Strand since at least early 1970s (about 20 years before Translation appeared). Strand's translations of Wordsworth appear in his essay Landscape and Poetry of Self (Weather); they appear in other nonfiction prose, in prose poems (The Monument and Translation), in interviews, and, most significantly of all, in The Untelling, longish, self-reflexive childhood narrative from Story of Our Lives (1973) whose source, according Strand at least, is really rereading of 'The Prelude' (qtd. …

Kingdoms

Kingdoms Adam Zagajewski (bio) I like to dream of those dead kingdoms. Su Tung P'o I like to dream of those dead kingdoms where brass gleams and sings and upright fires blaze on hilltops, where someone's love dwells. One late afternoon in November, I take the commuter train coming home from a long walk; around me tired businessmen and a sad old lady hugging a dachshund. The conductor, alas, is a very clumsy shaman. Life strides above us like Gulliver and laughs loudly and cries. Adam Zagajewski Adam Zagajewski, who was born in Poland, is the author of numerous books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction prose. His books of poems and essays in English-language include Tremor (1985), Canvas (1991) Mysticism for Beginners (1997), Without End (2000), Solidarity, Solitude (1990), Two Cities (1995), Another Beauty (2000), and A Defense of Ardor (2004). Much of his work has also been translated from Polish to German, Swedish, and French. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston. Copyright © 2005 Charles H. Rowell

Doubling

Doubling

Charles Boxer's use of literary sources for the study of race relations in colonial Brazil and the Maranhão

CharlesBoxer'suse ofliterary sourcesfor thestudy ofracerelations incolonialBrazil and theMaranhão A. J. R. RUSSELL-WOOD Forty yearshave elapsed since the publicationof CharlesBoxer'sRace Relations inthe Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1415-1825. Mypurposehereis todiscuss Boxer'suseofliterary sourcesforthechapter on 'Braziland the Maranhão'.Boxer'sstatedpurposewas'briefly to considersomeaspects ofthereaction ofthePortuguese whosettled inBraziland theMaranhão to thepeopleswhomtheyfoundthereand towhomtheyhad to adjust themselves as besttheymight'.1 Boxerdividedthesepeoples intothree maingroups:autochthonous Amerindians; blacksbroughtfromAfrica as slaves;and personsofmixedrace bornin Brazil,offspring ofsexual unionsbetween anycombination ofwhites, blacks, andAmerindians. This 'reaction'tookdifferent forms, ofwhichthephysical and spiritual most occupiedcontemporaries. Boxer'scorrespondenceattestedto how- no matterhow arduous his travels, pressinghis schedule,or attractive the social engagements - he found the time to visitantiquarianbooksellersand spend an afternoon, a fewdays,orlongerinone ormorearchives. The former led topurchases ofprints, manuscripts and booksforhisbelovedlibrary and thelatter toconsultation oflocal archives hitherto largely overlooked or underutilized byhistorians.2 'Glimpses'ofarchives providedBoxerwith colourfulvignettes and a fragmented or partialpictureof a timeand place,or resulted in publication ofa documentor cartainédita, whereas periodsofsustainedand intensive archivalresearchprovidedhimwith thefoundation formonographic studies.WhileBoxerwasa forerunner in hisuse ofsome sucharchivalsources,thesewerelessin evidencein RaceRelations in thePortuguese Colonial Empire, 1415-1825 (Oxford:ClarendonPress/ London:Oxford University Press,1963),p. 86. Portuguese translations exist:Relações raciais noimpério colonial português, 1415-1825,translated byEliaMunerato (RiodeJaneiro: Tempo Brasileiro, 1967);andanedition published inOporto byAforamento in 1977which I havenot seen.The controversy surrounding publication hasbeenexamined byJ.S. Cummins and L. de SousaRebelo,'TheControversy overCharles Boxer's RaceRelations inthe Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1415-1825', Portuguese Studies, 17 (2001),pp.233-46. C.R.Boxer, Aglimpse oftheGoaarchives ,Bulletin of the School ofOriental andAfrican Studies, XIV:2 (June1952),pp. 299-324;'Luanda',inC. R. Boxer, Portuguese Society inthe Tropics: the Municipal Councils ofGoa,Macao,Bahia,andLuanda,1510-1800(Madisonand Milwaukee: University ofWisconsin Press, 1965),pp. 220-24.On Boxeras correspondent andbibliophile, see A.J.R. Russell-Wood, 'CharlesRalphBoxer:Teacher, Scholarand Bibliophile', Revista Portuguesa deHistória doLivro, Ano111: No. 5 (Lisboa:Centro de Estudos de História do Livro e da Edição,1999),pp. 131-50. CHARLES BOXER'S USE OF LITERARY SOURCES 159 theessays inRaceRelations. Instead,he turnedtosourceswhichreflected anotherofhisconsuming passions.Boxer'sfascination withrarebooks andmanuscripts madehiman avidcollector and bibliophile. He relished finding a 'panfleto raro',an 'obrararíssima', 'a raretreatise', or 'raridade bibliográfica', and oftenacquiredtheseand republished them.3He was thussuperbly equipped to drawon contemporaneous printedliterary sources, manyin hisownlibrary, and nowheremorenotably so thanfor hisessayon 'Braziland theMaranhão'.To a greater degreethanin the companionessayson 'Morocco and WestAfrica'and on 'Moçambique and India', Boxerallowedthesecontemporaneous sourcesto structure hisdiscussion on colonialBrazil. Boxer turnedto contemporaneousliterary sources as sources for hisdescriptions ofPortuguese'reactions'and also to providethearchitectureand thecontentforthefirst partoftheessaywhichdealtwith climates ofopinionandattitudes ofPortuguese inBrazil.Therearemany definitions oftheword'literary'. I shalluse itwithtwosuchdefinitions in mind:'carriedon byletters; epistolary' and 'pertaining to booksand written compositions'.4 The literary worksused byBoxer in thisessay werenotespecially valued(withtheexceptionofAntónioVieira), either bycontemporaries or subsequently, on accountofoutstanding qualities ofform orstyle. Norweretheir authors persons whospecifically engaged inliterature as a profession andwhodevotedsubstantial amounts oftheir timeand energy towriting books.The majority oftheauthors weremen ofthecloth:secularpriests, Jesuits, orfriars. Butthey didhaveincommon thatthey wereofPortuguese birthor descent,thatthey werewriting in Portuguese, thatbothbysubjectmatterand bytheirattitudes towards Amerindians or personsofAfrican birthor descenttheyreflected the attitudes ofsomeoftheir contemporaries andthat, forthemostpart, they wereresidents oflongstanding in Brazil.The exceptionsbybirth were thethree Jesuits: Joséde Anchieta, bornin theCanaryIslands,Giovanni AntonioAndreoni,bornin Lucca in Tuscanyand betterknownbyhis pseudonym ofAndréJoão Antonil, and hisfellowItalian, JorgeBenci, borninRimini. Thesewritings fallwithin thecategory ofone ofthefollowing genresor literary forms: non-fictional prose,variously political, polemical, ormoralisticin content;non-fictional prose of a descriptive natureand constituting a compendiumofinformation withaccompanying commentary; fictional prosetaking theform ofan imaginary dialoguebetween fictional 3 For examples,see A ListoftheWritings ofCharles RalphBoxer Published between 1926 and 1984 compiled forhiseightieth birthday byS. George West (London: TamesisBooks, 1984), itemsnos. 89, 165,170,192,199,211,212,213,215,231,244,264.Thishasbeenrepublished, with the addition ofpublications between 1985and1996,inRevista Portuguesa deHistória doLivro, Ano11, No.4 (1998),pp. 17-68. 4 See 'literary' in The Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: TheClarendon Press, 1933). ΐ6θ A. J. R. RUSSELL-WOOD protagonists; lettersaddressedto an individualbut withthe author's expectation thatthesecouldbe readaloudtoa group;historical narratives inan epistolary format; and sermons whichthepreacherdelivered infull knowledge ofthelikelihoodthatthey wouldbe published.Absentfrom thegenresused byBoxerare fablesor allegorieswhichwoulddemand thatreadersexertthemselves intellectually to delve below the surface of the textto findinner meaningsor to interpret ('deconstruct'in modernidiom...

Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kantner

2 1 0 W e s t e r n A m e r ic a n L it e r a t u r e S u m m e r 2 0 0 5 His book of criticism, Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel (1992), remains the most coherent and nuanced overall interpretation of the subject, developing in depth a perspective connecting postmodernist theory to Trickster word-play that creatively integrates Western and Native traditions of discourse. His five novels range through intricately interwoven natural and cul­ tural landscapes, each having its own symbolic resonance in Owens’s fiction. As Susan Bemardin’s essay suggests, many of these themes converge in his absurdist, postmodernist tour-de-force Dark River, his final novel, which in retrospect at least reads as his witty and eloquent swan song. And I’m glad to see acknowl­ edged throughout these writings Owens’s singular achievement in his final two collections of essays, with their fascinating interweaving of personal narrative, literary commentary, and cultural criticism. This broad-ranging anthology cap­ tures much of the multidimensional appeal of Owens’s major writings and serves as a worthy tribute to a literary and scholarly voice that is now an invaluable part of our heritage. Ordinary Wolves. By Seth Kantner. Minneapolis, Minn.: Milkweed Editions, 2004. 324 pages, $22.00. Reviewed by Eric Heyne University of Alaska, Fairbanks Alaska has produced some excellent nonfiction prose in the last twenty years but little homegrown fiction. There are plenty of “tourist novels” by such big names as Norman Mailer, John Hawkes, Ken Kesey, Robert Olen Butler, and T. Coraghessan Boyle, and there is a lot of genre fiction being published by Alaskans lately, like the detective novels by John Straley, Sue Henry, and Dana Stabenow. But the mainstream novel about Alaska by an Alaskan is still rare, making Seth Kantner something of a pioneer in a place that uses that term fondly. Ordinary Wolves has been widely and deservedly praised as vivid and authentic. Certainly this coming-of-age novel set in northwestern Alaska is accurate in its details of both nature and culture. Cutuk Hawcly is a white kid who grows up with his father and two siblings in a sod hut in the wilderness and notes that “Eskimos wouldn’t live that way anymore, but for some reason we did” (8). He finishes high school in the nearby Inupiat village, heads to the big cities of Anchorage and Fairbanks to check out mainstream American culture, and chooses, in the end, to return to his childhood home. The picture we are given of native Alaskans and village life is not politically correct. For example, at one point, Cutuk reflects that “dogs, in Takunak, had the rights and privi­ leges of damp firewood—and little use now that snowgos had come” (99). However, the portrayal is ultimately respectful, as Cutuk struggles to maintain relationships with his Inupiat mentor, his adopted mother, his boyhood love, and the village kids who beat on him simply because he is white (99). B o o k R e v ie w s Some reviewers have claimed that Kantner attacks “consumerism,” and certainly Cutuk learns from his father a healthy distrust of conspicuous consumption and American materialism. But this novel is no Sierra Club tract. Cutuk loves his dog team, but he also appreciates the advantages of a snowmachine , the necessity of subsistence hunting, and the joys of bush flying. In fact, the emotional high point of the book comes after he hijacks a small plane to go see his boyhood love. Flying is one kind of initiation through which he must pass in order to connect with his paternal grandfather, and it is just as emotionally important to him as the journey he makes by dogsled to track down his Native mentor. The novel’s early scenes are the most powerful, describing Cutuk growing up in a sod cabin with his father and two siblings, living a subsistence life in the harsh Arctic landscape, dealing with internalized antiwhite prejudice, and blaming himself for his mother’s leaving. The second and third parts of the book, although not quite as viscerally powerful, are still...

New Appalachian Books: Write-Ups

NEW APPALACHIAN BOOKS Write-Ups George Brosi with Leanna Lantz and Ashley Lawrence Wendell Berry. Hannah Coulter. Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004. 190 pages with a map and a family tree. Hardback with dust jacket. $25.00. In 1960, Wendell Berry published his first book, Nathan Coulter, a novel about a Kentucky man who worked a small hill farm during the first half of the Twentieth Century. That novel was the beginning of what was to become one of the verymost distinguished writing careers ever to take place in the Southern hill country. Now, after six more novels, three story collections, fourteen poetry collections and sixteen works of non-fiction prose, Wendell Berry has returned to Nathan Coulter's life to tell the story of his wife as she recalls it late in her life. For the first time, Wendell Berry uses a woman's name for his title. Berry's combination of human insight, meaningful message and vivid prose is as refreshing as it is rare in American literary life, and this particular novel will be relished by Berry's large fan base. Wendell Berry. Tobacco Harvest: An Elegy. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2004. 78 pages with 40 black and white photographs by James Baker Hall. Oversized hardback with dust jacket. $25.00. What a beautiful tribute to a way of life which has all but disappeared. The pictures and commentary here document a 1973 harvest in Henry County, Kentucky, performed by neighbors and friends who were "swappingwork." Berry, who was a participant, concludes his essay with this comment on a local exhibition of Hall's photos: "It was a homecoming, a fulfillment of a sort.. . . Old tobacco men stood looking at [the pictures] and wept. It was as though, across a long interval of time, a window had been opened through whichwe saw ourselves as we once were. And we were grateful for this witness to the light we had." Ace Boggess, ed. Wild Sweet Notes II: More Great Poetry from West Virginia. Huntington, WV: Publishers Place, 2005. 233 pages with contributors'notes and an index ofpoets and poems. Paperback. $17.00. 87 This collection of West Virginia poetry contrasts sharply with the previous volume: Wild Sweet Notes: Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry, 1950-1999 (2000). The fact that the editor is a young man accentuates the youthful slant as does the fact that he purposely excluded everyone who appeared in the last book. In his "Introduction" Boggess says this anthology is made up of newcomers, up-and-comers, and howcomers . The first category consists ofpeople who have recently moved into the state; the second of longer-term residents who were too new to poetry to have been widely published earlier, and the how-comers are those who were inexplicably left out of the last collection. The editor is a widely published poet and a novelist as well as an associate editor of The Adirondack Review. He resides in Huntington, West Virginia. Robert Bridges, Kristina Olson, and Janet Snyder, eds. Blanche Lazzell: The Life and Work ofan American Modernist. Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, 2004. 338 pages with an index and many color reproductions of the artist's work. Oversized hardback with dust jacket. $75.00. The subject of this magnificent coffee-table book is Blanche Lazzell (1878-1956). It traces her career from Morgantown, West Virginia, to New York, Paris, and Provincetown, Massachusetts. Two hundred full-color illustrations and more than fifty plates make her life and work come alive to the reader. The co-editors all are connected to West Virginia University. Tina Rae Collins. When Angels Cry. Frederick, MD: Publish America, 2004. 258 pages. Paperback. $18.95. This novel tells the story of a woman whose husband of fourteen years abandons her, their four children, and their trailer home in an Eastern Kentucky holler. This inspiring story tells of Emily's courage in dealing with these challenges as well as others including her own health problems and the condemnation of her family and her church. The author works for the Brushy Fork Institute of the Berea College Appalachian Center. She grew up in Eastern Kentucky and is a graduate of...

XII The Nineteenth Century: The Romantic Period

This chapter has seven sections: 1. General; 2. Non-Fictional Prose; 3. Prose Fiction; 4. Poetry; 5. Blake; 6. Women Romantic Writers; 7. Drama. Section 1 is by Carl Thompson; section 2 is by Daniel Sanjiv Roberts; section 3 is by Aled Ganobcsik-Williams; section 4 is by Sarah Wootton; section 5 is by Jason Whittaker; section 6 is by Emma Mason; section 7 is by Amy Muse.

XII The Nineteenth Century: The Romantic Period

This chapter has six sections: 1. General; 2. Non-Fictional Prose; 3. Poetry; 4. Blake; 5. Women Romantic Poets; 6. Drama. Section 1 is by Carl Thompson; section 2 is by Daniel Sanjiv Roberts; section 3 is by Sarah Wootton; section 4 is by Jason Whittaker; section 5 is by Emma Mason; section 6 is by Amy Muse.

Hemingway's Death in the afternoon: the complete annotations

The exotic and poetic beauty of the bullfight has captured the imagination of observers and readers for decades. No book has explained and disseminated this ancient art with as much power as Ernest Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon. Since its publication in 1932, this classic study has shaped American notions of Spain and the Spanish art of bullfighting. Preceded by the short stories and novels that firmly established Hemingway as a master of modernist fiction, Death in the Afternoon is Hemingway's first volume of nonfiction prose, a medium which enables him to explore his life, his art, his times, and his wide-ranging interests. Mandel's book engages and explicates all aspects of Death in the Afternoon. Her introductory essay provides important historical backgrounds and contemporary facts about the various elements of bullfighting--the bull, the bullbreeder, the bullfighter, the bullring, and the corrida itself-that Hemingway describes. The body of her book is devoted to detailed, definitive annotations of the several hundred persons, animals, events, and cultural artifacts that Hemingway included in his wide-ranging book. These alphabetically-arranged entries reveal Hemingway's views on painting, sculpture, architecture, sports, politics, economics, travel, music, food, drink, sex, language, and literature. Comprehensive endnotes, a multi-lingual bibliography, attractive illustrations, and an index complete the encyclopedic volume. It is an essential companion for all readers and teachers of Hemingway.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Postnation: The Cultural Geographies of Colonial, Neocolonial, and Postnational Space

In the work of Ngugi wa Thiong'o, a spatial perspective is as important as the history of resistance to all forms of imperialism in Kenya, the home from which he has been exiled for nearly two decades. 1 The spatial location of cultural identity is emphasized throughout his work. His first story "Mugumo" and his most recent novel Matigari (Matigari ma Njiruungi) conclude with acts of dedication at the sacred mugumo tree, and all of his novels refer to the genesis myth of Gikuyu and Mumbi and thus to revered Mount Kenya. The River Between--his first written and second published novel--excavates the spatial and ideological rift within the community in the early colonial period during the circumcision controversy of 1929-32. The novels' geographical specificity and attention to landscape results less from the literary influence of D. H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, and George Lamming, than from the sacred values associated with a particular soil. For instance, Ngugi's first essay collection, Homecoming, explores the fantasy of a return to Africa in [End Page 139] African diasporan writing, and much of his recent writing questions the appropriation of the homestead, a metonym for the nation, by imperial and neocolonial forces. 1993's Moving the Centre, written in exile and in the lengthening shadow of globalization, re-examines the international divide in political and economic power between the center and the periphery; 1998's Penpoints, Gunpoints, and Dreams extends the notion of empty space first presented in his influential Decolonising the Mind to encompass performative space, a contested political space for reflection and action. For a writer whose aesthetic has been grounded in the nation, the majority of his fiction and non-fictional prose has been written outside his home country--with the notable exception of Devil on the Cross (Caitaani Mutharaha-ini), written in Kenya but within the state's maximum-security prison.

XII The Nineteenth Century: The Romantic Period

This chapter has eight sections: 1. General; 2. Prose Fiction; 3. Non-Fictional Prose; 4. Poetry: Selected Authors; 5. Blake; 6. Wordsworth and Coleridge; 7. Women Romantic Poets; 8. Drama. Sections 1 and 7 are by Emma Mason; section 2 is by Amanda Gilroy and Wil Verhoeven; section 3 is by Helen Braithwaite; section 4 is by Philip Martin; section 5 is by Jason Whittaker; section 6 is by Seamus Perry; and section 8 is by Amy Muse.