 A Season of Fire and Ice by Lloyd Zimpel (10-6-07) |
||||
Recently Published Books in Hardcover:
See what's new in paperbacks...
Death Song by Michael McGarrity - Michael McGarrity’s eleventh novel in the acclaimed Kevin Kerney series achieves a new depth of masterful storytelling and a plot that will captivate readers. (December 2007) West of Chance by Kent Haruf - (January 2008) The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss - In the winter of 1917, when a young woman shows up at his doorstep looking for work breaking horses, George Bliss hires her on. Many of his regular hands are off fighting the war, and he glimpses, beneath her showy rodeo garb, a shy but feisty girl with a serious knowledge of horses. So begins the irresistible tale of nineteen-year-old Martha Lessen, a female horse whisperer trying to make a go of it in a man’s world. (November 2007) Stolen Continents: 500 Years of Conquest and Resistance in the Americas by Ronald Wright - Europe's discovery and conquest of the Americas is told as a great saga of achievement from the European point of view. This book tells the Indians' story, one of plague and invasion that crippled great civilizations and killed one fifth of the human race. Reprint. (January 2005) Oh, What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West: 1846-1890 by Larry McMurtry - A recurring theme in McMurtry's works, both fiction and nonfiction, is the difficulty in bridging the gap between myth and reality in comprehending the settlement of the West. Here, he utilizes a healthy skepticism, sharp analytical skills, and a strong sense of moral outrage to examine six massacres in the trans-Mississippi West. Five involved the slaughter of Native Americans by whites, and one involved the slaughter of whites by other whites. (December 2005) |
(back to top)
Related to this Bookshelf:
(back to top)
About this Bookshelf:
The
Wild West bookshelf is a collection of books about America, especially the "taming
of the west." As expected, some of the books
on the shelf are about Cowboys
and Indians. But it also includes Native American
fiction (Susan
Power, Louise Erdrich),
new fiction coming out of the West and Southwest (Dagoberto
Gilb), and historical fiction (Suzanne
Lyon, JoAnn Levy, Susan
Sontag). To get at the core of
what America is, it seems to me it's best to look at what America was.
I have found that when writers write fiction about this subject matter,
it transcends genre. I've grabbed books from the Humorous, Favorite Sleuths, Latin
American as well as Contemporary
Fiction bookshelves. The message is the medium here.
Two books, that I was reading simultaneously, made me realize that it was time to create this book shelf. I had been thinking of doing this for awhile, but then when I finished reading The Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko, I knew it was time. The reality is, I found it easier to create a new category than to try to justify that this book fit into any of the existing bookshelves. But, it wasn't until I began reading Robert Pirsig's Lila did I actually have the nerve to devote a section to two such adverse groups as "Cowboys and Indians."
Pirsig points out the uncanny parallel between our romantic descriptions of the American Cowboy and the characteristics that describe the American Indian. He believes that our deep seated American values really are based on those of the Indians. In fact, there was a time when the White Man was learning from the Indian and imitated everything that he did. Somewhere along the way we lost sight of our teachers and truly believed the Cowboy popped out as a purely American phenomenon. And, to keep this secret, Indians became bad. Nevertheless, the same qualities idealized in Western novels and movies, can just as easily describe an Indian. Pirsig goes so far as to say that the very notion "all men are created equal" is learned from the Indian value system. He says that in studying all of European history it is "self evident" that all men are created unequal.
Interestedly enough, in Almanac of the Dead, Silko's character Angelita La Escapia draws a parallel between Marxism and "old-time people" beliefs. She knows that the idea of communal living comes from the tribes. She is surprised that Marx tells people to remember the past because in the past lies the future. Angelita had only ever heard the white man say forget the past (and for good reason when taking over a people's land). She believes Marx learned his beliefs from the Indian. If she is right, it is all the more reason for Europeans and Americans to hate Communism.
In talking to Carl about starting up this section and what I'd plan to say on this page, he pointed out that Indians have not always been kind and loving. That is probably true. But I think Cormac McCarthy makes a great case for who is really more savage and who taught whom to scalp in his book Blood Meridian. In fact, I am willing to doubt any of my past knowledge about the American Indians. We all know that history is written by the victor.
If we could have embraced more of the Native American traditions, I can't help but think what a better country we would have right now. There is a recurring scene in the Thurlo's novel Death Walker that I love. Whenever someone goes to visit another, they park in the driveway and then sit and wait to be invited into a home. This strikes me as so much more civilized than having people bang on your door.
Other Western sites:
- Women Writing the West, "a nonprofit organization promoting a new view of the women's west."
- Timeline of Events Relevant to the Northern Plains Tribes
Judi Clark, Editor
sometime in 1999
