Unknown California ed. by Jonathan Eisen, David Fine, and Kim Eisen (review)

Reviews 161 Unknown California. Edited by Jonathan Eisen and David Fine with Kim Eisen. (New York: Macmillan, 1985. 404 pages, $10.95 paper, $17.95 cloth.) For a mass distribution anthology, clearly created to be profitable, this is a pretty serious collection. The famous names one would expect to encounter here are indeed present — Mark Twain, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Thomas Pynchon, John Steinbeck, and Evelyn Waugh—which might make a reader wonder why the book was not titled “Known California.” But an answer to such a question is that this large volume also contains substantial but not sofamiliar accounts by “Dame Shirley” on gold-mining camps; Gerald Haslam on “The Oakies” forty years later (i.e., today); Oscar Acosta on Chicano city life; Randy Shilts on San Francisco gays and the death of Harvey Milk;John McKinney on destroying the California coastline;Richard Stayton on Disneyland; Kate Coleman on Mendocino lesbian farming communes; and several other fine and fresh essays. Whatever interests you about Cali­ fornia, or whatever you might wish to learn about “the Golden State” (this moniker was not intended to be ironic), you will probably be able to find something useful about the subject in Unknown California. Thisvolumewould qualify as one of those books currently marketed as an “in-depth survey” (also, presumably, not intended to be ironic). In addition to presenting a multitude of excerpts under one cover, the book has other notable features. The editors have a clear and correct under­ standing of California’s tripartite division (San Francisco, what I like to call Lost Angeles, and the Great Mountain-bordered Valley), thus a considerable amount of wildly diverse material frequently is in surprisingly clear focus. Ample attention is given to California conflicts involving environment and ethnicity. Still, the book does have its problems. Too many pages are devoted to the writings of Carey McWilliams, that prolific California culture critic of yesterday, who seems so terribly dated now. With no editorial commentary at all for these short, intense, and diverse pieces, the book can also be quite jolting, something like a mental version of repeating a ride down Space Moun­ tain, an adventurous zooming along at breakneck speed, alternating right side up and upside down. As would be expected, Southern California gets treated with short shrift and hostility; this is the only part of the book that too often lapses into caricaturish and cliched writing. I lived in Southern California foryears, and I don’t know either what it means that one of the largest, wealthiest, and most con­ gested urban areas in the world refuses to support mass transit because its voters want to drive everywhere in their own “customized,” sealed, Dolbysound -equipped, climate and cruise controlled, new and trendy autos. Specu­ lations about Southern California as the ultimate solipsistic “trip” tend to be easy and cheap. What really is the meaning of a culture that enjoys work because you get to drive long distances on freeways while traveling to and from it? I don’t know. I do wish, however, that Unknown California had 162 Western American Literature undertaken answers to these questions, as well as many others, to try to explain with more coherence and more depth that truly complex state and itsdivergent values—or “lifestyles,” as so many Californians and other people these days term values put into action. PATRICK D. MORROW Auburn University Desert Passages: Encounters with the American Deserts. By Patricia Nelson Limerick. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985. 218 pages, $22.50 hardcover, $12.95 paper.) Except for fur trappers, most Americans in the early nineteenth century didn’t even consider moving near our deserts. The Great American Desert myth was definitely having its effect. Then in 1843-44 along came John C. Fremont, that “continental real-estate appraiser,” to tell Americans that west­ ern deserts might be “savage and revolting” environments, but that we could conquer them. Thus with Fremont and Manifest Destiny, Patricia Nelson Limerick begins a survey of Anglo-American attitudes towards our deserts. To cover such a large subject area, Limerick undertakes case studies of eight representative writers—Fremont, William Lewis Manly, Mark Twain, William Ellsworth Smythe, John Van Dyke, George Wharton...