Headwaters: Tales of the Wilderness by Ash, et al. (review)

Reviews 355 acutely mindful of the price it exacts — the security of living within the tribal mentality. Charlie has been forever touched by experiencing nature through the healing, holistic vision. A recent book-of-the-month selection, Mosquito Coast is not only pro­ found and chilling, it is beautifully crafted, with echoes of the great chronicles of western civilization in confrontation with nature and native, such as Tacitus’ Germania, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Cooper’sLeatherstocking series, Melville’s Moby Dick, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Conrad’s Heart of Dark­ ness, and Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses. It deserves a place alongside those classics. JACK L. DAVIS, University of Idaho Headwaters: Tales of the Wilderness. By Ash, Russell, Doog and Del Rio. (Covelo, California: Island Press, 1979. 188 pages, $6.00.) When George Dane enters the “Great Good Place” in Henry James’s tale, he does so quite simply: he falls asleep. Ash, Russell, Doog and Del Rio enter their good place in what Edward Abbey calls a “typically American, typically up-to-date” way: they head for the Yolla Bolly W'ilderness (which is, of course, the wilderness of the human heart) and suffer cold, hunger, ants, and rain on the way to peace, brotherhood, and simplicity. Headwaters will be of great nostalgic interest to all bridge players, old hippies pushing forty, graduated Outward Bound students, and young fresh­ men who want to know whatever happened to the children of the sixties. Our authors declare that this is not a book, a “literary edifice,” but rather “a little trail,” or as Doog says, “a sketchy little map showing what I know of my wilderness.” Like all good maps, it contains names: Jung, Nietzsche, Borges, Tolkien, Gurdjieff, Krishnamurti, Hegel, Ansel Adams, John Fre­ mont, Konrad Lorenz, Jackson Browne, Anthony Burgess, Paul Ehrlich, Robert Pirsig, Castaneda . . . little landmarks of our recent cultural history. Taking their bearings from these landmarks, our four narrators make their way — sometimes in tedious raps, sometimes in swift visions — toward some­ thing which they frequently claim cannot be contained in language. There are tales in this ramble: the story of the King of Cantaloupes and the Empress of Dates collecting and delivering food in the steamy Sacramento Valley; Ash’s adventures in the Devil’s Triangle; Doog and his father in a rowboat in 1952; the joke which Del Rio’s horse, Val, plays on the President of the California Trout Fisherman’s Association. There are visions: a gnome and a geisha in the wilderness; Jesus on Shell Mountain. But all of these stories are pushed aside to return us to the Quest. There are many structures to study on this map: bridges, star charts, photographs, topographic contours. But the most encompassing structure is 356 Western American Literature the diptych itself, the two journeys: the first, long, under the Summer Solstice; the second, shorter, under the October rain. There is less to say the second time. Ash, the king of this foursome, admits: “Today’s truth is basically the same, though quieter and calmer as seems to be the providence of age.” So what has changed between the two adventures? Del Rio has bought a tent; Russell knows more about his camera. They miss Monday Night Football. The women who float distortedly in the background of the Boys’ Club have progressed some: Kathleen, the faerie queen who was ill during the first journey, is well in the second. However, the tangible proof offered for hope is no more substantial than those leaves on the tree in the second act of Wait­ ingfor Godot. The intangible hope offered by Doog, the seer, is more significant: “we shine anew whenever we will.” This legacy will not “blow your socks off,” but perhaps this map with all its frayed edges and blank spots will provide you with an interesting little walk. CAROL LONG, Willamette University Cowboy Riding Country. ByJohn L. Sinclair. Illustrated by Edmond DeLavy. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982. 191 pages, $19.95.) Cowboy Riding Country takes in a lot of territory, from the grassy eastern plains around Roswell, New Mexico, to the Peloncillo Mountains at the opposite corner of the state. In time it ranges from the...