Last of the Breed by Louis L’Amour (review)

84 Western American Literature One interviewee, Gerald Wilkinson, Director of the National Indian Youth Council, sets forth Steiner’s thesis aptly when he observes that, from the Indian perspective, the dominant thrust of American culture appears as “a perversion of life . . . a cancer.” He predicts that the white man will soon render the earth unfit for habitation in the manner to which Western people aspire. Only those, like the Hopi and others who are willing to work with nature by scrupulously replenishing whatever is taken, will be capable of sur­ viving the coming ecological Armageddon. So once again we turn to the American natives for a disinterested, non­ western perspective upon what really lies in the pot at the end of the rainbow of the American philosophy of unlimited material growth. One hopes (faintly) that the formulators of American political and economic policy might be more responsive to the signals of coming self-destruction than are cancer cells in a dying patient. Otherwise Steiner will remain a voice crying unheard in the wasteland we seem so determined to create as our monument to the future. JACK L. DAVIS University of Idaho Last of the Breed. By Louis L’Amour. (New York: Bantam Books, 1987. 366 pages, $3.95.) In this novel of a great escape across Siberia, Louis L’Amour writes a fascinating page-turner that shows both his strengths and his weaknesses. His hero is Joe Makatozi, major in the U. S. Air Force, test pilot of some of our most advanced aircraft, and a Sioux Indian. Besides flying military aircraft, Joe is skilled in bow-hunting, arrow-head-making and trapping, and he is devoted to wilderness life. From the above description you can re-create the plot. Joe Mack, as his friends call him, is kidnapped to Siberia by the Soviet military to be grilled for information, but he promptly escapes. In the year that follows, all through the terrible sixty-below winter and many adventures, Joe is escaping, killing his pursuers, falling in love with beautiful Natalya, head of an outlaw band, and attempting to re-enact the Indian migrations across the Bering Strait. L’Amour’s great skill is his ability to create interesting plot, fast-moving action, many surprising twists and turns, short chapters with dramatic crises at the end of each, and a somewhat believable picture of Siberia today. The main problem with the novel in literary terms is that the hero, though he grows admirably in ability to physically survive, seems to learn nothing from all his suffering. If anything, he regresses to a lower, more savage level of understanding, which is perhaps L’Amour’s basic point about tribal-warrior life. Or any kind of warrior life. Reviews 85 Yet the book does what many more literary works (like House Made of Dawn) fail to do: interest you immediately and hold you to the last page. And of course L’Amour arranged it so that a sequel is clearly possible, if Joe decides to return to the Soviet Union to get revenge on Colonel Zamatev—his already-ruined military intelligence kidnapper—which Joe has sworn to do. STARR JENKINS Cal Poly State University The Treble V: The Legacy of a Cattle Baron of the Old West. By R. Guild Gray. (New York: Vantage Press, 1986. 669 pages, $18.95.) The Treble V is the ambitious chronicle of a ranching family in north­ eastern Nevada, near the present town of Elko. Beginning in the mountain man era and ending in 1937, the novel spans six generations. Most of the action takes place from 1848 to 1898, and the book includes a great deal of interesting historical detail about Nevada’s evolution as a territory and state. Furthermore, the book shows a good sense of the Great Basin country—the natural environment and man’srelation to it. In order to enjoy these pleasant features, the reader must push through vast drifts of flawed writing. The proofreading is shameful, with scores and scores of typographical errors. This may account for some of the negligent punctuation, but there are also numerous distracting errors in the basic use of apostrophes, semicolons, and commas. Beyond that, there...