Matt Braun by Robert L. Gale, and: George Wharton James by Peter Wild, and: Charles Erskine Scott Wood by Edwin R. Bingham, and: Dee Brown by Lyman B. Hagen, and: Paula Gunn Allen by Elizabeth I. Hanson (review)

162 Western American Literature Scholars and critics will find particularly helpful Sections C and D, describing articles and short stories (respectively) published in periodicals and newspapers. The listing is complete and therefore includes some of the “reams of grocery-buying junk” Stegner claims he has written. As one who has searched for some of this unindexed and all-but-inaccessible material, I appre­ ciate Colberg’scareful work. One can also appreciate James Hepworth’s enthusiastic “Introduction” testifying to Stegner’s productive career as teacher and writer, his influence, and the excellence of his work. But the West has always had its pitchmen, and I think we should be wary about selling Stegner to the Nobel Prize Committee for Literature just yet. Western (literary) country contains plenty of wasteland; resourceful and rewarding writers are still too few. On the other hand, a writer’s resources are not synonymous with (other) natural resources; one is never sure where a writer will find a story. I understand they are leasing upper reaches of the Columbia basin for the disposal of urban coastal waste—something akin to an idea the author of “The Town Dump” teased into a story many years ago. I find that story a pleasure; but Stegner’s stories belong to anyone who reads them, or writes about them, or likes to hold them in hand and collect them. Our task is to act intelligently in these matters. The work should sell itself. MERRILL LEWIS Western Washington University Matt Braun. By Robert L. Gale. (Boise, Idaho: Boise State University Western Writers Series Number 92, 1990. 55 pages, $3.95.) George Wharton James. By Peter Wild. (Boise, Idaho: Boise State University Western Writers Series Number 93, 1990. 52 pages, $3.95.) CharlesErskine Scott Wood. By Edwin R. Bingham. (Boise, Idaho: Boise State University Western Writers Series Number 94, 1990. 52 pages, $3.95.) Dee Brown. By Lyman B. Hagen. (Boise, Idaho: Boise State University West­ ern Writers Series Number 95, 1990. 52 pages, $3.95.) Paula Gunn Allen. By Elizabeth I. Hanson. (Boise, Idaho: Boise State Univer­ sity Western Writers Series Number 96, 1990. 50 pages, $3.95.) Like previous numbers in the Western Writers Series, these five critical introductions achieve a double purpose:they bring critical notice to the varied efforts of individual writers whose regionalism generally has been perceived as a limitation, and they contribute to the ongoing process of defining western American literature and of gauging its significance in the national literature Reviews 163 and culture. These five numbers also exhibit the wide range of approaches that can be employed to accomplish a fairly direct purpose within a uniformly restricted space. That some of the approaches succeed more than others is to be expected and does not diminish the overall effectiveness of allowing for such imaginative critical thinking within a series such as this. Robert L. Gale’sMatt Braun provides cogent, if basic, analyses of Braun’s attention to structure in his novels, aswell as very detailed identifications of his direct integration and adaptation of historical figures and events. Still, the booklet seems often too packed with detail, especially since Gale’s argument for Braun’s significance is unconvincing on two key points. First, Gale repeat­ edly illustrates Braun’s obvious limitations as a stylist, but usually blames poor editing for such things as an over-reliance on cliche, repetitive sentence struc­ tures, and dangling modification. In this area, Braun clearly needs more than a good editor. Second, Gale asserts rather hastily in his conclusion that Braun’s use of a broader range of materials makes his cumulative achievement not only comparable to, but perhaps even greater than, that of A. B. Guthrie, Jr., Jack Schaefer, or Dee Brown. The fault in such an assertion is obvious if one considers why, for instance, Jerome Weidman is a considerably less important figure than Saul Bellow. In Charles Erskine Scott Wood, Edwin R. Bingham’s portrait of the essayist and poet is more personalized than Gale’s discussion of Braun. This approach contributes to the lucid overview of Wood’ssuccesses and limitations in his satiric essays, but, perhaps inevitably, it seems to allow for only a seem­ ingly simplistic treatment of...