Nordi’s Gift by Clyde Rice (review)

262 WesternAmerican Literature to a chicken coop where it sat neglected, out of tune, and swelling up from the humidity. When a neighboring chicken built a nest on the keys, Grace didn’t even bother to remove the straw and feathers.” A novel this large and ambitious—the cast of characters numbers no fewer than thirty—is bound to be slowed at times by its own complicated design. Nevertheless, no one could read Mean Spirit through to its apocalyptic final pages without feeling that, overall, Hogan has created something vital and deeply touching. Mean Spiritis much like the meteorite that the heroine, Belle Graycloud, wears on a thong around her neck; it is rare, wondrous, and alive with a certain sympathetic power. PAUL HADELLA Arkansas State University Nordi’s Gift. By Clyde Rice. (Portland: Breitenbush Books, 1990. 457 pages, $21.95.) A sequel to his critically-acclaimed autobiography, A Heaven In The Eye (1984), this volume continues the Oregon (1934-1955) adventures and misad­ ventures of the octogenarian Clyde Rice. The predominant portrait here is Rice as dualistic Penitent Male—former husband of Nordi whose displacement, divorce, and death shape the book—and lover of Virginia, his second wife. Nordi becomes compelling when the reader learns in Chapter III (1937) that Rice has developed an affection for Virginia, Nordi’s sixteen-year-old niece. While the lovers conceal their passion for six years, his marriage to Nordi seems to be satisfying. In Chapter V (1943), he finally tells Nordi about Virginia, and, swearing he loves them both, he flees to Alaska. When Nordi is asked for a divorce in ChapterVI (1945), the lovers propose a two-year trial marriage. After Nordi grants the divorce, one of the gifts alluded to in the title, Rice marries Virginia. Nordi later lives briefly with the new couple, marries another man, then dies suddenly—before Rice can reveal to her what he confesses to the reader—his years of guilt and suffering. Using Nordi’s life as a plot device, Rice adds many dualistic self-portraits as subplots: The Man of Action is shadowed by The Good-Hearted Failure; The Aspiring Sensitive Artist is shadowed by The Trapped Working Tough and Oddball; The Sensualist is haunted by The Ethicist; The Fatalist is shadowed by The Volitionist; The Simplistic Idiot is shadowed by The Dualistic Intellectual. These conflicting portraits achieve complexity and depth from Rice The Hon­ est Narrator who is shadowed by a life of failing to become a fiction writer. However, that Failed Fiction Writer carefully choreographs symbol, plot, and theme for Nordi’s Gift. Rice The Honest Narrator sometimes undercuts the credibility of his self­ Reviews 263 portraits. For instance, he omits from early chapters any marital problems; then, in Chapter VIII, the reader suddenly learns that “When Nordi and I had been together we were often at outs, angrywith each other for days.”This is the same narrator who tells his readers he has “tried to tell things just the way they happened and never insult your [the reader’s] intelligence. Oh, maybe in a few places. You’ll find them.” Nordi 5 Gift becomes important because these conflicting portraits reveal the large processes of maturation in colonial Oregon—from macho simplicity, literalism, violence, unlimited illusions, and betrayal of the female to the currently enforced embrace of androgynous and ecological complexity, art, understanding, conscious choices, and admissions of guilt. Still, Nordi’s Gift should be approached cautiously. The tragic betrayal of a woman is told by The Penitent Male who betrayed her; the supposedly Failed Fiction Writer is presenting the “true story”of his life with all the devices of art perfected in his most recent novel, Night Freight (1987); the Man of Action is narrating himself as The Failure, but everything the reader learns about The Author behind all of these masks suggests his success. GEORGE VENN Eastern Oregon State College Fireweed: An American Saga. By Nellie Buxton Picken. (Washington: Melior Publications, 1989. 392 pages, $26.95.) WAL readers will be pleased with Nellie Buxton Picken’s first book. Like Wallace Stegner’sAngle ofRepose,Fireweedis a historical novel framed in contem­ porary times; it traces the settlement and growth of...