Lawrence Clark Powell by Gerald Haslam, and: Winston M. Estes by Bob J. Frye, and: Bess Streeter Aldrich by Abigail Ann Martin, and: William Humphrey by Mark Royden Winchell, and: Peter Wild by Edward Butscher (review)

180 'Western American Literature canon, could do worse than to start with Patrick Morrow’s The Popular and the Serious. The book defines two parallel literary traditions which Morrow calls, except in his title, the formula and the complex, rather than the popular and the serious. Although he recognizes them as discrete traditions, Morrow is interested in some of the points at which they intersect during the twentieth century. In some novels, like The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises, the success story of formula literature is stood on its head: success brings misery, not happiness. He then gives comparative examples of the treatm ent of two themes—mental retardation and the immigrant—within each tradition. Fi­ nally, he shows how the two traditions are somewhat blended in the gentle parodies of Richard Brautigan. The strengths of the book are, in the first place, Morrow’s clear definition of formula literature and his differentiation of the two traditions, though most of it, as he admits, is little more than a restatement of the ideas ofJohn Cawelti. The chapters on the themes of mental retardation and the immigrant are also strong, in their close comparison of the two traditions. Less successful are the chapters on western literature, where he contrasts Eugene Manlove Rhodes’s Paso Por Aqui with Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s “The Watchful Gods,” giving not even a nod to the vast continuum of works between those extremes, works in which formula and invention commingle creatively. And if the two traditions blend in recent literature, surely they do so in more than just Brautigan’s novels. Finally, two harsher caveats. The flippant prose style often looks like a verbatim transcription of a classroom lecture. Surely serious literary discussion, even of formula literature, deserves better than that. And the absurd price Edwin Mellen is asking for an undistinguished binding without dustjacket of a volume barely reaching one hundred fifty pages does a great disservice to both author and audience. \JgKSX TOPPING Salt Lake Community College irence Clark Powell. By Gerald Haslam. (Boise State University Western Writ­ ers Series Number 102, 1992. 52 pages, $3.95.) Winston M. Estes. By Bob J. Frye. (Boise State University Western Writers Series Number 103, 1992. 52 pages, $3.95.) Bess Streeter Aldrich. By Abigail Ann Martin. (Boise State University Western Writers Series Number 104, 1992. 46 pages, $3.95.) William Humphrey. By Mark Royden Winchell. (Boise State University Western Writers Series Number 105, 1992. 51 pages, $3.95.) Reviews 181 Peter 'Wild. By Edward Butscher. (Boise State University Western Writers Series Number 106, 1992. 53 pages, $3.95.) To be sure, no one can accuse Boise State University’s Western Writers Series of lacking breadth in its attempt to promote western literature and scholarship. Indeed, for two decades professors Chatterton and Maguire have steadily guided their modest publications over a terrain as varied and unpredict­ able as much of the western landscape itself. Accordingly, 1992’s offerings span a wide range of territory and talent. Subjects range from Lawrence Clark Powell, arguably the dean of western bookmen, to lesser lights such as Winston Estes and William Humphrey, the latter hardly western at all. Toss in Tucson’s Peter Wild, one of the more forceful newer voices on the scene, and Bess Aldrich, who apparently never harbored a nasty thought, and you get a notion of this year’s yield. As you might expect, with five subjects and five writers the quality or readability of these studies varies greatly. Without doubt Gerald Haslam’s treatm ent of Lawrence Clark Powell stands above the others. This is attribut­ able in part to Haslam’s subject; one senses that Powell is both fun and challenging to write about, and Haslam’s pleasure in and respect for his subject is abundantly clear from cover to cover. I think the secret here is the readability of Haslam’s prose, (Lawrence Clark Powellcan be read in about half the time required for anyone of the others listed here). In the twilight of his career, Powell deserves far more than the standard, lifeless academic treat­ m ent one sees from time to time. Like Powell himself, Haslam’s prose is...