Reading the Fire: The Traditional Indian Literatures of America by Jarold Ramsey (review)

116 WAL 37.1 Spring 2002 Readers should be aware that nothing by Silko published after 1996— the year when the nonfiction collection Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit appeared— has been treated by the essayists. Consequently, her most recent novel, Gardens in the Dunes (1999), did not make the chronological cut. Nevertheless, this collection of essays is essential reading for anyone interested in Silko’s work, especially Almanac of the Dead. Reading the Fire: The Traditional Indian Literatures of America. Revised and expanded by Jarold Ramsey. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999. 360 pages, $19.95. Reviewed by Tol Foster University of Wisconsin—Madison This review begins with a confession: I dreaded reading another book about the “pure” Native oral tradition, with its implication that contemporary written texts by Native authors are somehow deficient and corrupted because they refuse to be static artifacts of a frozen culture. I also feared another book that refuses to contextualize Native literature within its specific culture and time. There is none of that in this book. Instead, we gain through Ramsey’s work strong methodologies and awareness of the stakes and pitfalls in a package that is downright pleasurable to read. The fruit of many years of scholarly engagement, this text not only displays his great familiarity with the oral literatures of the tribes of the West (particularly those of the Northwest) but also provides the reader with excellent tools for appreciating and studying oral literatures. And what timing! The study of Native literature is far more contentious than it was when the first edition of this book was published in 1983, as Native scholars challenge the assumptions of their predominantly non-Native acade­ mic predecessors, and recent books of scholarship have often responded to this contentiousness with garbled (and thus protective) prose and limited (but uni­ versally acceptable) assertions. This book, on the contrary, presents us with an excellent example of “credible American Indian literary scholarship” based on “literary theory, close formal analysis of the translated texts, as examples of lit­ erary art, and the use of ethnographic data” (xxiv). The only readers who may not be pleased with this book are those with extreme poststructuralist tendencies, for the argument here is structuralist, with important modifications. The creation and origin tales in the first chapter are discussed as a mostly stable genre designed to “establish [tribal] priorities and ultimate values,” but the tales themselves are not fixed, as structuralists might claim (8). Rather, they are dynamic, shaped by individual artists over time by particular factors such as gender and tribal conflict. As the book moves on to trickster tales, ceremonies, and hero tales, Ramsey demonstrates how these stories are not only aesthetically pleasing, but also revelatory about the values and imagination of their cultures. This is most BOOK REVIEWS 1 1 7 apparent in the reading of a Wasco tale in which a competent warrior’s spirit animal rebukes and leaves him after his father pushes him to hunt excessively (84-85). The story reveals that what Ramsey calls the “ecological imagina­ tion” is a fundamental component of the culture of tribal groups, a component that members of the contemporary West would do well to incorporate. Ramsey shows that even the Le Petit Jean tales of French-Canadian voyageurs and Bible stories of missionaries are absorbed and reworked to conform to the cul­ ture of their tellers. Most important to those who would like to teach or study oral stories, however, is Ramsey’s concluding chapter, which serves as an excellent primer on how to avoid some of the many critical mistakes that have entrapped casual readers and advanced scholars alike. Needless to say, Ramsey’s book is a worth­ while read, if not model, for the field. Continental Divides: Revisioning American Literature. By Anne E. Goldman. New York: Palgrave, 2000. 208 pages, $45.00. Reviewed by Andrea Tinnemeyer Utah State University, Logan The ambitious undertaking of Continental Divides is nothing short of un­ settling New England as the cultural, geographic, and literary center of the United States. Goldman models the kind of scholarship she advocates: con­ sidering Henry? James and Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton in light of both...