Twentieth-Century Texas: A Social and Cultural History

Goodbye Ol’ Paint,Hello Rapid Transit: Texas Literature in the Twentieth Century

220 STRETCHING FROM THE PINEY woods of east Texas to the Gulf Coast, across the rolling Texas Hill Country to the deserts of the Trans-Pecos West, Texas offers an immensely varied and complex landscape, one that has been creatively and imaginatively probed by twentieth-century writers. Traditional stories have included such stock elements as laconic cowboys, nasty outlaws, greedy oil barons, saucy bar girls, leering bandidos, Texas Rangers, blind heifers, horny boys, or conspicuous Cadillacs. Other stories— those with more lasting literary appeal—examined the state’s diversity and moved beyond stereotypes, reflecting and transforming elements that defined the region with originality, supple language, and humanity.1 Twentieth-century writers responded to the realities of Texas’ natural environment, as well as to the themes and qualities those events induce. Historically, writers journeying across Texas—from explorers such as Cabeza de Vaca to twentieth-century nature writers such as Roy Bedichek and John Graves—attempted to capture their responses to the natural and cultural phenomena they encountered . Much of the writing emphasized coming to terms with a variGoodbye Ol’ Paint, Hello Rapid Transit Texas Literature in the Twentieth Century Mark Busby ★ 20centtxtext.indd 220 20centtxtext.indd 220 1/18/08 1:46:34 PM 1/18/08 1:46:34 PM GOODBYE OL’ PAINT, HELLO RAPID TRANSIT 221 ety of cultures, but just as often the literature explored the aesthetic and pragmatic challenges posed by the region’s natural conditions, where lush pine forests give way to empty plains that sometimes stretch so far that the eye yearns for even the slightest hill to lean against (as Roy Bedichek commented in his 1951 Adventures with a Texas Naturalist), where most of the indigenous vegetation is thorny and fruitless, and where often insufficient water exists to sustain cities or livestock. Texas landscapes are both as beautiful and appealing as they are dangerous and frightening—arid Chihuahuan desert, jutting Guadalupe Mountains, eroding Caprock canyonlands , and rolling Llano Estacado.2 Traveling occurs naturally in a state as large as Texas—266,807 square miles—801 miles from the north in the Panhandle to Brownsville in the south and 773 miles from the Sabine River’s easternmost bend to the Rio Grande’s westernmost point near El Paso. From 1853–1854 Frederick Law Olmsted, later known for designing New York City’s Central Park, traveled by horseback across Texas, then published A Journey through Texas. With all this territory, journeying continues to be necessary for the state. Several twentieth-century titles by Texas writers reflected the fundamental importance of journeying: Waltz across Texas; North to Yesterday; North Toward Home; Moving On; Horseman, Pass By; Leaving Cheyenne ; Dead Man’s Walk; The Trail to Ogallala; Goodbye to a River; Pale Horse, Pale Rider; Rafting the Brazos; and Trip to Bountiful. Many Texas stories use journeys for structure, with searching as a metaphor for the existential reality of contemporary life. From Saul on the road to Damascus, Oedipus on the way to Thebes, Odysseus headed home, Huck on the river, Gus and Call going up the trail, and John Grady Cole crossing the Rio Grande, the journey’s power as archetype gains emphasis where expanse beckons and hinders. Much of the state’s literature also reflects the frontier mythology central to the larger American experience. Frontier mythology refers to a cluster of images, values, and archetypes that grew out 20centtxtext.indd 221 20centtxtext.indd 221 1/18/08 1:46:37 PM 1/18/08 1:46:37 PM 222 TWENTIETH-CENTURY TEXAS of the confrontation between the “uncivilized” and the “civilized” world, what Frederick Jackson Turner called the “meeting point between savagery and civilization.” Civilization is associated with the past, with Europe, and with society: its institutions, laws, demands for compromise and restriction, cultural refinement and emphasis on manners, industrial development, and class distinctions. The wilderness with which civilization collides offers individuals freedom to test themselves against nature without demands for social responsibility or compromises of a community. Texas mythology, which matured in the twentieth century, draws from frontier mythology, particularly the emphasis on the Southwest as a land of freedom and opportunity, where individuals can demonstrate those values that the Anglo myth reveres: courage, determination, ingenuity, and loyalty. The most recognizable indigenous American hero—the cowboy—is a product of Texas’ frontier legacy. But the Southwest’s frontier history and geography produce deep feelings of ambivalence. On one hand, the vastness of...