A Biobibliography of Native American Writers, 1772-1924 by Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., and James W. Parins (review)

Book Reviews135 Michael Gilkes has bravely taken up the work of providing guidance through the novelistic sector of this terrain of half-known or vaguely heard-of writers. His basic organizational plan isa sound one, consisting of detailed commentary on a few essential works interspersed with overall observations on general tendencies. There is no attempt at a panoramic dictionary-like coverage (already provided, in any case, by Donald Herdeck, ed., Caribbean Writers: A Bio-Bibliographic Critical Encyclopedia , strongest in its treatment of Anglophone writing). The only real surprise in Gilkes's choice of most representative works is W.H. Hudson's Green Mansions, a novel that could go on many different library shelves. For Gilkes's purposes, it is a West Indian work for its Venezuelan/Guyanese setting and early presentation of the consciousness-altering journey into shamanistic, ritualistic Amerindian culture, a theme later traceable through Denis Williams and Wilson Harris as well as nonEnglish language writers (Alejo Carpentier's Los pasos perdidos). Gilkes has faced a forbidding task and generally done a commendable job of covering a large expanse of material. He is especially able to deal with works that may initially prove disquieting or seem crudely melodramatic to modern sensibilities (Edgar Mittelholzer's Kaywana trilogy). One may well feel that Gilkes is too swift to dismiss the very serious charges against V.S. Naipaul, which after all lead to the large issue of pro-Western rationalism versus an ability to understand intuitive and magical thought as a valid system. Gilkes merely points out that Naipaul's disgust with the region is the authentic fruit of an alienating experience. However, the critic does find the opportunity to mock subtly the novelist's extreme fastidiousness, and the Harris analyses show an appreciation for the author willing to become fully engaged with indigenous culture and thought. A second reservation is that Gilkes provides little commentary on why Harris's writing is so phenomenally difficult to enter, and why even Guyanese readers may initially find it laborious to begin "rescuing the work from strangeness." Some reference to Culler's remarks on mythic discourse and Westernized readers might have been of use here. These are relatively small complaints about an informative and insightful volume. NAOMI LINDSTROM University of Texas Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., and James W. Parins. A Biobibliography of Native American Writers, 1772-1924. Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1981. 342p. Littlefield and Parins's biobibliographic text demands recognition of the productivity of American Indian writing in English from the Colonial period until the year 1924 when Congress granted all American Indians citizenship. With over 4,000 entries, including fiction, letters, myths and legends, poetry, sermons, oratory, and non-fiction prose, the book presents a comprehensive collection ofcitations of works by American Indians, the greater portion of which have not been readily accessible. In their critical introduction to the bibliography proper, the authors point out four patterns in the material they cite: first, the fact of the extensive canon of Indian authored material; second, that nearly all Indian writers, though often derivative from popular culture in themes and styles, do address the condition of American Indian people; third, that writings by Indians provide a good gauge of the degree of acculturation at any given time; and fourth, a strong sense of racial and cultural consciousness is presented from Indian perspective. These patterns, while undoubtedly accurate, could easily be gleaned from a far more limited sampling. One wishes 136ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW that the introduction addressed concerns of variation and methodology rather than such broad generalizations. The bibliography does not employ a complicated system. Entries are chronological within each author entry and do not require reference to a complex abbreviation table. They use only one key, which indicates genre. This information is useful, but unfortunately, because genre definitions and the criteria for genre designations are not discussed in the introduction, the reliability of the system is questionable. Biographical notes on each author, which follow the bibliography, are also useful ; however, the bibliography of pen name entries which is separated from the central bibliography is puzzling. One wonders why the authors did not simply set up a simple symbol to designate pen names...