Word Ways: The Novels of D'Arcy McNickle by John Lloyd Purdy (review)

264Rocky Mountain Review analogous with Blanchot's mysterious "impersonal neutral." More specifically Miller thinks she escapes the cultural assumptions behind James' choices: his terms which "aestheticize and sanctify" her (65), his decision to make the child a girl and thus an available object for masculine piercing through to the unknowable. Miller speaks impatiently about the "new historicism's" tendency to make literature only reflective and historically determined, but it seems to me that his drive to get past language leaves him buying into an ideology close to James' and deflecting complex ethical questions raised by the narrative. In his final chapter Miller returns both to the ethical dangers ofprosopopoeia and to Jamesian renunciation, an action to which he seems strongly attracted. Miller's reader may wonder whether deconstruction isn't a form of renunciation, and the admonitory emphasis ofthe ending makes the connection explicit. Versions of Pygmalion opens with large questions about the moral good which the act of reading may bring to the reader, but the book develops an "ethics of reading" which puts the reader in a position of paralysis: no storytelling—or ethics—without prosopopoeia, but prosopopoeia stands us on ethically faulted ground. ANNE HOWELLS Occidental College JOHN LLOYD PURDY. Word Ways: The Novels ofD'Arcy McNickle. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1990. 168 p. The publication of Word Ways is a milestone in the study ofD'Arcy McNickle's work and in the development of Native American literary studies. As the first book-length study of McNickle's novels, it will set the tone for much of the future work done on McNickle. Also it indicates a growth in the field to the point where a variety of Native writers are being discussed as our appreciation of the complex and extensive nature of Native American literature expands. McNickle's literary reputation rests on three novels, The Surrounded (1936, rpt. 1978); ajuvenile novel, Runner in the Sun (1954); and Wind from an Enemy Sky, published posthumously in 1978. While his literary influence may only date from the late 70s, he was a noted Indian activist who worked for years with the Bureau ofIndian Affairs, the National Congress ofAmerican Indians which he cofounded, and many scholars and leaders. During the 80s, some research started to appear on McNickle. While mentioning these studies, Purdy chooses to strike out in his own direction to establish how tribal and oral life ways influenced the goals and structure ofMcNickle's novels. Purdy sees two plots running through most of the work: an Indian one founded on oral antecedents which supports an Indian perspective on knowledge and meaning, and a White one which focuses on the tragic historical consequences of IndianWhite miscommunication and misunderstanding. Purdy sees his book and McNickle's life in terms of a vision quest, a journey for knowledge. Purdy's first chapter outlines McNickle's life with special attention to the Salish people and Salish verbal arts which influenced the Indian plots. He describes McNickle as a tribal storyteller and then analyzes his novels for Book Reviews265 the elements he has identified from Salish verbal art. While Purdy is insightful here, the fact that we have so little biographical information on McNickle makes his claims a bit stretched, especially when he chooses to speculate on McNickle's childhood experience of oral storytelling and selects three Salish stories to serve as the basis for oral perspective developed in McNickle's novels. Central to Purdy's book is the story ofhow McNickle wrote his novels. Using McNickle'sjournals and correspondence along with manuscript drafts ofnovels, Purdy deftly explores McNickle's sources, methods, and goals. His chapter on The Surrounded is especially useful in this area. The many extensive revisions McNickle made in the years he wrote the book (some on the advice of New York editors) illustrate and punctuate the decisions he made in the published novel. This technique works less well in the two chapters devoted to McNickle's other novels for which we have less manuscript information. The strongest chapter contains a fine discussion of Wind from an Enemy Sky. Based on a close explication of the book, Purdy explores the ideas of movement, growth, journey, and traditional knowledge...