Colorado: A Literary Chronicle by W. Storrs Lee (review)

70 Western American Literature tone, explores man’s pretenses, his options, and his often belated regret at having chosen wrongly. Theseus is a modern version of the classical legend in which Carballido's hero makes his own decisions, often vain or cruel ones, rather than submitting to fate or the gods. Along with the problem of fantasy versus reality, Carballido seems ex­ tremely concerned with man’s options and his responsibility in choosing wisely. In his more realistic works, the setting is Mexico, and he frequently employs Mexican motifs and mythology (a case in point being the appear­ ance of the mythical Aztec “Nahual” in The Intermediate Zone). This back­ ground adds interest and color to his plays, but is not essential to his message. Carballido’s successful treatment of universal rather than purely social themes makes his dramatic work innovative and provocative. M a r io n F. H o d a pp, Colorado State University Colorado: A Literary Chronicle. By W. Storrs Lee. (New York: Funk & Wagnals, 1970. 485 pages, $10.00.) A travel agent’s itinerary, a Baedeker, or a motel guide limits the de­ mand upon a reader to position or direction; a book purporting to be a “literary chronicle” should do more Explicit in the definition of literary is a relationship to “men of litters” ; in chronicle, to detailed, continuous history. Colorado: A Literary Chronicle is neither a treasury of literary ex­ cerpts nor a true chronicle of Colorado. The purpose of the book is ob­ tuse: to inform, to entertain, to “educate”? If it is to inform, the book attempts too much too sketchily; if to entertain, too much is too serious; if to educate, it fails in elucidation and full documentation. Perhaps what it does best is to acquaint one with the past of Colorado. Without index or bibliography, but with a list of “key dates” in the end pages, the book comprises ninety-three two-to-eight-page “chapters,” each opening with informal introductory paragraphs by the author, and run­ ning a loosely chronological course from 1266 A. D. to 1963, from Francisco Vasques de Coronado, 1541, to Neil Morgan, 1963. Exemplary excerpts from men who have praised, damned, described, fictionalized or versified, oversold or undersold Colorado preserve flash impressions, written about or in Colo­ rado, from Spanish conquistadores, explorers, trappers, military men or their wives, waggoneers, travelers and tourists, newspaper men, missionaries, priests, doctors, keepers of journals, and professional writers. Only a handful of great writers is here, represented generally not for their literary greatness but for context in Mr. Lee’s chronological treatment. Had Cooper or Irving camped at the foot of Pike’s or Long’s Peaks, the reader would benefit from a Colorado Natty or a Cripple Creek Astor. The book provides no map or detail for the non-Coloradoan who would question allusions to Manitou, Cache La Poudre, Middle Park, Trapper’s Lake, or the distance between the Arkansas, the Red (Colorado), and Rio Grande rivers. Reviews 71 Each chapter represents a different writer but for one Beckwourth, a mulatto who wrote knowledeably about selling liquor to the Indians and testified in the Senate investigation into the Sand Creek Massacre in hear­ ings at Fort Lyon and Denver in 1867. The selections can be said to divide into three kinds of writing despite the author’s concern with historical con­ tinuity: Epochal passages include those of the free trapper and the fur trade; glimpses of life on the trail and in the fort, particularly the “castle” of Bent’s; Dodge’s description of the medicine dance; Young’s “Central City's Day of Judgment” ; and a condensed fragment from Mari Sandoz’ The Cattle­ men. Personal experiences highlighted are a young military bride’s inter­ lude at Bent’s Fort; Edwin James’ 1820 ascent of Pike’s Peak and Isabella Lucy Bird’s 1873 climb of Long’s; William Ashley’s 1825 Colorado Christmas; Pattie’s river-narrative, edited by Timothy Flint; and Jack Dempsey’s poignant exposé of growing up poor in Manassa. Curious remnants are, first, one of language, Jacob Fowler’s “Three Up a Tree,” an illiteracy which demands not only the glossary provided but...