Notes to a Bald Buffalo by J. R. Milton (review)

288 Western American Literature Notes to a Bald Bußalo. By J. R. Milton. (Vermillion, South Dakota: Spirit Mound Press, 1976. 126 pages, $5.95.) This book is not so much a novel as a jigsaw puzzle, with the dis­ advantage that there is no picture on the cover to guide the reader. A description of the manner in which the narrative is put together, or rather, taken apart, will suggest the problems it presents. The book is divided into three parts, “Beginnings,” “Middles,” and “Endings,” each consisting of nine chapters. Each part begins with a chapter about a Swedish immigrant couple and their family on a farm in Iowa, and ends with a chapter about a man who is running to meet a strange woman on a beach “along the western edge of the continent.” The chap­ ters between, in the first part, concern (Chapter Two) a starving man who cuts his hand when he strikes a sugar bowl because he finds no food on the table; (Chapter Three) a man who observes the landscape as he rides on a train; (Chapter Four) a “they” who drive through an “awesome landscape”; (Chapter Five) a man who drives in darkness that becomes an inner darkness where he is riding on horseback behind a horseman ahead who anticipates his every move; (Chapter Six) an Indian girl who slips away from her Mission School to go to the house of a lover; (Chapter Seven) a man who is persuaded by a woman to discover the physical mean­ ing of history, in particular, Western history; (Chapter Eight) a man who drives across the plains and asks his wife to write down the words with which he reacts to hawks preying on a rabbit and a fieldmouse. These brief glimpses into the lives of people mostly on the move are continued in corresponding chapters in the other parts of the book. In the “Middles” part, for instance, the starving man is in a hospital where doctors attend to his cut hand; the Indian girl goes to bed with her lover; the man driving across the plains reaches the Rocky Mountains and is driving up Mount Evans in Colorado. In the “Endings” part, the man on Mount Evans reaches the Pacific Ocean and goes to a beach where a strange woman is waitingfor him. The reader recognizes at this point that Chapter Eight fits with Chapter Five. A part of the puzzle falls into place. The man in Chapter Five rides his horse into a town in Western history, and the man in Chapter Seven discovers the physical place and meaning of history. These two may be the same man. Two more pieces may possibly fit together. Yet however the pieces may fit, no picture emerges. The novel is obviously symbolic. Each man may be Everyman in the West. What is symbolized, however, remains obscure. There are many poetic passages. Yet this is not a poem in prose. It lacks the cadence and control of poetry. The book is, as the title suggests, “Notes,” and their being addressed to a buffalo, however holy, does not make them partake of his sacred char­ acter, or make them poetry, or make them complete. Whatever the author had in his mind has been incompletely realized on the page. ROBERT F. RICHARDS, The University of Denver ...