Montana Gothic by Dirck Van Sickle (review)

Reviews 343 ■Montana Gothic. By Dirck Van Sickle. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. 244 pages, $8.95.) This novel consists of four loosely connected stories, and what Dirck Van Sickle is trying to do with them is to manipulate two or more tried genres of fiction, the western and the gothic (as the title implies), filtering the conventions of both within intertwining pastiche and parody. But what he has written is so elastic in presentation that any tension in narrative, any verve in parodie invention slackens into obviousness and cliché. It is almost as if this is pastiche turning in on itself, clichés parodying cliches until they become clichés of parody. In fact, Van Sickle, unlike his gunfighter hero of the fourth tale, never takes clear aim. His stories are an unassorted mixture of undigested and unclearly defined influences, only plain in their very obvious devices: for instance, the uncomprehending father who reads Scott’s novels is a poor way of introducing the theme of incongruous romantic approaches and historical aristocratic pretensions. Van Sickle tends to use the scattergun effect. He parades all manner of inversions, piling up different references. The third story in particular suffers from an unappetising stew of variations on Jane Eyre with the Waverly-novel reading father, an incompetent sheriff, a mother somewhat like Faulkner’s invalid Mrs. Compson, and the American Gothic effects teased out with perhaps some echoes from Poe’s House of Usher, the whole introduced by an illustration by Arthur Rackham taken from his drawings for the tales by the Grimm Brothers. Add to this mish-mash names resounding with literary value, but for no clear purpose: Morgan (Twain’s Connecticut Yankee, an easterner snagged in the west and in a code he does not understand), James, Rochester, a heroine who sees herself as both Jane Eyre and Scarlett O’Hara. These figures are embedded in worn-out plots peopled by stock parodie characters : the hero of the first story is literally a death-dealer, not a gunslinger but an undertaker, the heroine of the third story the frail if somewhat bemused girl who becomes the unthinking murderess, the gunfighter of the fourth story living by the old code within modern civilization. All this is old hat and Van Sickle spices it with no fresh insights, merely trotting out hints of incest and bestiality. And his writing style is no help, being full of descriptive excess worse than some of the gothic mannerisms he is drawing from. Because of his wide-ranging buckshot tech­ nique, it is difficult to know when he is being serious or when he is writing pastiche. Perhaps the only success in the book is the rendition of speech: he manages to capture some of the salty flavor of the old timers with both accuracy and with perhaps a little affectionate excess. I suspect that the tone caught in this kind of dialogue is the tone Van Sickle was trying to catch in the rest of the book. But generally 344 Western American Literature Montana Gothic runs downhill most of the way, hamstrung by the author’s inability to hold tight onto satiric zest and/or loving imitation. The novel is too slack in its narrative drive, too indiscriminate in its approach and altogether too dull. PETER STEVENS, University of Windsor, Ontario History of Wyoming. By T. A. Larson. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978. $8.95.) Reading a history of this size and scope is like viewing a Cezanne landscape. Every foot of ground between the viewer’s position and the last ridge of the mountain in the background is accounted for. The “whole of things” is there, although many little details along the way are missing. Geography, Indians, railroads, the frontier army, samples of life among early settlers, the cattle industry, politics, the emergence of state identity, the depression, the impact of World War II and the postwar era are all given due attention. The new material in this revised edition is found principally in the final three chapters relating to the postwar economy, politics and society. Larson covers the years from territorial c*ays to early 1978. The details are sufficient to...