Henry Thoreau and John Muir Among the Indians by Richard F. Fleck (review)

Reviews 91 It is an absorbing personal story, despite a certain literary awkwardness and naivete. Bailey uses an omniscient narrative “frame” as a vehicle to link together segments from letters, diaries, and journals, as well as a scattering of rather conventional occasional poems. The narrative sequence, consequently, is fragmentary and uncertain at times. Modern readers will be annoyed by a stylistic proclivity for passive voice, not to mention a more than occasional narrative tendency to announce events and then decline to describe them. However, the nineteenth-century inclination toward narrative commentary and judgment often provides essential factual and moral perspective on cen­ tral incidents which otherwise would remain entirely ambiguous. What sustains a grip on the reader’s attention, though, is the portrait of a strong and independent young woman who is well ahead of her culture’s time, something of a “beauty,” struggling to subdue her sense of a too avid “carnal nature” with an overpowering commitment to help others, starting with the Oregon Indians and culminating with her own husband. This young woman denies men repeatedly, but they pursue (and betray) her relentlessly. She seeks the missionary life, but discovers it to be hypocritical and corrupt. She endures unforgivable prejudice and injustice from a frontier society domi­ nated by sanctimonious notions of white male supremacy. Yet somehow, despite recurrent defeat, she remains undefeated. In resurrecting this supposedly lost early work, editors Leasher and Frank have made an invaluable contribution to Northwest literary history. They have equipped the book with a capsule history of Oregon and a succinct biography of the author, as well as thorough historical glosses on the text and an extensive bibliography of relevant critical and historical materials. Perhaps Edwin “Bing” Bingham pinpoints what is most significant about this new edition when he writes in its “Foreword” that Leasher and Frank have enabled Margaret Jewett Bailey to at last “receive a measure of recognition and accep­ tance denied her all her days” (p. vii). HUGH NICHOLS Lewis Clark State College Henry Thoreau and John Muir Among the Indians. By Richard F. Fleck. (Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1985. 103 pages, $17.50.) Richard Fleck offers here a brief glimpse into the attitudes Henry Thoreau and John Muir held toward some of America’s aboriginal peoples. The book consists of three chapters: “Thoreau’s Indian Pathway,” “Muir’s Homage to Thoreau,” and “Muir Among Native Americans.” There is also an appendix containing excerpts from Thoreau’s writings about Indians (in my opinion the most interesting part of the book) and some very fragmentary comments of Muir’s, previously unpublished. There are also several excellent reproductions of Muir’s sketches. 92 Western American Literature Thoreau’s interest in Indians has been widely noted, so Fleck seems to use this interest only as a way of introducing what Muir wrote about the native people with whom he came in contact. Those who have written about Muir have noted that Indians do not play a significant part in the body of Muir’s writings. As a matter of fact, only in his last book, Travels in Alaska, do native people play an important role. Perhaps Muir would have elaborated an interest in Eskimos had he used his newspaper letters from aboard the Corwin in 1881 for another book, but he did not live long enough to work on such a project. This book is handsomely produced, though there are misprints, and Fleck’sresearch into Muir’s Alaska travels isincomplete: Muir’s trip to Alaska in 1890 was his fourth (not third), and the 1899 Harriman expedition was Muir’s seventh (not fifth). Also, Fleck refers to many literary works which reveal more about his own reading than about the attitudes of Thoreau and Muir. The value of this book lies in the fact that it makes available information about Muir that is not usually emphasized in writings about him. Muir’s interest in Indians is not, however, a major concern in his own writings. FRANK E. BUSKE Tucson, Arizona Final Harvest: An American Tragedy. By Andrew H. Malcolm. (New York: Times Books, 1986. 320 pages, $17.95.) Final Harvest is an account of the murder of the local bank president, Rudy...