Prose Sketches and Poems Written in the Western Country by Albert Pike (review)

172 Western American Literature Wanderer Springs. By Robert Flynn. (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1987. 340 pages, $19.95.) “Beginning to begin again” might well describe the odyssey of Will Callaghan, narrator and central character of Robert Flynn’s fourth novel, Wanderer Springs. Callaghan, former history teacher and now a writer for the Texas Institute for Cultural Research, returns to Wanderer Springs, Texas, his hometown, to attend the funeral of Jessie Tooley. Jessie’s daughter, Roma Dean, drowned years ago at Turtle Hole while in the company of Callaghan. The drowning, Callaghan recalls years later, was “distorted the moment it occurred” (282), and since then has remained a mystery not only to the people of Wanderer Springs but to Callaghan as well. Callaghan’sjourney home isone of obligation and duty—to Roma Dean, Jessie, and to the people of Wanderer Springs—and it provides an occasion to reenter the past and begin anew. While the Roma Dean story is the most significant in the novel, it is only one of the many stories that comprise the work. The stories, a tangled web of humor, tragedy, and pathos, where fact and myth converge in the name of history, are revealed to the reader as Callaghan returns home, visits friends, and, finally, attends the funeral of Jessie Tooley. Attending the funeral is a testament of commitment and responsibility, to the town and its people, and to Callaghan’sown past as well. Callaghan’sidiosyncratic tales dignify the lives of the townspeople, and give shape, meaning, and continuity to their experi­ ence. His own story, too, is told by Robert Flynn with grace, wit, and intelli­ gence. JIM STULL University of Iowa Prose Sketches and Poems Written in the Western Country. By Albert Pike. Edited by David J. Weber. (College Station, Texas: Texas A &M University Press, 1987. 300 pages, $27.50/$14.95.) This book, which first appeared in 1834, was not republished until 1967, after it and its author had been nearly forgotten or ignored by scholars of American literature. The 1967 edition contains an introduction and notes by David J. Weber as well as additions from Pike’s uncollected writings. The present edition is a reprint of the 1967 edition, again edited by Dr. Webber and added to the Southwest Landmark series. The first question that arises in the case of such an obscure piece of early Americana is whether it is worth reprinting. In the case of Albert Pike’s book the answer is emphatically yes. It is the work of a talented and versatile writer who traveled the Santa Fe Trail in its earliest days, when New Mexico was still Mexican territory. Reviews 173 Albert Pike was born in 1809 and educated in New England. Instead of entering Harvard he left his Massachusetts home at the age of twenty-one to travel to Santa Fe and Taos, where he spent a year among the Mexicans and Indians. On his return trip he settled in Arkansas, where he became a suc­ cessful lawyer and later an officer in the Confederate army. The last twentyfive years of his long life were spent in Washington, D. C., where he died in 1891. His later writings include several volumes of poetry and much uncol­ lected prose, most of it journalism and reminiscences. The original edition of Prose Sketches and Poems contains two narratives of hazardous journeys across North Texas and Oklahoma between Arkansas and New Mexico; two short stories of Mexican life; and two dozen short lyrical poems—all of which are reprinted in the later editions. To understand the significance of this book one must place it in its literary context. While there are earlier accounts of travel by Americans to the Southwest, they are mostly the work of semi-literate explorers and mountain men, and none are in any sense literary. Pike was almost certainly the first “literary” man to set his work in the Santa Fe area and write it in English. When the short stories in this book were written, the only widely read American story writer was Washington Irving. Poe and Hawthorne were just beginning. So we must put Pike among the pioneers in this genre. The best...