Cowboy by Ross Santee (review)

68 Western American Literature Moberg’s A Time on Earth, Kenneth A. Robb observes: “Elsewhere in the novel, [sic] Carlson refers to California frequently — almost insistantly [sic] — as the ‘land of orange trees,’ with the variations ‘the land of orange trees.’” Can California culture be blamed for that? Or for this statement in Richard C. Carpenter’s essay on The Crying of Lot 49: “For, like Voltaire or Lewis Carroll, Pynchon is aiming his shafts in our direction, his book is for the reader to grapple with”? What are we to make of Larry R. Smith’s remark (in his “The Poetry-and-Jazz Movement in the United States”) : “Like the fist that alternatly [sic] clenches and extends itself to you, the jazzman’s communication is an emphatic experience of his world and self”? Our irritation with such confusion and banality is materially intensified by the fact that the production of the book is unbelievably sloppy. We count 34 errors of spelling and punctuation, and doubtless we missed some. With lines running off at bewildering angles and itinerant footnote numbers, the page layout appears overcome with the delirium tremens of type. As if to add insult to injury, the otherwise alphabetical list of contributors some­ how manages to get Robb before Peters. (Ironically, the acknowledgments include an expression of gratitude to Mr. John Moor, “for his untiring work in the production of this volume.”) California cannot be blamed for such carelessness, any more than she can be held accountable for the dismaying incompetence that so often masquerades as scholarship in this slender collection. FORREST ROBINSON University of California, Santa Cruz Cowboy. By Ross Santee. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1928; rpt. 1977. 257 pages, cloth $11.95, paper $3.50.) When Cowboy first appeared approximately fifty years ago, J. Frank Dobie guessed that it was perhaps “the best story of the making of a cow­ boy yet written.” Other reviewers similarly praised the narrative’s accurate depiction of cowboy “reality,” its humor, its refusal to indulge in senti­ mentality or token gunplay, its singular use of range vernacular, and its illustrations (drawn by Santee). Whatever the truth of Dobie’s critical judgment in 1928, certainly the above qualities continue to lend the book an endearing and exuberant tone, and continue to endow the book with enduring value. As part of this enduring value there are brief scenes and bits of figur­ ative language throughout the narrative that distinguish it from other logs of cowboy life. Any reader is not likely to forget the narrator’s description Reviews 69 of himself critically appraising the cast of his shadow while riding a highspirited mount toward the Christmas celebrations in town, or the descrip­ tion of himself diving underwater to retrieve the tack from his drowned horse. We cannot forget either the brief vignette in which “Button” recalls the night Old Man Grimes took target practice at the flies on his bedroom ceiling and “squalled” into the darkness whenever he plugged one. It is interesting to note that while W. T. Hutchinson found Santee’s work valuable because it portrayed “the West-That-Was,” Walter Prescott Webb classified Santee as a writer who took his readers on a vacation from the “near country” of reality in order to detail the adventures found in the “far country” of the imagination. Although these judgments appear contradictory on the surface, Cowboy actually permits both views a claim to truth. There are enough “how to” chapters in the book to validate Hutchinson’s statement; there is the youthful first-person narrator recalling his exploits who serves to validate Webb’s remark. However, while we admire the uniqueness of Santee’s characters, the correctness of his point of view, the impact of his style, and the cohesiveness of his structure, we must recognize also the book’s failure to truly realize a significant theme. Cowboy lacks an awareness of landscape as potential correlative to the pro­ tagonist’s aspirations and dilemmas. And the book’s corresponding thin­ ness of social texture and genuine conflict prevents the fiction from sur­ passing the by-now-familiar initiation theme. While these reservations may be trifling when balanced against the book’s...