This Favored Place: The Texas Hill Country by Elroy Bode (review)

254 Western American Literature This Favored Place: The Texas Hill Country. By Elroy Bode. Photography by Frederick C. Baldwin and Wendy V. Watriss. (Bryan, Texas: Shearer Publishing, 1983. 136 pages, $13.95.) In such books as Texas Sketchbook and Sketchbook II, Elroy Bode estab­ lished his reputation as an unusually perceptive recorder of everyday experi­ ence, especially of his native Hill Country in Central Texas. In addition to this skill, Bode writes prose that is as evocative and crystalline as the finest poetry. In this latest collection of Bode’s work, Lou Rodenberger, longtime acquaintance of Bode, has selected and edited a cohesive body of the finest of Bode’s sketches. These are actually vignettes, little snatches of Bode’s life shaped by a masterful hand. Perhaps too much nostalgia is unhealthy, but for those of us who feel the pressure of the modern world a little too heavily, remembering the good old places and times offers relief. It is like quenching a burning thirst by kneeling down to take a long draught from a spring bubbling out of the sheer face of a limestone cliff. Bode isone of the few writers able to offer that refreshing and satisfying drink vicariously and, in addition, to universalize the experience of the past for all of us, regardless of where we spent that time. In these sketches, Bode takes the reader on a tour of his personal Hill Country — the sights, places, sounds, smells, activities, and people that make up the land he remembers. He recalls fishing on the Pedernales River in LBJ country and party nights at Criders, an oak-shaded cement slab, some benches, and lights that on a summer Saturday night in the Hill Country can turn into a honky-tonkofimposing proportions. His parents are included in the volume, along with people that he saw occasionally or remembers from a single encounter. Especially prominent are memories of his grandparents and the ranch onwhich Bode had many significant experiences growing up. He recalls the good times, and then later, the time his grandfather died and his grand­ mother moved to Kerrville to take up disconsolate town life, a stark contrast to the calm, relaxed rural experience that she had known and which had so inspired the young Bode. Here are front porch and yard visitations concen­ trating on predominantly rural life of an earlier day. The sketches form a hauntingly beautiful montage, the kind of experiences to be savored for the richness of association that arises from them. In a day when truly well-written English is rare, here is the work of one of the few writers who deserves attention for his skill in verbally evoking a time and a place. This is an excellent — and overdue — work, finely done by Shearer Press, a house that is revitalizing the publishing of quality books in Texas. LAWRENCE CLAYTON Hardin-Simmons University ...