Beyond Forget: Rediscovering The Prairies by Mark Abley (review)

Reviews 81 simply a matter of ‘living in the Northwest’—but living, period. And north­ west ofwhat?” CAROL S. LONG Willamette University A Treasury of the Sierra Nevada. Edited by Robert Leonard Reid. (Berkeley: Wilderness Press, 1983. 363 pages, $16.95/$11.95.) Robert Leonard Reid acknowledges the idiosyncracy of his selections in A Treasury of the Sierra Nevada, warning us that “it is a highly personal collection, chosen to reflect my own tastes and interests rather than those of a brainstorming committee of Sierra literati.” Despite Reid’s disclaimer, this is a remarkably rich and well-balanced collection, ranging from chilling glimpses of the pitiful Donner party to some of the “gooiest. . .poetry extant.” The arrangement isgenerally chronological, covering the first 150 years of recorded Sierra history in sections labeled The Explorers, The Immigrants, The Vacationers, The Naturalists, The Moun­ taineers, and The Conservationists. Selections are well-chosen and skillfully edited, with economical headnotes which provide continuity and unity. Reid has combed the early exploration literature as well as current works, and has made prudent use of “the six-foot shelf of Sierra Club Bulletins dating back to 1893.” Any reader of western American literature should find a few old favorites as well as new pleasures in this fine anthology. ORVIS BURMASTER Boise State University Beyond Forget: Rediscovering The Prairies. By Mark Abley. (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1986. 272 pages, $16.95 hardcover.) It sounds like the mishmash of California. One town boasts plastic, frontlawn statuary of flamingoes, gnomes, and Bambis. Another burg swells with eighteen churches. There’s even literary redemption: a strong connection with the early life of western writer Wallace Stegner. The fact that instead we’re far to the north, on the Canadian prairies, causes us to gasp a bit at the unexpected variety. No, they’re not all flat, but undulate with forests, hills, and meadows. Neither are they culturally monot­ 82 Western American Literature onous. as we often provincial Americans suppose. They’re dotted with settle­ ments of Ukranians, Icelanders, Mennonites, Hutterites, even with a colony of black migrants from Oklahoma. In exchange for the openness of our initial blush, Mark Abley enlightens us. The writer “rediscovers” the region, poking into its nooks and crannies, passing on tidbits of history, and ushering into print people who have made their peace with themselves and the land. Abley’s personal approach to the landscape takes certain risks. The travels lack coherence, the encounters are episodic; at times we wonder if the author is more interested in himself than in his subject. But rarely are such features drawbacks here. If much of Beyond Forget is about the author, Abley has much to offer in this department. “I grew up lost,” he admits, a statement less self-indulgent than factual when it comes to footloose North Americans. Yet “Departure is the mother of hope,” and Abley turns his loneliness to advantage. He assuages it with the observations of a man made keen by hunger. PETER WILD Tucson, Arizona In Condor Country. By David Darlington. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Com­ pany, 1987. 242 pages, $15.95.) When I was a boy, mydad would occasionally return from a dayof gather­ ing oil samples in the desert west of Bakersfield and tell me he had glimpsed a condor. He said they were huge and that they never moved their wings. I never saw one myself, but their presence was an important part of growing up there. We knew that the great birds were there, just over the horizon, links to primordial wilderness, and we felt that their continued existence somehow protected us from becoming too civilized. Now they are gone and so is part of us. In fact, we are all condors—a species endangered by the continuing deterioration of our habitat. That is the premise of this compelling book, and author David Darlington’s exploration of a remote region of California—the hills and canyons bordering the southwest corner of the Great Central Valley —offers a genuine sense of the place, as well as revelations of the human insensitivity and selfishness that doomed the great scavengers. Darlington explores condor country with 80-year-old cattle rancher Eben McMillan, a...