Only When I Laugh by Elouise Bell (review)

152 WesternAmerican Literature Studies which work with the environment, land, and landscape attract me. In addition, the book’s dust jacket quotes Patricia Limerick that “this book unsettles the mind in the most productive way”—two good reasons to be interested in Wallach’sstudy. I can’t agree with Limerick’sassessment, however, because the book is not “user friendly.” I find my mind “unsettled” but not productively: (1) I am overwhelmed with data/statistics which perhaps make interesting reading to a geographer but which keep sidetracking me; (2)1 fail to grasp the “unsettling”nature of the thesis—the book, according to the author, “strips away the masks of resource management, social welfare, and ecology to reveal a basically romantic hostility to progress.” Why is that an “unsettling” stance? and (3) the style all too often forces me to reread, trying to figure out individual references within a sentence. Consider the following: In other words we should not run so quickly when we hear cries from a Chamber of Commerce. There is a great deal more sympathy for protecting lands like these than we imagine, so long as we fail to see under our own disguises. The more we appreciate the strength of that underlying sympthy, the better the prospects for a new generation of grasslands. I recommend this book to those interested in environmental writing, but I warn them to be prepared for a struggle with thesis, syntax, and narrative. A. CARL BREDAHL University ofFlorida Only When I Laugh. By Elouise Bell. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990. 136 pages, $9.95.) Elouise Bell, familiar to readers of Network magazine, explores in this collection of essays an area that has endeared her to readers past: the human dilemma. With the tip-off in her title, she has the unique ability to examine often painful knowledge with the wit and wisdom of a survivor. One imagines the joys enacted in her classrooms as well, for Elouise Bell is professor of English and associate dean of general and honors education at Brigham Young University. This text extends that classroom to the general reader and ranks Elouise Bell with the best ofAmerican humor essayists. Like E. B. White, Elouise Bell transforms the seemingly typical or mundane and in so doing celebrates the essential transformation of selfwhich is a daily, but often unappreciated, phenomenon. We enjoy a host of re-inventions of the average, from patriotism to “Matriotism” (“The matriot is one who loves and loyally or zealously supports her motherland”); zucchini to “zzzzucchini” (in its unfailing Reviews 153 productivity, zucchini may even be laminated into playing cards, napkin rings, earrings . . .); the concept of the mutt to “peerless pets” (she offers reasons for our love affair sometimes to the exclusion of children); or Christmas to “Chrismyths” (the deconstruction of the “myth of Christmas past,” for ex­ ample). In all, she addresses in a fashion akin to but not as windy as Erma Bombeck psychological trends (“power-napping”), the meaning of holidays, the culture of the family, the consistency of time passing (I grow old, I grow old), and other common experiences which she uniquely views. My own per­ sonal favorite is “Woman Warblers.” Her explanation of why women whistle sheds new light on the musical medleys of my sixth-grade teacher. The point is, ifit hurts, “it” (the many experiences and perceptions Elouise Bell analyzes) deepens our own insight, understanding, and appreciation. As anyone who has hit his or her funny bone knows, comedy is connected to tragedy. No wonder Elouise Bell has been named for “excellence injournalism” by the Society of ProfessionalJournalists. She not only warmly reminds us that “pains”may be funny, but she writes so well that we feel we’ve had a comic, yet engaging, conversation with the author. SHELLEYARMITAGE University ofHawaii Winter: Notes from Montana. By Rick Bass. Illustrations by Elizabeth Hughes. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991. 162 pages, $18.95.) “It’seasier to learn certain things when you’re watching them occur in slow motion.” Thus Rick Bass assesses his winter learning in the Yaak valley of Montana which he describes unsystematically in these journal notes dealing with isolation and community, snow and fuel. Fuel is not a...