The American West: Publishing Minutiae

The Canadian Review of American Studies, Volume VIII, Number 2, Fall, 197,, The AmericanWest: PublishingMinutiae MarshallGilliland ' Richard Astra. Edward F. Ricketts. 48 pp. (No. 21) David B. Kesterson. Bill Nye: The Western Writings. 48 pp. (No. 22) Charlotte S. McClure. GertrudeAtherton. 47 pp. (No. 23) Robert Gish. Hamlin Garland: The Far West 48 pp. (No. 24) Lucille F. Aly. John G. Neihardt. 48 pp. (No. 25) "Boise State University Western Writers Series." Boise, Idaho: Department of English, 1976. I l If proof were needed to support the charge that the publishing aspirations' of writers and academic institutions in Westem America are sometimes r concerned with the minutiae of literary culture and confused about that culture these five pamphlets go a long way toward providing it. It ispast ' the time when intelligent judgment should have prevailed in this matter ofliterary history, and I wonder how long it will be before such judgment, is exercised. I am not holding my breath while I wait, and you should not hold yours either, because it will be a long time if the advertised intentions of this sponsoring English Department are fulfilled. The) pamphlets published now number twenty-five (or more by the time this essay is printed), thirteen are "in preparation," and at least an additional f fifty-three are "forthcoming;' I There is also an object lesson for Canadian literary archaeologiststo\ be learned from these pamphlets: namely, that the greater the pressurel on academics to publish, the more likelihood there will be of exhaustive i searches for subjects, with the net result being not only that more and 1 more trivia will be painstakingly and pointlessly documented but alsothal in tum most publications within such a context will suffer devaluation. Perhaps a rhetorical question best phrases the point: When you have fifty pieces which turn out to be about trivia, what expectations do you entertain with respect to the fifty-first piece? Several things go into my unfavorable reaction to this pamphlet series. and by relating them I will explain my grumbling response. The firstthin~ which provokes my attention is the titles. I look at No. 21, and think. 215 incredulously, Edward Ricketts [italics for that name)? A Western writer? Awriterof literature? (My bias shows here because I do not consider works which are primarily scientific in content in the same category as imaginative andseriousnon-fiction writing.) I know John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts wroteThe Sea of Cortez, with the narrative portion of it being mostly, ifnot all, Steinbeck's writing; I know Steinbeck modelled his character Docon Ricketts, to some extent. Neither of these pieces of information, , however, warrants Ricketts being the subject of a pamphlet in a series onWesternwriters. Not even after I learn from the pamphlet that Ricketts 1 co-authoreda book on West Coast marine biology do I think of him as ,' aWestern writer. , Iamsimilarly provoked by the sub-titles of Nos. 22 and 24: "The Westem Writings" and "The Far West." Such delimitation and selectivity are a , characteristic of theses and regional hurrahs, and combined with the rationale whereby Ricketts is included made me wonder whether a possible explanationmight be that the editors experienced difficulty in finding . enough writers to be the subjects of their series. I looknext at the "Selected Bibliography" provided in each pamphlet. Such a heading is in itself an appropriate one for a pamphlet, but it can i alsobe put to the service of a regional bias, as is the case of the biblio1 graphies for Atherton, Garland, and Nye. Neihardt is the only writer of thefivewho seems unqualifiedly suited to be the subject of a pamphlet, i andaccordinglythe only one whose selected bibliography accurately reflects therangeof his writing (it was all Western). But here I also stumble upon something equally disturbing. Icomeupon the information that the author of this pamphlet is publishing abookon Neihardt, and when I check I find indeed that Aly's John G. Neihardt; A Critical Biography was published by the Humanities Press, 1 in1976, the same year as the pamphlet. Curious, I look more closely at ; theother contributors' bibliographies and discover that while Gish and ' Kesterson say nothing about other works they have published or are plan- ' ningto publish...