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In his eighty-seven years, Norman Maclean played many parts:
fisherman, logger, firefighter, scholar, teacher. But it was a role
he took up late in life, that of writer, that won him enduring fame
and critical acclaim - as well as the devotion of readers
worldwide. Though the 1976 collection "A River Runs Through It and
Other Stories" was the only book Maclean published in his lifetime,
it was an unexpected success, and the moving family tragedy of the
title novella - based largely on Maclean's memories of his
childhood home in Montana - has proved to be one of the most
enduring American stories ever written. "The Norman Maclean Reader"
is a wonderful addition to Maclean's celebrated oeuvre. Bringing
together previously unpublished materials with incidental writings
and selections from his more famous works, the Reader will serve as
the perfect introduction for readers new to Maclean, while offering
longtime fans new insight into his life and career. In this
evocative collection, Maclean as both a writer and a man becomes
evident. Perceptive, intimate essays deal with his career as a
teacher and a literary scholar, as well as the wealth of family
stories for which Maclean is famous. Complete with a generous
selection of letters, as well as excerpts from a 1986 interview,
"The Norman Maclean Reader" provides a fully fleshed-out portrait
of this much admired author, showing us a writer fully aware of the
nuances of his craft, and a man as at home in the academic
environment of the University of Chicago as in the quiet mountains
of his beloved Montana. Multifarious and moving, the works
collected in "The Norman Maclean Reader" serve as both a summation
and a celebration, giving readers a chance once again to hear one
of American literature's most distinctive voices.
Over the past 150 years, people have flocked to the Pacific
Northwest in increasing numbers, in part due to the region's beauty
and one of its most exceptional features: volcanoes. This segment
of the Pacific Ring of Fire has shaped not only the physical
landscape of the region but also the psychological landscape, and
with it the narratives we compose about ourselves. Exceptional
Mountains is a cultural history of the Northwest volcanoes and the
environmental impact of outdoor recreation in this region. It
probes the relationship between these volcanoes and regional
identity, particularly in the era of mass mountaineering and
population growth in the Northwest. O. Alan Weltzien demonstrates
how mountaineering is but one conspicuous example of the outdoor
recreation industry's unrestricted and problematic growth. He
explores the implications of our assumptions that there are no
limits to our outdoor recreation habits and that access to the
highest mountains should include amenities for affluent consumers.
Each chapter probes the mountain-based regional ethos and the
concomitant sense of privilege and entitlement from different
vantages to illuminate the consumerist mind-set as a reductive-and
deeply problematic-version of experience and identity in and around
some of the nation's most striking mountains.
In response to the growing scale and complexity of environmental
threats, this volume collects articles, essays, personal
narratives, and poems by more than forty authors in conversation
about "thinking continental"-connecting local and personal
landscapes to universal systems and processes-to articulate the
concept of a global or planetary citizenship. Reckoning with the
larger matrix of biome, region, continent, hemisphere, ocean, and
planet has become necessary as environmental challenges require the
insights not only of scientists but also of poets, humanists, and
social scientists. Thinking Continental braids together abstract
approaches with strands of more-personal narrative and poetry,
showing how our imaginations can encompass the planetary while also
being true to our own concrete life experiences in the here and
now.
In his eighty-eight years, Norman Maclean (1902-90) played many
parts: fisherman, logger, firefighter, scholar, teacher. But it was
a role he took up late in life, that of writer, which won him
enduring fame and critical acclaim - as well as the devotion of
readers worldwide. Though the 1976 collection "A River Runs Through
It and Other Stories" was the only book Maclean published in his
lifetime, it was an unexpected success, and the moving family
tragedy of the title novella - based largely on Maclean's memories
of early twentieth-century Montana - has proved to be one of the
most enduring American stories ever written. The posthumous
publication in 1992 of "Young Men and Fire", Maclean's deeply
personal investigative account of a deadly forest fire, only added
to his reputation, reacquainting readers with the power of his
spare, evocative prose.With "The Norman Maclean Reader", the
University of Chicago Press is proud to add a fitting final volume
to Maclean's celebrated oeuvre. Bringing together previously
unpublished materials with incidental writings and selections from
his two masterpieces, the Reader will serve as the perfect
introduction for readers new to Maclean, while offering longtime
fans new insight into his life and career.Much of the pleasure of
"The Norman Maclean Reader" lies in the rounded picture it gives of
Maclean the man. A series of witty, perceptive personal essays
present Maclean from a variety of angles: in "This Quarter I Am
Taking McKeon," the master teacher distills the lessons of decades
in the classroom; in "The Pure and the Good: On Baseball and
Backpacking," Maclean the scholar turns his attention to poetic
rhythm and the importance of craft; in "Retrievers Good and Bad,"
we see Maclean the memoirist first beginning to draw on his wealth
of family stories.A generous selection of letters, as well as
excerpts from a 1986 interview, serve to flesh out the Reader's
portrait of Maclean, showing us a writer fully aware of the nuances
of his craft, and a man as at home in the recondite atmosphere of
the University of Chicago as in the quiet hills of his beloved
Montana. The letters find Maclean corresponding about fishing with
Nick Lyons, the first significant reviewer of "A River Runs Through
It"; about literature and teaching with Marie Borroff, a former
student who had become a professor of literature at Yale; about the
Mann Gulch fire with Lois Jansson, the widow of one of Maclean's
sources; and about General Custer with historian Robert
Utley.Maclean's writings on Custer comprise the most extensive
unpublished material in the Reader. Fascinated by Custer's tragic
end and posthumous fame, Maclean dedicated years in the late 1950s
to studying the general, and though he was never able to shape his
chapters on the topic into a complete book, to read them now is
revelatory: as he explores the man and myth of Custer, we see
Maclean groping toward the rigorous yet personal hybrid form of
historical storytelling that he would employ to such effect in
"Young Men and Fire".Multifarious and moving, the works collected
in "The Norman Maclean Reader" serve as both a summation and a
celebration, giving readers a chance once again to hear one of
American literature's most distinctive voices.
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