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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 31, 1979)
The health of literature in any country depends on a renewed contact with the earth.9 Barry Lopez Good” old pfiYf , M iJEWS MU? IfOERVIEW Uf m-jT-ifo-vcw PiCTMtHtot&B Barry Lopez meraid photo A i American literature is regaining its health. Finn Rock author Barry Lopez credits Western writers who are dealing with "the interface between humans and the land" in fiction, short stories and poetry with the miracle "The health of literature in any country depends on a renewed contact with the earth," he says. "There is a powerful thing going on between America and the land," Lopez says, pulling books from his pack and the shelves of the Book and Tea shop as he refers to works by Western authors such as Richard Hugo, a poet and teacher of creative writing at the University of Montana. But Lopez may be his own best example. On a shelf near his chair and wood stove is his newest book, Of Wolves and Men. As well as studying wolves in Alaska for Wolves. he has wrangled horses in Montana, spent con siderable time with Native Americans to write Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping With His Daughter: Coyote Builds North America and traveled in the American desert to write Desert Notes: Reflections in the Eye of a Raven • "There are several reasons to pay attention to what Western writers are doing," Lopez says. A. he reasons originate in the land. "Allusion to natural elements makes for a sense of integration and comfort. "If you cut yourself off. I think you become es tranged and the estrangement makes you mean minded," he says, alternately brushing back his hair and the black beard and mustache below his small, dark eyes. Lopez speaks quietly, with the intensity of one who has listened and watched carefully during the time he has spent in America’s Western landscapes. "I think the West has always felt misunderstood because writers in the West have set so much of their work in the land," he says The novels of A B Guthrie have been largely overlooked, but they are critical in reaching an un derstanding of how Western man deals with space. Lopez says. Guthrie has written The Way West and The Big Sky, among others This space has great importance for Lopez, who says he believes the land heals and is of utmost importance to mental health The healing qualities of the land should be a viable argument in a court of law, Lopez says, ad ding that he and poet Gary Snyder have discussed how to testify to what they call the very real con nection between landscape and mental health "You should be able to fight for wilderness on medical grounds,*' Lopez says The way to do this, says Lopez, is through literature — "with a continued emphasis on lan guage and landscape” T 1 hi his emphasis means breaking down many of the artificial dichotomies Lopez says we have created Lopez says that the mind and body aren't really separate and that the humanities and the sciences aren't all that different from one another "But what about grizzly bear and garter snake? What about the wind?** he asks "The philosophy of science recognizes that scientific principles are born of a recognition of how the world is pieced together.” Lopez says people concerned with the arts and literature should not be upset with the "facts and figures syndrome" of science "That's its me taphor." He says even scientific principles apply to how we criticize literature if "you pull back far enough. "Both science and literature are right in terms of culture. Eskimos’ views of the wolf differ from those of scientists, but neither is really wrong.” Literature’s ability to be right means a great responsibility for writers. "What the writer really does is translate," he says "The skills are what is really important — providing a structure, through reading. Telling a good story is most important.” Entertainment was the context by which es sential information was transmitted, historically." Although Lopez says any writing should tell a good story, there is something much deeper. "I’ve thought of books as medicine bundles for a long time," he says, defining medicine bundles as "a set of components from the natural world all tied to a dream — the guiding vision of your life ” Through books you can bring yourself back to a state of health Lopez says, and this means a writer must take great care It is an obligation. One must "get past the business of costumes," Lopez says. "Shallow writ ing is almost always fascinated with surface things.” T M. he renewed health Lopez sees in American literature may even reach to established literary circles such as the National Book Awards, he says. Lopez says in the past those awards have focused on New York writers, but in the future they may be based on regional writers. He also hopes for a split between fiction and the short story in the awards and says he has seen a resurgence of interest in the short story as a genre, with writers such as John Sayles coming out with collections recently. Lopez says the awards should serve the func tion of making people aware that there is a vigorous community of writers in this country, a community, at least in the West, that is concerned with the land and the writer s relationship to it. Story by Glenn Boettcher Graphic by Tom Ettel Cover and interview photos by Jim ml Harris 1 A sampler of literary tastes The people our candid observers searched for were not hard to find. Anyone wth a book would pass. "What kinds of books do you like to read?" was our gambit. The answers that followed were as different as a novel by Mickey Spillane and a handbook of international politics. "I read politically oriented books,” says Nigel Griffith from Guyana, an International Studies major at the University “In a country like Guyana, faced with overwhelming social problems, fiction is a luxury There's a lot of problems in this world that you have to know something about before knowing what to think about them. I used to read fiction, mostly science fiction and fantasy, but I just don't have time for it anymore ” “I really don't read very much recent fiction. I read books like Vanity Fair, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, but still I’d have to say I would rather read recent fiction.” Near the law school, we noticed a woman reading the translator’s introduction to The Brother's Karamazov. Undaunted by the immensity of such a proposition, Sona Joiner, a graduate student, was looking for a new author in whose work to immerse herself. "I find one writer and then read everything he has written to learn all about his life and mind. Usually, I try to find a Russian author,” says Joiner. “I like historical novels. I liked Hunter Thomp son's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but to tell you the truth I’ll read anything. I’m not discriminatory. Other books I’ve read are a collection of short stories by Sinclair Lewis and the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein.” Page 4 Section B "Catch me, kill me." we thought we heard someone scream Alas, it was merely a book s title “This book is part of my vacation reading list," said Jenny Johnstone, in Eugene from Washington. D.C., where she works as an urban planner. "I like fiction because I get enough non-fiction at work I usually read much deeper and thoughtful books than this Some books I've really liked are I Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow by Dee Brown (who also wrote Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Usually I check books out from the library but if I really like a book I'll buy it so I can read it again and again. That's what I did with Hunter Thompson s book. "But just the same," confesses Johnstone. "Deep in my heart. I’m still a mystery freak." Venturing farther from our campus confines, we made it to the second floor of the University Book store where Tetsuo Horiuchi, a recent emigrant from Japan, was perusing More Joy: A Lovemaking Companion to The Joy of Sex. "I read detective stories," said Horiuchi with conviction. "But I must tell you I still read books written in Japanese. Sometimes I read an English version of Mickey Spillane In Japan there are many American authors we like. Richard Brautigan, J D Salinger, John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway are ail popular." And we left our last mental traveler for the day to enjoy that other world called the book, a world sometimes more fantastic and violent than the real one but nonetheless a much more serene place to be. By Dave Stelnman Thursday, May 31, 1979 Books The World According to Qarp By JmWI Irving •1976 Pocketbooks $2.75, paperback For John Irving's fictional hero, T.S. Garp, life is anything but a bowl of cherries. At a very young age. one of his ears is bitten off by a dog This scene, perversely amusing for the reader but painful for little Garp, sets the tone of a macabre but funny tale. Perhaps the most important lesson of The World According to Garp — if there is anything at all to be learned — is that it is far more pleasant to imagine than to remember Practically everyone in the novel is the victim of homicide Oregon Dally Emerald or suffers an ignominious na tural death. Before Garp is assassinated, he becomes responsible for the death of one of his children and for another child losing half his sight Garp's mother, a famous feminist author, is also assas sinated, Her friends include the members of an all-woman pro test group known as the Ellen Jamesians They have cut out their tongues to protest the rape of an 11-year-old girl. Then there is Garp's best friend (after his wife). Roberta Muldoon, a transsexual and ex tight end for a professional football team If this freakishness seems too much, I won’t mention that Garp's mother is killed by an out-of-season deer hunter at a New Hampshire political rally or that Garp, dressed in drag, is beaten by feminists at his mother’s funeral. Actually, between all the bad breaks that come Garp’s way, there is a great deal of laughter and, unless one wants to be weighed down by all the realis tic tragedies befalling Garp and his family, it would be best to take this novel as a satire. Fortunately, when Garp enters middle age and the book's humor is supplanted by the mockery of growing old. the story is brought to a swift end ing So. indeed, let’s laugh. In The World According to Garp, it is wise to fantasize and laugh at all of life’s indecencies Because the book is already in paperback it's worth buying. If it was still hardback, I would advise waiting until the library got its copies It shouldn't take more than four nights of intense reading to devour the novel, a masterful story in the tradition of English satirist Henry Fielding. Fielding, of course, managed to infuse his heroes with a manly, almost stoical, laughter and calmness to get them through the bad times But for the overly sincere and sensitive Garp, his own death is almost a blessing Perhaps this is demonstrative of the one philosophical qualm I have with The World According to Garp. For all the humor Irving tries to put in his work, there still isn’t enough for Garp to over come life's tragedies with anything more than a grim en durance By Daw Steinman Good at Gold By Joseph Heller ' 1979 Simon and Schuster $12.95, hardcover Good as Gold, Joseph Heller s latest novel, lives up to standards set by Catch 22. Though Good as Gold lacks the quotability of his earlier book, Heller deserves credit for this critique of American lifestyle, education, government and other hypocrisies. The book follows the me teoric rise of Dr. Bruce Gold to medium importance. This hack author achieves fame by giving the President s book My First Year in Office a favorable review The President spent his first year in office writing My First Year in Office and the book lacked substance. But this doesn't bother Gold. The review gets him a shot at every position in Washington, from Secretary of State to the top — unnamed source Before he gets the job he must trade in his dumpy Jewish wife for something tall and blonde and gain the approval of a President who spends his time asleep. Gold becomes a part of Washington life — a world of spies, politics and girls named "Sweets ’’ He makes a name for himself by originating the phrases “I don't know” and "That's mind boggling." Of ficially, though, he has no posi tion. "I can just about guaran tee you'll get an appointment,” says a presidential adviser, ‘though I can’t promise anything.” In the meantime Gold tries to write a book on the Jewish experience. Good as Gold, it turns out, is that book. P first Gold believes he has never had a Jewish experience. He has never met an anti-Semite, and has spent most of his time around colleges. By the middle of the book his political career rests in the hands of a man who called him a “Kike filly fucker.” Gold has escaped his wife, renounced his daughter, is try ing to ship his Jewish father off to Florida and is courting a young blonde. The message, it seems, is that the Jewish experience is a prolonged attempt to look Protestant. Gold, in the end, gives up his struggle for fame and returns to an honest life and his dumpy Jewish wife Probably Heller has seen an analyst since his heavy and laboring book. Something Happened, and is working on his attitude. Even so, Heller should be able to work around happy endings. Elsewhere, Heller’s cheerful ness does not get in the salad. The novel takes place in short comic bursts; each chapter stands apart from the rest and can be read separately or together, like an American Heritage Great Chiefs collec tion. All are more enjoyable and perceptive than any Art Buch wald column By Joc& Hatfield Page 5 Section B
