Winter
Brothers
-I Season at the Edge of America
IVAN
DOIG
Winter Brothers
By Ivan Doig
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980
Ivan Doig's book Winter Brothers
has convinced me that James
Gilchrist Swan is one of the
Northwest's most important writers.
Winter Brothers is all about Doig’s
fascination with Swan, one of the
Northwest's early white settlers and a
prolific diary writer. “I have felt my
pull toward him ever since some
forgotten frontier pursuit or another
landed me into the coastal region of
history where he presides,
meticulous as a usurer’s clerk,” Doig
explains.
The Swan that emerges in Winter
Brothers, through passages taken
from the diaries he kept from 1862 to
1890, is not only fascinating
historically, but also is a good writer.
So good, in fact, that Doig’s own
writing becomes weak in
comparison.
Winter Brothers is structured like a
journal. For 90 days Doig faithfully
reads Swan’s journals and records
his impressions, often as he explores
the places Swan describes.
"Here is the winter that will be the
season of Swan,” Doig says.
"Rather, of Swan and me and those
constant diaries. Day by day, a
logbook of what is uppermost in any
of the three of us.”
Doig's mission is mainly that of the
historian: "It is a venture I have
mulled these past years of my
becoming less headlong and more
aware that I dwell in a community of
time as well as of people. That I
should know more than I do about
this other mysterious citizenship,
how far it goes, where it touches."
But Doig is also insistent in
understanding the relationship of the
Northwest to this: "More and more it
seems to me that the westernness of
my existence in this land is some
consequence having to do with that
ran n* nwwww
Recent Northwest literature in review
community of time.”
Doig’s book is a success, both as
an exploration of the region and as a
purely historical re-creation of
Swan's life. Doig’s use of quoted
material from Swan’s diaries is both
generous and creative, and he
consistently and gracefully joins
Swan’s words with his own.
However, Swan more often than
not emerges as the better writer.
Swan’s writing style is cleaner,
more direct. His careful observations
are a joy to read: “I saw a kingfisher
fluttering in the brook and supposed
he had a trout which he could not
swallow. On going to him I found he
had driven his bill into an old rotten
stick with such force as to bury it
clear up to his eyes hard and
fast," Swan writes.
Swan’s observations of the
Northwest Indians he lived with at
various times are some of the best
moments in the book: "During the
spring, when the flowers are in bloom
and the humming birds are plenty,
the boys take a stick smeared with
the slime from snails, and place it
among a cluster of flowers... if a
humming bird applies his tongue to it
he is glued fast. They will then tie a
piece of thread to its feet and holding
the other end let the birds fly, their
humming being considered quite an
amusement."
In writing Winter Brothers, Doig
must have realized the difficulty of
making his own writing and
observations match the force of
Swan’s. Although Doig is not
altogether successful, the skill and
r
1
creativity he shows in re-creating
Swan’s life should stand as an
invaluable contribution to
contemporary Northwest literature.
— Glenn Boettcher
WINTER
COUNT
11 III.I.I. I. ...
Winter Count
By Barry Lopez
Charles Scribners Sons, 1981
Oregon writer Barry Lopez' new
book Winter Count is characterized
by its relative abundance of human
characters. The characters in Lopez'
earlier stories, such as those in
Desert Notes and River Notes, were
often animals or geographic features
rather than humans.
In Winter Count, the presence of
an increased human population
demonstrates Lopez' skill in
Backbone 2
New Fiction by Northwest Women
The Seal Press, 1980
Backbone 2, a collection of stories
by Northwest women, blends scraps
of lives together like a quilt — plaid
alongside plain, dark sewn to light.
The finished product is a sampler
that tells of people struggling to get
by. Sometimes they make it.
Sometimes they don’t.
In “Grace” by Constance Cormier,
the relationship betweeen a mother
and daughter is etched out during a
hunt for a cat on the daughter’s visit.
The sophistication and ease of the
mother makes Martha feel like an
awkward teenager.
The mother seems to breeze
through life perfectly, or at least
capably. When the daughter returns
to her co-op shop in the city, she
feels restless, stifled and shut in by
the drabness of the store. A friend's
glib advice, “Let yourself out," only
meticulously developing human
characters.
In the story "Restoration,” the
craftsman Edward Seraut is restoring
a collection of books on natural
history that has been found in an old
mansion in North Dakota. Lopez'
precise description of Seraut at work
makes the character come to life:
"He had beveled a frayed corner
clean and then anchored a new piece
of book board to it with tiny steel
pins, like a bone fracture. When he
covered the corner with leather, the
match of line and texture was so deft
the repair seemed never to have
been made. Indeed, like the other
corners, it appeared slightly rubbed
from use.”
The narrator's growing friendship
with Seraut leads him to become
immersed in a study of Rene de
Crenir, the Frenchman who owned
the collection of books Seraut is
restoring. With Seraut’s help, the
narrator discovers that "de Crenir
believed a cultural and philosphical
bias had prevented
nineteenth-century European
naturalists from comprehending
much of the plant and animal life they
saw in North America.
"The resulting confusion, he
believed, had kept them in ignorance
of something even more profound . .
in North America the indigenous
philosophy grew out of the lives of
animals.”
This insight is typical of the level on
which Lopez' characters deal with
the world around them — most often
the natural world. And like the
makes her feel more like a child.
More helpless. More incapable of
living her life as her mother does,
confident with who she is.
In “Amanuensis" the life of a
secretary is told in staccato beat of
the office machine's tap-tap-tap. It’s
a stark rhythm that just fills time like
the lukewarm coffee the secretary
drinks throughout the day — it's
something to do.
“I don’t want this to be a story of
victimization," the secretary tells the
reader. "I bend all day over this
machine so that the
tap-a-tap-a-tap-tap is part of my
dreams at night, a rhythm that
governs my walk, how I move across
the acrylic carpet, hit the file to avoid
a static shock.
"There is no meaning here. I could
not find my vision on the
mountaintops and I have lost my
dreams
the rustle of file folders, the rhythmic
narrator in “Restoration,” the
narrators in the other stories are
similarly characterized by a driving
intellectual curiosity about the
non-rational aspects of life.
The best example of this is the
story "Winter Count 1973: Geese,
They Flew Over in a Storm.”
The narrator in this story, a scholar
in the Winter Counts of the Indians
who lived on the high plains north of
the Platte River, has reluctantly
accepted an invitation to discuss the
topic at a scholarly convention.
(Winter Counts are “personal views
of history, sometimes metaphorical,
bearing on a larger, tribal history ”)
His reluctance is based on the
difference he perceives between
himself and his colleagues: “In all
these years he had delivered so few
papers, had come to enjoy much
more listening to them, to the stories
unfolding in them.
When he addresses the
conference, the reception is
lukewarm: “The applause was
respectful, thin, distracted. He could
no longer make a final point.”
He returns to his room, and the
story ends with the image that
explains the title: “The storm howled
through his room and roared through
his head He breathed the wet air into
his lungs. In the deepest distance,
once, he heard the dog-barking
sounds of geese, running like horses
before a prairie thunderstorm.”
Similarly, each story in the book
becomes in its own way a Winter
Count.
— Glenn Boettcher
throb of the Xerox machine, the hum
of the IBM."
Yet, she is content to stay in her
dreamless world. It’s empty but safe.
In "A Brief Encounter" Kate is an
old lady struggling with years she
refuses to acknowledge. "We are
what we will ourselves to be,” she
says. Time doesn’t destroy us, we
destroy ourselves."
But when an 81 -year-old jogging
doctor keels over, Kate’s inner
strength is sapped and she becomes
paralyzed by the reality of death.
She is revitalized when she learns
her friend refused to take his
medicine. Relief. She takes her
medicine. So once again she strides
through life, her head held high,
confidently moving toward the end
she won’t acknowledge.
Backbone 2 is a curious peek into
lives of ordinary people — sometimes
triumphing, more often just
struggling.
— Sally Hodgkinson
Ce>fKv**< outy^Vl_
Miming for the people of El Salvador
Photo by Michael
The San Francisco Mime Troupe comes to
Eugene with its latest original production, Amer
icans, or Last Tango in Huahuatenango Wednesday
at 8 p.m. in the EMU Ballroom. This fast-paced
comedy of intrigue takes a serious look at United
States foreign policy in Central America. The Mime
Troupe treats this timely subject in a high comic
melodrama style, with lavish helpings of Latin music
and dance. America's oldest and best known theater
of political comedy, the company's performance is a
benefit for the people of El Salvador. The production
will not be one of silent pantomime. The company’s
18 actors and musicians rely on dialogue — and refer
the reader to the dictionary which defines mime as
an ancient dramatic entertainment representing
scenes from life usually in a ridiculous manner — to
discuss the major issues of our time. Over the
group's 22-year history, it has taken on such sub
jects as racism, nuclear power, housing, and the war
in Vietnam. Tickets, available at Book & Tea, Mother
Kali's, Folk Ways and the EMU Main Desk, are $6
general, $5 Student/low income, $3 children under
12. For more information, call 345-1138.
Speaking of...
Reb Zalman Schachter, rabbi,
teacher, author and storyteller in the
Hassidic tradition comes to Eugene May
25 at 8 p.m. at Temple Beth Israel (25th
Avenue and Portland Street — one block
west of Willamette Street) to present his
synthesis of current political and spiritual
consciousness using story, song,
movement and chanting to weave his
way into your hart and mind As Zalman
says: “When the soul surprises the mind,
we have a good story.” Tickets are $3,
and children get in for free.
Noted Oregon author Ken Kesey will
be the guest speaker at the annual
meeting of the Friends of the University
of Oregon Library at a brunch on May 31.
The 11 a m. event is open to the public,
and will be held at the Valley River Inn.
Kesey is expected to give a lively talk
about his experiences with books, li
braries, librarians and life.
Museum art for an MFA degree
At the University Museum of Art,
student exhibitions open Tuesday for a
three-week run. The downstairs main
galleries and the “Photography at
Oregon Gallery’’ will feature the work of
18 students who will receive master of
fine arts (MFA) degrees from the univer
sity in June. The exhibits, which run
through June 14, fulfill the final degree
requirement for an exhibition of the ter
minal project.
A variety of styles and media will be
represented in the exhibit, providing a
cross-section of the visual arts that in
cludes painting, ceramics, sculpture,
printmaking, photography, graphics,
jewelry and metalsmithing.
Included in the exhibit is a show by
advanced art student Willie Osterman
entitled Waterworks — “the result of
investigating water as found in nature, in
the studio and under the microscope."
Childhood days
The Oregon Repertory Theatre presents a
special young people’s theatre production, Step on a
Crack June 6 at 11 a m. and at 2 p.m. The play, by
Susan Zeder of Seattle and the University of Wa
shington, captures the irresistable sweet sadness of
growing up and the maturing of love and under
standing between people. Step on a Crack will
continue June 7 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and June 13 at
11 a m. and 2 p.m. Tickets are $3 for adults and $1 50
for children. Call the ORT box office at 485-1946 for
reservations. Says director Kelly Ray, “Step on a
Crack is a unique approach to children’s theatre as it
is totally suitable for audiences of all ages.”
Ill
Photo by Jimmi Hams
STUDENT RALLY
FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
Join Students from other State System Campuses
at the State Capitol on
Thursday, May 28th.
Lobby against: Sky-Rocketing Tuition
Department Cuts
Firing Staff Members
TRANSPORTATION provided.
Buses leave Mac Court at 9:00 a.in. Sign-up in Suite 4, EMU
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