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A T H E A M E R I C A N L I T E R A R Y N A T U R A L I S M N EWSLETTER
The Editor’s Un-Easy Chair:
Welcome to the inaugural issue of ALN: In This Issue: The American Literary Naturalism Newsletter. Everyone here at ALN (yes, we have a staff of Features thousands) hopes that this issue finds you well and that you enjoy issue number one. Naturalism in the Classroom For many years I have wished for a place where scholars of American literary naturalism Teaching the Contemporary Naturalism of 2 could go for call-for-papers, bibliographic Cormac McCarthy’s Outer Dark updates, and news-related items. I usually had James R. Giles that wish each fall as I searched for call-for- papers for the annual ALA conference. Some Naturalism, Transcendentalism, and the 7 societies e-mailed their cfps to a discussion list, American Landscape: An Undergraduate Course in American Nature Writing others mailed them with dues notices, and still Steven Frye others seemed to keep their cfps a well guarded secret, fearing, I believe, government reprisal Interview or worse. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could create a centralized location for all things Ten Questions with Clare Eby 11 naturalism? I thought to myself in December 2005, a veritable Wal-Mart of naturalism? Thus ALN was born, but we eliminated the Departments doorway greeters with the happy-face buttons. Five on Fourteen 14 I knew that I couldn’t produce ALN with- Read these books. Now. out help, so I enlisted the aid of Steven Frye as Associate Editor with false promises of fame Naturalism News 14 and financial reward, and we called a meeting Things Brian Williams is afraid to tell you of the relevant power brokers at the 2006 ALA conference. After a productive hour, we broke The Call of the Papers 19 for lunch with a plan in place and cross-society Meet me at the Spouter Inn for Chowda cooperation established. Now, five months and much fretting later, ALN is a reality, with an The Bibliographic Update 21 initial distribution of about 500 copies. Ask yourself: have I earned tenure yet? My thanks to everyone who helped in the From the Archives 26 production of this issue. Special thanks to Old stuff you should probably care about Steven Frye for his able assistance, to Joseph Garfield and Cindy Lloyd for helping me with In Memoriam 30 numerous technical matters, and to Clare Eby, Frank Norris Remembered James R. Giles, and Donna Campbell for their fine contributions to this issue. A Fistful of Websites 31 Indoor Surfing for Heliophobes Naturally, Eric Carl Link
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Teaching the Contemporary novel opens and seems as much an inevitable condition of their lives as a choice they have Naturalism of Cormac made. The relationship of Outer Dark’s McCarthy’s Outer Dark existential overtones to the text’s dominant James R. Giles naturalism would be a profitable topic for classroom discussion, especially in the context As dramatically as any single text, Cormac of the issue of choice. In fact, Outer Dark McCarthy’s Outer Dark (1968) illustrates the provides a unique springboard for a discussion complexities of contemporary American of the extent to which individual choice can literary naturalism. The defining naturalistic logically exist in a naturalistic text. qualities of McCarthy’s second novel are a Unlike Rinthy, Culla is overwhelmed by multilayered determinism, a focus on illiterate guilt, which he augments by deciding to kill the characters existing on the margins of a baby. Unable to carry through on his decision, repressive society, the incorporation of extreme he abandons the unnamed child in the woods, plot elements dominated by violence and taboo an act that results in the baby’s kidnapping by a subject matter, and the narrative voice of a depraved, pornography-peddling tinker and sets detached spectator. The determinism of Outer in motion the period of wandering exile that he Dark exemplifies the distance that con- experiences for the rest of the novel. Before temporary American naturalism has traveled taking this drastic action, Culla goes to the from its late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth- nearest settlement to obtain food for Rinthy century origins. As Steven Barza, among only to find the only store closed because it is other critics, has pointed out, the external Sunday. When he attempts to gain entrance to forces that mold the lives of characters in late- the store, a voice “from an upper window” calls twentieth-century naturalism are predominantly down, “we still christians here. You’ll have to “unnamed, unknown, [and] inscrutable” come back a weekday” (p. 26). As signaled by (p.142). In the opening of Outer Dark, Culla McCarthy’s use of the lower-case “c,” and Rinthy Holme, brother and sister, are Christianity in Outer Dark, rather than isolated in a brutal and decadent landscape, providing spiritual assistance to desperate seeming to exist in a primitive state cut off characters, functions as an agent of harsh from any recognizably civilized community. judgment as is most evident in a scene late in The sheer isolation of their existence is one of the novel involving a “parson or what looked the central deterministic elements of like one” (p. 221) who almost brings about McCarthy’s novel. Culla’s death. In part, McCarthy is intent upon As is true of much contemporary satirizing Protestant fundamentalism here, but naturalism, a strong degree of existential guilt more importantly he is emphasizing that a is present in Outer Dark. Culla and Rinthy forgiving, supportive god is absent from the have committed incest, an act that results in world inhabited by Culla and Rinthy. Rinthy’s giving birth. The incest further Sexuality in the world of Outer Dark is divorces them, and Culla especially, from the exemplified by the tinker’s crude pornography, hope of meaningful redemption. Yet the sheer “a sorry drawing of a grotesquely coital isolation of their lives, never explained by couple.” When Culla pushes the pamphlet back McCarthy, makes the incest seem almost at him, the tinker observes, “I just thought I’d inevitable. Culla and Rinthy are virtually let ye take a peek. Don’t hurt nothin’ do it?” reincarnations of Adam and Eve trapped from (p. 8). In fact, it does hurt something: it the first in a decidedly fallen world. reduces sexuality, and the body, to the level of Moreover, the incest has occurred before the a grotesque biology. Culla does not reject the
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pornography on moral or aesthetic grounds, but [the bearded man]: I guess you’d like to because, like his sister’s constantly lactating know [my name] . . . , wouldn’t ye? body, it evokes the guilt he feels over his Yes, Holme said. incestuous relationship with Rinthy. He is, in The man’s teeth appeared and went away fact, haunted by, and terrified of, his own again as if he had smiled. Yes, he said. I expect they’s lots would like to know that. sexuality. As in Norris’s McTeague, sexuality ...... in Outer Dark is a debased construct resulting Some things is best not named, the man in guilt and suffering. A comparison of said. (174-175) Norris’s and McCarthy’s approaches to sexuality would perhaps lead to a consideration The crimes of the triune (mass murder, of other important aspects of the two texts. cannibalism, grave robbing) constitute horrific Students could be asked to consider the degree violations of the most universal of social to which each writer incorporates sexuality in taboos. his novel for the purpose of sheer Characters who, to some degree, transcend sensationalism or whether they envision it as a traditional realism are not unknown in classic manifestation of a fallen and degenerate world. naturalism, as in, for instance, Vanamee, the After the tinker discovers the infant mystic, and S. Behrman, the personification of abandoned by Culla in the woods and kidnaps capitalist greed in Norris’s The Octopus, as it, Culla and Rinthy, illiterate and lacking any well as the transformed Buck, who attains knowledge of the world outside their limited mythological stature in the conclusion of experience, embark on separate journeys to London’s The Call of the Wild. But even recover the child. What Culla finds instead is these characters, unlike McCarthy’s grim a landscape so saturated with violence as to be triune, are envisioned as acting within a almost surreal. This unrelenting, extreme dominant fictional realism. The plane of violence is so inescapable in Outer Dark that it unreality inhabited by Outer Dark’s three functions as the central external determinist wandering killers is foreshadowed by Culla’s force in the novel; its origins are certainly nightmare that opens the novel’s central plot. unnamed and inscrutable. Still it takes on In it, Culla listens to a “prophet” exhorting “a human shape in the form of the “grim triune” delegation of human ruin who attended him that haunts the landscape through which Culla with blind eyes upturned and puckered stumps travels, bringing brutal, horrific death to and leprous sores.” Abruptly Culla finds him everyone with whom he comes in contact. As himself to be a pariah even among this much as any aspect of Outer Dark, McCarthy’s “delegation of human ruin”: “they grew treatment of the murderous trio exemplifies the seething and more mutinous and he tried to distance his aesthetic has traveled from classic hide among them but they knew him even in American naturalism. While to a degree that pit of hopeful dark and fell upon him with undeniably human, the grim triune seem on one howls of outrage” (pp. 5-6). As Jay Ellis points level to be personifications of random, out, “instead of giving us a soothsayer looking murderous violence, of obscene death. The into the future, the nightmare . . . passes reader encounters them even before Culla and judgment on Culla’s past misdeeds” (p. 115); Rinthy, and they possess a supernatural and, to a degree, the grim triune functions in knowledge of the secrets of Culla’s life, of his the novel as the enforcers of that judgment. incest with Rinthy, and even of his dreams. In Still there is a human dimension to their a key exchange with Culla, the bearded leader characterization, and their undeniable of the three tantalizes Culla concerning his humanness adds to the sheer horror they identity: embody. At one point, they rob graves and
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steal the clothes of the buried and then pose the group might be called tramps, and would corpses in obscene positions. When the consist of characters who, despite wandering denuded corpses are brought to town on the elements, retain (sometimes reluctantly) a sort back of a wagon, an unidentified man says to of moral code with some correspondence to the Culla: “I hate knowin they is such people, codes of society. Another might be referred to don’t you” (p. 88). What the man means is that as spirited unfortunates, those who struggle he hates being reminded of the depravity of against the world to escape fortune’s woes. . . . which “people” are capable. A teacher of A third type could be called nomadic” (p. 41). Outer Dark should consider McCarthy’s Culla Holme belongs to the first of Evenson’s mixture of allegorical and realistic elements in categories; and his barely intact moral code, the characterization of the triune, especially in which manifests itself primarily through guilt, the context of the customary role, if any, of only serves to intensify his moral suffering. allegory in classic naturalism. Can allegory, The grim triune are perhaps McCarthy’s for instance, be related to the naturalistic ultimate depiction of the nomadic character, obsession with atavism and “the beast within”? wandering through a depraved landscape, A dominant thrust of McCarthy’s aesthetic bringing death to virtually everyone they is the exploration of the irrational extremes, the encounter. The vulnerability of the social violent excesses, of which human beings are outcast is seen in Culla’s two encounters with capable. Since Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the squire figures, landed patriarchs with the power Streets and Norris’s McTeague, such to threaten Culla with jail if he does not follow exploration has been a central aspect of their orders. Culla and Rinthy are every bit as American literary naturalism. Naturalism’s powerless to control their destinies as is emphasis on excess, on violent passions, on Crane’s Maggie Johnson or Norris’s human behavior existing outside the customary McTeague. boundaries of civilized society were the Nevertheless, McCarthy limits the degree primary considerations for Frank Norris when of the reader’s sympathy with his protagonists he insisted, in “A Plea for Romantic Fiction,” by describing them through a spectator that the movement should be understood in the narration that is reminiscent of, but even more context of its relationship to romanticism, and extreme than, that described by June Howard in specifically the romanticism of Emile Zola, Form and History in American Literary rather than middle-class realism. Outer Dark, Naturalism. Howard argues that naturalist as well as McCarthy’s other fiction, might be texts tend to be narrated by privileged spectator discussed as particularly grim examples of figures who are exempt from the external “romantic naturalism.” forces that control the lives of the dominant Marginalized human beings, the socially characters and are thus “slumming.” This outcast and exploited, have traditionally privileged exemption from naturalistic control populated naturalist texts; and one would need makes any genuine identification with the to look hard to find fictional characters existing naturalistic victim impossible; thus the more completely on the fringes of society than observing character can only pretend such Culla and Rinthy Holme. Until Culla’s ill- identification. This narrative distance, Howard fated journey to town to find help for Rinthy, argues, extends to the writer and the reader, one wonders whether they have ever known who are also exempt from control by external anything like an established human society. forces. Such exemption, she believes, is Brian Evenson argues that all McCarthy’s necessary to preserve the reformist aspect of protagonists exist in such an isolated state, and naturalism. While the characters cannot alter he divides them into three categories: “One their fates, the writer must retain the ability to
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convince the reader that society itself can be McCarthy’s method of producing it is uniquely changed. his own, this effect is not unlike the obsessive McCarthy, however, denies the possibility search for the primordial that runs throughout of such change from the beginning. The world Jack London’s fiction. A classroom of Outer Dark is so fallen, so depraved, so comparison of McCarthy’s evolutionary plagued by violence that it exists outside the slumming and London’s search for the possibility of change or reform. McCarthy primordial would provide important insights chooses not to observe the essentially demented into the aesthetics of the two writers. landscape of his novel through the privileged Yet despite severely limiting reader vantage point of an educated character like identification with Culla, McCarthy’s narrative Norris’s Presley in The Octopus or Jack demands reader recognition of his essential London’s Humphrey Van Weyden in The Sea humanness and of the human dimension of the Wolf. Nature itself is set in opposition to violent landscape through which he travels. Rinthy and especially to Culla. In fact, a kind Perhaps the demented serial killer Lester of primitive nature has assumed the spectator Ballard of Child of God (1974) best illustrates a position in an early scene in the novel: fundamental implication of McCarthy’s aesthetic. Though the acts committed by Lester When [Culla] crashed into the glade among the seem inhuman, McCarthy demands reader cottonwoods he fell headlong and lay there acknowledgment that he is finally a “child of with his cheek to the earth. And as he lay God much like yourself perhaps” (p. 4). John there a far crack of lightning went bluely down Lang writes that “Lester’s crimes would not the sky and bequeathed him in an embryonic place him beyond a human continuum on bird’s fissured vision of the world and which we find John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, transpiring instant and outrageous from dark to dark a final view of the grotto and the and Jeffrey Dahmer” (p. 93). Of all shapeless white plasm struggling upon the rich McCarthy’s creations, Outer Dark’s grim and incunabular moss like a lank swamp hare triune comes the closest to existing in a realm (p. 17). outside the human. McCarthy’s determination to explore violence and other modes of This ornate language, bordering deliberately excessive behavior inevitably raises questions upon excess, functions as the only mode of about the degree to which his readers can feel narrative mediation in the passage. Culla’s any genuine sympathy for his characters. The very existence is bequeathed through the degree of sympathy readers feel for the fissured vision of an embryonic bird; he is thus characters of Outer Dark, Culla and Rinthy described as the creation of a primordial, pre- Holme especially, would be a profitable subject human evolutionary stage of nature. for classroom discussion. Thus, the civilized middle-class reader can As Jay Ellis, among others, has pointed only contemplate Culla, and the landscape in out, McCarthy appears in one scene in the which he exists, from an extreme distance that novel to be pushing taboo subject matter to an makes any close identification with him almost unbearable extreme. In it, Culla is impossible. McCarthy positions the reader as a forced to witness the hideous sacrifice of his distanced spectator of Culla’s doomed search already mutilated child by the bearded leader of for his lost son. This perspective produces a the triune: kind of evolutionary, rather than socioeconomic slumming—it is as if McCarthy Holme saw the blade wink in the light like a is providing a glimpse of a world that exists long cat’s eye slant and malevolent and a dark only in the reader’s racial memory. Though smile erupted on the child’s throat and went all
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broken down the front of it. The child made treatment of marginal characters trapped in a no sound. It hung there with its one eye hostile environment, the depiction of extreme glazing over like a wet stone and the black plot elements foreign to the experience of a blood pumping down its naked belly. The middle-class reader, and the embracing of mute one knelt forward. He was drooling and taboo subject matter. It is necessary to making little whimpering noises in his throat remember though that it was written a century . . . . The man handed him the child and he seized it up, looked at Holme with witless after the classic texts of Norris, Crane, London, eyes, and buried his moaning face in its throat and Dreiser, and the years that intervened (p. 236). between their fiction and McCarthy’s text were marked by repeated outbreaks of previously Ellis perceptively discusses McCarthy’s unimaginable violence. World War II and the employment of meiosis in the scene (p. 125); Holocaust especially demonstrated the horrific and this device allows McCarthy to narrate violence of which human beings are capable. such an almost unimaginable brutal scene while Outer Dark and all of McCarthy’s work should simultaneously distancing the reader from it. be seen as part of the naturalistic project to bear Moreover, as is true throughout Outer Dark, witness to a century of violent excess that the sheer excess of the scene gives it inspired the novels of Nelson Algren, Joyce surrealistic overtones. A teacher of Outer Carol Oates, Hubert Selby, and Dorothy Dark will need to reconcile the text’s surreal Allison. A comparison of Outer Dark to a elements with its dominant naturalistic mode. classic naturalistic text, for instance, Crane’s In addition, the sacrifice scene raises genuine Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Norris’s questions concerning McCarthy’s attitude McTeague, or London’s The Call of the Wild toward his readers. Is the scene merely will illustrate the twentieth-century evolution of intended to shock, or does McCarthy have American literary naturalism. valid aesthetic reasons for incorporating such excessively brutal detail? Perhaps the most outrageous element of Works Cited the sacrifice scene lies in its echo of Christian Barza, Steven. “Joyce Carol Oates: Naturalism communion. Thus, McCarthy emphasizes the and the Aberrant Response.” Studies in horror of what takes place while the church American Fiction 7 (1979):141-42. ritual of the partaking of the blood of Christ. Ellis, Jay. No Place for Home: Spatial There is no savior in the world of Outer Dark; Constraint and Character Flight in the instead, one encounters only desperately fallen Novels of Cormac McCarthy. New York: and spiritually mutilated human beings who Routledge, 2006. can look only to each other in their desperate Evenson, Brian. “McCarthy’s Wanderers: search for redemption. McCarthy’s fiction is, Nomadology, Violence, and Open in fact, filled with Christian allusions (the Country.” Sacred Violence: A Reader’s climactic scene with the hog drovers in Outer Companion to Cormac McCarthy. Ed. Dark, with its echoes of the New Testament Wade Hall and Rick Wallach. El Paso: book of Mark, is one example), but the Texas Western P, 1995. 41-48. landscape of his fiction is a spiritual “waste Howard, June. Form and History in American land” perhaps even more depraved than T. S. Literary Naturalism. Chapel Hill: U of Eliot’s. North Carolina P, 1985. Outer Dark is an important text in part Lang, John. “Lester Ballard: McCarthy’s because of its incorporation of such classic Challenge to the Reader’s Compassion.” naturalistic elements as determinism, the Sacred Violence, 87-94.
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McCarthy, Cormac. Child of God. New York: than an act of mimetic literary representation. Random House Vintage, 1973. Writing is now recognized as a means by which -----. Outer Dark. New York: Vintage, 1968. to create evocative symbolic systems, with nature as its raw material, that explore James R. Giles is a Presidential Teaching Professor questions which transcend the contingencies of of English at Northern Illinois University. He is the history and culture. These courses are varied, author of nine books including The Spaces of reflecting a host of complimentary and Violence, Violence in the Contemporary American disparate concerns, and to be frank, as is often Novel, Understanding Hubert Selby, Jr., The the case with new curriculum, they are often Naturalistic Inner-City Novel in America, taught by faculty who are not directly trained to Confronting the Horror: The Novels of Nelson Algren, and Irwin Shaw: A Study of the Short teach the classes they design. Certainly, Fiction. He is the co-editor of six other volumes professors teach authors and works they are including Approaches to Teaching Louise Erdrich intimately familiar with, but the context within and five volumes of the Dictionary of Literary which these authors are considered is new. Biography on American Novelists Since World War This lack of uniformity is both rich and II. problematic, since two courses in “American Nature Writing,” taught by different faculty in the same institution, may have little or no overlap in terms of the authors, poets, or essayists considered. There is a certain spice in Naturalism, Transcendentalism, variety, so long as students and faculty embrace and the American Landscape: An this diversity. However, the most common paradigm Undergraduate Course in involves a focus on modern environmentalist American Nature Writing concerns using modern and contemporary Steven Frye writers of the American West, writers ranging from Mary Austin to Edward Abbey. This In the last three decades, as the environ- model offers particular advantages, insofar as it mentalist movement has taken on a new encourages engagement in one of the most urgency, courses dealing with the pressing issues of our time. Also, it invites representation of nature in literature have students to read authors they are more likely to multiplied in university curriculum. The identify with, since both the themes explored impulse among faculty to make texts relevant and the style employed is recognizable. For all to student’s lives as well as to contemporary of its intellectual depth and value, this approach ecological issues has motivated a variety of has its limitations, and for those of us trained in approaches to this material, and modern and the nineteenth century, another possibility postmodern critical paradigms, specifically presents itself, one that I have employed in a ecofeminism, have enriched this field of course I have taught recently at my home inquiry and the teaching domain that institution, California State University, accompanies it. Further, an increased Bakersfield, both to English majors, General preoccupation with American regional Studies majors, and as a part of our literatures, specifically the literature of the Environmental Resource Management American West, has encouraged an interest in Program. My particular design traces the the figurative dimension of “place,” and in this complex history of American nature writing context “nature” and “nature writing” has from the early nineteenth century to the become more than a mirror phenomenon, more present, with a focus on both the literary and
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philosophical underpinnings of our varied nature, artists who also manifest the tension conceptions of nature and its representation in created when the two philosophical language. My purpose is not to avoid pressing perspectives collide and blend. This leads me issues of environmentalism, but to explore the to a selection of poetry from Robert Frost densely textured historical process and the (“Mending Wall,” “Birches,” “Design”) Willa trajectory of evolving values that provide the Cather’s My Antonia, and in the contemporary environmentalist movement with its sense of period Norman Maclean’s A River Runs urgency and purpose. Through It and Cormac McCarthy’s All the Although I am concerned with the inherent Pretty Horses. limitations of periods and movements, I am These selections chart a complex evolution convinced that the ideas that dominate a of perspective on the role, value, and identity of particular age, its zeitgeist so to speak, exert an nature, and they present some of the most incalculable influence on both intellectual and powerful and incisive inquiries into the popular culture, and this is particularly true in continuities and discontinuities built into America when we consider the often transcendentalism and naturalism as complimentary but sometimes disparate philosophical systems. The later works involve movements of American transcendentalism and attempts to integrate and sometimes complicate American naturalism. Both movements the movements, and in doing so demonstrate resonate in our culture with ever-increasing the extent to which these ideas resonate in our force and with no observable signs of own time, shaping even our unconscious diminishing, although they are reconceived and assumptions regarding the natural world and its reinvented as each generation confronts the relationship to human identity and the human complexities of contemporary experience. My soul, however conceived. In this way, I course involves a selection of writers who encourage students to inquire into the source of explicitly thematize nature in the nineteenth our preoccupation with environmental issues, and twentieth centuries. Anyone interested in and I hope to dispel the notion that ecological the approach that I have taken may modify the concerns are merely pragmatic, that we desire readings to their own taste, without departing to preserve nature only because we depend significantly from the purpose I have identified. upon it materially, that in Emerson’s terms, we I begin with selections from Thoreau’s Walden value it only as “commodity.” (specifically “Economy,” “Spring,” “Higher I begin by introducing students to Laws,” and “Brute Neighbors”), followed by transcendentalism as a cultural, political, and Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” “Out of the aesthetic movement, always emphasizing its Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” and “When Lilacs diversity, but attempting to outline certain Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” continuing central features. Though I don’s ask students to with Jewett’s “A White Heron.” Of course, all read Emerson’s (1836) Nature, I discuss it in of these works are generally associated with broad terms before we move into a detailed transcendentalism. I then transition into discussion of sections from Thoreau’s Walden. representative works of literary naturalism, “Economy” allows me to position Thoreau in beginning with London’s The Sea Wolf or The the evolving tension present in the Western Call of the Wild, followed by Frank Norris’s industrialized world, one that pits the forces of The Octopus. After exploring these signature mercantile capitalism against an ethos of works of transcendentalism and naturalism, I simplification that has historically held move into the modern and contemporary technological modernity in check. It becomes periods, with an explicit focus on writers and quite easy at this point to posit similarities poets with a distinct and personal approach to between Thoreau’s concerns and those
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expressed by the counterculture of the 1960’s, the concerns that are fully explored by by certain strands of the contemporary naturalists. In this context, Jewett’s “A White environmentalist movement, as well as by Heron” is particularly useful. By this time, popular quasi-religious movements such as students are pleased that we have moved into New Age. I am careful not to argue for a clean fiction; they are almost universally enraptured and unbroken line of influence, and I with Jewett’s descriptions and her acknowledge the possibility of polygenesis, but characterization, and the figure of the I also point out that “hippies” often made direct ornithologist becomes in some sense the reference to Emerson and Thoreau, that these symbolic entrance of scientific positivism into two authors appear often on bookstore shelves a natural world dominated by optative, quasi- in potpourri shops in New Age coastal religious, romantic conceptions. communities in California such as Big Sur and Given what I hope is a fair and nuanced Carmel, and that Thoreau’s Resistance to Civil treatment of the complexities of transcend- Government, a work of social theory which entalism, which involves an emphasis on the emerges directly from a transcendentalist manner in which some writers begin to framework, was a foundation for the social anticipate later literary naturalism, our move reforms initiated by Mahatma Gandhi and into London and Norris is generally quite Martin Luther King. Other sections of Walden smooth. I have alternated between London’s allow me to introduce and complicate The Call of the Wild and The Sea Wolf for often Thoreau’s view of nature, especially the “Brute selfish reasons, depending on what I feel like Neighbors” chapter, which anticipates the re-reading, and the general model of the course darker conceptions of literary naturalism and allows for this, since many texts in both initiates a practice central to American nature movements serve the same or a similar writing, the use of landscape and natural purpose. The Call of the Wild involves a more imagery as symbol and metaphor. conventional natural setting, is full of adventure This last technique forms my central focus and incident, and is a popular world classic. It in our discussion of Whitman’s poetry. We gives us a variety of descriptive passages to explore “Song of Myself” as perhaps the most explore, and Buck as a character may be comprehensive poetic expression of the scrutinized as a powerful symbol of nature in a Emersonian ideal, and in doing so we point to Spencerian and Darwinian context. London’s some of the philosophical conundrums inherent personification of the great animal offers the in Emerson, his difficulty in reconciling the opportunity for fruitful discussion of the Mind/Body problem, specifically his desire to naturalist propensity to blend the human and integrate and unify the two, which results in an the beast, portraying the naturalist challenge to ascetic impulse that in the end privileges the conventional notions of Western humanism. At traditional idealist and Cartesian concept of the same time, it arguably suggests London’s Mind. I point directly to section six, the sympathy with that older tradition, since symbol of the grass, and we explore the personification and humanization becomes a possibility that in Whitman’s hands the powerful means by which to create sympathy symbolic use of natural imagery allows for a for Buck’s character. The Sea-Wolf is in many rhetorical integration of Mind and Body, a ways a more enriching treatment of reconciliation that philosophical discourse philosophical naturalism, and in this sense is cannot achieve. Other Whitman poems allow perhaps a better choice for classes primarily us to further examine the poet’s figurative use made up of English majors. Wolf Larsen’s of nature, and we begin to see that Whitman, novella length debate with Humphrey Van like Thoreau, begins at least to engage some of Weyden allows us to explore the philosophical
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formulations around which naturalism “Mending Wall” in the symbol of the wall functions, as well as the implications in identity itself, in “Birches” in the dominant image formation that a materialist worldview around which the persona’s vision in involves. Though the text is less preoccupied orchestrated, and most notably in “Design,” a with descriptions of nature, I am able to engage vivid rendering of a natural image which students in compelling inquiries into the centers around important ontological questions, dehumanizing potential built into the more such as the nature of origins and the reality of extremist assumptions of scientific positivism, evil--recalling in particular Stephen Crane’s “A and we see a powerful example of London’s Man Said to the Universe.” We explore the own ambivalence to the ideas that compel him. various ways in which Frost’s poetry blends the Frank Norris’s The Octopus is the perfect presuppositions of transcendentalism and transitional text to employ in displaying the naturalism, sometimes with a remarkable evolving and even escalating tensions inherent degree of integration and synthesis and at other in the culture at large, as transcendentalist and times in tensely rendered polyphonic terms. naturalist conceptions of nature and human Three novels round out my course. Willa identity become ubiquitous. The novel is Cather’s My Antonia, in the wake of a series of programmatically naturalist, at times great migrations, foregrounds an adapted form excessively so, as Norris, through the voice of of eighteenth-century agrarian associationism. various characters and his third person narrator, In Cather’s hands, nature becomes the source pronounces in polemical terms an extreme of vitality and energy, while at the same time scientific naturalist position. As the evolution embodying a grand mystery. In this case, a of Presley’s character finally concludes in a distinctly American landscape becomes a fascinating blend of consciousness with the mosaic of symbolic texture that is as much a mystic Vanamee, we see the influence of refracted mirroring of human psychology as it LeConte’s theistic evolution. Vanamee’s is a literal rendering of place. This same pantheistic vision owes, it seems to me, an symbolic landscape appears in Cormac undeniable debt to Norris’s transcendentalist McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. This forebearers, which is confirmed by Norris’s bildungsroman involves a character who expressed sympathy for Romanticism and the journeys into a landscape that is simultaneously romance genre. This beautiful novel allows us geographical and psychic, typological and to experience an epic rendering of a conflict mythic, objectively physical and intensely between an optative, divinized nature and a personal. It is a landscape that involves darker positivist conception, and together as a elements of transcendentalism and naturalism class we begin to see a vivid picture of the and establishes a context within which a young polarities and contradictions built into our man seeks spiritual and personal identity. A collective view of nature and our role within it. River Runs Through It concludes the course as These tensions are clearly apparent in the we explore what some consider a programmatic poetry of Robert Frost. I resist the tendency to work of late twentieth century romanticism, reduce the poet to a cipher that channels pre- especially in its direct inquiry into the existing ideas, and I make certain to foreground relationship of nature and art, its unambiguous his originality in terms of poetic technique, assertion of the form embodied in the act of fly- aesthetic assumptions, and themes. But I also fishing, and in its emphasis on the “words” point out that Frost was rooted in the poetic beneath rocks that inscribe a primordial traditions of the British Romantics, and many language. But I invite students to explore the of his poems display a preoccupation with darker themes implicit in the story’s tragic naturalist concepts. This appears vividly in main character: the suffering artist who is
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himself nature’s work, and who occupies a land Ten Questions with Clare Eby that is simultaneously beautiful, awe-inspiring, and beyond knowing, a nature that in the end Clare Eby is a Professor of seems violent and indifferent. English at the University of The course, then, involves an exploration Connecticut. Author of of a historical trajectory that can’t be charted in Dreiser and Veblen, Saboteurs linear terms, but reveals itself in the kind of of the Status Quo, editor of the paradox and mystery that is always a part of Norton Critical Edition of The our intellectual history rightly considered. A Jungle and the forthcoming careful discussion of selected texts that either Dreiser Edition of The Genius, she is currently working on a study of Progressive “represent” movements and periods or era marriages. simultaneously embody and contend with them, provides students with a deeper sense of the shaping influence of ideas as they appear in ALN: Teachers and scholars of late literary art. More specifically, studying works nineteenth-century American literature are from the transcendentalist and naturalist familiar with the usual suspects (McTeague, movements, and tracing their influence in the Sister Carrie, Red Badge), but, in your literary of political culture of the twentieth experience, what are some under-read or century, confirms the relevance of literature under-taught texts in the field? and the arts in a culture dominated by material pursuits and the cult of expediency. My When I read Frederic’s The Damnation of continued hope, especially in this particular Theron Ware in graduate school, it floored me. course, is to convince students of the I went back to it about a year ago and still find confluence and compatibility of aesthetics and it wonderful. I also thoroughly enjoy David history, beauty and social relevance, thus Graham Phillips. While Susan Lenox (which arguing, implicitly at least, that a life of Wharton adored) is magnificent, I love all the reading, intellectual endeavor, and critical self- marriage novels, especially Old Wives for New, inquiry is not only a responsibility but a The Husband’s Story, The Price She Paid, and pleasure. The Hungry Heart.
ALN: How do you approach teaching Steven Frye is a professor of American literature at American literary naturalism? What are California State University, Bakersfield. He has some of your teaching strategies? published essays, articles, and reviews in American Studies, Modern Fiction Studies, The Southern While I offer an occasional naturalism-centered Quarterly, The Centennial Review, The Midwest course, as a teacher I am more of a general Quarterly, The Kentucky Review, Leviathan, and Americanist, and realist-naturalist novels find elsewhere. His forthcoming article on the naturalist their way into many courses I teach. For aesthetic in Cormac McCarthy will appear in 2007 in Studies in American Naturalism. He has also instance, Sister Carrie is always the first book published a book tracing theories of historical on my “Reading the American City” syllabus. change entitled Historiography and Narrative Although what I am about to say may be Design in American Romance: A Study of Four anathema to some readers of ALN, I don’t find Authors. definitions of naturalism useful in the undergraduate classroom. Definitions let students put literature in a box, removing it from their lives. I concentrate on helping
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students see the continuity of the novels with work as a springboard for teaching American the world they inhabit. For instance, with literary naturalism? Sister Carrie we always spend a lot of time on the scenes with Carrie in the department store. I was actually underwhelmed when I first read It doesn’t take much prodding for students to The Theory of the Leisure Class. It was not admit they have experienced similar until I read The Theory of Business Enterprise commodity lust, and to consider that living in a (while working on a dissertation chapter on The consumer culture may shape them as Trilogy of Desire) that I began to see how much profoundly. I know that reading Dreiser Veblen’s work illuminates the literature of the always makes me want to go shopping. A few period. Whether you are interested in reform, years ago, while teaching Sister Carrie, I economics, evolution, gender, or just about decided I needed to upgrade my wardrobe and anything else, Veblen provides a tool kit that went to Nordstrom’s. Although I couldn’t helps make sense of naturalist novels. afford to buy anything there, I felt like I was in Although I have successfully used Leisure a Dreiser novel because the advertising Class in graduate classes, Veblen is a hard sell campaign, emblazoned in all the display with undergraduates because of his irony, windows, was “Reinvent Yourself.” My satire, and vocabulary. If I wanted to use students loved hearing about how Carrie was Veblen with undergrads, I would either use alive and well in the mall. snippets (probably focusing on men’s and women’s roles) or one of his brilliant stand- Students also grasp the relevance when alone essays such as “An Economic Theory of prodded to engage with the controversies the Woman’s Dress,” which pairs well with The literature dramatizes. For example, I enjoy House of Mirth or Sister Carrie. starting battles in class by reading aloud some of the cutting things Carrie and Hurstwood say ALN: What drew you to the study of Dreiser? to each other as she assumes the breadwinner role--passages that go to the heart of how Three years after graduating from college, I Dreiser destabilizes gender roles. Or when I was living in Philadelphia and selling teach McTeague, we look at the scene when insurance. I was miserable by day, but happily Mac learns he can no longer practice, which gorged myself by night on naturalist novels. culminates in his wonderful question, “Ain’t I a During this period I first read Dos Passos’s dentist?” Since students are themselves USA trilogy, Norris, and the Trilogy of Desire. pursuing degrees and various types of The Financier in particular blew me away--the certification, and many are also concerned with story was so riveting, while the financial focus the question of upward mobility, Mac’s simple and Philadelphia setting made me feel like I question can spark real debate. Or for The was looking into a fun house mirror reflection House of Mirth, I ask where students’ of my life. The Financier, in fact, made me sympathies lie during Lily and Selden’s decide to go to graduate school. “Republic of the Spirit” conversation--that always gets them going. ALN: Could you take us through the process of editing the The Genius for the Dreiser ALN: You've done a considerable amount of Edition at the University of Illinois Press? work on economic issues in late nineteenth- Any surprises? What are the hurdles for the century American literature. Your work with editor of a Dreiser text? Veblen is of particular note. What attracted you to Veblen, and how can one use Veblen's
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Although I think it is, hands down, the most ALN: Your edition of The Genius is important work I’ve done, editing 104 chapters forthcoming, and you've recently published makes for some tedious moments, so I think the The Cambridge Companion to Theodore biggest hurdle is having sufficient patience. I Dreiser and the Norton Critical Edition of was lucky that a transcription of the 1911 Sinclair's The Jungle. What new projects are holograph (handwritten manuscript and basis on the horizon? for the new edition) had already been prepared. I first checked the transcription for accuracy by I’m working on a book on Progressive Era reading it alongside the holograph. During this marriages. Although the book will focus on stage I also compared the 1911 version with the several married couples, there will be spin-offs, novel we already know as The “Genius”, to get such as an article on bachelor David Graham a sense of how the two differed. During stage Phillips’s views of marriage. two, the actual textual editing, I would email two edited chapters a week with my ALN: When you aren't working on Dreiser, emendations to the General Editor of the series, Veblen, Norris, or Sinclair, what gets your Tom Riggio. Often this seemingly straight- attention? forward labor of editing would turn up grey areas--for instance, I might find a particular I made it through almost half of Gravity’s turn of phrase needed emendation while Tom Rainbow last summer. I love to cook, would think it was fine idiomatically. especially to throw dinner parties. I used to be Sometimes we would go back and forth six an avid gardener, but my relationship with the times on a single point. I also drafted the outdoors is now largely involved with the textual notes, tables of emendations, and the companion you ask about below in question 10. bulk of the historical notes during this stage. Stage three consisted of the most difficult and ALN: In your opinion, where is the study of also the most enjoyable work. Determining the American literary naturalism headed? What compositional history involved detective work directions might the study of late nineteenth- and speculation; unlike anything I had done century American literature take for the next before, the compositional history was generation of readers and scholars? especially challenging. But writing the historical essay--particularly the material on the Maybe I get this from Veblen, but I don’t like visual arts--was the most enjoyable scholarship to make predictions. I would hope that the next I’ve ever done. The real surprise was how generation of scholars would study some of the differently Dreiser depicts Eugene Witla in the lesser-examined authors. 1911 edition, particularly in terms of his sexuality and his notions of morality, from the ALN: What's your favorite work of literature “tom cat” rebel we know from the 1915 edition. to teach? The women in the 1911 edition are more in charge of their own sexuality, while Eugene I have a number. I love teaching Native Son assumes more of a reactive position. There and Invisible Man, though they can be very were also personal surprises, such as how much challenging in the classroom as you never I enjoy writing historical annotations. Another know how students will react. (Native Son in surprise, although it shouldn’t be one, is that I particular is a Rorschach blot--readers’ still like both versions of The Genius. reactions often reveal more about them than about the novel.) I also enjoy teaching Light in August and all of Morrison’s novels. Some of
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my favorite naturalist novels in the classroom Naturalism News are, in addition to Native Son and Sister Carrie, An American Tragedy and The Custom of the ALN seeks to note all items of interest Country. to scholars of American literary naturalism and related to the memberships of the Frank Norris ALN: On your faculty information page at the Society, the Jack London Society, the Hamlin University of Connecticut, there is a great Garland Society, the Stephen Crane Society, picture of you with lovely black-furred poodle. the Theodore Dreiser Society, and beyond. If We here at ALN are dog lovers, and Frank you have a newsworthy item, please send it to Norris was known for his love of dogs Eric Carl Link at [email protected] and we’ll (especially Great Danes). What can you tell be sure to take note of it in a forthcoming issue us about your dog? of ALN. Did someone in your society win an honor or reach an important career milestone? Ah, Portia! Well, she doesn’t think much of We want to know. Do you know of a forth- the dogs in Jack London; she has already coming volume that might be of interest to the written her first book, The Truth about Poodles, ALN readership? Tell us about it. Is there an and she’d like ALN readers to know that event related to American literary naturalism standard poodles are among the smartest of all that you attended (or would like us to attend in breeds of dogs. the future)? Are there competitions, prizes, or Thanks, Clare!--ALN grant opportunities that you have learned about? Let us know.
Five on Fourteen •ALN• For each issue of ALN the editors ask someone in the field to share his or her favorite books. New Reprints of Garland’s books: We aren’t sure why we do this. Call it an obsession. For this issue of ALN, we asked The Book of the American Indian. Edited and Donna Campbell, associate professor of introduction by Keith Newlin. Lincoln: U of English at Washington State University. She is Nebraska P, 2005. the author of Resisting Regionalism: Gender and Naturalism in American Fiction, 1885- Rose of Dutcher’s Coolly. Edited and 1915 and other works on naturalist authors. introduction by Keith Newlin. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2005. The Campbell Top Five ALN 1. Theodore Dreiser Sister Carrie • • 2. Harold Frederic Damnation of Theron Ware 3. F. Scott Fitzgerald The Beautiful and Damned New London editions: 4. Edith Wharton The House of Mirth 5. Frank Norris McTeague Jack London’s Tales of Cannibals & Headhunters: Nine South Sea Stories by The editors wish to thank Professor Campbell America's Master of Adventure, edited by Gary for her list, and we must insist that if you Riedl and Thomas R. Tietze and published by haven’t read these book you do so immediately. the University of New Mexico Press, 2006. There will be a quiz. Yes, it will count in the grade book. No, we will not be dropping the Martin Eden, annotated by Dennis Hensley, has lowest quiz grade. been published by Taylor University Press.
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The Collected Science Fiction & Fantasy of New Norris reprint: Jack London published by Leonaur in 2005. Separate volumes as follows: Vol 1: Before The Octopus. With an introduction by Eric Adam & Other Stories; Vol 2: The Iron Heel & Carl Link. New York: Barnes & Noble Press, Other Stories;and Vol 3: The Star Rover & 2005 Other Stories. •ALN•
Jack London: Six Novels. With an introduction Join Howells for Dinner: by Eric Carl Link. New York: Barnes & Noble Press, 2006. This volume reprints The Call of At the American Literature Conference in the Wild, The Sea-Wolf, White Fang, Martin Boston next spring, the William Dean Howells Eden, The Valley of the Moon, and The Star Society will sponsor a dinner at the historic Rover. $12.95 in hardback. Tavern Club on Friday, May 25, at 7 p.m. Located at 4 Boylston Place, the Tavern Club •ALN• counts W. D. Howells among its presidents. The full dinner includes cocktails, Forthcoming Garland editions: appetizers, and wine; gratuities are included. The cost is $80 per person in advance. A Son of the Middle Border. By Hamlin Information about reservations will appear in Garland. Introduction by Keith Newlin. St. the spring issue of this newsletter, in The Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, Howellsian, and at the Howells Society site, forthcoming January 2007. http://www.howellssociety.org
A Daughter of the Middle Border. By Hamlin •ALN• Garland. Introduction by Keith Newlin. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, The Edith Wharton Essay Prize forthcoming January 2007. Deadline Extended to 30 October 2006 •ALN• The Edith Wharton Essay Prize is awarded New Dreiser Volumes: annually for the best unpublished essay on Edith Wharton by a beginning scholar. Forthcoming from the University of Illinois Graduate students, independent scholars, and Press in the Pennsylvania Dreiser Edition, faculty members who have not held a tenure- Thomas P. Riggio general editor: track or full-time appointment for more than four years are eligible to submit their work. The Genius, edited by Clare Eby, is due out in December 2006. Two editions scheduled for The winning essay will be published in The 2007 are New Dreiser Letters, Vol. I: General Edith Wharton Review, a peer-reviewed Correspondence, edited by Donald Pizer, and journal, and the writer will receive an award of New Dreiser Letters, Vol. II: Letters to Women, $250. edited by Thomas P. Riggio. Well under way are The Financier, edited by Roark Mulligan, All entries will be considered for publication in and Theodore Dreiser's Political Writings The Edith Wharton Review as well as for the (1895-1945), edited by Jude Davis. Edith Wharton Essay Prize. Submissions should be 15-25 pages in length and should •ALN•
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follow the new 6th edition MLA style, using Special Journal Issue on Jack London: endnotes, not footnotes. Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction Applicants should not identify themselves on (Fall 2004) the manuscript but should provide a separate cover page that includes their names, academic This issue features ten essays on London that status, e-mail address, postal addresses, and the offer practical pedagogical and critical notation "The Edith Wharton Essay Prize." approaches to works such as “The Mexican,” “The Law of Life,” “To Build A Fire,” “A To submit an essay for the prize, send three Piece of Steak,” “Koolau the Leper,” “The copies by 30 October 2006 to either of the House of Pride,” “Mauki,” and Martin Eden. editors of The Edith Wharton Review: Editor Loren Logsdon invites interested
London teachers, scholars, and readers who Prof. Carole M. Shaffer-Koros Dean, School of Visual and Performing Arts wish to purchase individual copies or who VE-114A would like to subscribe to send their requests to Kean University the following address: Union, NJ 07083 Loren Logsdon Prof. Linda Costanzo-Cahir ESTSF Editor W 1091 Eureka College Kean University Eureka, IL 61530-1500 Union, NJ 07083 A single copy is $6.00; a one-year subscription is $12.00. Make checks payable to Eureka •ALN• College—ESTSF for the amount and mail them to Loren, who will deposit the check and send Jack London Symposium: out the copies.
The next Jack London Symposium will be Oct. London articles in this special issue include: 10-11, 2008 at the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. Contact Jeanne Reesman for more 1. Miriam J. Shillingsburg, “Jack London’s information ([email protected]) Boxing Stories: Parables for Youth”
•ALN• 2. Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet, “Course Walker on London: Writing Objectives and London’s ‘Law of Life’” New installments of Dale L. Walker’s ongoing series Jack London: the Stories, can be found 3. John McKenna, “Jack London’s ‘Law of on the World of Jack London web site Life’: A 21st Century Prophesy” www.jacklondons.net 4. Carla A. Fellers, “Reading London: •ALN• Searching ‘The Law of Life’ for Stylistic Principles”
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5. Angela Glover, “Using Jack London’s ‘To enjoyable and informative. Besides organizing Build a Fire’ To Teach the Process of a series of panels for the presentation of papers, Revision” they set up a display of artifacts relating to the Gillette-Brown case—Grace’s famous letters to 6. Reinaldo Francisco Silva, “Jack London and Chester written in the days before her death, the Some of His Short Fiction: A Genuine Quarrel tennis racket Chester purportedly used to do her with Colonialism?” in, photographs of the principals in the trial, sensational newspaper accounts, and the like. 7. Kenneth K. Brandt, “London’s Fiction They also organized a tour of the Herkimer Technique and His Use of Schopenhauer as the County Courthouse, where the trial took place; the jail where Chester was held during the trial, ‘Motif under the Motif’ in ‘The Law of Life’” across the street from the courthouse; and the
site of Grace’s drowning at Big Moose Lake, 8. Bernard L. Ngovo, “Teaching Jack London’s fifty-odd miles north of Herkimer in the lake ‘To Build a Fire’ in a Self-Paced Instructional country. Evening events included a showing of Mode to College Developmental Students” George Stevens’s A Place in the Sun, the1951 film based on Dreiser’s novel and starring 9. Gordon Petry, “To Build a Story” Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters; and The People vs. Gillette, a 10. Tom Tietze, “Teaching Aesthetics: Art and reenactment of the Gillette-Brown trial written the Artist in Jack London’s Martin Eden” by Jack Sherman and performed by the Ilion
ALN Little Theater Company. Among the highlights • • the last day of the conference were multimedia
presentations by authors of books on the case— The Call: The Newsletter of the Jack London Craig Brandon (on the murder and trial) and Society publishes short articles on all aspects of Joseph Brownell (on the early life of Grace Jack London's life and works. For more Brown). The following is a list of presenters information, or to contribute, contact Ken and their topics: Brandt ([email protected]).
•ALN• Panel 1 Mary Hricko—“From Crime to Culture: A The Chester Gillette Centennial Study of the Derivative Forms of the Gillette/Brown Murder Case.” On June 22-24, 2006, several members of the Jerome Loving—“The Latest Return of Clyde International Theodore Dreiser Society took and Roberta: The Opera An American part in a conference in Herkimer, New York, Tragedy at the Met.” commemorating the 1906 trial of Chester Roark Mulligan—“Dreiser’s Murder Ballad.” Gillette for the murder of Grace Brown, the originals for Clyde Griffiths and Roberta Panel 2, Introduced by Clare Eby and Alden. The conference, “Chester, Grace and Leonard Cassuto Dreiser: The Birth of An American Tragedy,” Shannon O. Cotrell—“An American Tragedy was hosted by Herkimer County Community and the Phenomenology of Crime.” College in its corporate and education center on Clara Elana Erdheim—“Is there a Place for a hilltop looking out over the Adirondacks. Ecology in Theodore Dreiser’s An Conference director Jeff Steele and his American Tragedy?” colleagues made the event thoroughly Larry Hussman—“The Impossible She.”
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Panel 3 In case you missed it… Jillmarie Murphy—“A Small and routed Army: Clyde Griffiths and the Trauma of Presentations of the 2006 8th Biennial Religious Addiction.” Jack London Society Symposium, Jude Davies—“Visualizing the Tragedy: aboard the Celebrity Mercury Hubert Davis’s Symbolic Drawings for An American Tragedy.” (Seattle-Alaska-Seattle)
Panel 4 “Burning Daylight at the Business of Stephen Brennan—“The Influence of The New Redemption” Donna Campbell, Washington Criminology on An American Tragedy.” State University John Cyril Barton—“Was Clyde Griffiths Guilty of Murder in the First Degree? “Teaching ‘To Build a Fire,’” Gayle Labor, Dreiser’s An American Tragedy and the Bossier Parish Community College Cultural Rhetoric of Capital Punishment.” “’The Sun-Dog Trail’: A Stereoscopic View,” Panel 5 Sanford E. Marovitz, Kent State University M. John Sherman, Dennis McDermott, and Patrick Kirk—A three-judge panel discussing “The Problem of Agency in Jack London’s the legal issues surrounding the Chester Gillette Burning Daylight’” Kenneth K. Brandt, murder trial. Savannah College of Art and Design
Panel 6 “The Call of the Files,” Sara S. Hodson, The Craig Brandon, Joseph Brownell, Jerome Huntington Library Loving, and Judge M. John Sherman—An open discussion among the experts on the legal, “From Queen Emma to Lepers: London’s literary, and historical impact of the story of Hawaii,” Tammi Andersland, Kaua’i Historical Grace Brown and Chester Gillette over the last Society, John Lydgate, Kaua’i Historical century. Society
More information on the conference is “Jack London’s Palace of Fine Arts and ‘The available online at Hussy,’” Joe Johnson, Barrington, IL http://www.herkimer.edu/dreiser/index.htm “In After-Wisdom Spoken: John Barleycorn,” •ALN• Marinelle Ringer, Philander Smith College, North Little Rock, AR Frank Norris on the Web “What Kind of Darwinian was London?” After many long years, the Frank Norris Lawrence I. Berkove, University of Michigan- Society is finally going high-tech. Thanks to Dearborn the able and generous assistance of Donna Campbell, the Frank Norris Society has a “Twain and London: Recent Biography,” website. It’s under construction, but we have a Moderator: Sanford E. Marovitz, Kent State foundation laid. For the URL, see the list of University, Participants: Earle Labor, websites later in this issue. Thanks, Donna! Centenary College of Louisiana and Lawrence I. Berkove, University of Michigan-Dearborn •ALN•
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The Call of the Papers Students, Independent Scholars, and Retired Faculty). After April 15, the fees are $85 and 2007 Popular Culture Association $35.
Conference 1. The International Theodore Dreiser Society The Jack London Society The International Theodore Dreiser Society Call for Papers on any aspect of Jack will sponsor two sessions at the American London's life and works are invited for Literature Association's 18th Annual the 2007 Popular Culture Association Conference, May 24-27, 2007, in Boston. Conference. The conference will be held at the Boston Marriott Copley Place in Boston, Papers on all aspects of Dreiser's writing and Massachusetts from 4-7 April. Please submit an life are welcome. abstract of 150-200 words by 1 November 2006 to: Please submit proposals or papers via e-mail before January 12, 2007, to the vice president Louise E. Wright of the Dreiser Society: Area Chair, Jack London's Life and Works 3334 Midvale Avenue Roark Mulligan Philadelphia, PA 19129 International Dreiser Society lewright_at_dca.net 105 N. Sulgrave Ct. Williamsburg, VA 23185 ALN • • 757-229-3697
[email protected] 2007 ALA in Boston
The American Literature Association's 18th 2. The William Dean Howells Society annual conference will meet at the Westin Copley Place in Boston on May 24-27, 2007 The Howells Society will sponsor two sessions (Thursday through Sunday of Memorial Day at the at the American Literature Association's weekend). For further information, please 18th Annual Conference, May 24-27, 2007, in consult the ALA website at Boston. www.americanliterature.org or contact the conference director, Professor Lauri Ramey of Session One. Howells's Reviews. For a panel in California State University, Los Angeles at the program of the 2007 American Literature [email protected] with specific questions. Association annual convention, the William Dean Howells Society invites paper proposals Audio-visual equipment: The ALA will that examine the work of William Dean normally provide the following: slide Howells in reviews. Possible topics may projectors and screens, VCR-DVD equipment, include Howells's own publications as a book CD or cassette tape players, and projectors for reviewer, other critics' reviews of Howells's PowerPoint presentations. work, or Howells's responses to the work of other reviewers. Please send by January 8, Conference Fee: For those who pre-register 2007 paper proposals no longer than 500 words before April 15, 2007: $75 ($25 for Graduate and copy of cv to Claudia Stokes at
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[email protected] or by post to 4. The Hamlin Garland Society Claudia Stokes, Trinity University, Dept of English, 1 Trinity Place, San Antonio, The Hamlin Garland Society will sponsor one TX 78212 session at the American Literature Association Conference at the Westin Copley Place in Session Two: Howells and Marriage. Boston on 24-27 May 2007. For a panel in the program of the 2007 American Literature Association annual Papers may be submitted on any topic convention, the William Dean Howells Society concerning Garland or his work. invites paper proposals that examine marriage in Howells's life and work. Possible topics Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes. may include his literary depictions of marriage, Please email abstracts or papers of no more his writings about marriage in literary criticism than ten double-spaced pages by 1 January and reviews, Howells's own marriage, or his 2007 to the program chair: engagement in contemporary marital controversies. Please send by January 8, 2007 Kurt Meyer paper proposals no longer than 500 words and [email protected] copy of cv to Claudia Stokes at web: http://www.uncw.edu/garland/ [email protected] or by post to Claudia Stokes, Trinity University, 5. The Frank Norris Society Dept of English, 1Trinity Place, San Antonio, TX 78212 The Frank Norris Society will sponsor two sessions at the American Literature Association Conference at the Westin Copley Place in 3. The Stephen Crane Society Boston on May 24-27, 2007.
The Stephen Crane Society will sponsor two Session One: Issues in American Literary sessions at the American Literature Association Naturalism. This session will focus on broader Conference at the Westin Copley Place in treatments of American literary naturalism Boston on May 24-27, 2007. (whether directly related to Frank Norris or not). Possible topics would include definitional Session One: Crane’s Western Tales studies, treatments of American literary naturalism in the context of late nineteenth- Session Two: Open. Any aspect of Crane’s century culture and history, examinations of work or life will be considered. literary naturalism in the twentieth century, and related topics. Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes. Session Two: Open. Any aspect of Norris’s Please email abstracts or papers of no more work or life will be considered. than ten double-spaced pages by 1 January 2007 to the program chair: Please email abstracts or papers of no more than ten double-spaced pages by 1 January Patrick K. Dooley 2007 to the program chair: [email protected] Eric Carl Link [email protected]
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6. The Jack London Society Link, Eric Carl. The Vast and Terrible Drama: American Literary Naturalism in the Late The 2007 ALA London Society call-for-papers Nineteenth Century. Tuscaloosa, AL: U of will be posted soon to the Jack London Website Alabama P, 2004.
Pizer, Donald. “Late Nineteenth-Century Bibliographic Update American Literary Naturalism: A Re- Introduction.” American Literary Realism For our first bibliographic update, we have 38.3 (Spring 2006): 189-202. traveled back as far as 2004. The lists below are comprehensive, but not exhaustive, and we Tandt, Christophe Den. "American Literary undoubtedly missed a work here and there. If Naturalism." A Companion to American you wrote an article or book related to Fiction, 1865-1914. Ed. Robert Paul Lamb American literary naturalism in the past two and G. R. Thompson. Oxford: Blackwell, years and it is not listed below, please let us 2005. 96-118. know and we will make sure to note it in the spring issue of ALN. Theodore Dreiser General Studies Brown, Bill. “The Matter of Dreiser’s Dudley, John. A Man's Game: Masculinity and Modernity.” Cassuto and Eby 83-99. the Anti-Aesthetics of American Literary Naturalism. Tuscaloosa, AL: U of Cassuto, Leonard, and Clare Eby, eds. The Alabama P, 2004. Cambridge Companion to Theodore Dreiser. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Fleissner, Jennifer L. Women, Compulsion, UP, 2004. Modernity: The Moment of American Naturalism. University of Chicago Press, Christensen, Peter G. “Sergei Eisenstein’s 2004. Unfilmed Adaptation of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy.” Taiwan Lamb, Robert Paul and G. R. Thompson, eds. Journal of English Literature 2.1 (2004): A Companion to American Fiction 1865- 45-65. 1914. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. Vol. 25 of the Blackwell Companions to Literary and Davies, Jude. “The Struggle for Existence, the Cultural Studies. Struggle for Domination, and the Struggle for Justice: Animals and the Social in Lehan, Richard. Realism and Naturalism: The Theodore Dreiser’s ‘The Shining Slave Novel in an Age of Transition. Madison: Makers’ and The Financier.” Animal University of Wisconsin, 2005. Magic: Essays on Animals in the American Imagination. Ed. Jopi Nyman and Carol Smith. Joensuu, Finland:
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Faculty of Humanities, University of Yearbook of the Society for the Study of Joensuu, 2004. 55-72. Midwestern Literature 31 (2004): 57-68.
Dvorak, Jack. “May Calvert: Dreiser’s Lifelong Loving, Jerome. The Last Titan: A Life of Teacher.” Dreiser Studies 36:2 (2005): 3- Theodore Dreiser. Berkeley, CA: U of 29. California P, 2005.
Eby, Clare Virginia. “Dreiser and Women.” Lu, Jie. “Similar Phenomena, Different Cassuto and Eby 142-59. Experiments? A Study of Thomas Hardy’s Literary Influence on Theodore Dreiser.” ---. “Theodore Dreiser and the Force of the Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Personal.” A Companion to American Contemporary Thought 45.4 (2004): 415- Fiction, 1865-1914. Ed. Robert Paul 26. Lamb and G. R. Thompson. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005. Niemi, Robert. “Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy.” American Writers: Giles, Paul. “Dreiser’s Style.” Cassuto and Eby Classics. Ed. Jay Parini. Vol. 2. NY: 47-62. Scribner’s, 2004. 19-35.
Gross, Andrew S. “Cars, Postcards, and Ouzgane, Lahoucine. “Dreiser and Sister Patriotism: Tourism and National Politics Carrie’s Kingdom of Greatness.” The in the United States, 1893-1929.” Pacific Journal of Generative Anthropology 10.1 Coast Philology 40 (2005): 77-97. (2004): [no pagination].
Hriko, Mary. The Genesis of the Chicago Ovell, Miles. “Dreiser, Art, and the Museum.” Renaissance: The Writings of Theodore Cassuto and Eby 127-41. Dreiser, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and James T. Farrell. Diss. Kent Pizer, Donald. “Dreiser and the Jews.” Dreiser State Univ. 2004. Studies 35.1 (2004): 1-23.
Jett, Kevin W. “Literary Soul Mates? Dreiser, Riggio, Thomas P. “Dreiser and the Uses of Hervey White, and Quicksand.” Dreiser Biography.” Cassuto and Eby 30-46. Studies 35:2 (2004): 29-44. Robbins, Bruce. “Can There Be Loyalty in The Jurca, Catherine. “Dreiser, Class and the Financier?: Dreiser and Upward Home.” Cassuto and Eby 100-11. Mobility.” Cassuto and Eby 112-26.
Lears, Jackson. “Dreiser and the History of Rusch, Frederic E., and Donald Pizer, eds. American Longing.” Casuto and Eby 63- Theodore Dreiser: Interviews. Urbana, IL: 79. U of Illinois P, 2004.
Lindquist, Barbara. “Theodore Dreiser, Smith, Roger W. “A Dreiser Checklist, 2000- Thermodynamics, and the ‘Manly Man’: 2001.” Dreiser Studies 35.1 (2004): 38-52. An Analysis of Gender Relations in the Cowperwood Trilogy.” Midamerica: The ---. “A Dreiser Checklist, 2002-2004.” Dreiser Studies 35.2 (2004): 45-59.
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Tabor-Hann, Kellie E. Naturalist Domesticity, Fagg, John. “Stephen Crane and the Literary Domestic Naturalism: Outside, Inside, and Sketch: Genre and History in ‘Sailing Day Floating among the Fictional Homes of Scenes’ and “Coney Island’s Failing Dreiser, Norris, and London. Diss. U of Days.’” American Literary Realism 38.1 Maryland, College Park, 2002. (Fall 2005): 1-17.
West, James L. W. III. “Dreiser and the Goetsch, Paul. "Shipwreck with Spectator: Profession of Authorship.” Cassuto and Norris, London, Crane." The Sea and the Eby 15-29. American Imagination. Germany: Stauffenburg, 2004. 149-162. Whaley, Annemarie Koning. “Business Is Business: Corporate America in the Huang, Jiaxiu. "Stephen Crane's Poetry of the Restored Jennie Gerhardt.” Dreiser Absurd." Re-Reading America: Changes Studies 35.1 (2004): 24-37. and Challenges. 131-135. Cheltenham, England: Reardon, 2004. Zaluda, Scott. “Opera Review: An American Tragedy at the Metropolitan Opera.” Lawson, Andrew. "Class Mimicry in Stephen Dreiser Studies 36.2 (2005): 30-41. Crane's City." American Literary History 16.4 (2004): 596-618. Zimmerman, David A. “The Financier and the Ends of Accounting.” Dreiser Studies 35.2 ---. "The Red Badge of Class: Stephen Crane (2004): 3-28. and the Industrial Army." Literature and History 14.2 (2005): 53-68.
Lentz, Perry. Private Fleming at Stephen Crane Chancellorsville: The Red Badge of Courage and the Civil War. Columbia: U Alonzo, Juan. "From Derision to Desire: The of Missouri P, 2006. 'Greaser' in Stephen Crane's Mexican Stories and D. W. Griffith's Early Naito, Jonathan Tadashi. "Cruel and Unusual Westerns." Western American Literature Light: Electricity and Effacement in 38.4 (2004): 374-401. Stephen Crane's The Monster." Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Cain, William E. "Sensations of Style: The Literature, Culture, and Theory 62.1 Literary Realism of Stephen Crane." A (2006): 35-63. Companion to American Fiction, 1865- 1914 Ed. Robert Paul Lamb and G. R. Sloan, Gary. "Stephen Crane: The Black Badge Thompson. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. 557- of Unbelief." American Atheist 42.3 571. (2004): 28.
Dingledine, Don. "'It Could Have Been Any Shaefer, Michael W. "'I...Do Not Say That I Street': Ann Petry, Stephen Crane, and the Am Honest': Stephen Crane's Failure of Fate of Naturalism." Studies in American Artistic Nerve in the 'Open Boat'." Fiction 34.1 (2006): 87-106. Philological Review 31.1 (2005): 1-16.
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Sorrentino, Paul. Stephen Crane Remembered McKenna, John J. "Jack London's 'The Law of Tuscaloosa, AL: U of Alabama P, 2006. Life': A 21st Century Prophesy." Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction 5.1 ---. Student Companion to Stephen Crane. (2004): 20-25. Westport, Ct.: Greenwood, 2005. Mitchell, J. Lawrence. "Jack London and Thalacker, Lisa. "Jack Potter: Fictional Sheriff Boxing." American Literary Realism 36.3 and Legendary Cowboy." American (2004): 225-242. Literary Realism 36.2 (2004): 180-183. Ngovo, Bernard L. "Teaching Jack London's Jack London 'To Build a Fire' in a Self-Paced Instructional Mode to College Adams, Jon-K. "Jack London: Sailors and Developmental Students." Eureka Studies Savages." The Sea and the American in Teaching Short Fiction 5.1 (2004): 67- Imagination. Germany: Stauffenburg, 73. 2004. 163-173. North, Dick. Sailor on Snowshoes: Tracking Berkove, Lawrence I. "Jack London and Jack London's Northern Trail. Harbour Evolution: From Spencer to Huxley." Books, 2006. American Literary Realism 36.3 (2004): 243-255. Saiz, Peter R. "Political Tyranny and the Master-Slave Paradigm in Selected Sea Davidson, Avram. "How I Collaborated with Tales of Herman Melville and Jack Jack London, Ambrose Bierce, Sinclair London." Dissertation Abstracts Lewis, Elizabeth Taylor, Princess International, Section A: The Humanities Margaret, & Others." New York Review of and Social Sciences 64.11 (2004): 4052- Science Fiction 17.8 (2005): 11-12. 4052.
Emmert, Scott. "The Familiar Uncommon Shillingsburg, Miriam J. "Jack London's Spectator: Jack London's Female Watchers Boxing Stories: Parables for Youth." in The Game and the Abysmal Brute." Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature 5.1 (2004): 7-15. 22.1 (2004): 137-146. Silva, Reinaldo Francisco. "Jack London and Glover, Angela. "Using Jack London's 'To Some of His Short Fiction: A Genuine Build a Fire' to Teach the Process of Quarrel with Colonialism?" Eureka Studies Revision." Eureka Studies in Teaching in Teaching Short Fiction 5.1 (2004): 40- Short Fiction 5.1 (2004): 34-39. 53.
Hergenhan, Laurie. "Jack London and the Swafford, Kevin R. “Resounding the Abyss: Never Never." Overland 177 (2004): 88- The Politics of Narration in Jack London’s 89. The People of the Abyss.” Journal of Popular Culture 39.5 (October 2006): 838- McKenna, John. "Jack London." Eureka 860. Studies in Teaching Short Fiction 5.1 (2004): 3-88.
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Tietze, Thomas R. "Teaching Aesthetics: Art Link, Eric Carl. "A Tale of Two Municipalities: and the Artist on Jack London's Martin O. Henry Responds to Norris's 'The House Eden." Eureka Studies in Teaching Short with the Blinds'." Frank Norris Studies 4 Fiction 5.1 (2004): 78-88. (2004): 1-5.
Lye, Colleen. "American Naturalism and Frank Norris Asiatic Racial Form: Frank Norris's The Octopus and Moran of the 'Lady Letty'." Berte, Leigh Ann Litwiller. “Mapping The Representations 84 (2004): 73-99. Octopus: Frank Norris’ Naturalist Geography.” American Literary Realism McElrath, Joseph R., Jr. "'The Wife of Chino': 37.3 (Spring 2005): 202-224. A Reconsideration of Frank Norris's Narrative Technique." Frank Norris Brandt, Maria F. "'For His Own Satisfaction': Studies 4 (2004): 12-16. Eliminating the New Woman Figure in McTeague." American Transcendental ---. and Jesse S. Crisler. Frank Norris: A Life. Quarterly 18.1 (2004): 5-23. Champaign, IL: U of Illinois P, 2006.
Crisler, Jesse S. "Hamlin Garland's Piep, Karsten H. "Love's Labor's Regained: Relationship with Frank Norris." Frank The Making of Companionate Marriages Norris Studies 4 (2004): 5-12. in Frank Norris's The Pit." Papers on Language and Literature: A Journal for Goetsch, Paul. "Shipwreck with Spectator: Scholars and Critics of Language and Norris, London, Crane." The Sea and the Literature 40.1 (2004): 28-56. American Imagination. Germany: Stauffenburg, 2004. 149-162. Rossetti, Gina M. "Out of the Gene Pool: Primitivism and Ethnicity in Frank Norris's Hsu, Hsuan L. "Literature and Regional McTeague." CLA Journal 48.1 (2004): 51- Production." American Literary History 70. 17.1 (2005): 36-70. Yang, Seokwon. "[The Naturalist Discourse of Johanningsmeier, Charles. "The Devil, Force and Social Criticism: A Reading of Capitalism, and Frank Norris: Defining the Frank Norris's The Octopus]." Journal of 'Reading Field' for Sunday Newspaper English Language and Literature/Yongo Fiction, 1870-1910." American Yongmunhak 50.3 (2004): 733-757. Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism, and Bibliography 14.1 (2004): 91-112. Hamlin Garland
Kreisel, Deanna K. "Frank Norris's Martin, Quentin E. “Agricultural Awakenings: McTeague." American Writers: Classics, Hamlin Garland's A Little Norsk and 'The Volume II. Ed. Jay Parini. New York, NY: Land of the Straddle-Bug.’” American Scribner's, 2004. 181-198. Literary Realism 37 (2005): 141-58.
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Newlin, Keith. “Clouted by the Reviewers: what stands out is the attitude the reviewer The Texts of Garland’s Rose of Dutcher’s takes toward A Man’s Woman. Commonly Coolly.” Documentary Editing 27 (2005): viewed by scholars as the weakest of Norris’ 71-81. efforts, the reviewer has nothing but high praise for the work, and ranks it above all of ---. “‘I am as ever your disciple’: The his other novels with the exception of The Friendship of Hamlin Garland and W. D. Octopus. Howells.” Papers on Language and These reviews have not been collected, nor Literature 42 (2006): 264-90. are they listed in Frank Norris: A Reference Guide. They are presented here for the first Teorey, Matthew. “Escaping the Lion's Paw: time since their original publication. Jungle Cat Imagery and Late-Nineteenth- Century Political Reform.” ANQ 19 I (2006): 42-47. [Dallas Morning News Tymn, Michael E. “Examining the Mystery of August 19, 1901, page 10:] the Buried Crosses.” Journal of Religion & Psychical Research 28.2 (2005): 62-76. New Books Reviewed ------
Stories of American Life From the Archives ------A Love Theme Interwoven with the Two Uncollected Early Reviews Commercial and Industrial of Norris’s Work Problems of the People of Today.
The two reviews reprinted below appeared Of the novels which have been written this in the Dallas Morning News on August 19, year, one of the strongest and at the same time 1901, and August 26, 1901. The reviewer is one most thoroughly representative of not identified, but the same reviewer appears to American life, is “The Octopus: a Story of have written both reviews. The first piece—a California,” by Frank Norris (Doubleday, Page review of The Octopus—places the work in the & Co.). It belongs to a class of novels that has category of “mercantile novels,” notes Norris’s just begun to come into prominence in the thorough and detailed representation of large- literature of today---“mercantile novels,” they scale American life, and criticizes the Vanamee have been termed. These novels have subplot as a “highly mystical” bit of “romantic undertaken themes woven out of the great idealism” that lies outside the main theme of commercial and industrial life of the American the novel. th people and are by necessity often closely The review of August 26 is a connected with politics, so intimate is the commentary—replete with considerable association between the commerce and politics praise—on Norris’s five novels to date: Moran of today. Several of these novels have already of the Lady Letty, Blix, A Man’s Woman, been reviewed in these columns, e.g., “The McTeague, and The Octopus. There’s much of Banker and the Bear,” distinctly a novel of interest in this overview of Norris’s novels, but finance, and “J. Devlin—Boss,” a novel
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primarily of politics but indirectly also of grower of the San Joaquin Valley, is a splendid finance. “The Octopus” outranks these novels figure—a man of the “old school” politics and easily. manners, weakly yielding, though, under This novel is to be one of a trilogy entitled tremendous pressure to the influences brought “The Epic of the Wheat,” wherein is to be told to bear on him to force him into fighting the whole story of the production, the villains with their own weapons, and at last distribution and the consumption of American utterly crushed and broken through his acts wheat. This is the first of the series; the becoming public. His is a fine example of the second, “The Pit,” is to be a tale of Chicago ruin of a great character through a single wheat speculation while the third story, “The descent into impure politics. S. Behrman, the Wolf,” is to be concerned with a famine in the P. & S. W. agent, the gross, fat, conscienceless Old World. tool of the machine is a type very true to life. It is well to consider too that the story is no But the best of them all undoubtedly is the mere piece of polemical fiction. To quote from rancher, Buck Annixter of the Quien Sabe the publishers’ introduction, “The story of this ranch, a rough and crude specimen of a ranch remarkable novel is founded upon an actual boss, a bitter denunciator of “fool feemale piece of history almost unknown in the East— girls,” and something of a fire-eater, but brave what is known as the ‘Mussel Slough Affair’— and resolute—a splendid fellow. He is at last when the wheat-growers of the San Joaquin captured by a pretty dairy maid. On him the Valley came into actual conflict with the author has lavished all his rich store of humor, railroad (‘The Octopus’), which they believed yet never making him actually ridiculous. was trying to defraud them of their lands.” There are a dozen scenes in the novel The author has undertaken his work on a worth mentioning, but that of the great dance in large scale, as befits the breadth of his theme. Annixter’s new barn and the subsequent Well has he felt the tremendous character of the formation of “the league,” is a great piece of forces in conflict, and well has he conveyed work, executed with the utmost care for detail this sense to his story. He is no friend of the and as spirited as can be. This, indeed, is a trusts, and the picture that he makes of them is strong point with Mr. Norris—his painstaking dark in the extreme. Futile is the endeavor of care of detail. In all of his 650 closely-printed the agricultural and laboring classes to win pages the execution and finish of his work is their rights by law, and futile the resort to arms good. His style is very clear and concise. The to which at last they are forced. The octopus, epic of the wheat, he calls it, but it is rather all powerful, in the end is supreme. The story amusing sometimes to see him adopting the is no hot-headed attack on trusts as such. It is a certain traits of the Homeric phraseology, a well-considered and faithful piece of work, character once introduced by a certain set of depicting one of the grave problems of the day, descriptive phrases bears with him one or more and ought to command wide attention. of these every time he appears again. The characters of the story, taken Yet the novel has, seemingly, one very altogether, are exceedingly well drawn, from weak point, and, strangely enough, both of the the young poet with his idea of writing an epic above mentioned novels, “The Banker and the of the great West, but forced at last into the Bear” and “J. Devlin Boss,” have precisely the consideration of economic problems, to the same trouble—a love story lying on the outside discharged and blacklisted railroad engineer. of the main theme, as it were, and not an But there are some first-rate characters among integral part of the novel. Why the author of them that need more than a word of praise. “The Octopus” permitted that piece of romantic Magnus Darrick, the ‘49er, the great wheat- idealism is hard to see—perhaps by way of
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adding contrast to the intense and terrible “Moran of the Lady Letty” (Moran is a reality of the story, but certainly it is no part of girl, the Lady Letty a ship), “McTeague,” the main theme. It is highly mystical in “Blix,” “A Man’s Woman,” “The Octopus;” character, having now and then an echo of these five books constitute the published work Lytton’s “Zanoni,” and in itself perhaps worthy of Mr. Frank Norris. It is some time since of some consideration, but not in its present William Dean Howells set his seal to Mr. place. Norris’ naturalization papers in the republic of The book is a great novel, and is worthy of letters and announced that he had “arrived.” a much fuller consideration than can be “A Man’s Woman” and “The Octopus” had not accorded it here. It must be sufficient with this then been written. They give abundant to call it to the attention of the public and to evidence that he has come to stay; they form promise them that they will find in its pages the stable foundation upon which should be much for their pleasure and much for their most built no mean dwelling on the “Nob’s Hill” (to serious consideration. be Californian) of the capital city of the said republic. “Moran of the Lady Letty” is a wild romance of the most adventurous kind. It is II thrilling and sensational enough to hold the [Dallas Morning News attention of any reader, and it shows an August 26, 1901, page 10:] intimacy with the coast of Lower California and with the strange and repulsive life of those
vermin of the Pacific Ocean, the Chinese Frank Norris’ beachcombers, that must have some basis in personal experience. At least that is what one Work would conclude if this were one’s first ------acquaintance with Mr. Norris, but by and by His five books are meritorious and some subjects are handled without gloves. when one has in as many strata of society as good grounds for the same conclusion about ------Other Stories half a dozen diverse professions and callings one begins to doubt its accuracy. Promised “McTeague” is a strong book of a very ------unpleasant kind. It is the minute study of a The Next Is to Be of the Chicago Grain low-grade life that sinks lower and lower under Pit and the Distribution of the Grain the stress of circumstances. Rather should it be ------said of two lives, husband and wife, for the “The Crisis,” by Churchill, still keeps the drawing of the woman, her niggardliness that lead of the book sales in Dallas. “Truth turns into fierce avarice by insensible degrees, Dexter,” by McCall, is still second, while “The that at length becomes bald miserliness, is Octopus,” by Frank Norris, recently reviewed, wonderfully well handled. High as the claim is third. “The Puppet Crown,” by MacGrath, is may sound, the book is not unlike “Tess of the fourth, with “Jack Raymond,” by E.L. Voynich, d’Urbervilles” in its realism and the power of and “Every Inch a King,” by Sawyer, fifth and delineation, and it is almost as disagreeable as a sixth. For no accountable reason “The Helmet story. of Navarre,” by Runkle, has fallen out of “A Man’s Woman” is a distinct advance in demand. every way. It is indeed an astonishingly clever ―●― book, and it never fails for a moment in its
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interest. And here one may pause to give nautical parts of “Moran of the Lady Letty” are expression to one’s admiration of Mr. Norris’ concerned. He might be a dentist for his most remarkable grasp of technical detail. He familiarity with “hoe excavators, pluggers, works up his subjects to the finest possible forceps, corundum discs and burrs, ‘blocks’ to point and then he polishes off all suggestion of be used in large proximal cavities, ‘cylinders’ research, carefully removes all the smell of the for commencing fillings,” in that story of a lamp. sordid life, “McTeague.” Are you an amateur in polar exploration, In “Blix,” which is assuredly acquainted with the voyages of Franklin and autobiographical to a considerable extent, we Parry and Ross, keeping up with all that is get a glimpse of the nature of the man and his written on the subject: familiar with “Farthest ways of work. A reporter on a San Francisco North,” “Northward Over the Great Ice,” “A paper, he is always on the lookout for the Thousand Days in the Arctic,” having labored material for a story, and he works up his details even through Cook’s tedious “Voyage of the with affectionate care. The old sailor at the Beigiea,” and Borchgrevink’s more interesting lifesaving station is his collaborateur in a “First on the Antarctic Continent?” You shall nautical romance, and the keen joy of getting find no smallest note of ignorance, no “inside” knowledge and the skillful use of it are unconvincing incident in the stirring narrative a marked feature of that healthy, pleasant little contained in “A Man’s Woman” of the retreat novel. In it appears also very elaborately of Capt. Bennett from the New Siberian Islands drawn the type of woman that appeals to Mr. where the “Fraja” was crushed between two ice Norris, the sturdy, healthy, robust, almost virile fleets [sic], toward Kalyuchin Bay in the woman, the “Man’s Woman,” that dominates extreme northeastern point of Asia. It might all his earlier work. have been written by Nansen, if Nansen could But technical [sic] masteries of the sort give up mooning about the whyness of the that attention has been called to are all of the wherefore and the vastness of the infinite long nature of “tour de force.” It is in “The enough to write it. It might have been written Octopus” that Mr. Norris finds himself. The by Peary, if Peary could write so vigorously. book is somewhat ambitiously announced as So vivid is that narrative that the polar amateur the first of a trilogy that shall deal with the who reads it will find hard to erase Capt. world’s bread supply, “The Epic of the Wheat.” Bennett’s journey from among the actual The first of the series is concerned with the sledge journeys that he has traced off on the production of the wheat, and like all his stories map and endeavored to fix in his mind. Could so far is Californian through and through. The there be a better test of artistic finish? next story is to be of the Chicago grain pit, and So, in the same book, a surgeon will tell will deal with the distribution of the wheat, and you that the man who wrote the account of the the third, which one may hope and expect is yet operation for the exsection of the hip joint must years off, since no tour de force could carry have been a “second course” man at the least, him through its difficulties, will concern itself that the details of the work of the professional with the foreign famine in Europe for its nurse are exact and thorough and up to date, “pivotal episode.” that the description of the fight for the life of If Mr. Morris [sic] has grace and grit to the patient is as accurate as it certainly is carry his ambitious plan to successful issue; if, absorbing, with no trace of the amateur in with the same loving thoroughness that his matter of phraseology. Thoroughness is the work displays so far, on this grander canvas, mark of everything technical that Mr. Norris handling this commanding, conspicuous theme, writes. He might be a sailor so far as the he produces the two volumes that he has
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pledged himself to, the prediction may be deep all the same and it is the ability to arouse ventured that he will write his name larger than such feeling that gives the novelist his power. any name has yet been written in American It is easy to pick faults in any book. Mr. fiction. Norris has certain pet words and phrases he is It has been said that “The Octopus” deals altogether too free with. “Obsessed” is a word with the production of wheat. It deals with and a condition that jars one in character after more than that, and with something else more character, book after book. Little canyons that intensely, more dramatically than that. It deals “tumble down” into arroyas, foothills that with the grip that a certain railroad has upon the “tumble down” to the sea, houses on the hill State of California, and it deals with it without that “tumble down” to the city, tumble too gloves. When one has read “The Octopus,” much. The “chick weed” that the rye bread one wonders no longer at the extravagance of was sprinkled with was surely caraway seed, phrase that from time to time one has heard and the odor of women’s hair is too prominent used by Western writers and speakers on this in all his early work. The immense strength, subject. One is convinced as no platform the wonderful full knowledge, the cleverness, declamation can ever convince, as no arrays of and in his last book, the broad sympathy, the figures can ever convince, of the tyranny, the high purpose, the honest, inspiring hatred of grasping, self-seeking, cold-blooded, greed and chicanery—these are qualities that unscrupulous cupidity of the “Kraken” that has shine so brightly that little faults pass California in its grip, that controls the unnoticed. And there has come to him a transportation of all its products and that has delicacy of perception, a clear, discriminating for its one motto: “All that the tariff will bear.” insight, that is a constant delight to the reader Such is the power of the novelist, if he will put who has the feeling for language and the upon himself the discipline and the restraint to capacity for the vibrating of the finer chords of wield it artistically and incidentally. The the mind and the heart. human passions are enlisted, the reader’s indignation is aroused: he can not sit still and see his friends, his friends of the book that he has grown to care for, robbed, dispossessed, ruined, shot down, without a wave of anger and In Memoriam resentment. Some Nemesis to this successful
plundering there must be. It is not in the book. The Morning World-Herald, of Omaha, Most artistically the book ends with the Nebraska, helps us remember the life and triumph of “The Octopus,” the destruction of writings of a fine American author. the community with whose interests the reader
is identified. And ten thousand persons who
never set foot in California will rejoice when Morning World-Herald [Omaha] the blow falls, as fall it must some day. Such is November 29, 1902 the power of the novelist. Annixter’s death Volume 38, Issue 50, Page 4 must be revenged or the eternal fitness of
things is outraged, the ruin of Dyke’s character A Young Writer Dead and fortunes demands punishment, the
untimely end of even “that goat Osterman” The World-Herald recently commented on “pleads to the skies.” It sounds perhaps a little the story [of] “The Pit,” by Frank Norris, now like “Waiting for the Sleary babies to develop running [in] the Saturday Evening Post. Sleary’s fits,” but the feeling is genuine and Almost by the next mail came the news of his
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death at the age of 32. Those who have read A Fistful of Websites his fine writings will sincerely regret his loss. The Springfield (Mass.) Republican says he Garland Society: was undoubtedly one of the most promising of http://www.uncw.edu/garland/ the younger American writers, to which the St. Paul Dispatch adds “America has, and has had, Dreiser Society: no one to measure up with this young man, and http://www.uncw.edu/dreiser/ nowhere in Russia, in France, in Italy, is there anything being done with greater precision of Studies in American Naturalism: truth and greater splendor of Imagination.” His http://www.uncw.edu/san/ friend, Arthur Goodrich* of the World’s Work, says in the Boston Transcript “It is hard to Dreiser Web Source at Penn realize Frank Norris is dead. He seemed to http://www.library.upenn.edu/collections/rbm/d always come out of the springtime, to carry reiser/ with him the breath of eternal youth. He was the most virile, the most creative, the most The William Dean Howells Society broadly imaginative of the younger writers who http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/howells/index were to make the American literature of the .html next quarter of a century. Whatever else may be said of his writing, it was living, pushing, The Edith Wharton Society human.” http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/wharton/index In literary circles the death of Mr. Norris .html calls forth the same general expression of regret as the demise of Frances Sargent Osgood and The Stephen Crane Society Charlotte Bronte in a former generation. http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/crane/index.ht Another was the untimely death of Theodore ml Winthrop, the author of “John Brent” and “Cecil Dreeme” at the outbreak of the civil war. The Jack London Online Collection While rallying his men at the battle of Great http://london.sonoma.edu/ Bethel, which he had planned, he was shot in the heart and instantly killed. Holding the rank The Jack London Society of major, he was the military secretary of http://london.sonoma.edu/Organizations/jl_soci General Benjamin F. Butler, then in command ety.html at Fortress Monroe. Like [N]orris, his writings were running through the press when he died. Jack London International These four talented writers died young, and http://www.jack-london.org/main_e.htm Norris was the youngest of them all. The World of Jack London http://www.jacklondons.net/
*Arthur Goodrich was a fellow employee of The Frank Norris Society Doubleday, Page, and Company, and the http://www.csub.edu/franknorriscenter/ managing editor of the World’s Work, which published a number of articles by Norris in Frank Norris 1901 and 1902.--ALN http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/howells/norris .htm
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Did you enjoy the inaugural issue of ALN? The editors desire your feedback. Send your questions, comments, suggestions, critique, and assorted commentary to….
Eric Carl Link [email protected]
and
Steven Frye [email protected]
Coming up in our Spring Issue:
Naturalism news. Another bibliographic update. More stuff from the archives. An interview with a scholar working in the field. And a whole bunch of other stuff that you’ll want to tell your friends about.
If you would like to contribute to ALN, please contact the editors. We need your help.
We are particularly interested in articles of 2000-3000 words that look at literary naturalism in the classroom, both in the United States and abroad. If you would like to contribute such a piece, we’d like to hear from you. In addition, if you have items that would be suitable for presentation in From the Archives, please let us know.
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Eric Carl Link, Editor ALN Department of English North Georgia College & State Univ. 82 College Circle Dahlonega, GA 30597
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