Wednesday's Western: MOUNTAIN MAN by Vardis Fisher

Vardis Fisher's MOUNTAIN MAN, as published in the Opal Laurel Holmes edition, is one of my favorite January reads.  This is the edition with Robert Redford on the dustjacket.  It has a frontispiece with a map that charts the incidents in the novel.

I greatly admire the movie made from it too, for all its faults a work of naturalism unsurpassed this side of Jack London.

Fisher himself is an excellent study and, despite how little known he is in the mainstream population, a substantial body of critical literature has grown about him (see Rediscovering Vardis Fisher: Centennial Essays).  You can see a brief bibliography of his works at this link.  Sometimes atheists claimed him as one of their own, at other times he seems very much a Christian, in the purest sense.  He was a man who went his own way without labels.

Tomorrow, we're in for another snowstorm here, they say, and this armchair naturalist plans to read Nevada Barr's  Winter Study, and plans soon to revisit David Petersen's On the Wild Edge: In Search of a Natural Life.  About the time of our first snow this year, I reread Gene Hill's essay, "Snow."  Here's an excerpt:

"Somehow snow is nature with its pockets turned inside out. You can see things that you knew were around, but weren't sure exactly where.'

"The pheasant that scratch for berries under my holly tree stand out like Christmas ornaments against the snow. I can see where the moonlit rabbits danced last night, where the deer reached over the garden fence to nibble the tops off the white-pine seedlings and wonder about the brussels sprouts.'
"I like to walk in the snow because that's the only time I sound quiet like a woodsman. I like deer stands when it snows because I always think there's something sneaking up on me. I like duck-blinds in the snow because that's the way they look in the old-time pictures I like best.'
"I like to make snowballs to throw to the Labradors and watch the expression on their faces when they try to catch and retrieve them.'

"I can walk in unknown places with confidence--because I can always backtrack my way out. And I like the confidence I feel when I see tracks--the side by side commas of deer, the feather etching of the grouse or the exclamation point left in the wake of a strutting cock pheasant.'

"I like the shush sound snow makes when it's falling. The sound of friends stamping boots outside before coming in to steam by your fire.'
"I like the fearsome howl of Western high country blizzards with the wind strumming your tent ropes in long bass notes.'

"Snow makes me feel elemental, brave and incredibly solitary, a single adventurer, along with only my wits and endurance to help me survive the storm--even if I'm only half a mile away from the car when the first flakes start to fall. It may be only a little adventure, but that's better than no adventure at all.'

"Few things are more comforting than to be inside when it's snowing outside. A bayside shanty with a big pile of dry wood by the fireplace, plenty of good bourbon and, with luck, some maple-tree icicles to cool it down. Outside you can hear the ducks chattering about the plans for tomorrow, and the Lab stands with her nose pressed against the glass making plans of her own.'

"Late at night you wake and listen to the wind. Old Tippy whimpers in her sleep as you pad around and add a log against the bitter morning."

Books For January: Susan Froderberg, Alan Glynn, Sven Hassel, Raymond L. Atkins, Barbara Hunt, Nevada Barr, William Kent Krueger, George Sheehan

I read good books all year long, but I'm also something of a seasonal reader.  Gardening books tend to be put off until the spring, hunting books until hunting season, and some Halloween and Christmasy books that I didn't get to last year will be put off until the holidays come around again.


This last year, mystery writer Patricia Abbott (pattinase) started the FRIDAY'S FORGOTTEN BOOK feature on her blog, and a number of other writers joined in the project.  Her summing up of the reviews of these books, with links, is here.  My sole contribution was a review of Ed McBain's Money, Money, Money: A Novel of the 87th Precinct (87th Precinct Mysteries), which The Rap Sheet carried as a part of its THE BOOK YOU HAVE TO READ series. 


Besides Forgotten-Book-Fridays, in this space I intend to celebrate Off-And-Running-Mondays, Transcendental Tuesdays, Western Novel Wednesdays, Literary-Analysis-Thursdays, Freezing-Weather-Fridays, Sports Book Saturdays, and Southern-Gothic-Sundays.  Among others.


Just a few of the books I've tentatively scheduled to post about in January include:


Barbara Hunt's A Little Night Music, not to be confused with the Stephen Sondheim musical of the same name, although there ought to be clowns.


This is a 1947 hardcover that is a little-known gem, way ahead of its time, being obscure to begin with and long out-of-print.  Never mind her other books, which were of hoary scope and witchy horrors.  She wrote like an inspired intellectual angel in this one.  On forgotten-book-friday, I'll post a long synopsis and analysis of the book.  This is one that the NYRB needs to pick up and reprint in a new edition in its series of rediscovered and significant books.


This is the month I'll read Sven Hassel's Legion of the Damned (Cassell Military Paperbacks).  My copy is the 1957 first American edition, the first and most autobiographical in a series of novels which became famous in Europe.  The author, under his real name, was a reluctant conscript in a German penal company, fighting for his life with the Nazis against the Russians in the dead of winter.  This seems like the best month to read such a novel.





Raymond L. Atkins' Sorrow Wood has a wonderful dustjacket, a falling down barn, gothic and surreal, with almost metalic blue floral designs in its title font.  A southern gothic novel with social satire and reincarnation, it says.  We'll see.


William Kent Krueger's Heaven's Keep: A Novel (Cork O'Connor Mysteries) has been on my to-be-read shelf for a long time.  January seems like the right time to read this snowy novel that seems to include thoughtful mystery and heartbreaking longing.





I've saved Alan Glynn's Winterland for January.  It comes highly recommended by Emerald Noir novelists Declan Burke and Adrian McKinty, whose blogs I follow almost daily.  They say it's a paranoia novel that reminds us once again of the corrupting influence of bureaucracy.


Nevada Barr's Winter Study (An Anna Pigeon Novel).  I didn't get to this in my naturalism reading binge in November, but this will fit as well in January.  Last year, I read Nevada Barr's Seeking Enlightenment... Hat by Hat: A Skeptic's Guide to Religion, and she soars in my estimation.  The title may be misleading; it is a very insightful and spiritual book.  A bit like reading Marilynne Robinson.





I've sent for Susan Froderberg's Old Border Road: A Novel, off of this review, link.  She writes with the rhetorical word-magic of Cormac McCarthy, they all say.  Well, I'm willing to be convinced.  I may read it later this week.


I also plan on reading Scott Spencer's newest one, Man in the Woods.  A thriller-of-conscience and a dog story too.





Once a runner, always a runner, but January is the time to start getting in shape again.  I plan to start by being inspired by George Sheehan's  Running & Being: The Total Experience once again.  Other running, fitness, and diet books will no doubt follow, most of them with literary nuances.


The next significant holiday at our house is Valentine's Day, which we celebrate Groundhog Day (Special 15th Anniversary Edition) through Valentine's Day itself.  But that involves next month's reading, so more on that later.