The title phrase may sound familiar as the preamble to the crowd-favorite FCC approved euphemism for television in The Big Lebowski: “...when you find a stranger in the alps!”
Allow me to be your John Goodman about to fuck up a Corvette that doesn’t even belong to Larry.
Recently, I picked up Larry McMurtry’s Sacagawea’s Nickname: Essays on the American West at a discount bookstore, where typically the findings are around 50% off. I’ve mentioned this before elsewhere, but Larry McMurtry can’t write an introduction to a book that doesn’t criticize authors that came before him. McMurtry isn’t alone in this practice of literary bashing, James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son is a book-length polemic, and Virginia Woolf is probably more famous from her humorously toxic witticisms ending up on t-shirts and tote bags than the books they originated from.
As the literary grandfather, and patron saint of Texas, in my mind Larry can do no wrong. BUT, that doesn’t mean I can’t call him out for structuring his intros all the same (especially considering his inability to respond). Even some of the forewords I’ve read by McMurtry reflect this tendency to refute previous work of the subject, a twentieth century expression of masculinity. To clean out the literary fridge so he can let his smelly fish go bad in there next, unencumbered by neighbors.
McMurtry seems to use the introductions for his nonfiction work as arenas for a vast array of literary offenses, from petty crimes to beheadings. The Old Hoss seemed to have mistaken his typewriter for a blunderbuss, until at least he typed “Chapter One”.
It makes sense to start a book that way, if you’re insecure enough. “I’m writing this book, on a subject that has been written about before– BUT I’ve saved you the trouble of having to read all of that garbage…”
McMurtry suggests that there is a lack of narrative on the west from the Native American perspective. That western culture is misunderstood because of the temptation towards the romantic and frantic dime store novel type of disputes. The western narrative is largely connotated with violence: battles with Indians, raids, train and bank robberies, and every crime leading up to, in between and beyond. Which leaves swaths of uncharted territory.
It’s not hard to agree with Larry on the previous paragraph. Most media about the west usually romanticized violence, and historically has inappropriately portrayed Native Americans. Larry continues to mention that during the 20th century, a good many Native authors have begun to share work that is graciously filling in the potholes of the western narrative. The problem I have with this is: he only mentions Native writers and their work in this introduction. There’s a whole rest of the book that would be much more redeeming if the references Larry points to came from an Indigenous source.
None of the following essays refer to a Native American perspective, not even the book’s namesake article about the name of one of America’s most famous Native American women.
What the hell, Larry?
Why I think this is actually not Larry’s Corvette I’m fucking up, is– I wonder if Larry was insecure about his own work’s acceptability in the eyes of other academics (and folks who would review this book for promotion). It may be important to remember– this book debuted in 2001, well before the idea of uplifting marginalized voices became popularized. For this, Larry was ahead of his time to disparage work about western culture that neglected Native voices. I think it's the academic world that is even still catching up to the idea of promoting historically marginalized perspectives. We like to think of academics as progressive anarchists, or whatever, but holed up in their ivory towers they’re just like any other bureaucratic organization.
Don’t get me wrong; I know that college students and professors are often good stewards of activism and vocal about positive changes to social issues that many of them face. But Larry, and anyone publishing through the school press isn’t worried about what the students or even other professors, but the dreaded BOARD. When you think of anyone sitting on a ‘board’, who do you think of?
Perhaps, the system Larry found himself in needed to read a few more scathing introductions/books/blog posts before it took Native American literature more seriously.
Comments