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The Norman Maclean Reader

The Norman Maclean Reader
By Norman Maclean

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In his eighty-seven years, Norman Maclean (1902–90) played many parts: fisherman, logger, firefighter, scholar, teacher. But it was a role he took up late in life, that of writer, that won him enduring fame and critical acclaim—as well as the devotion of readers worldwide. Though the 1976 collection A River Runs Through It and Other Stories was the only book Maclean published in his lifetime, it was an unexpected success, and the moving family tragedy of the title novella—based largely on Maclean’s memories of early twentieth-century Montana—has proved to be one of the most enduring American stories ever written. The posthumous publication in 1992 of Young Men and Fire, Maclean’s deeply personal investigative account of a deadly forest fire, only added to his reputation, reacquainting readers with the power of his sparse, evocative prose.

With The Norman Maclean Reader, the University of Chicago Press is proud to add a fitting third volume to Maclean’s celebrated oeuvre. Bringing together previously unpublished materials with incidental writings and selections from his two masterpieces, the Reader will serve as the perfect introduction for readers new to Maclean, while offering longtime fans new insight into his life and career.
 
Much of the pleasure of The Norman Maclean Reader is the rounded picture it gives of Maclean the man. A series of witty, perceptive personal essays present Maclean from a variety of angles: in “This Quarter I Am Taking McKeon,” the master teacher distills the lessons of decades in the classroom; in “The Pure and the Good: On Baseball and Backpacking,” Maclean the scholar turns his attention to poetic rhythm and the importance of craft; in “Retrievers Good and Bad,” we see Maclean the memoirist first beginning to draw on his wealth of family stories.
 
A generous selection of letters, as well as excerpts from a 1986 interview, serve to flesh out the Reader’s portrait of Maclean, showing us a writer fully aware of the nuances of his craft, and a man as at home in the recondite atmosphere of the University of Chicago as in the quiet hills of his beloved Montana. The letters find Maclean corresponding about fishing with Nick Lyons, the first significant reviewer of A River Runs Through It; about literature and teaching with Marie Borroff, a former student who had become a professor of literature at Yale; about the Mann Gulch fire with Lois Jansson, the widow of one of Maclean’s sources; and about General Custer with historian Robert Utley.
 
Maclean’s writings on Custer comprise the most extensive unpublished material in the Reader. Fascinated by Custer’s tragic end and posthumous fame, Maclean dedicated years in the late 1950s to studying the general, and though he was never able to shape his chapters on the topic into a complete book, to read them now is revelatory: as he explores the man and myth of Custer, we see Maclean groping toward the rigorous yet personal hybrid form of historical storytelling that he would employ to such effect in Young Men and Fire.
 
Multifarious and moving, the works collected in The Norman Maclean Reader serve as both a summation and a celebration, giving readers a chance once again to hear one of American literature’s most distinctive voices.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #134226 in Books
  • Published on: 2008-11-01
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 304 pages

Features

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Maclean (1902–1990), an English professor at the University of Chicago, did not establish himself as a writer until late in his life, but quickly gained national acclaim in 1989 for A River Runs Through It and Other Stories. His posthumous nonfiction account of doomed firefighters, Young Men and Fire, was also praised by critics. Excerpts from both of these works are in this anthology, skillfully edited by Weltzien, to provide a broad and chronological selection from nearly four decades of Maclean's writing. The book includes six previously unpublished pieces, five of them chapters from his uncompleted book on Custer, written between 1959 and 1963. Another standout piece is a 1986 interview in which Maclean ranges widely from the rhythms of prose, his own influences and his native state of Montana to creative writing, fly-fishing and publishers who rejected A River Runs Through It. Readers of the two earlier books will find, as Weltzien phrases it, new biographical insights into one of the most remarkable and unexpected careers in American letters. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Coming late to fiction writing, Maclean (1902–90) wrote his first book, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, at age 70, after he had retired from a 45-year teaching career at the University of Chicago. That book, consisting of two novellas and a short story, brought rave reviews and even more acclaim after Robert Redford's film adaptation. This book introduces readers to Maclean's life and writing, collecting previously unpublished essays, stories, letters, and selections from his two books. Rooted in his native Montana, where he returned every summer to the cabin he had helped his father build, the man who emerges from these pages is funny, irreverent, and thoughtful. He was homeschooled until he was 11 and absorbed his father's lessons in writing lean, penetrating prose. Of particular interest are Maclean's letters, which give careful, insightful writing advice to friends and former students. This book will appeal to those who love fly-fishing, hunting, the Forest Service, and, above all, good writing.—Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"Smartly edited . . . the book brings together manuscripts and letters found among Maclean's papers after his death in 1990, as well as hard-to-find essays, lectures and interviews. Maclean did not draw a distinction between his life and his fiction, and the material in the Reader, much of it available for the first time, burnishes his achievement."-Wall Street Journal (Wall Street Journal )

"Bringing together letters, essays, speeches, and five draft chapters from his unfinished first book, the collection shows a man worrying through the mechanics of putting a story together. All writers may be self-obsessed, but in the case of Maclean, the rough and unfinished works, the drama of his revisions and deliberations lead us back to a central dynamic of his most finished work. Maclean's stories are precisely about the difficulties and obstructions of storytelling. As such, he is a more difficult but more rewarding writer than one known simply for old-time tales of a lost American west. . . . The Norman Maclean Reader fills out and makes more human the impressions of the restless, inquiring storyteller we saw in previously published works. In his writings, at their best, we too feel the thrusts and strains. He is a writer of great beauty, in his own terms." -Daniel Swift, Financial Times (Daniel Swift Financial Times )

"Maclean (1902-1990), an English professor at the University of Chicago, did not establish himself as a writer until late in his life, but quickly gained national acclaim in 1989 [sic] for A River Runs Through It and Other Stories. His posthumous nonfiction account of doomed firefighters, Young Men and Fire, was also praised by critics. Excerpts from both of these works are in this anthology, skillfully edited by Weltzien, to provide a broad and chronological selection from nearly four decades of Maclean''s writing. The book includes six previously unpublished pieces, five of them chapters from his uncompleted book on Custer, written between 1959 and 1963. Another standout piece is a 1986 interview in which Maclean ranges widely from the rhythms of prose, his own influences and his native state of Montana to creative writing, fly-fishing, and publishers who rejected A River Runs Through It. Readers of the two earlier books will find, as Weltzien prhases it, ''new biographical insights into one of the most remarkable and unexpected careers in American letters.''"-Publishers Weekly (Publishers Weekly )

"A solid, satisfying, well-made body of work by a patient craftsman." (Julia Keller Chicago Tribune )

"Fans will find a fleshed-out picture of the author''s approach to writing, teaching, art and life. New readers will be introduced to one of our most accomplished storytellers, plying his craft across a range of genres. . . . The addition of ''The Norman Maclean Reader'' to the author''s two slim published books is a windfall." (Tim Nulty Seattle Times )

"Weltzien has not only done great service for Norman Maclean''s readers, he has rightly expanded Maclean''s place in American literature. . . . For me, The Norman Maclean reader is discovered treasure."-Tom Wylie, Bloomsbury Review (Tom Wylie Bloomsbury Review )

"[Maclean''s] message is certainly tough . . . but it comes garlanded in a prose style very near to unsurpassed in the rhythms of its rolling anapests, its bright flashes of remembrance, its whispers out of time." (Philip Connors Nation )

"On every page . . . we hear Maclean''s voice--a voice that tells us . . . that our well-ordered loves reside at the intersection of people we know and the places we share with them." (Todd C. Ream Books & Culture )

Customer Reviews

What a gift5
What a gift to be reminded of the artful life and writings of Norman Maclean, author of "A River Runs Through It". This collection of essays, excerpts, letters and interviews reminds us of the purity of his writing and thinking. He reaches out to all of us as he explores "memories full of pain and joy and everyday reality."

A JOYFUL EXPERIENCE5
An exciting read!! Superbly edited by a true expert. Fine selection of letters; amazing analysis of George Armstrong Custer; you are with MacLean in his teenage years (and early 20's)working with the Forest Service; and in the classrooms at the University of Chicago. MacLean is a superlative detective as he brings us into the stroggle against fire (and bureaucracy). This inspires me to read more and more of Norman MacLean.

Interesting Author!5
This book is a wonderful read. Living in Montana, I still find that there is so much to learn about a lot of the history and, Norman McLean provides much. Plus, a lot about himself! Very interesting.