The Way West (1949) By A. B. Guthrie, Jr.

In 1950, A B Guthrie won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Way West, the second of the sequential six-volume Big Sky series.  It marked the first critical recognition of the genre of the American western. The book is a historical fiction treatment of the Oregon Trail saga – the seemingly endless route taken by pioneers in wagon trains across the untamed plains and mountains. Their goal was personal, “free-land" and “a new start;” but it was also political, settling what is now the State of Oregon, claimed by England, making it a de-facto part of the United States.

Sequence is important to this fictionalized history. The Lewis & Clark Expedition (1804-1806) was what could be called the “Exploration” phase. The Big Sky, the first & title novel of this book series, which I read and reviewed last December, covered what could be called the “Mountain Men” phase, when settlement of the Indian Territory was still technically forbidden by law – the Mountain Men, few in number, were fur trappers and traders, but not permanent settlers. The Way West covers the “Pioneering” phase, when settlement of parts of the territory had been made legal – if not safe.

 

While I’ll not challenge the credentials of the Pulitzer committee, in my take The Big Sky is the better book. Its huge and unexpected commercial success is what led to The Way West.

In The Way West, a wagon train departs from Independence, Missouri in 1846 and heads out for Oregon, having hired the recently widowed Dick Summers to be their guide. Summers is a veteran mountain man and was a major character in the first book. He had returned to Missouri after deciding he was getting too old to live the mountain man lifestyle.

That date, 1846, should be instructive for history readers. It is the year that an author by the name of Francis Parkman traveled the Oregon Trail as a young man looking for adventure. In 1849, his book The Oregon Trail was published, it is the definitive text on the subject. I haven’t read the Parkman book, but I’m willing to bet that Guthrie did.

One cannot do The Way West justice without mentioning that it was also a (bad but) widely successfully Hollywood movie starring three giants of the western genre: Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum and Richard Widmark.  The movie also was a very young Sally Fields’ first major film role (watch the opening clips with her riding on the back of a wagon – it’s a hoot).  Reading the book, and comparing it to the movie, is also very interesting. One is aware that Hollywood often takes “liberties” with the original book, but in the case of The Way West, these “liberties” can only be characterized as out and out alterations.

Link to the full movie: The Way West

Recommendation:  Same as with The Big Sky, yes, if you are a history or western buff -- I'm the first, not particularly the second.  I'm not sure if I'll read the third novel in the series, but I have no regrets about reading the first two.  

The Seven Good Years, a Memoir (Hebrew 2006-2015; English 2015) and Dad Runs Away with the Circus (Hebrew 2000; English 2004) By Etgar Keret

I’ve often raved about a writer named Etgar Keret, and I’ve reviewed a half dozen or so of his books. There is a reason I’m a big fan: he’s completely entertaining. He writes short stories that are memorable, no small accomplishment when you are using only several pages to tell a story. The Seven Good Years: a Memoir is his latest work to be translated into English. It’s more of the same, and in this case, that’s a good thing.

Actually, it’s not exactly more of the same. In this book, the short stories are related and autobiographical. Some of them are funny, some are not, though they are always told in a self-deprecating way that touches you personally. They are grouped in years.

Year 1 begins with the birth of Keret’s son, Lev. The delivery is referred to as “natural,” though Keret immediately questions “what’s natural about a midget with a cable hanging from his belly button popping out of your wife’s vagina?” The Kerets arrive at the hospital after a wild taxi ride, as all medical personnel are being paged to the emergency room in response to a terrorist rocket that has reached Tel Aviv, previously thought of as “safe” from rocket attacks. Lev, the-soon-to-be-born, is a fast study and patiently waits until the worst of the hospital crisis is over before deciding to make his first appearance. 

The next few years takes one through raising an infant child as a father who is a writer that does not keep 9 to 5 type hours, and a mother who does a 9 to 5 plus-hours job. Etgar brags that he spends a lot of time at the playground. “I don’t want to brag, but I’ve managed to earn myself a unique, somewhat mythic status among the parents who take their children to Ezekiel Park, my son’s favorite spot in Tel Aviv. I attribute that special achievement not to any overwhelming charisma I may possess, but rather to two common, lackluster qualities: I’m a man, and I’m hardly ever working.”

One of the more poignant of the chapters deals with a question he is confronted with by another parent while at the playground: “Tell me something” said the mother of a 3-year old, “will Lev go to the army when he grows up?” (Israel has compulsory military service). Seems this is a favorite topic of the playground-moms, almost from birth; while playground-dads don’t think about it at all, until confronted with it. It is politics at the personal level – not totally different from how the politics of the Vietnam War played out at the family level in the United States.  And as with all of Keret's books, please note the cover illustration, it relates directly to a chapter on the Angry Birds, that well known child phenomena that teaches kids how to be violent.

Interspersed with the tales of raising Lev are essays on other topics: including Etgar's frequent travels abroad to book fairs and at academic invitation. Most of these other stories are humorous (i.e. how he met his wife), but not always. One is about a trip he made to Poland where his parents were the only family members to escape the holocaust. The trip triggers multiple memories, not of his, but as told by his parents – comparing the old Poland of his grandparents’ generation, good and bad; and the revisionist version often told by current residents. [It isn’t a focus of this book, but the use of the “oral tradition” to save and continue family history when material possessions and documents were also lost to carnage, is an interesting academic aside.]

The end of the seventh of “The Seven Good Years” is the death of his father, though the actual death & shiva is not the main focus. The real story Etgar tells is his father’s attitude toward pending death. 

During the time period covered by this book, Keret wrote his one and only children’s book – influenced heavily by his experience as a playground parent. The book, complete with great illustrations by Rutu Modan, is titled Dad Runs Away with the Circus – it’s a rather fun read.

Recommendation: The Seven Good Years is his best book yet, and considering how I praised Suddenly A Knock on the Door, that is a strong recommendation.  One should pick up Dad Runs Away with the Circus for the kids in your family. But read it before you give it to them, you'll find it whimsical and fun.