The Norman Maclean Reader [Hardcover]

Norman Maclean (Author), O. Alan Weltzien (Editor, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2008

In his eighty-seven years, Norman Maclean 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 his childhood home in Montana—has proved to be one of the most enduring American stories ever written.

The Norman Maclean Reader is a wonderful addition to Maclean’s celebrated oeuvre. Bringing together previously unpublished materials with incidental writings and selections from his more famous works, the Reader will serve as the perfect introduction for readers new to Maclean, while offering longtime fans new insight into his life and career.

            In this evocative collection, Maclean as both a writer and a man becomes evident. Perceptive, intimate essays deal with his career as a teacher and a literary scholar, as well as the wealth of family stories for which Maclean is famous. Complete with a generous selection of letters, as well as excerpts from a 1986 interview, The Norman Maclean Reader provides a fully fleshed-out portrait of this much admired author, showing us a writer fully aware of the nuances of his craft, and a man as at home in the academic environment of the University of Chicago as in the quiet mountains of his beloved Montana.

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.

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.)
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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.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (November 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226500268
• ISBN-13: 978-0226500263
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #226,856 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Norman Maclean grew up in and around Missoula, Montana, where he worked in logging camps and for the U.S. Forest Service. He attended Dartmouth College and taught English for 46 years at the University of Chicago.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a gift, December 4, 2008

By 

J. Swain (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Norman Maclean Reader (Hardcover)

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."

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "The major obligation of a story is ALWAYS to be a story.", July 14, 2010

By 

R. M. Peterson (Santa Fe, NM) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Norman Maclean Reader (Hardcover)

After retiring as a Professor of English at the University of Chicago, Norman Maclean began a second career as a writer. His first book, "A River Runs through It and Other Stories" was published in 1976, when Maclean was 74. In my estimation, it is a classic. (The fact that it is not generally so regarded by the self-proclaimed literary elites of this country is, to me, evidence of an anti-West bias that pervades those circles.) His second book, "Young Men and Fire", published posthumously in 1992, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for general non-fiction. THE NORMAN MACLEAN READER, edited and introduced by O. Alan Weltzien, is Maclean's third and probably last book.

It consists of eleven essays or lectures, most of which were first printed in non-mainstream journals or magazines; drafts of five chapters that Maclean wrote in the early 1960s for an intended book on Custer and the Battle of the Little Big Horn, a project that Maclean eventually abandoned; and selections of Maclean's letters to four different friends.

There are two overlapping audiences for THE NORMAN MACLEAN READER. The first, as might be expected, consists of fans of his previous two books. In particular, I think that those enamored with "A River Runs through It" will appreciate this work. Scattered here and there are comments about what Maclean was trying to achieve in his first book and how he later viewed it. For example: "[T]hey are love stories: stories of my love of craft--of what men and women can do with their hands--and of my love of seeing life turn into literature." For those who wonder, THE NORMAN MACLEAN READER also sheds light on the extent to which "A River Runs through It" was fictional. (Answer: Not very much. For more, see page 174.)

The second prospective audience for this book is those who care about the craft of writing. As a boy, Maclean's father drilled him in revising and condensing his writing until he had pared it down to the essential core. As a professor, most of Maclean's courses were in English poetry, which in particular sensitized him to the rhythms of language, prose as well as poetry. And then as a writer, Maclean was a painstaking craftsman who subjected his prose to numerous revisions. (And it shows - although Maclean's correspondence, which presumably was not heavily revised, reveals him to begin as somewhat of a natural at writing). In addition to the finished products, which serve as exemplars of fine prose, THE NORMAN MACLEAN READER also contains snippets of advice on writing, such as "The last act of labor is to remove all signs of labor" and the sentence quoted as the title of this review.

My personal favorites from the book were (a) two chapters from Maclean's abandoned book on Custer and the Little Bighorn - one chapter on the fate of the Sioux after the battle and the other on the fate of the Cheyenne; (b) a portrait of Albert Abraham Michelson, whose name I did not recognize but who, I learned, was the first American scientist to win a Nobel Prize (principally for measuring the speed of light) and who Maclean knew and admired for his skill in shooting billiards; and (c) "Retrievers Good and Bad", about the succession of duck dogs Maclean's family owned when he was a youth. In fact, his father gave him a dog on the day Norman was born. "[M]y dog turned out to be a duck dog and my father turned out to be a duck hunter and evidently, at least in my infancy, I did not resemble a duck and the dog did not give a damn about me. We talk painfully about father and mother rejections, but if you are going in for rejections, there is nothing like being the supposed infant owner of an animal and wanting to be loved by it and instead being studied by yellow eyes that wished you were a dead duck."

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Stories!, May 20, 2010

By 

Yo Adrianne (Collierville, TN) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Norman Maclean Reader (Hardcover)

After the movie "A River Runs Through It" came out, I got curious about Norman Maclean. I love the way he tells a story. I finally found this reader. You won't be disappointed!