The Portable Western Reader (Portable Library) [Paperback]

William Kittredge (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Portable Library | Publication Date: July 1, 1997

The American West is as varied in its inhabitants as in its landforms. Yet what has come to stand for "Western" writing is the myth of the wagon train and the lone gunman. In the Portable Wester Reader, William Kittredge has assembled stories, poems, essays, and excerpts that transcend the Western myth and explore the vast range of Western experience. With selections from more than seventy authors, and an introduction and headnotes by William Kittredge. The Portable Western Reader redefines the Western literary landscape.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This original paperback anthology is jam-packed with good reading. Part 1, "Ancient Stories," shows the evolution of Native American storytelling from the early legends to contemporary stories and includes writings by Catherine McClellan, John Graves, and Louise Erdrich. Parts 2 and 3 contrast the mythology of the 19th-century "Western" with the actual experience of living in the West. Most of these authors, from Walt Whitman to Larry McMurtry, will be familiar to readers. Part 4, "Brilliant Possibilities," showcases the new generation of Western writers, including Gretel Ehrlich, Jimmy Santiago Baca, and Sherman Alexie. There are some curious selections: a piece by Ernest Hemingway, who did not write widely about the West, for instance, and some notable omissions. Mari Sandoz was obviously chosen over Willa Cather, and there is nothing from Jack Shaffer, whose classic Shane helped redefine the Western hero, or Owen Wister, who wrote The Virginian. Nonetheless, Kittredge, the editor of The Last Best Place: A Montana Anthology (Univ. of Washington, 1990. pap.), has collected a wonderful selection of classic Western writing. Recommended for all libraries.?Charlotte L. Glover, Ketchikan P.L., Alaska
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Western educator and writer Kittredge is marvelously eloquent in introducing this significant anthology. "The almost endless variety of societies and territories in the American West speak to me in a single voice," he admits. "Think of the layers of history, both hideous and sweet, which have been acted out on the enormous run of staging grounds between South Dakota and San Francisco." The literature of the American West is definitely coming into its own as a recognized body of letters. Representative fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, in whole or in part, are featured in the vibrant pages of this sampling. Native American voices mix with white, and male with female; some writers peer back to the past, others regard the future; and both mythical and real qualities of the West are explored. Louise Erdrich is not a surprising inclusion, nor are Mari Sandoz and John Steinbeck; but such names as W. H. Auden, Czeslaw Milosz, and Allen Ginsberg listed in the contents will certainly catch the reader's eye. Brad Hooper

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Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (July 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140230262
• ISBN-13: 978-0140230260
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #265,373 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The real West, what it was, what it is, November 27, 2003

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Portable Western Reader (Portable Library) (Paperback)

Editor William Kittredge has done a remarkable job of bringing together this great collection of Western writers representing a vast swath of American terrain, covering prairie, mountains, desert, and Pacific Rim. At 600 pages, his book is an introduction to over 70 writers from the journals of Lewis and Clark and the collectors of Native American chants and tales to the writers of late 20th century fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Some are well known and easily associated with the West: Wallace Stegner, A. B. Guthrie, Louise Erdrich, John Steinbeck, Edward Abbey, Maxine Hong Kingston, Raymond Carver, Larry McMurtry, Ken Kesey. Many are lesser known and deserving of a wider audience, such as James Galvin, Sherman Alexie, and Linda Hogan. As someone less familiar with the poetry inspired by the region, I appreciated selections from a wide range of poets, including the influential Montana poet Richard Hugo.

Describing the experience of reading this book is like trying to sum up a year traveling in another country. There are several familiar works: Wallace Stegner's great story "Carrion Spring," set on the northern plains during the spring thaw after a horrific winter kill; the opening of Ivan Doig's wonderful Montana memoir "This House of Sky"; Terry Tempest Williams' chilling essay on the rising incidence of breast cancer in her family after above-ground nuclear testing in 1950s Nevada; childhood memories of homesteading in the Nebraska Panhandle, from Mari Sandoz' book about her father, "Old Jules"; a discourse on water from Gretel Ehrlich's essays about ranching in Wyoming, "The Silence of Open Spaces."

There's also Edward Abbey's account of summer work as a park ranger in Utah's Arches National Monument from "Desert Solitaire"; a poignant memory of fishing in Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It"; a brief scene featuring the joyous prankster McMurphy, later immortalized by Jack Nicholson, from Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"; a section about a man who stakes a claim on the Wyoming-Colorado border from James Galvin's brilliantly written memoir-novel, "The Meadow"; the evocation of a ghost town and the Nebraska prairie in the opening pages of Wright Morris' novel "Ceremony in Lone Tree"; and one of the many humorous recollections of frontier cowboy Teddy Blue Abbott, as he remembers his friendship with Calamity Jane.

And there are wonderful discoveries. I liked Rick Marinis' short story "Paraiso: An Elegy" about two couples from El Paso on a car trip; Richard Nelson's account of deer hunting in Alaska from "The Island Within"; Raymond Carver's memories of his alcoholic father in "My Father's Life"; Larry McMurtry's demythologizing memories of his cowboy-rancher uncles in "Take My Saddle From the Wall: A Valediction"; Mary Clearman Blew's harrowing memoir of marriage to a wildcat oilman with a terminal pulmonary illness, from "All But the Waltz"; David Long's story of a ranch family's disintegration, "Lightning"; and John Haines' description of nightfall in a remote Alaska cabin in "The Stars, The Snow, The Fire." Among the poets, I found the Hawaiian/LA voice of Garrett Hongo, the dark vision of Robert Wrigley, and the thoughtful ruminations of Montana poet Greg Pape.

Altogether there are voices of all kinds between the covers of this book. You get a sense of great diversity bound together by a vast landscape. There are a few themes that run through most of these selections, which are also common to literature about the West: freedom, loss, and isolation. The expansiveness of the West has traditionally permitted a kind of liberation from what is restrictive and claustrophobic in the settled East. The flip side of that freedom, of course, is the isolation that comes with living lives beyond the reach of other people. Meanwhile, expansion into the West has meant the loss of what was pristine and unexploited; it's meant the loss of Native American cultures; and as the West evolves, it has meant the loss of the frontier itself. Even as we have discovered the West, it is disappearing.

Kittredge's book has captured all that, as well as one can in 600 pages. I heartily recommend his book to anyone interested in the real West, what it was and what it is. As the editor of this anthology, Kittredge has graciously not included anything from his own pen; so I'll recommend his well-written memoir of growing up on a ranch in Oregon, "Hole in the Sky." Two other collections of Western writing I can recommend are "Northern Lights: A Selection of New Writing from the American West," edited by Deborah Clow (currently out of print) and "The Big Sky Reader," edited by Alan Jones (also currently out of print).

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Coverage, October 19, 1997

By 

Joseph L. Rockne - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Portable Western Reader (Portable Library) (Paperback)

I am typically not a reader of anthologies. However, I am glad I picked up this one. From the opening section on "Ancient Stories" to the final chapter on "Brilliant Possibilities" I found myself constantly bending back page corners to return to particular passages and authors. In his introduction, William Kittredge wrote, "We name ourselves and our futures through narrative. These stories rest on the West in layers, and reach out and out." Not only do they "rest on the West" but they shake the West alive. Shine lights into dark corners. Through this anthology, the Western stage becomes visable and one can see the true characters milling about. The mythological characters (gun toting individualists/weak women) aren't represented. This anthology clearly forms a basis for putting "Westerns" in the fantasy section and Western Literature next to its Southern conterpart.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars PART OF IT IS GREAT, January 15, 2000

By 

Roger Angle (Culver City, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Portable Western Reader (Portable Library) (Paperback)

I'm only 66 pages into it, but I love this book. I would never have known some of these writers. My favorites so far are the Navajo night chant "House Made Of The Dawn" and the writings of Linda Hogan, John Graves and Louise Erdrich. Thank you for editing this book. What a pleasure to read such high-quality writing. Such a sense of the American West. Such voices. I like the John Graves story about the old buffalo almost as much as I like the writings of Cormac McCarthy. If anyone ever doubted it, this book shows that there is great literature from the West. I will use this as a guide to further reading. I can't wait to read more.
Well, I read more, and it gets slow and dull and disappointing. Sorry.