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This is to certify that the

dissertation entitled

HUNTING AND FISHING IN CONTEMPORARY
AMERICAN LITERATURE

presented by

Katarzyna Tomkiewicz

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph ° D ' degree in Engligh

 

 

     
 

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HUNTING AND FISHING IN CONTEMPORARY

AMERICAN LITERATURE

By

Katarzyna Tomkiewicz

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of English

1994

ABSTRACT
HUNTING AND FISHING IN CONTEMPORARY
AMERICAN LITERATURE
By

Katarzyna Tomkiewicz

This dissertation focuses on contemporary American fiction that, in dealing
with the theme of hunting and fishing, reflects the basic currents of American
nature writing. I demonstrate the evolution of the subject of fishing and hunting
in American literature, and relate that evolution to the Changes occurring in
American perceptions of nature. Consequently, a large portion of this work is
devoted to the ecological perspectives of authors ranging from Thoreau and Aldo
Leopold to Edward Abbey and Joseph Wood Krutch. Mainly. however, I
concentrate on the contemporary writers for whom hunting and fishing provide a
basic theme, ora recurrent motif: Jim Harrison. Thomas McGuane. Gary Snyder,
Barry Lopez, and Richard Nelson.

Harrison's and McGuane’s fiction is my main subject. I discuss their works
in the context of American fiction (specifically, Faulkner and Hemingway). sport
literature, and American nature writing. The dissertation demonstrates that even
though the works of Harrison and McGuane appear to be the continuation of sport

journalism and the sporting myth in fiction, they share the strongest affinity with

Katarzyna Tomkiewicz
the works of Nelson, Lopez, and Snyder and, in more general terms, with the
American nature writing tradition. That affinity consists of a biocentric outlook on
nature and a search for environmental ethics, which differentiates them from the
anthropocentric and utilitarian attitudes apparent in earlier nature-oriented
literature.

Although an outlook on the human position in nature is the common
denominator for these five authors and American nature writers, their Choice of
hunting and fishing as a subject matter differentiates them from the major figures
in the history of ecological thinking. This difference is further magnified by their
belief that hunting and fishing are an important component in creating human
respect for nature because, until recently, these activities, described as ”wanton
murder“ in Thoreau’s diction, were considered by American nature writers
incompatible with the principle of biocentric equality and coexistence.

Harrison, McGuane, Lopez, Snyder, and Nelson reconcile the idea of
hunting and fishing with a biocentric and ethical environmental outlook. They
accomplish this by adhering to a primitive (native and prehistoric) perception of
the hunt, rather than to an arbitrary and anthropocentric "sporting code.” As a
result, the hunting and fishing they depict becomes an expression of reverence
for nature and a sense of belonging. Their works demonstrate that these
elements, missing in the Western perception of nature, have been the cause of
the contemporary ecological crisis. In synthesizing a primitive outlook, recent
ecological philosophy, and the subject of hunting and fishing, these authors add

an important new element to American literary tradition.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. James McClintock, whose help,

encouragement, and thoughtful criticism helped me complete this dissertation,
while his own work and ideas contributed to its origins. I would also like to

acknowledge the support and encouragement of my dissertation committee: Drs.
Barry Gross, Douglas Miller, and Peter Levine.

I thank Michigan State University, especially American Studies, for
continuous financial support in the course of my work. I also appreciate the role
of the American Studies program at Warsaw University in Poland in making my
studies in the United States possible. My special thanks go to Zbigniew Lewicki
for inspiring my interest in American literature.

I am grateful to all my friends, especially Alberta B. Szalita and Gregg
Griffin, for their interest in my work, emotional support, and valuable criticism.

Finally, I express my deepest thanks to my parents, Barbara and Artur
Tomkiewicz, and to my husband, Robert Krawczyk, for their love, patience, and

encouragement, which made my work possible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page
I. THE NEW TRADITION ............................... 1
Il. JIM HARRISON: HUNTING AS EDUCATION ............ 22
Ill. THOMAS McGUANE: HUNTING AND SANITY ........... 54

IV. GARY SNYDER, BARRY LOPEZ, AND RICHARD
NELSON: RITUALS OF APPEASEMENT ............... 97

V. AFTER HEMINGWAY: THE EVOLUTION OF
THE SPORTING MYTH ............................ 137

BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................. 170

CHAPTER I

THE NEW TRADITION

The subject of hunting and fishing is well established in American
literature. It recurs in fiction, journalism, and American nature writing. Its most
prominent role in fiction is as a symbol of the human quest for self-realization,
exemplified by Melville’s Mobyflick, Hemingway’s W and
Faulkner’s ”The Bear.” In this respect, hunting and fishing serve as a mythical
context for the human interaction with nature and the transition from innocence
to experience. As Umphlett (1975) claims in W
Expgrjenge, hunting and fishing tales reenact American history in their recurrent
pattems—the departure beyond corrupt civilization, the contest with wilderness,
and the triumph of human will over nature (even at the risk of destruction). The
common denominator for the treatment of this subject in American fiction is the
symbolic significance of the hunt, which overshadows the particulars of the actual
process of killing.

Descriptions of the ”right way” to hunt and fish are the focus of sport
literature-essays, articles, and manuals. This genre constitutes a different way

of documenting the hunting and fishing tradition in America, due to its prescriptive

2

and specific, rather than descriptive and universal, treatment of the subject.
According to John F. Reiger (1975), this type of literature, exemplified by
magazines such as Americanjponsman and W, is directly
responsible for the birth of conservation and environmental protection in the post-
Civil War United States. This purpose was accomplished by means of a direct
campaign for conservation of resources, as well as by formulating a strict and
detailed sportsman code that separated ”proper“ and "reprehensible” kinds of
hunfing.

A perception that all hunting is reprehensible is reflected in American
nature writing. Peter Fritzell (1990) and Joseph Wood Krutch (1958) trace the
origins of this genre to Thoreau and his belief in the basic kinship of all life forms.
Even though American nature writers rarely describe hunting and fishing as a
means of interaction with nature, this genre provides an important supplement to
the preceding two literary treatments of the subject because one of its main
concerns is the human attitude toward the environment. Thoreau and his
followers have concentrated on observing nature and minimizing the degree of
their own intrusion, rather than on ”experiencing” nature through killing animals.
Traditionally, American nature writers have spoken against ”blood" sport as a
leisure activity. Contemporary public criticism of hunting and fishing is often
rooted in this tradition, even though the less immediate aspects of violating the

sense of kinship with nature often escape public attention.

3

In this study, hunting and fishing in literature are discussed on the basis of
the works of five authors who represent a new approach to this subject. Even
though their individual works can be perceived in terms of the traditions outlined
above, the common characteristics of their outlook escape the limitations of
established ways of writing about these activities. These authors attempt to
integrate a traditional subject with an unorthodox oUtlook upon the relations
between humanity and nature. They write about hunting and fishing from the
point of view of biocentric equality.

The affinity among the works of Jim Harrison, Thomas McGuane, Gary
Snyder, Richard Nelson, and Barry Lopez is not obvious at first glance. These
contemporary authors work within different literary genres, and even though
immediate parallels can be drawn between Harrison and McGuane (as writers of
novels and essays on sport), as well as Nelson and Lopez (as authors of
anthropological studies of northern hunting societies), the common denominator
for all of their works is not immediately visible. The affinity exists on the level of
their philosophical outlook on human position in nature. These authors employ
diverse techniques to express their views, yet their conclusions are similar. All
of them perceive contemporary America in terms of a spiritual and ecological
crisis. Their preoccupation with hunting and fishing links them to the tradition of
Melville, Cooper, Hemingway, and Faulkner, as well as to the tradition of sport
journalism. Their approach to the subject evokes the principles underlying the

Thoreauvian form of nature writing. Their uniqueness lies in the belief that

4
hunting and fishing can lead to the development of an ecological conscience, an
indispensable supplement to science in the time of environmental crisis and the
Age of Ecology.

Harrison, McGuane, Lopez, Snyder, and Nelson approach the subject of
hunting and fishing from a variety of angles. Harrison and McGuane devote a
considerable part of their essays and novels to the portrayal of both destructive
and redemptive aspects of outdoor sports. The destructive aspects of sport in
their work are usually linked to thoughtless transgressions against nature,
perceived not only in terms of violations of ”the sporting code” but also in terms
of the anthropocentric sporting code itself. Whereas McGuane devotes most of
his energies to tracing and ridiculing this aspect of human interaction with nature,
Harrison more often concentrates on the individual search for a more valid
approach. As a result, the two authors supplement each others views on
contemporary hunting and fishing because their works respectively concentrate
on the two sides of the issue. A common feature of both authors is their belief
that the valid ethical objections against contemporary hunting and fishing, as well
as the complications faced by their protagonists searching for redemption in
nature, stem from the differences between contemporary hunting and fishing and
the original mode of subsistence. Their treatment of the subject can be
understood best in the context of the works of Snyder, Nelson, and Lopez, who
provide additional insight into primitive hunting and the affinity of the primitive

world view with contemporary ecological philosophy. Consequently, the unique

5

treatment of hunting and fishing in the works of these authors is further reinforced
by the inspiration they derive from the prehistoric and native experience, an
unprecedented attempt in both American literature and environmental philosophy.

As stated before, hunting and fishing as an expression of human feelings
about nature puts Harrison, McGuane, Nelson, Snyder, and Lopez at the
crossroads of various literary traditions. The subject of this study is the evaluation
of the parallels between these traditions and the authors” treatment of the subject.
The aim of this evaluation is to demonstrate that even though a certain affinity
exists between these authors and the traditional treatment of hunting and fishing
in fiction and journalism, the deepest similarity can be traced to American nature
writing, and even in this area Harrison, McGuane, Snyder, Lopez, and Nelson
contribute new insight into the issue of human interaction with nature. In this
chapter, the writer concentrates on American sport literature and nature writing,
while earlier American fiction (especially Hemingway’s) and contemporary
literature of hunting and fishing are compared in the conclusion to this
dissertation.

Hunting and fishing in contemporary America is the subject of constant
debate, as Matt Cartmill (1993) and John F. Reiger (1975) demonstrate in their
works. lnAmeflcanfiansmenmneQfigmsgLQQnmatm Reiger provides
an important overview of the sports literature, not only due to its detailed account

of the development of outdoor sports, but also because the author’s approach to

6
the subject is characteristic of the arguments commonly used in defense of
hunting and fishing today.
Reiger claims that anti-hunting sentiments result from the misguided
assumption that sportsmen are perpetuating environmental destruction:
Sportsmen, those who supposedly 'kill for the sake of killing,” have
become handy scapegoats for Americans unhappy with the declining
populations of many wildlife species and the deterioration of the
environment generally. The real causes for this wildlife reduction,
“development,” pesticide contamination, water pollution, etc., are
generalized, amorphous phenomena, that seem incapable of being
controlled, while the hunter is a specific group that can be focused on and
attacked. (p. 16)
Reiger dismisses the validity of this argument against sportsmen on the basis of

their active role in the American conservationist campaign:

The appearance of a new monthly newspaper, the Americanfimnsman.
in October, 1871, marks a watershed in environmental history. For this

was the country’s first national periodical to make the interrelated subjects

of hunting, fishing, natural history and conservation its primary concerns,

and the enthusiastic response the journal received proves that a segment

of the American public was ready for its teachings. (p. 25)

Reiger ascribes the appeal of the journal to a change in the American
outlook on hunting and fishing. ”Before the Civil War, most Americans viewed
these activities as acceptable only when necessary or helpful to the maintenance
of a livelihood“ (p. 25), yet the environmental changes apparent in the postwar
period turned the public against the commercial aspects of interaction with nature.
The development of a more favorable outlook on the sport of hunting and fishing

was related, Reiger Claims, to the recurrent emphasis on the ”proper“ sporting

code in sportsmen's publications:

7

With the appearance of national periodicals like Ameflmfipgnsman

(1871).EQrestand_Stream(1873).Eieldand_StLeam(1874). andAmerican

Angle; (1881), a new impetus was given to the sportsmen's struggle

against commercial exploitation of wildlife. While the nation as a whole

remained indifferent, these journals, in issue after issue, poured forth a

steady stream of propaganda against the market men. Besides

enumerating specific offenses, the main technique used was to teach the

American public the ethics and responsibilities of sportsmanship. (p. 28)

The tendency to draw a Clear division between sport and commercial
hunting and to define precisely the rules of sport culminated in the establishment
of the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887. Its purpose was”the encouragement of
big-game hunting, but the Character of the hunter was the real object of concern“
(Nash, 1967, p. 152). Reiger (1975) points out that the establishment of the Club
illustrated a considerable development in nineteenth-century environmental ethics
because “the emphasis the Club's constitution placed on ’fair chase” meant that
the reform potential in . . . ’the code of the sportsman' was at last going to be fully
realized“ (p. 118).

Besides outlining the sporting code, magazines like EQLesLanLLStLeam led
the campaign for wildlife preservation. Reiger stresses that the campaign was not
only representative of the sportsmen’s interest in protecting the population of the
game species, but it was also concerned with the welfare of all wildlife. This
aspect of the sportsmen’s activity is illustrated by the establishment of the
Audubon Society by George Bird Grinnell in 1886:

Grinnell’s association . . . was solely for the preservation of the non-game

species, a category of wildlife all but ignored up to that time. Once again,

sportsmen-naturalists took the initiative in filling the void by public

indifference. Personal involvement with the natural world on a
nonutilitarian basis and adoption of the aesthetic component in the code

8

of the sportsman caused many sportsmen-naturalists to be almost as

concerned with the destruction of non—game birds as with those

traditionally pursued for sport. (Reiger, 1975, p. 66)

The campaign for wildlife protection was only the first step in the national
awakening to environmental concerns. Reiger (1975) ascribes the next steps,
forest conservation and the development of national parks, to the combined
efforts of sporting magazines, especially W. and the
environmentally conscious government of the hunting president, Theodore
Roosevelt. The system for managing both national parks and forest reserves was
created early by members of the Boone and Crockett Club. Thus, Reiger
concludes, American sportsmen should be credited with the birth of
environmental awareness, rather than criticized for the environmental crisis, which
they always have been trying to avert.

Even though this summary of Reiger's work provides only a simplified
version of the author's argument, the thesis remains clear. The author attributes
the birth of American environmentalism solely to the efforts of outspoken
sportsmen. The more general sphere of influence, for instance the legacy of
Romanticism and subsequent ”wilderness cult” discussed in the same context by
Nash (1967) in WWII. is discredited in Reiger’s
work: "Fortunately for the history of the Adirondacks, sportsmen did more than

engage in Romantic fantasies of sanctuaries where the Indian and his game

would remain forever in a primitive state of suspended animation“ (p. 91). Reiger

9
also disregards the environmental contributions of those nineteenth-century
naturalists who opposed sport-for instance, Thoreau and John Muir:

In reality, Muir’s concrete contributions to conservation have been

exaggerated, while the achievements of sportsmen like George Bird

Grinnell and Charles Sheldon are simply mentioned in passing, if at all, by

the journalists, commentators, and historians who cater to current fashion

in environmental writing. (p. 18) '

Reiger’s discussion of the interaction between outdoor sports and the birth
of conservation is extensively documented and convincing; however, its strengths
are also its limitations. Reiger’s claim that hunting promoted conservation of
national resources undermines rather than supports the thesis that sportsmen
contributed to the development of an ethical perception of the natural
environment. Recent history demonstrates that conservation itself has not been
able to prevent the ecological crisis, mainly due to its deficiency in environmental
ethics. Regardless of the author’s efforts to demonstrate that the interaction
between conservation and the sportsmen’s code created an ecological
conscience in nineteenth-century Americans, a hundred years later the ethical
restraints in relation to nature are still only an emergent concept. As subsequent
discussion demonstrates, the development of ecological ethics is more indebted
to the heritage of American nature writing than to the authors promoting
conservation and the Sportsman's code.

Reiger’s Claimthatnineteenth-century sportsmen constituted the vanguard

of the environmental movement seems to mirror my Claim that the contemporary

writers who use the subject of fishing and hunting search for a valid mode of

10

human behavior toward the natural environment. The similarity, however, is
superficial. Harrison and McGuane are wary of the terms "conservation" and
”sport“ when they depict hunting and fishing. Even though their literary goals
appear similar to “Frank Foresters” (WIlliam Herbert’s) attempts to present
hunting and fishing in ethical terms, they approach the task differently. As Reiger
(1975) points out, ”'conservationist,’ not ’ecologist,’ is the more precise term for
the American pioneer of environmental concem' (p. 19), and “American
sportsmen, those who hunted and fished for pleasure rather than commerce or
necessity, were the real spearhead of conservation“ (p. 21). True as this Claim
may be, it bears little relevance to the authors dealing with contemporary hunting
and fishing. Their treatment of the subject is influenced by ecological rather than
conservationist considerations, and they view direct dependence on nature rather
than recreational use as the stable basis for developing an ethical perception of
land.

Reiger (1975) defines the difference between conservation and ecology in
the introduction to his work: “Historically, conservation has not been a science
like ecology but a reform movement using political and legal methods to obtain
what Theodore Roosevelt called ”wise use' of resources” (p. 20). Reiger’s
definition of ecology as a science is too narrow to account for the environmental
outlook in contemporary literature of hunting and fishing. It is more accurate to
trace the roots of the contemporary treatment of hunting and fishing to the "deep

ecological” perspective, which begins with science, yet progresses beyond it in

11
the direction of a philosophical system. In mm
W, Max Oelschlaeger (1991) demonstrates that
conservation (resourcism) and the conservationist application of ecology (shallow
ecology) differ from "deep ecology!“ as far as the degree of an ethical involvement
is concerned:

Deep or foundational ecology (also called radical environmentalism)

presents an idea of wilderness contradictory to resourcism . . . since it

moves beyond any appeal to instrumental values as a ground for guiding
human action. . . . Unlike shallow ecology, which considers only questions
of the means to achieve the established ends of advanced industrial
societies, deep ecology questions ends: in other words, foundational
ecology moves beyond purely functional inquiry to entertain explicitly;

ethical questions. (pp. 301-302)

Hunting and fishing depicted in the works of Harrison, McGuane, Snyder, Lopez,
and Nelson reflect the search for an ethical relation to nature rather than
conservationist or purely scientific considerations. These authors display a
distrust of conservationism as the way to environmental protection because they
are all influenced by Aldo Leopold’s concept of ”land ethic" as a necessary
supplement to land science and land use.

In his introduction, Reiger (1975) mentions Leopold, the leading
conservationist after the Gifford Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt era, as an
example of an environmentally conscious sportsman. Leopold is introduced as
the ”father of scientific management,’ the ’father of ecology’ and the ’father of
American land ethics” (p. 18). Reiger, simultaneously crediting Leopold with

these triple progeny, fails to acknowledge the transformation in Leopold’s views

that led him to renounce conservation as a desirable mode of relating to the

12
environment. Leopold's GameManagemem, published in 1933, indeed provides
a basis for Reiger’s claim that hunting and fishing as sport give rise to
conservationist impulses. As Donald Worster (1977) points out in Naturals
Economy:

In W Leopold further articulated this view of nature as

'resources"-a world to be reorganized and managed to meet social

demands. . . . Leopold, it must be added, did not calculate the value of

game animals in dollars and cents alone: they also represented for him a

- primitive, pioneering past with which he hoped the average Citizen, through

hunting, could keep faith. (pp. 272-273)

What Reiger fails to note, however, is that hunting and fishing also led Leopold
to revolutionize conservationist beliefs. This occurred after Leopold witnessed
and participated in an environmentally disastrous predator-control campaign in
the Kaibab Forest area of Arizona, which ”has stood for a half-century as the
classic example of businesslike mismanagement of resources and of ecological
ignorance on the part of productivity-minded conservationists” (Worster, 1977, p.
270)

Leopold documents his involvement in the campaign and subsequent
”conversion” to ethical rather than economical perception of land in ”Thinking Like
a Mountain.“ This essay was published in We; (1949/1974),
and the book, promoting the concept of ”land ethic,“ subsequently became the
cornerstone of American nature writing and an emerging deep ecology. Reiger’s

oversimplifimtion in linking Leopold's conservationist and land-ethical approaches

exemplifies the rest of the oversimplifications involved in his thesis.

13

The examples of conflict between the interests of sportsmen and

ecological balance were clearly visible at the end of the nineteenth century. In the

O O I O
on.‘ : col ||.| ;“.| .7 o :1 .10 .01 ,. ‘lo, :oozl- 0|:o

muheJnstLucnoundJnformatmmAllmpesmhefiun Howland GaSpar
(1893) advocates the introduction of the foreign game species to American
ecosystems:

The closing years of the century have witnessed notable achievements in
the Introduction of exotic species of game birds-achievements of which
the benefits have already been reaped in gratifying measure, and which
are full of promise of a yet richer fruition in the future. With all his apparent
heedlessness of keeping up the indigenous game supply, the American
sportsman of the present day is showing himself to be large-minded,
endowed with sagacity and forethought, and given to enterprises which,
in their beneficent purposes, concern less the present than the future. . . .
We most warmly commend to every shooting individual and club, for their
careful and thoughtful consideration, this subject of foreign game bird
importation, suggesting that such liberal efforts and expenditures be made
as may promise to increase the abundance and variety of our game fauna,
and thereby augment the pleasure and satisfaction of a day’s recreation
with the dog and gun afield. (p. 269)

The argument for introducing foreign species to American ecosystems for
the ”pleasure and satisfaction“ of the sportsman, presented in the “manual of
scientific knowledge," illustrates the anthropocentrism and ecological ignorance
of a nineteenth-century sportsman. This type of proposal is not likely to be
reiterated in a contemporary fishing and hunting publication because at present
these publications are more concerned with alleviating ecological imbalance
resulting from such an outlook. On the other hand, a consideration of the
"pleasure and satisfaction” of the sportsman continues to be a serious bias, even

in contemporary publications. The feature article in the August 1994 issue of

14

WW (Capps, 1994) is devoted to

the controversy over the government plan to trim considerably the population of
wolves. The reason behind the proposed campaign is not the ecological
imbalance between the caribou and the wolf population, but the fact that this
balance does not leave enough space for human—both native and tourist-caribou
hunting. Asa result, even contemporary environmental decisions that affect
hunters, regardless of the documented failures of the conservationist utilitarian
agenda, are influenced by the welfare of sportsmen rather than the welfare of
nature.

Contemporary authors like Harrison and McGuane react to similar
instances of the inconsistency between the theory and practice of hunting by
disassociating themselves from the notion of sport. Instead of the arbitrary
“sporting code,” they search for a consistent set of rules created by a biocentric
rather than an anthropocentric ethical system. Hunting, as Harrison, McGuane,
Snyder, Lopez, and Nelson depict it, is much less spectacular than that described
in Roosevelt’s Emitlumng or Water. Instead of striving for
success in terms of “the style, the dash, the handsome way of doing what is to be
done“ (Forester, 1892), their hunters concentrate on the pursuit and often give up
killing at the last moment of the hunt. Their ultimate purpose is to establish, and
verify, the sense of belonging in nature on an equal basis. This priority links
Harrison, McGuane, Lopez, Snyder, and Nelson to the American nature writing

tradition. The subsequent discussion of the development of a deep ecological

15

philosophy in American nature writing will be followed by comparisons of these
authors’ views on hunting and fishing and the philosophical precepts of this genre.
The conclusions will demonstrate that, even though hunting and fishing (as a
search for, and expression of, the biocentric perspective) are incompatible with
the evolutionary stages of the deep ecological outlook, the most recent
developments in this outlook validate hunting and fishing as an expression of
biocentric equality.

According to Joseph Wood Krutch and Peter Fritzell, nature writing is a
unique and relatively recent form of literary expression of human attitudes toward
nature. Its immediate origins can be traced to Thoreau, in terms of both form and
content. Krutch defines the most important Characteristics of nature writing as the
sense of oneness, intimacy, and equality with nature. Thoreau developed and
applied these concepts in Walden, in disregard of the predominant, orthodox
Christian ideas of human superiority and uniqueness (Krutch, 1958). Krutch
differentiates nature writing from writing of nature appreciation (the literature of
travel and adventure, poetry, and “other traditional forms of belles-Iettres") on the
basis of their outlook on the human role in nature. Fritzell (1990) stresses the
same aspect of the genre: "America’s best nature writers . . . have had great
difficulty with the notion that the human species is somehow unnatural or outside
nature—great difficulty accepting the notion that humankind has (or can) somehow

leave nature behind” (p. 14). The fundamental difference between nature writing

 

 

   

 

16

and any other form of nature-related literature is the contrast between the
biocentric and the anthropocentric perspective.

The manifestation of the conflict between the anthropocentric and the
materializing biocentric perspectives in American environmental legislation can
be traced to the dispute between the conservationist and preservationist
movements.

The schism ran between those who defined conservation as the wise or

planned development of resources and those who have been termed

preservationists, with their rejection of utilitarianism and advocacy of
nature unaltered by man. Juxtaposing the needs of civilization with the
spiritual and aesthetic value of wilderness, the conservation issue

extended the old dialogue between pioneers and romantics. (Nash, 1967,

p.129)

Nash illustrates the conflict between the conservationist and preservationist
agenda with the Hetch-Hetchy controversy (1905 to 1913) over the issue of
building a dam in Yosemite National Park in orderto generate hydroelectric power
for San Francisco. The failure of the preservationist campaign, which recognized
the intrinsic, nonutilitarian value of wilderness, illustrates the initial lack of appeal
of the new perspective.

However revolutionary in its disregard of the utilitarian view of nature, the
preservationist movement, represented in the HetCh-Hetchy controversy by John
Muir and the Sierra Club, cannot be viewed as a full expression of the biocentric
view of nature. As Oelschlaeger (1991) points out in Iheldeamflildemess
EmErehistondtheAgeCLEcologyz

By abandoning the view that nature is no more than an ecomachine or a
stockpile of resources to fuel the human project, preservationists tend not

17

to be bulls in an ecological china shop. They typically reject a strictly
economic approach to valuing wilderness, and entertain other
considerations such as rarity, species diversity, and beauty. And by
adopting a holistic view, preservationists are attentive to the pervasive
linkages and interactions essential to any concept of a wilderness
ecosystem. Yet from an ecocentric or biocentric perspective,
preservationism remains anthropocentric, since human interests are the
ultimate arbiters of value. (p. 292)

Regardless of the incompleteness of preservationism as an expression of the
deep ecological philosophy, Oelschlaeger considers John Muir a ”seminal deep
ecologist” (p. 301). The same definition applies to Leopold, whose concept of
"land ethic" formulated in AfiandCQumlAlmanaQ”advances from Muir’s premise
that all creation has rights" (p. 194). The issue that unites these two writers (and
differentiates them from the conservationist outlook) is summed up by Holmes
Rolston (cited by Oelschlaeger, 1991 ), a wilderness philosopher: "Can there be
an environmental ethic in a primary, naturalistic sense, one where natural things
are morally considered in their own right?’ Further, ought nature in some sense
be followed? ’Can it be a tutor of human conduct?" (p. 194). In ”Thinking Like
a Mountain,” Leopold believes that it can and should, in orderfor humans to learn
how to behave toward the environment:
The natural history essays of this period (collected in madman
Almanac) are remarkable statements—Thoreauvian in their literary quality
and much of their underlying philosophy. ”Thinking Like a Mountain”
(1944) is representative of the changes in Leopold’s outlook: a confession
that through his own shortsightedness and human centeredness he had
sinned against nature. . . . Leopold’s intuition was grounded in a personal
relation to the mountain itself (rather than philosophical commitment to
vitalism), a mountain which recognized in the cry of a wolf a “deeper
meaning, known only to the mountain itself. Only the mountain has lived

long enough to listen objectively to the howl of the wolf.” This statement
metaphorically endows the mountain with sentience--the basis of an

18

interconnectedness between the massif and the timber and animals that
inhabit its slopes. What in imperial ecology would be a mechanical
equilibrium of the ecosystem had been animated and metaphorically
personified, but not anthropomorphized. Crucially, the mountain has lived
through the longeurs of geological and biological time: long enough to be
free of the prejudice that taints human perception of the wolf.

(Oelschlaeger, 1991, p. 233)

Leopold advocates teaming from nature the principles of coexistence. In
order to do so, one has to abandon the anthropocentric perspective and view
humans as biotic “citizens,” whose actions must be limited by ethical
considerations toward other members of the same community. In formulating this
outlook as a basis for a ”land ethic,“ Leopold contributes to the evolution of the
biocentric perspective. His change of perspective is accomplished by the
realization that nature (for instance, a mountain) is ”aware" of human actions.
This discovery influences subsequent nature writers. In W
Annie Dillard (1974) not only observes nature, but also enjoys the sense of being
seen by ”the tree with the lights in it,” God in nature (p. 35). Even though for
Leopold and Dillard the awareness of nature is still metaphorical rather than
literal, their views resemble the primitive belief in sentient and enspirited
mountains, wolves, and trees. The importance of acknowledging nature’s
awareness is crucial for the development of an ecological ethic because the
sensation of being seen fortifies the ethical constraints. The perception of nature

as a sentient entity eliminates the traditional philosophical and religious divisions

between the human and nonhuman world; it also provides a basis for the

19

discovery of an alliance between the deep ecological and the primitive view of the
environment, explored fully by Snyder, Lopez, and Nelson.

Leopold’s contributions to American nature writing mark the point where
this genre and contemporary treatment of hunting and fishing in literature begin
to converge. The earlier nature writers treated these activities as incompatible
with the principle of kinship with nature. Thoreau (1854/1985) proclaimed in
Waldenthat ”no humane being past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly
murder any creature which holds its life by the same tenure as he does” (p. 492).
Muir’s attitude was even more adamant: ”The murder business and sport by saint
and sinner alike has been pushed ruthlessly, merrily on, until at last protective
measures are being called for, partly, I suppose because the pleasure of killing
is in danger of being lost from there being little or nothing left to kill.” Even
Leopold himself, as Sherman Paul (1992) demonstrates in W
World, has grown to distrust hunting:

Leopold’s enthusiasm for hunting (he had hunted from boyhood in Iowa,
coming to nature study in this way, and the shack was purchased as a
base camp), this enthusiasm, and the very enterprise of game
management, have always disturbed me. I share Muir’s view of both, that
hunting is ”murder business“ and that protective measures such as game
management arise because ”the pleasure of killing is in danger of being
lost from there being little or nothing left to kill.” Leopold’s defense of
hunting as an ethical discipline as against the wantonness of sport doesn’t
convince me. So I was happy to find that Leopold, after twenty years,
admits that the predator control he fostered was “ecological murder.” He
participated, he says, in "the extinguishment of the grizzly bear,“ in his
mind the wilderness itself; he was “accessory to the extermination of the
Iobo wolf” and rationalized it by ”calling it deer management.” Having
done this he contributed to the ”erasing [of] the wilderness" practiced in the
name of range conservation, for once a wilderness area has been
proclaimed and the predators killed to increase the game, logic (of a

20

bureaucratic kind) requires roads to enable the hunters to "harvest” the
game, and access destroys the wilderness. (p. 41)

For Leopold (and even some of his followers, including Joseph Wood
Krutch and Paul himself), the logical outcome of "thinking like a mountain” is to
abandon hunting. For some contemporary writers, however, this logic is too
straightforward. Contemporary nature writing increasingly relies on
anthropological studies, in order to explore other than Western attitudes toward
nature. The works of Lopez, Nelson, and Snyder (even though not always
conforming to the limits of the genre) illustrate this tendency. These studies
reveal striking parallels between the primitive (both native and prehistoric)
perception of nature and the deep ecological outlook, especially as far as the
concept of sentient and enspirited nature is concerned. The affinity between the
primitive and the deep ecological perspectives affects the perception of hunting
and fishing. These activities for the primitive peoples were the basic modes of
relating to the environment, and as anthropology suggests, their environmental
attitude was, if not perfect, more sound than that still prevailing in our time.
Superficially, the imitation of the primitive ideal resembles Roosevelt’s belief in the
“strenuous life” as an antidote to ”overcivilization” (Nash, 1967, p. 150), yet the
contemporary advocates of hunting concentrate more on the primitive
environmental outlook than on self-sufficiency and endurance. Contemporary
treatments of the subject focus on attempts to re-create primitive rituals, rather
than on creating the sporting code. Harrison, McGuane, Snyder, Lopez, and

Nelson discuss hunting and fishing in terms of an ancient art rather than sport.

21

The rules that guide their protagonists are of a moral, not conservationist, nature;
they are dictated by respect for animals rather than by respect for fair play. Most
often their hunting and fishing is inconclusive in terms of the kill, as will be
demonstrated in subsequent chapters of this dissertation. The killing, however,
as a direct expression of participating in the natural order, does not contradict the
principle of biocentric equality. The anthropological evidence concerning the role
of primitive myths and rituals in preserving environmental stability validates the
role of hunting and fishing in realizing the interdependence of life.
Commenting on contemporary objections to conservationist rationales for
hunting, Matt Cartmill (1993) quotes Cleveland Amory, the animal rights activist:
”When some of these Fish and Wildlife people get to heaven-—if they ever do,
which I doubt—they’re going to be awfully surprised if they find out that God is a
Deer” (p. 160). However exaggerated, this statement illustrates the division
between the traditional sportsmen and the hunters described by Harrison,
McGuane, Lopez, Nelson, and Snyder. Whereas for Theodore Roosevelt this
prospect might have been appalling, the hunters depicted by these authors
willingly entertain such a notion because, in the course of their hunting and
fishing, they concentrate on overcoming the traditional religious and philosophical

concepts separating humans from nature.

CHAPTER II

JIM HARRISON: HUNTING AS EDUCATION

It took me twenty years to see a timber wolf in the

wild. I could have foreshortened this time period by

going to lsle Royale or Canada but I wanted to see

the wolf as a part of a day rather than novelty.

(Harrison, 1978)

The Midwest, more specifically northern Michigan, is the setting of most of

Jim Harrison’s novels. "Growing up in northern Michigan, . . . naturally Ifished
and hunted” claims the author, implying the link between himself, the location,
and most of his protagonists’ preoccupation. This type of connection should not
be taken for granted in any critical essay, however, because ”critics have an
enormous difficulty separating the attitudes of your characters from your attitudes
as a writer. You have to explain to them: I am not all the men in my novels”
(“The Art of Fiction,“ p. 71). Still, among the various kinds of fishermen and
hunters depicted by Harrison, and among the various attitudes toward nature they
display, there are some recurring patterns by which the reader can gain insight
into the position of the author. Moreover, if these patterns are not a sufficient

basis for establishing Harrison’s attitude toward hunting and fishing, his essays

collected in W provide additional insight into the issue.

22

23

Consequently, this chapter deals with both the author's and his protagonists’
perceptions of hunting and fishing presented against the background of
mainstream attitudes toward nature and outdoor sports.

Harrison’s essays and novels do not glorify modem-day hunting, nor do
they try to justify it: "There is no apologia now for hunting except that the desire
is in us. Some are born hunting and rarely in our time out of need" ("La Venerie
Francaise,‘ in Wang, p. 96). Instead, they exemplify the complexity of
motives that draw Americans to nature, as well as the complexity of responses
nature evokes in them. It would be an oversimplification to Claim that Harrison’s
protagonists are engaged in the sport of fishing and hunting; rather, they perceive
hunting and fishing as an art of insight into nature and themselves.

Few of us shoot ourselves during an evening hatch. Fishing makes us

less the hostages of making a living. In some Jungian (Carl, late of

Switzerland) sense it returns us to the aesthetics of the ancient art of

gathering and hunting our own food. It is a time warp we may step in for

a little peace. That’s why there are so many churls and knaves in

competitive forms of fishing. They don’t know this. Most of them should

be fishing bull gar with grenades. ("A Plaster Trout in Worm Heaven," in
Silentfieasons. p. 148)

This passage makes a distinction that is present in most of Jim Harrison’s
works dealing with hunting and fishing. It points to the difference between hunting
and fishing viewed as sport and hunting and fishing as an ancient art. The object
of the former is to ”teach nature a lesson”; the latter aims at deriving a lesson
from it. The first form of hunting and fishing implies human dominance over
nature and endows the outdoors with a Clearly utilitarian value. Hunting as an art,

in contrast, assumes the independence of nature from human needs and

24

demands and requires from a hunter ability to abandon an anthropocentric
perspective. Harrison considers the sport of hunting to be characteristic of the
destructiveness of contemporary civilization, whereas hunting performed with the
discipline and purity of art implies the possibility of redemption.

Harrison presents wilderness as a refuge from civilization, not the field of
its further glorification. In the Thoreauvian tradition, the author stresses that the
vanishing of wilderness threatens the chances of human survival. Hunting
sportsmen cannot abuse nature indefinitely: their sense of privilege is not
consistent with the ecological laws. Nature, according to Harrison, is not obliged
to serve; if abused, it will retaliate. Its indifference, its refusal to accommodate the
escalated demands of the ecologically ignorant assertion of supremacy, will be
the chief means of such retaliation. The destructive agent will eventually create
impossible living conditions for his kind, while nature will still exist, however
temporarily thrown off balance.

Harrison’s antidote calls for the humility of acknowledging the
interdependence and the need for coexistence between humans and nature.
These notions are the core of deep ecological philosophy, which marks a new
turn in American perception of nature. This philosophy in Harrison’s works
surfaces as the notion of ”aesthetics of the ancient art of hunting and gathering
our food,” which endows the human relationship with nature with a ritualistic and
spiritual dimension. Such hunting and fishing radically differ from the competitive

sport of shooting game.

25

An ecological attitude toward hunting is based on the assumption that
nature is far less dependent on humans than humans are on nature. This sense
evokes respect toward the outdoors and its resources. Hunting as art
concentrates on the process rather than on the immediate results. Consequently,
a nonacquisitive, primarily spiritual experience of hunting counts most as far as
the reestablishment of the bonds with nature is concerned. Harrison writes of
hunting as an attempt to get as Close as possible to nature in order to observe
and learn because nature is not obliged to give the hunter any instant gratification,
except for an education as to its powers and his limitations. Machine-gun
slaughter is not educational in this respect; a solitary pursuit is, even if the
hunter’s bag remains empty. Such hunting brings one back to the alienated
instincts. Awakened to nature within, the hunter is more likely to respect nature
outside and abandon any mistaken notions of human supremacy.

Harrison’s criticism of the contemporary distortions of outdoor sports goes
beyond the instances of competitive trophy hunting and ignorant slaughter. He
relates the unrestricted predatory instincts of competitive hunters to the voracity
of human relation to nature in general, especially as far as the American
wilderness is concerned: "I reflect on the pioneer spirit and how it made our
country what it is, and the odious Bumppoism that emerges from the events like
the National Trout Festival” ('Passacaglia on Getting Lost,“ hereafter 'PGL,‘ p.
232). The ”odious Bumppoism" in this respect seems to personify the bulk of

romantic and nationalistic notions imposed on the American wilderness, as well

26

as the institutionalized love for it, matched with a total disregard of its essence.
These sentiments persist, regardless of the changes in the American
environment: 'I think it was Edward Abbey who coined the phrase ’cowboy
consciousness’ to describe that peculiar set of attitudes many Americans still
hold: the land is endless, unspoiled, mysterious, still remaining to be overcome
and finally won" ("The Violators,“ in W, p. 68). It is that duality of
affection and arrogance that leads to a massive intrusion which gradually
destroys the balance of nature. On the basis of such shortsighted enthusiasm
and largely ignorant behavior, Harrison predicts the transformation of the
American wilderness into yet another urban complex:

There is clearly not enough wilderness left for the rising number of people

who say they desire it. It is not wilderness anyway if it exists by our

stewardship and permission. We have become Europe and each, with a

sense of privacy and tact, must secure our own wildness. (”PGL,“ p. 232)

Harrison maintains here the accuracy of Thoreau’s recipe for salvation:
wildness means not only wilderness of nature but also the natural instincts of an
individual. Harrison relates the disappearance of American nature both in terms
of the urbanization of the country and inner alienation of people. Both processes
result from greed: "It was greed that discovered the country, greed that murdered
the Indians, greed that daily shits on the heads of those who love nature” (”PGL,“
p. 233). Hunting in its competitive, otherwise pointless, variation is characteristic

of the general absurdity of an alienated civilization, whose motivation aims at

exceeding needs.

27

Harrison’s ecological outlook, his criticism of anthropocentrism and
concern for vanishing wilderness, link the author to the ideas traditionally
expressed in American nature writing. Although the overall tone of his search for
the lost wildness is Thoreauvian, the specific observations and comments relate
him more closely to the more recent representatives of this genre, Edward Abbey
and Aldo Leopold. The affinity with the latter applies most closely to Harrison’s
vision of hunting and fishing and will be discussed later in this Chapter. The links
with Edward Abbey provide an illustration of Harrison’s views of wilderness and
the degree of human intrusion.

Edward Abbey’s fascination with the desert is matched by Harrison’s
declaration concoming the Upper Peninsula: "I prefer places valued by no one
else” (”PGL,“ p. 232). Both authors are aware of the inevitable process where
these places, so far preserved in their natural state due to their incompatibility
with the mainstream aesthetic and utilitarian ideas, disappear. In relation to such
locations, as well as in relation to over-advertised wilderness areas such as
Yellowstone, Harrison directly acknowledges the validity of Abbey’s solutions:

It is the radical, visionary ecologist Edward Abbey who seems to have the

best idea to insure that our Children’s children will have places of beauty

left to them: close the parks to public motor traffic. Let people walk or ride
bicycles and horses. A few buses will be available for the elderly and
infirm. Park personnel in trucks can carry the camping equipment on

ahead to the different sites. A quiet park without gas fumes or horns. A

true retreat into natural wonder. And by this relatively simple act you

enlarge the boundaries tenfold, for distance and space are functions of
speed and time. . . . Surely the quantity of the visitors will drop, but the

quality of the experience will increase immeasurably. (”Old Faithful and
Mysterious Yellowstone," p. 79)

28

Harrison’s and Abbey’s views converge in more areas than the question
of wilderness preservation. Indeed, both authors seem to resent the very fact that
conservationist rules became necessary for safeguarding the wilderness from
humans’ destructive intrusion. Harrison’s doubts concerning the incompatibility
of the idea of wilderness and stewardship are mirrored by Abbey’s (1984)
skepticism concerning desirability-from nature’s point of view—of any conscious
human attempts to interfere with its order:

How difficult to imagine this place without a human presence, how

necessary. I am almost prepared to believe that this sweet virginal

primitive land will be grateful for my departure and the absence of the
tourists, will breathe metaphorically a sigh of relief—like a whisper of wind-
when we are all and finally gone and the place and its creations can return
to their ancient procedures unobserved and undisturbed by the busy,

anxious, brooding consciousness of mankind. (p. 77)

This misanthropic view of humanity is shared by two authors whose
distrust of Civilization and its effect on human nature, as well as on the nonhuman
environment, is a predominant motif in their works. Both authors are skeptical
about the possibility of a nationwide awakening to the grim psychological and
environmental reality, even though they both insist on the implementation of strict
rules that would make the ideas of civilization, conservation, and wilderness
compatible: "Enough balancing has been done at this point to last out this
century and all of the next if there is to be one; now we need to go overboard in
the direction of hardline checks” ("Old Faithful and Mysterious Yellowstone,” p.
74). Along with the ”hardline checks” proposal, both authors stress the necessity

for a change of perspective to take place on the individual level, a change of

29

personal attitude toward nature accomplished through direct exposure to its
powers and human limitations. This conversion can occur as a result of a
continuous interaction with nature, provided that it takes place in a setting where
technological conveniences such as cars and sophisticated camping equipment
do not obliterate the actual balance of power. The same principle applies to
Harrison’s vision of hunting and fishing, which constitutes another link between
the two authors. -

Abbey rarely mentions hunting itself in his works; it is fishing that recurs in
his description of hiking or rafting trips. There is, however, a description of
hunting in Waite (1968) whose affinities with Harrison’s vision are
striking. Even though throughout his six months’ stay in the desert Abbey relies
on grocery supplies from the store rather than on his hunting skills, his venture
into primitive life demands a test of whether he could actually, self-sufficiently
”belong” there. Consequently, his attempt to kill a rabbit with a stone is a
”scientific” experiment in determining his degree of self-sufficiency, as well as in
experiencing the atrophied instincts of the original hunters: ”Well, I am a scientist
not a sportsman and we’ve got an important experiment underway here, for which
rabbit has volunteered” (p. 34). This proclamation is characteristic of the affinity
with Harrison’s hunting, both in the disassociation from sport (whose intent would
be to secure a trophy) as well as in the primitive notion of the prey’s consent.
Abbey’s hunt, performed without any technological aid, turns out to be successful,

as far as both the immediate results and the psychological implications are

30

concerned: ”No longer do I feel so isolated from the sparse and furtive life around
me, a stranger in another world. I have entered into this one. We are kindred all
of us, killer and victim, predator and prey” (p. 35). The primitive kind of hunting
is a meaningful experience, not a pointless slaughter. The sense of elation that
results is not free of guilt—otherwise, the hunt would lack the psychologically
indispensable element of atonement ritualized in primitive cultures: “For a
moment I am shocked by my deed; I stare at the quiet rabbit, his glazed eyes, his
blood drying in the dust. Something vital is lacking“ (p. 34). The only difference
between the two authors is that none of Harrison’s heroes would have abandoned
the prey, as Abbey does, to return to the predictable dinner of chili beans.
Harrison’s protagonists most often share the author’s interest in cooking the game
after a successful hunt, in adherence to the principle that to waste game is the
ultimate crime. This inconsistency, however, should not overshadow the
underlying similarity in both authors’ motivations for huntingunamely, that to
establish one’s awareness of nature is to participate in the natural order. To
liberate the primitive instincts and to experience real hunting, the act of killing
should be limited by simple means as well as by the awareness of guilt and
gratitude toward nature. Even though a death of an animal is the price that nature
pays for the birth of awareness in the hunter, it is a fair exchange because one
such experience may put limitations on the ethically unexamined urges of
potential sportsmen whose sophisticated equipment usually reduces the sense

of personal involvement and responsibility.

31

In Harrison’s view, the absurdity of hunting as sport and the theme of the
vanishing wilderness are linked. Hunting becomes absurd when deprived of its
original context and motivation. There is hardly any wilderness left, there is little
economical need for hunting, and, finally, there is less and less wilderness
”within” because the primitive hunting instincts are impaired and obscured. The
disappearance of the intuitive ability to coexist—because the primitive hunting
denoted coexistence and reciprocity rather than conquest-is apparent in
Harrison’s protagonists, even those who love nature and resort to it. This is the
case of Swanson in Wolf, who feels vulnerable and inadequate while
encountering nature on its own terms. More generally, it is characteristic of the
whole human race, whose overpopulation and greed will result in “suffocation by
Chintz, not apocalypse. Too many rats in the grain bin and many are becoming
enfevered and will die from stress, death of mind first, the body goes more slowly“
(Wolf, p. 159). Hunting promoted by the feverish majority is deprived of its
original meaning and spiritual sense, just as a competitive hunter is alienated from
the ancient hunter’s attitude of awe Inspired by nature. The result is a pointless
slaughter illustrated by Harrison with fox hunting: “They run fox to exhaustion
with snowmobiles, then club them to death” (Wolf, p. 44). This event is also
recalled in Harrison’s essay "The Violators”:

l have met and talked at length with men who harry and club to death both

fox and coyote from snowmobiles. It should not seem necessary to pass

laws against so base and resolutely mindless a practice, but it is

necessary. I suppose that in simplistic terms our acquisitive and
competitive urges have been transferred directly to sport-one can win

32

over fish or beast but, unlike what happens in other forms of sport, the
violator disregards all the rules. (W, p. 67)

A similar absurdity of sport recurs in an account of bear hunting in Wolf:
a woman shoots a sleeping grizzly with a .375 Magnum. There is no hunter, no
pursuit, no confrontation—there is no point. On the other hand, because only the
directness of experience is capable of satisfying the dulled senses, superficially
primitive hunting becomes fashionable. The absurdity of employing modem-
primitive techniques, such as bow and arrow hunting, lies in the fact that it lacks
the essence of primitive hunting, which is a respect for and knowledge of the prey.
Carelessness still prevails, regardless of the weapon employed: ”After shooting
over thirty arrows into the beast from fairly Close range, the buffalo failed to die
and resembled a giant, sparsely quilled porcupine“ (Wolf, p. 140). Superficial
primitivization is not enough to Change modern hunting from sport into an ancient
art. To restore the original dimension of hunting, Harrison advocates basic deep-
ecological principles of coexistence with nature, the extension of ethics, and the
extension of awareness.

The extension of ethics, a phrase coined by Adlo Leopold in Ajand
CounmAlmanac (1949/1974), signifies including animate and inanimate nature
in a system of ethical rules that traditionally has been applied to interhuman
relationships only. To acknowledge such land-ethics, two conditions have to be
fulfilled: the experience of a spiritual conversion must occur as a result of a direct
interaction with nature. Leopold illustrates these in his account of wolf hunting in

”Thinking Like a Mountain,” an essay written in 1944 and concerned with a

33

hunting trip undertaken at the peak of the conservationist era (1909) in Apache
National Forest. Leopold’s feelings after shooting a wolf are clearly incompatible
with the nationwide sentiments that endowed the policy of predator control with
a sense of heroic mission against useless vannint. What Leopold feels instead
of elation and pride in his skill is sadness and guilt at having participated in the
massive, thoughtless, and destructive campaign:

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her

eyes. I realized then and l have known ever since, that there was

something new to me in those eyes-something known only to her and to
the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch. Thought that
because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean
hunter’s paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither

the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view. (p. 138)

The realization of an interrelatedness in nature that far exceeds the simple-
minded causal relation between the number of deer and the number of wolves,
as well as an awareness of the far-reaching implications of every action
undertaken in nature, promoted the development of Leopold’s concept of land
ethics, which would endow human interaction with nature with the hitherto
unacknowledged moral considerations. The process of acquiring the ethical
outlooktoward nature begins—at least for Leopoldnwith the moment of conversion
and then follows through the stages of realizing one’s kinship with all components
of nature. Logically, this process begins with the species with whom we share
some basic affinities—like the mammalsnand then proceeds through the final

stage when one realizes the interconnectedness and kinship of all nature,

including the land itself. The conversion experience and the process of

34
developing land ethics is visible as far as most of Harrison’s protagonists are
concerned; however, most directly it is exemplified bythe fishermen and hunters.
Swanson in Wolf relates an experience that leads him to a realization of
an affinity between a hunter and prey: "When you hang up a deer and strip its
hide it looks a bit too human for my taste. I imagine there would be more
vegetarians if everyone slaughtered their own meat” (p. 117). The directness of
experience is juxtaposed to the alienation of a trophy hunter, as well as that of an
unimaginative consumer. Whereas Swanson includes mammals in his ethical
system, Joseph, the protagonist of Earmer, goes even further:
Joseph had never looked into a bird’s eye before and it had at least
temporarily unnerved him. He tried to ignore how nearly human the eyes
looked, but he couldn’t rid his mind totally of the idea: eyes are what we
hold most in common in terms of similarity to other beasts. He always
cringed when he hooked a fish in the eye. (p. 103)
The eye-to-eye view of the prey in the moment of its death is the archetype of the
Leopoldian conversion experience. It is supposed to leave the hunter aware of
the guilt involved in every killing, the mystery of death, and the bond between the
hunter and the hunted. The anthropomorphic vision of nature promotes
responsibility and self-restraint in participation in the ritual. If these elements are
missing, no official regulations can endow sport with ritualistic dimensions:
Game hoggery is not the point. The issue is much larger than human
greed. We have marked these creatures to be hunted and slaughtered,
and destroyed all but a remnant of their natural environment. But fish and
mammals must be considered part ofa larger social contract, andjust laws

for their protection enforced with great vigor. ('The Violators,” in Just
W. p. 65)

35

The conversion experience results in the awareness of the hunter as to the
mystical nature of every hunt and every death, but it also promotes the realization
that nature itself participates consciously in the event, just as in Leopold’s essay
where a mountain observes and reflects on human actions. Thus the hunter
perceives the hitherto unsuspected dimensions of nature and is less inclined to
take it for granted. In W, the recurrent theme of
pursuing a coyote involves the animal’s awareness of participating in a game:

I dress in camouflage and crawl
around swamps and forest, seeing
the bitch coyote five times but never
before she sees me. Her look
is curious, almost a smile.

Almost identical instance of huntinguor, rather, stalking—appear in farmer and
Wolf. The animals and inanimate nature clearly exceed the limitations imposed
on them by human perception. An observant nature cannot be taken for granted.
The venture into whatever wilderness is still available is based on breaking the
limitations of civilized perception and seeing nature as it is.

The belief in the awareness of nature affects the perception of the hunt.
It is by nature’s consent that the hunter sees it, or kills it, in his hunting enterprise.
The awareness of nature, and its consent. seem characteristic of the primitive
hunting mythology, which justified killing as a fact of life. In W,
Joseph Campbell (1988) discusses the ritualistic aspect of such hunting, where

the animals sacrifice themselves to the hunter in perpetuating the order of life:

"Killing is not simply a slaughter, it is a ritual act, as eating is when you say grace

36

before meals. A ritual act is a recognition of your dependency on the voluntary
giving of their food to you by the animal who has given its life. The hunt is a
ritual” (p. 72).

Harrison acknowledges the necessity of nature’s consent in any
meaningful kind of interaction. On the other hand, however, he opposes
endowing itwith the phantoms of our wishful thinking, instead claiming that "there
is no romance in the woods” ("P-6L,” p. 232). The human tendency to impose
meanings contaminates nature, a phenomenon referred to in "Passacaglia”:
“When we are lost we lose our peripheries. Our thoughts zoom outward and
Infect the landscape. It requires a particular kind of behavior to heal the location“
('PGL," p. 233). Nature, in Harrison’s view, is indifferent and splendid in its
indifference. This is where its healing powers start. Nature outside provides an
insight into nature within, a luxury that civilization excludes. ”When you are lost
you know who you are. You are the only one out there” ("PGL," p. 234).

It is not necessarily hunting or fishing that provides the setting for the
conversion experience. Quite a few of Harrison’s protagonists have never hunted
or fished before and only begin the long process of overcoming the alienation
from nature outside and within. These are the protagonists who have spent most
of their lives in the confines of the business or academic world, obliterating any
connection between their instincts and their life. This group, exemplified by
Nordstrom ("The Man Who Gave Up His Name”), Johnny Lundgren (Warlock),

Michael (Dalia), and finally Phillip Caulkins of ”Beige Dolorosa," begin their

37

education through walking and, most often, being lost in a relative wilderness of
the unfamiliar territory. They have spent their lives suffering from the predicament
identified by Dalva in relation to Michael: "Nothing was amiss except that he
seemed unaware that his head was connected in any meaningful way to his body.
He told me he once nearly drowned because he simply forgot to breathe" (Dalya,
p. 83). In other words, a state of alienation from their instincts and senses leads
them to a physical or mental breakdown. Harrison advocates walking, especially
night walking, eventually getting lost, as the simplest—however painful--antidote
to the alienation and self-destructiveness of a Civilized life. This experience is
bound to restore validity to the neglected senses because it promotes the ultimate
attentiveness toward the natural environment and immediate needs of the lost
protagonists. Once the situation demands that nature is no longer taken for
granted, conversion can take place: the protagonists begin the process of
”locating” themselves in nature. both in the metaphorical and the actual sense.
The attentiveness required by a correct interaction with nature is further magnified
ifthe interaction includes hunting or fishing-such occupations simply demand the
absence of excess baggage of thoughts that infect the landscape: “Effective
hunters learn to leave their selves at home, no doubt a skill that emerges from
survival instincts“ ("The Raw and the Cooked," p. 87).

Nature restores sanity. In Wolf it promotes Swanson’s escape from
destructive self-indulgence and provides a setting for his spiritual quest for a

“brother-wolf.” Staying close to nature implies getting over, at least temporarily,

38

self-destructive habits. Swanson ls aware that “with whiskey he would become
weeping and incompetent” (Wolf, p. 98); therefore, he forces himself into a
situation that excludes alcohol. Assuming that ”there is no romance in the
woods,” he does not expect a miracle; neither is he sure to see a wolf in the
daylight, nor does he hope to get over his addictions permanently. It is a time
warp, a temporary relief only, and Swanson is aware that ”nature does not heal,
it diverts. . . . lfl stayed I would go berserk and shrink into a wooden knot” (Wolf.
p. 192). In other words, he realizes that he belongs to both worlds, and although
his preference lies with the natural, he is neither fit nor willing to join it
permanently, no matter what he declares whenever his misanthropy takes over.
This attitude provides yet another link between Harrison’s encounters with nature
and those described by Edward Abbey (1968), who declares that:
Unlike Thoreau who insisted on one world at a time I am attempting to
make the best of two. After six months in the desert lam volunteering for
awinter offront-line combat duty—caseworker, public welfare department-
in the howling streets of Megalomania, U.S.A. Mostly for the sake of
private and selfish concerns, truly, but also for reasons of a more general
nature. After twenty-six weeks of sunlight and stars, wind and sky and
golden sand, I want to hear once more the crackle of clamshells on the
floor of the bar in the Clam Broth House in Hoboken. (p. 86)
Actually, this statement does not contradict Thoreau’s attitude because Thoreau
(1854/1985) himself declares: “I left the woods for as good a reason as I went
there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could
not spare any more time forthat one" (p. 584). This philosophy underlies the lives

of many of Harrison’s characters who look for strength rather than permanent

escape in nature.

39

Such strength is gained by acknowledging one’s limitations rather than by
the assertion of one’s supremacy. The sense of inadequacy experienced by
Harrison’s protagonists does not undermine the validity of their encounter with
nature. On the contrary, in order to make hunting meaningful, the protagonists
often restrain their potential. The kind of hunting performed by Joseph, Swanson,
or Strang (in the retrospective parts of Snoring) is consciously reduced to simple
means and chosen species, sometimes even to a definite setting, such as seeing
a wolf ”as a part of the day.” This kind of hunting provides a constant challenge,
even at the cost of obliterating any sense of superiority. Joseph pays with
irritation for the restrictions he has himself imposed in the course of extending his
ethical restrictions:

This made hunting much more difficult and his average bag dropped to the

level he owned as a neophyte; he could no longer "point shoot“ on instinct

at the flush but he had to wait an extra split second to make sure it was the
gray flush of a grouse rather than the golden brown of the woodcock.

(Earmer. p. 19)

Hunting is further restricted by the criterion of edibility because "to waste
game is the ultimate crime” (Banner, p. 18). The assumption that the game
hunted should be the game eaten gives natural limits to acquisitiveness and
denounces trophy hunting:

Hunger causes the purest form of acquisitiveness but our tradition always

overstepped hunger into the fields of hoarding and unlimited slaughter. . . .

The dolt who stands smiling before the hundred crows he shot should be

forced at gun point to eat them, feathers, beaks, feet and offal. (”Sporting
Life,” p. 164)

40

To maintain the ritualistic quality of hunting, the hunters have to utilize the
game instead of offending it by wastefulness. This criterion is strict; even hunger
does not always provide an excuse. Swanson’s hunger-ridden temptation,
"maybe I’ll shoot a deer and eat it all, eyes, rumen, make hoof soup out of the
hoofs” (Wolf, p. 170), is counterbalanced with an even more desperate resolution:
”better to eat roots and leave the deer for the necessary sportsmen” (Wolf, p.
170). In leaving the deer for the necessary sportsmen, the protagonist
acknowledges collective responsibility for the whole human intrusion and resolves
to minimize his own.

Giving up killing, the culmination of the hunt, is a frequent theme in
Harrison’s novels. Hunting as a metaphor for humans challenging nature has
evolved through the stage where it is sighting that counts. The bears, for
instance, are avoided by both Swanson and Strang because the encounter might
result in an unnecessary death for either side. That coyote and wolves are
pursued to be seen is a theme that recurs in IALQII. Earmen ”Passacaglia,” and
W. It is an almost obsessive pursuit, an ultimate
test of attentiveness and awareness. As such, the pursuit pushes aside other
obsessions and restores peace of mind to the hunter. Also, it provides an
education derived from seeing oneself from the perspective of the animal whose
mind the hunter tries to penetrate. This is illustrated by Joseph, who realizes that

”the coyote had obviously been watching him during the week. Joseph could

41
almost see through the coyote’s eyes as he laughed with the embarrassment of
an amateur” (EarmeL p. 24).

Hunting without killing is predominantly of spiritual importance. It restores
the ritualistic dimension to the predatory instinct and provides magic to heal the
hunters and locations: ”Magic, as opposed to the hocus pocus of miracles, is
equated to the quality of attentiveness, the ultimate attentiveness" (”PGL,” p.
232). Having transmitted the hunt to the spiritual dimension, the hunters make
up for the heritage of the demythologized, predatory behavior of contemporary
civilization. A search for the animal with whom one would like to identify brings
about the notions of the primitive/Native American puberty rites, of the quest for
one’s totem animal, source of strength and wisdom. The kind of restraint and
self-denial required by such a search is occasionally displayed by Swanson,
Joseph, Strang, and Brown Dog in ”The Seven-Ounce Man.” The quest for one’s
own identity in the natural world is the main objective of Harrison’s version of
hunting. This quest is directed toward a symbolical merging with the pursued
animal: ”I’ve knelt down and she went into me, becoming part of my body and
skeleton” (Wolf, p. 86). This event, a part of the author’s actual dream ("The Art
of Fiction,” p. 96), recurs in most of his works, including the latest one where
Brown Dog, a perennial misfit, derives his strength from the bear skin as well as
bear dreams:

He couldn’t very well leave his most prized possession behind. He hadn’t

slept outside in it yet, as Claude had instructed, because the nights had

been pretty cold. Also, he had forgotten to. He lowered the skin with the
Clothesline and pulley, and embraced it, his father bear. . . . There was the

42

mildly troubling thought that bears can help you if you stay out in their
world, but not in your own. ("The Seven-Ounce Man," in Julia, p. 174)

Despite Brown Dog’s fears, the help extends to his actual life as well
because "father bear" provides a psychologically valid substitute for the
protagonist’s unknown parents and links him in a meaningful way to his Native
American heritage. Also, the bear disguise-or identity—provides an element of
surprise, which saves Brown Dog from being arrested for interfering with the
excavation of an ancient burial site. As in other stories, the protagonist’s spiritual
quest for the totem animal is reinforced by actual encounters, one with an
inhabited bear den, the other one with the animal itself. In both cases, Brown Dog
does not even think of shooting; instead he "couldn’t remember when he felt
happier" (Julio, p. 174).

In addition to the already mentioned restrictions on hunting, Harrison’s
protagonists share to a varying extent the physical disability of the author. The
narrator of Stinging, Swanson in Wolf, and to some extent Warlock, are partially
blind due to a childhood injury. Similarly, Joseph’s nephew "had lost an eye in an
accident and Joseph supposed that gave them some kind of kinship. They
hunted and fished together" (Banner, p. 6). Joseph’s leg is twisted after a
childhood accident, and Strang is reduced to crawling, if he wants to move at all.
Their ventures into the wilderness demand overcoming weakness, and thus
provide the possibility of regaining self-confidence. In this respect, the disabled
manifest certain superiority over the fit ones, more skill and determination derived

from being close to nature than the norm usually prescribes, which is a necessity

43

in their condition. Strang’s crawling or swimming is representative of the general
intensity of his life, being in touch with his true self, determining his movements
in close proximity to the natural.

Hunting in Harrison’s works, except for providing the link between body
and mind, as well as the hunter and the animal, is also a criterion for judging
interhuman relations. It involves claiming the immediate heritage, taking over
one’s father’s occupation or his favorite pastime. Metaphorically, it also involves
human heritage in general through inheriting the instincts ofthe primitive hunters.
The close relationship between Joseph and his father, or Swanson, his sister, and
their father, are described in terms of their hunting together. Joseph, Swanson,
and Brown Dog are equally disoriented when deprived of the authority of their
fathers. Again, in a symbolic sense this may illustrate the confused state of
modern consciousness deprived of the link with the primitive past and natural life.

The bonds and alliances between the protagonists are established on the
basis of shared hunting experiences and the mutual appreciation of skills. The
understanding of each other’s hunting obsessions implies general spiritual
kinship. These relationships are capable of enduring the crises of the civilized
life, a frequent theme in Earmer, illustrated by Joseph’s relationships with Orin,
Doctor Evans, and Catherine’s father. Furthermore, the attitude toward hunting
on the woman’s part influences Joseph’s choice of a life’s companion; hence,

Joseph rejects mundane Catherine, who thinks "it’s stupid and brutal to go

44
hunting" (Earmer, p. 36), and chooses Rosealee, who views his resumed grouse
hunting as a "return to normalcy" (Banner, p. 24).

In this choice, just as in any other his protagonists make, Harrison
demonstrates his preference for nature over civilization, the senses over mind,
and the older over the recent. Education for Harrison is the matter of a first-hand
experience. The author values instinctive knowledge, understood as Jungian
collective unconscious, higher than acquired scholarship. Consequently, in an
interview for W, Harrison Claims that "the people at Morrill Hall
(Michigan State University) bore me. A farmer who lives with an allegiance to a
200 thousand year old agricultural cycle is infinitely more interesting to talk to.
They notice things, their heads aren’t so full that they can’t see things" ("A Good
Day for Talking," p. 16). The heroes of his novels and short stories are often
portrayed in the process of exchanging the volume of abstract knowledge for the
direct experience of natural phenomena, a process that is often painful, especially
for the protagonist of "Beige Dolorosa" or Michael in Dalva: "I came upon a creek
and recalled that the aggressive geese of the morning were dithering along the
creek, but was it the same one? This was becoming a problem that a dozen
years of graduate school hadn’t prepared me for" (Dana, p. 1 16). The preference
for the first-hand knowledge recurs in poetry:

There must be a difference between looking
at the picture of a bird

and the actual bird (barn swallow)
fifteen feet from my nose on the shed.

(Wills. P. 166)

45

The birds are not scientifically researched, but nevertheless they are very
specific. Ideally, they are also given names that replace the imperfect
approximations of scientific terms. This is Phillip Caulkin’s way of establishing
ties with the natural world in "Beige Dolorosa," as well as Brown Dog’s tribute to
his heritage: "Gaagaafhirrnh! I found this on my notepad I kept for Shelley. It is
the word theChips use for raven. . . . Sounds like one if you say it right, not too
loud from the throat’s back end" ("The Seven-Ounce Man," in Julio, p. 114).

A similar tribute to uniqueness is required by locations because nature
consists of facts, not ideas. In this respect, Harrison teams from an old Chippewa
who "was somehow disturbed . . . when it occurred to him that people didn’t know
that every single tree was different from every other single tree" ("PGL," p. 234).
In relation to locations, Harrison advocates the highly personal attitude
characteristic of the Native American: Close knowledge of the land and its
characteristics. The "puberty rites" of his protagonists are also Characteristic of
an attempt to learn from the native experience how to live fully and identify with
one’s own actions and surroundings. It is only the lifelong process of learning
from nature that can provide any Claim to affinity with Native American tradition.
Harrison often draws attention to the diffictu of such an endeavor, a
characteristic most visible in relation to Swanson and Brown Dog. However, the
author treats the inevitable blunders of his protagonists gently; their attempts at
living deliberately may be presented in a mock-heroic manner, yet not ridiculed.

On the other hand, any superficial claims to understanding the Indians, not

46

supported by any efforts to share their worldview, are the target of ridicule or
criticism. Brown Dog’s attitude toward his archaeologist girlfriend Shelly and her
colleagues, as well as Dalva’s attack on Michael, exemplifies this trait:

"Before you get too folksy why don’t you admit your position is essentially

feminist? You are a woman, and by some sort of dull-witted extension you

identify your womanhood with these defeated people. . . ."

"That’s what I mean!" I interrupted so loudly I heard Andrew stumble in the

kitchen. "You sit here scratching your dick under the table in a state of

total unwitting identification with the victors. Your weapon is your

doctorate in history which you suppose entitles you to open all doors. I

don’t identify with anyone. Indians are Indians." (Dalva, p. 38)
Harrison resents the shallow logic, preconceived notions, and indirect knowledge
apparent in Michael’s categorization of Indians, and in the course of the novel
juxtaposes itwith the only true claim to understanding the indigenous history-that
of Northridge, whose diaries Michael studies. The distinction between the
superficial and actual relationship with Native American tradition parallels that
between sport and the art of hunting in relation to nature. In both cases,
ignorance, alienation, and a sense of superiority are the common denominators
of the former attitude, whereas awe, gratitude, and guilt characterize the latter.

As a metaphorical conclusion to the contemporary hunting, Harrison
proposes another solution of Native American origin: the rituals of appeasement.
The sense of guilt burdening humans in relation to nature calls for the ritual that
Swanson dreams of performing: "perhaps resuscitate a few animal skins stolen

from coat racks and parlor floors. Pile them in a giant mound by the thousands

until I sense that there are enough for a proper funeral" (Wolf, p. 192). To

47

resuscitate the extinct nature, contemporary hunters have to go back to the
ancient frame of mind, where interaction with the environment was sacred and
had to be performed with reverence and care in order to ensure survival.
Harrison’s literary heritage is a matter of frequent consideration. As far as
the hunting theme is concerned, Hemingway is the obvious association, however
unwelcome by Harrison himself. The author claims that "somebody tells you
because you are fascinated with fishing and hunting you’re like Hemingway.
Well, that’s nonsense" ("A Good Day for Talking," p. 20). Nevertheless, written
within a similar low-brow tradition and dealing with a similar subject matter,
Harrison’s works do bear a close resemblance to those by Hemingway, exploring
the theme of healing nature, solitude, and adventure. This, however, is the point
where real similarity ends. Unfortunately, the superficial associations extend
further, describing both authors as "macho" due to their preoccupation with fishing
and hunting, as well as their attitude toward women. This classification is the
subject of William H. Robertson’s (1988) "Macho Mistake: The Mispresentation
of Jim Harrison’s Fiction":
It is a well-established practice of reviewers and literary critics to place
writers quickly and succinctly within critical niches, the better to control and
even dilute the power of their work. And while there are certainly elements
in his work that tend credence to a male-dominated view of it, to label
Harrison a macho writer is a particularly myopic critical perception of his
fiction. (p. 235)
In the course of his essay, Robertson analyzes several definitions of machismo

applied by the critics (Jonathan Yardley, Sara Blackburn, Peter S. Prescott) to

Harrison’s work and demonstrates their superficiality and oversimplifications:

48

Harrison’s protagonists may aspire to the "tough guy" image, but for most
part it is all affectation. They are Characters constantly questioning
themselves, their lives, their purposes. They get lost in the woods, are
afraid of the dark, fumble with guns. Any pretense at macho is more an
example of their own narcissism, vanity, and false pride than any reflection

of male dominance. (p. 237)

By pointing out that Harrison deflates rather thanglorifies the macho ideal,
Robertson makes a valid point, especially as far as the hunting and fishing
subject is concerned. Even though these activities traditionally imply virility and
superiority over nature, they demand just the opposite attitude if they are to be
presented as successful or meaningful in Harrison’s novels. It is not dominance
over nature but submission to it that Harrison’s protagonists seek. Also, the virile
attitude appears inferior to the subconscious, passive wisdom of "Mother Nature,
not Father Nature." This point raised by Harrison in an interview ("A Good Day
for Talking," p. 71) is characteristic of the author’s criticism of contemporary
culture, which, among other instances of alienation from instincts, leads a mean
to "give up his twin-sister, the feminine side" ("The Art of Fiction," p. 73).

The Jungian concept of lost anima accounts often for the
misunderstandings between the male protagonists and their natural surroundings,
while the women are presented at being at home in nature. This theme appears
most directly in Warlock, whereas both Thomas Mahler Gilligan (1984) in "Myth
and Reality in Warlock" and Robertson (1988) in "Macho Mistake" point out that
it is Johnny Lundgren who gets lost in the woods, while his wife Diana, an

"amateur botanist, birdwatcher, butterfly catcher" (Warlock, p. 43), easily locates

the car as well as inspires confidence in Warlock’s dog, Hudley. The recent

49

works, Qalya, "Woman Lit by Fireflies," and Julio, written in female voice, mark
the author’s attempt to transcend the male perspective and to view male
protagonists from a distance. In doing so, Harrison creates strong female
characters, possibly in the hope of denouncing the accusation that women in his
fiction are nothing but the sum total of macho illusions, but also to explore more
aspects of modern consciousness: "As a novelist you don’t want to withhold the
evidence. I think that’s the error in some of Hemingway’s fiction, as opposed to
Faulkner, who had more of a tendency to allow them tobe whole human beings.
Hemingway had a tendency to the ideology" ("A Good Day for Talking," p. 23).

Drawing on his personal experience, Harrison admits that the heroic male
image had indeed a certain appeal: "All the mindless sins of youth committed in
the haze of reading Edgar Rice Burroughs, Zane Grey, James Oliver Cunvvood,
Jack London and Ernest Seaton; wanting to be a steely half-breed Robert
Mitchum type with hatchet, revolver, cartridge belt and along mane of hair trained
with bear grease" ("The Violators," in W, p. 70). However,
Harrison's mocking tone, and the context of his youthful hunting and fishing
transgressions that follows, deflate the image and point to its potential ability to
promote a destructive "cowboy consciousness." Consequently, Harrison’s and
Hemingway’s treatments of the subject differ considerably, especially their
respective visions of big—game hunting. Fishing, however, in the two writers’
fiction, provides more ground for comparison, even though Hemingway’s
fishermen tend toward the heroic, whereas Harrison’s protagonists display

Characteristic "goofiness." This could be the reason for the lack of critical

50

references to the similarity between the message of IheflliManjndjhem
and Harrison’s vision of humility, kinship, and gratitude as necessary components
of human interaction with nature. The mature heroism of Santiago does not
seem comparable with the theme of overcoming adolescent illusions in relation
to nature and selfthat underlies most of Harrison’s hunting and fishing accounts.
Harrison presents his protagonists in a state of acknowledging their ignorance of
nature, an initial stage of education that bears closer resemblance to the truth of
contemporary human interaction with the environment than the heroics of
Hemingway’s hunters. Consequently, although Harrison appreciates such
instances of Hemingwayan apprenticeship as those present in lslandanJhe
Stream, he generally "finds much of his writing dated, worn to parody over time.
Besides, he much prefers the dark bends and deep undercurrents of Faulkner
and identifies with the southerner’s evocation of place and space" (Bevier, 1988,
p. 16).

The identification with Faulkner seems most apparent in the vision of a
greedy and short-sighted civilization whose inevitable advance brings about the
destruction of nature. Hunting as a metaphor of such process, and hunting as an
obsession and spiritual quest, present in "The Bear," Closely resemble Harrison’s
theme. Nature’s superiority and awareness of participation in the hunt—however
unnatural the hunt has becomeualso constitute strong parallels, as well as the
idea of one’s spiritual growth and education through hunting. In this respect,

however, the setting of most of Harrison’s novels is post-Faulknerian: "When

51

Joseph was a child there was still a bear in the swamp but someone had shot it
down for reasons buried in time" (Earmer, p. 5). The motif of a shot bear recurs
in Wolf, Julia, and "The Seven-Ounce Man." Harrison’s protagonists live too late
to participate in the kind of hunting that Faulkner presents, and too late to
participate in a ritualistic transition from the wild to the civilized world. They are
already faced with the reality of "diminishing wilderness around them, the
truncated freedom of movement" ("The Violators," in Justfletoreflarls. p. 68).

Harrison’s legacy goes further back than Hemingway and Faulkner. The
hunting experiences of his protagonists are almost transcendental in shedding off
the layers of self-consciousness and self-absorbance. Swanson, Joseph, and
Strang constantly test their self-reliance and display a substantial amount of Civil
disobedience. The parallels with Thoreau are most evident in Swanson’s case,
in his attempt to live deliberately in the woods, at least for the time being.

The more recent parallels, as far as American nature writing is concerned,
include, but do not end with, Aldo Leopold and Edward Abbey. The theme of the
indifference of nature, its value in itself, and preference for less frequented places
resembles closely the leading motifs of Edward Abbey’s (1968) Deseclfielitaire.
as well as the "inhumanism" of Robinson Jeffers’s poetry. Both share with
Harrison the dislike for the intruding civilization and the praise of nature left to its
own devices. Also, there is a considerable amount of sheer misanthropy that
links the works of the three authors. Whereas Jeffers (1935) rejoices in the fact

that a rock may and will survive the turmoil of civilization, Abbey (1968) declares

52

that he would sooner kill a human being than a rattlesnake, and Harrison’s
protagonist complies: "This may seem pointlessly sentimental but I would rather
shoot a human than a grizzly or a wolf' (Walt, p. 117).

The extension of ethics, conversion experience, wider perspective of
humanity, and closer scrutiny of nature constitute the already mentioned parallels
with Aldo Leopold and his concept of land ethics. Another theme of Leopold’s
writings, the awareness of nature, also links Harrisonto Barry Lopez’s (1986)
Arctigflreams, Richard Nelson’s (1989) IberlaniWithln, and Annie Dillard’s

(1974) W. The critical outlook upon the "sporting myth" and

satirical treatment of contemporary America are a strong parallel between
Harrison and Thomas McGuane. The strongest link, however, in the field of deep
ecology exists between the works of Harrison and Gary Snyder. Snyder’s poetry
and essays contain the essence of the new ecological perspective. The themes
of overpopulation, excessive urbanization, vanishing wilderness, human greed,
and the wisdom of the Native American perspective overlap within the works of
the two writers.

"If the cave bears were not appeased, the animals would not appear and
the primitive hunters would starve to death. They began to perceive some kind
of power on which they were dependent, a power greater than their own"
(Campbell, 1988, p. 75). This passage summarizes the situation faced by
Harrison’s hunting protagonists. Harrison juxtaposes two types of hunting, one

characteristic of our competitive world, the other an escape from it. The

53

predominant type of hunting, typical of the abusive, usurped dominance over
nature, deprived of a spiritual basis, understanding, and perspective, destroys the
natural balance as well as the sanity of the hunter. Greed, characteristic of such
hunting as well as contemporary civilization, will, according to Harrison, result in
an ecological and a spiritual void: "The implosion rather than an explosion is due.
Perhaps deep in the bowels of Montana the absence of buffalo prepares a non
stampede" (Wolf, p. 94). However pessimistic this prophesy seems, Harrison
endows his protagonists with a possibility of an individual redemption—he
advocates a very specific, difficult version of encountering nature as a means of

finding oneself, overcoming alienation, and living deliberately.

CHAPTER III

THOMAS McGUANE: HUNTING AND SANITY

A world in which a sacramental portion of food can be taken in an
old way—hunting, fishing, farming and gathering-has as much to do
with societal sanity as a day’s work for a day’s pay.

(McGuane, 1980)

McGuane’s Insistence on performing fishing and hunting in the "old way"
parallels Harrison’s notion of an "ancient art of gathering and hunting our food."
McGuane, however, deserves a separate treatment in this respect because his
fiction, especially W and Nmetyjnamnthefihade. explores the
tragicomic complications of seeking redemption in nature on the social, not only
individual, level. Whereas the process of destruction of nature by our
contemporary civilization often constitutes a background for modern outdoors
writing, it is the process of selfldestruction of our CiviliZation, most visible when
we interact with nature, that interests McGuane. Consequently, whereas most
contemporary outdoor writing concentrates on the possibility of individual retreat
from oppressive Civilization, McGuane’s fiction and essays in their treatment of
human interaction with nature are equally concerned with the failure of such a

retreat on a mass scale. The similarity with Harrison’s statement that "there is

clearly not enough wilderness left for those who desire it" ("Passacaglia on

54

55

Getting Lost," p. 232) is striking, yet the two authors differ in their treatment of the
subject because McGuane—with the exception of his autobiographical Angutslde
WWW-4s concerned with the social, rather than individual,
perception of nature. Whereas Harrison, along with other contemporary
representatives of ecological outlook in outdoor writing—Richard Nelson, Gary
Snyder, or Barry Lopez, for instance-demonstrates the validity of unconventional
(native, primitive) perceptions of nature, McGuane concentrates on the
destructive clichés of the mainstream perspective.

Societal sanity is often missing in McGuane’s vision of contemporary
America—or "Hotcakesland," as he calls it in Mnetyfl'tmunthejhada. "Nobody
knows, from sea to shining sea, why we are having all this trouble with our
republic," the author states in the opening sentence of the novel, suggesting not
only the subject of Mnetyflmnthefihafie, but also the underlying concern of
most of his works. Life in contemporary America involves dealing on a daily basis
with "toxic winds, block meetings, bulletproof taxicab partitions and adventures
with the Internal Revenue Service" ("Close to the Bone," in ArLQutsideQDangg,
p. 67). In short, it is a life of alienation from the immediate sensation of living,
where technological convenience is balanced with administrative complications
and both separate humans from nature. A social security number, not
individuality and thought, proves that one is alive, and the future of "the republic”
depends on that assumption: "What was Count Tolstoy’s social security number?

If you don’t answer that in one second, the Republic is Dead" (Wattle

56

Shade, hereafter NIS, p. 77). Such an assumption leads to a pessimistic view
of the whole western culture:

Kafira as a remittance man. Van Gogh clipping coupons by the sea.

Dostoyevski with a four foot string of credit cards. San Juan de la Cruz

peering out of a condominium as though room service had used Cheap

triple sec in his margarita. (N13, p. 59)

America, McGuane often suggests. celebrates mediocrity. As Thomas R.
Edwards (1973) points out:

McGuane can find little but the plastic-and-neon "hotcakesland" of

commercialized America, where . . . everybody is named Don or Stacy and

the imagination of death—the only thing left of meaning after the loss of

God, country and family-4s safely muffled by the consumer goods that

swaddle us. (p. 2)

Faced with thoughtless mediocrity all around them, McGuane’s protago-
nists attempt to find their own logic, which inevitably is inconsistent with
mainstream norms. Metaphorically or literally, they look for a direct relationship
between a day’s work and a day’s pay. As the opening quotation suggests, such
a relationship may be found in nature; thus, McGuane’s hero often is "driving hard
after some lost primeval virtue, trying to remember what Faulkner would have said
he never even knew. For these young men, the overriding virtues are the old
ones, the culled bits of frontier ethics and inviolate wilderness verifies that used
to define American manhood" (Katz, 1979, p. 38).

This solution appears simple and obvious--it has been explored in
American literature ever since the Romantics juxtaposed destructive Civilization

with the redemptive powers of nature. The importance of McGuane’s work in this

respect lies in his treatment of the subject, "a very different consciousness from

57

the old hook-and-bullet style of outdoor writing . . . a strong sense of conservation
and ethics," noted by Jim Fergus (1989, p. 44) in his interview of McGuane. This
feature links McGuane, as Fergus points out, to Jim Harrison and other
representatives of an ecological perspective in contemporary outdoor writing.

Ihefipgrtingfilub, published in 1969, is McGuane’s first novel. It is also
an ideal starting point for a discussion of McGuane’s vision of society, sanity, and
outdoor sports because the relationship among these three is central to the novel.
Ihefiportingflub anticipates the rest of McGuane’s fiction, with its recurrent
image of protagonists juxtaposed in a duel against the background of a
compromised society and a ravaged environment. In Ihafiportlngflub, more
so than in any of McGuane’s later novels, the crisis of Civilization-and of
individual protagonists-49 triggered by misconceptions about nature.

The action of Wt: takes place in the microcosm of the
Centennial Club in northern Michigan, where the members of local "nobility,"
businessmen, executives, and managers, find an outlet for their weekday
frustrations in hunting and fishing. Their view of natureuas a background for
masculine assertions-is characteristic of the mainstream American perception,
that of anthropocentric utilitarianism. Their hunting is competitive and acquisitive;
it is aided by expensive equipment and the sense of hereditary privilege. It is also
incompetent, which becomes most apparent when their efforts are compared to
the hunting and fishing performed by the manager of the club, Olson:

When the members came swarming out of the woods with their guns and
high bred animals and empty hands to find Olson, with his unspeakable

58
Springer spaniel at his feet, turning a pair of effortlessly collected grouse
over a small bed of hardwood coals, or when they found him with a creel
full of insect fed trout and had to conceal the seven-inch, mud-colored
hatchery trout that looked more like a cheap Cigar than a fish and that they

had almost smashed their two hundred dollar rod getting; when all that
happened, they wanted to call the annual meeting right then and tell the

interloper to get off the property before they got a cop. (Ihefipndingfluh.

hereafter SQ. p. 62)

The unfavorable comparison to Olson triggers anger, not humility, because
the purpose of the club is to assert, not question, the members’ egos. Because
the well-being of the members’ egos is more important than the well-being of the
Club territory, Olson is summarily fired and replaced. In firing Olson, whose
management has proven beneficial to the Centennial Club over the years, and
replacing him with Earl Olive, whose questionable past in the "live-bait business"
is his claim to environmental experience, the members demonstrate their naive
conviction that nature will forever continue to provide gratification, regardless of
environmental abuse. McGuane illustrates this attitude in the speech made by
"representative John Olds, R. Mich.," whose views indeed represent the
mainstream perspective:

Olson was a useful man. Which of us would deny that? But he was

headstrong. He was hard to handle. He was a thorn in our sides. We are

pleased to have him out of our hair. All this talk of property degenerating
makes me tired. These woods and streams have a natural tendency to
maintain themselves. We need a janitor and we got one from the looks of
this Olive. But whoever we have, our children, and our children’s children
will frequent these lands in perpetuam. The traditions of the Centennial
Club, thanks to its board of directors, will continue de profilndis. (SC, p.
105)

State legislator John Olds exemplifies the American mainstream

perception of nature as an unlimited playground, matched with the mainstream’s

59

reluctance to acknowledge any obligations toward the natural environment. This
perception is juxtaposed with that of Olson, for whom "hunting and fishing were
forms of husbandry because he guaranteed the life of the country himself' (SQ,
p. 62). McGuane further qualifies the division between these two attitudes by
analyzing the reasons for the members’ resentment of Olson: "They wanted to
be the heroes and Olson made them look like buffoons when accident forced
comparison. In short they wanted to kill as he killed without the hard earned ritual
that made it sane" (SC, p. 62). The wish to dominate over nature, without
undertaking the effort to know it first, backfires in the course of the novel. The
conflict between the new manager and the members of the club results in the
destruction of the Club as well as the destruction of any semblance of social order.
The club becomes a background for the frantic manhunt and violent
confrontationua logical outcome of the destructive tendencies that first surface
when Olson is fired.

The division between the members and Olson represents the extremes of
contemporary environmental perspectives. The members, who are clearly in the
majority here, unfortunately exemplify the prevailing mode of relating to nature,
which ultimately proves illogical and absurd because, in the course of asserting
dominance over the club, they destroy it. Olson, in turn, exemplifies the
awareness of interdependence in nature and human dependence on its balance:

His years of poaching on club property gave him knowledge of it all. He

knew where salt licks had to go, what crop had to grow in the open valleys

and when it had to be knocked down to make winterfeed for the game
birds; he knew how to keep the lake from filling with weeds and reverting

60

to swamp; he knew where herons and mergansers were glutting them-
selves with trout fry and had to be discreetly bumped off with his twenty-
two Hornet; he understood completely how to intimidate professional
poachers from the nearby towns who, if they found one Chink in his
mysterious armor, would run like locust over the tote roads at night,
shining deer with aircraft landing lights and spearing trout in the weed

beds. (SC. p. 61)

It is not the environmental consciousness itself, however, but rather its firm
and logical implementation that separates Olson’s attitude from the absurd self-
destructiveness of the mainstream perspective. He is a poacher, yet "a serious
sportsman, with rigid and admirable ideas of sporting demeanor” (SQ, p. 60). He
does not carry his feelings for nature to the sentimental extreme of "ecology
purists [who] imagine the anglers as ghouls who want to hurt the little fish with
sharp hooks hidden in chicken feathers. The versions overlap in new
permutations of absurdity" ("Twilight on the Buffalo Paddock," in An_Qut§ide
Change, p. 32). Olson’s attitude toward nature is realistic and nondestructive: in
this context, his hunting and fishing appears justifiable and sane. In this respect,
Olson resembles Aldo Leopold, whom McGuane, as well as Jim Harrison,
characterizes as an exemplary outdoorsman: "His conscience was clean
because his hunting was part of a larger husbandry in which the life of the country
was enhanced by his own work. He knew that game populations are not
bothered by hunting until they are already too precious and that precarious game
populations should not be hunted" ("The Heart of the Game," in An_0_utsitl_e
Change, p. 235). This parallel, as well as the actual references to Leopold’s

environmental perspective, is not explored in W. McGuane

61

discusses "redemptive" hunting later, in Ninetyfimmthefihade and We
W. In W, the author concentrates on the
negative rather than positive aspects of human interaction with nature; therefore,
he devotes more attention to the members of the club than to its manager.

Whereas the members and Olson are divided due to their insurmountable
differences in perceptions of nature, the protagonists ofIheSpQrtlngClub, James
Quinn and Vemor Stanton, are both opponents and allies. Their first meeting in
the novel is a confrontation: upon Stanton’s insistence they stage a wax-bullet
duel. This encounter is characteristic of their relationship throughout the action
of the novel. It is also McGuane’s favorite theme, "the perilous testing of man
against man, the bonding of male aggressions in a violent rivalry that may also
bethe mode of understanding and even love" (Edwards, 1973, p. 1). Stanton and
Quinn are opponents because they employ different strategies in dealing with the
establishment. Quinn, dangerously Close to becoming a member of the
establishment himself, tries to regain perspective in the detachment of intellectual
skepticism as well as solitary fishing expeditions. Stanton, in turn, exasperated
by the absurdity of society in general and the Centennial Club membership in
particular, acts as a catalyst for crises that bring this absurdity to full light. While
Quinn mourns the degradation of the Centennial Club and the destruction of his
fishing refuge, Stanton contributes to the collapse of the club by voicing the
resentment against Olson, the feeling that the members fear to express. Quinn

represses his annoyance with "what the club stands for" (the members’ favorite

me

be

62

empty phrase) in hopes that eventually he will be left alone and permitted to fish.
Stanton urges the members to explore the cliche by cheering them on in their
most absurd endeavors. "Short of the pieties of woodland life to which the club
subscribed so heartily," McGuane says, "nothing pleased them more than
intemecine strife. Stanton knew how to manage this impulse. In the episode with
Olson Quinn saw the beginnings of something catastrophic" (SC, p. 68). Quinn
represents the conservative force, hoping that imperfect, predictable order is
better than none. Even though his disapproval of the status quo occasionally
tempts him to undermine the established order, his newly found alliance with the
establishment just as often accounts for the opposite view of reality. Thus, Quinn
thinks "the hell with these unreckonable quantities. I’m a businessman. Besides,
the lake was for women and Children. If you didn’t want to shoot, drink, or fish you
were to have joined the Y" (SC, p. 116). Stanton, whose wealth and family
tradition link him to the establishment, does not perpetuate this link by active
participation in the business world. Consequently, he tends to view society from
the outside, while his angle is sharpened by depression. Unable to tolerate the
status quo any more, he is the agent of its destruction.

The protagonists are also allies against the social norms of the
mainstream. Their friendship, dating back to their adolescence, has always been
marked by metaphorical—or literal—"mooning" of society, exposing the ugly reality

beyond the complacent exterior. Initially, their rationale was clear—they rebelled

63

against the obvious flaws in the social order. McGuane presents such an
instance of Stanton’s rebellion in the context of distorted hunting:

When he was young, Stanton was most insistent about the matters of right

and wrong; of this there is a prime example: The members discovered

that they couldn’t wallow voluptuously in stocks and shares all week and

break brush to grouse-shoot in the northern thicket on the weekend. So,

it occurred to them that the really great thing would be to shoot driven

game as Harold Macmillian did. Local boys were hired for the dangerous

work. Children of members were forbidden as being a more valuable
commodity than the native weed. Quinn and Stanton surreptitiously joined

the line of beaters to drive the birds out of the swamps to the elegant

sports waiting on high ground. . . . The shooting started and the beaters

got spattered with pellets. The younger boys sat down to cry. Stanton got

stung on the face but kept going until he found the gunners. He gathered

weapons; at first, by surprise and then at gun point. (SQ, p. 179)

McGuane presents Stanton’s rebellion against such a twisted version of
hunting as a justifiable one because, in resenting this instance of selfish stupidity,
Stanton came closest to uncovering the underlying problems of society, especially
the arrogant abuse of power, visible both within society and in its idea of hunting.
Stanton’s and Quinn’s subsequent offenses are against the effects rather than the
ca uses of American absurdity; therefore, "the justice of his more extreme actions,
though he retained his moral tone, became obscure" (SC. p. 179). Consequently,
Stanton and Quinn begin to lose their perspective. The former sinks into
depression, the latter into the establishment. They begin to resent each other.
Stanton accuses Quinn of losing the edge, of "slipping" (SC, p. 18), and Quinn
DOInts out that Stanton’s "clowning" hurts allies (Janey, Olson, and Quinn himself)

rather than the establishment (SC. p. 78).

64

During the action of W, Stanton and Quinn once again try
to put an end to a hunt that discredits the society. Quinn, however, does not want
to follow the mob logic and attempts persuasion before he switches to physical
force. His attempts fail, and he ends up in captivity, "pushed along beside Olive
who was slung from a pole by his hands and ankles" (SC. p. 215). Stanton is
more successful in spoiling the members’ revenge because his course of action
is consistent with the frenzy that overcomes the members, .and his display of
superior power is the only argument the mob cannot ignore:

They entered the compound, the men and women trudging, the Children

dancing out ahead with lanterns. They were brought up short. Sitting in

the hole where the time capsule had been removed was Stanton. He had
set up a tripod-mounted, air cooled machine gun and he looked set on

mayhem. (SC, p. 216)

Throughout the action of W, Stanton’s mission is to
demonstrate to the members what the club really "stands for." Their relapse into
primitive modes of behavior as soon as the superficial order is destroyed—the
territory and the manager fail to provide the expected service—proves that the club
lacks the order and refinement it is supposed to embody. Quinn observes that
"something had gone with the buildings" (55, p. 146), thus commenting on the
rapid disappearance of the Club’s Claim to civilization. This apocalyptic vision
concerns not only the club, but also the possible future of America because their
summarized histories are parallel:

There was shelter, Indians, northern lights; in the beginning wolf and lynx

challenged women, children, picnic tables. The founders dreamt of a
better life, a place in the forest that would be safe for their own kind, for

65

their hopes, their hibachi dreams. The forests flowed to the cities and
financed such dreams. (SC, p. 149)

The savage inclinations of the members in the time of crisis can be viewed as
Characteristic of America in general, as Quinn claims in his conversation with the
tarred-and-feathered leader of the mob, Fortescue:

"These people have gone haywire tonight."

"I think so."

"The world isn’t like this, is it?”

"I think it is." (SC. p. 213)

Having brought the crisis into the open, Stanton fulfills his self-imposed
mission. This fulfillment, however, also terminates Stanton’s status as a sane
person. In the process of exposing the insanity of society, Stanton undermines
his own. He is considered potentially dangerous due to the extremity of his
actions. He also suffers an actual breakdown because the destruction of the club
deprives him of his sense of mission. He persists, however, in his efforts to
demonstrate "what society stands for." In the conclusion of the novel, he buys the
compromised club and remains there, institutionalized. Once again, Stanton
Personifies the tendencies inherent in contemporary society, which are to destroy
and possess the environment at the cost of personal freedom and sanity.

Stanton’s attitude and fate, as well as Quinn’s, are hinted at during their
first fishing expedition in the novel. Both protagonists disengage from the
predictable and ridiculous social event at the club and go fishing with Olson to

take advantage of the evening hatch. Other members, typically, are not even

66

aware that their welcome party conflicts with a good fishing occasion; thus, only
Quinn, Stanton, and Olson appear serious about fishing. Stanton, however, is
really preoccupied with his desire to denounce the absurdities of contemporary
sports:
Quinn knew Stanton was at the foot of his pool swearing and flogging
water, wanting at any cost to come up with the best catch. Stanton was
a competitive fisherman; that is, an odious apostate. He tried to beat fish

out of the river. When successful, he Challenged you with them. (SC. p.
64)

Even though McGuane’s description seems to point to Stanton’s inability to
comprehend the sane aspects of fishing in general, this competitive attitude
appears rather too symbolic of his new role in the Club to be taken at its face
value. Stanton, obsessed with his sense of mission, enacts the attitudes of the
members during fishing in the same manner he urges them to fire Olson:
wholeheartedly yet without conviction. Stanton risks his life fishing during a
storm, gets his trophy, and spoils the expedition for Olson and Quinn because of
his attitude rather than because of their frustrated ambitions.

Olson is the only one to land a fish for all his efforts. He does not exert
himself unnecessarily because "as a fisherman he was [Stanton’s] opposite
number, fished deferentially and awaited his occasions. There were none of the
streamside brawls between man and fish that grace the covers of the sporting
Periodicals. Olson had his unique alchemy and fished for sport. He kept only the

fish he needed" (SC, p. 64). Olson, unlike Stanton, appears sane and secure in

67

this description. It is also evident that, for him, fishing is an end in itself, not a way
to validate any social or personal assumptions.

Quinn would like to resemble Olson in this respect, and, unlike the other

members of the club, he is willing to experience the ritualistic quality of the sane
pursuit. Quinn’s fishing and hunting are hardly ever social occasions: he tries to
perform them in concentration and solitude. His respect for Olson goes beyond
the admiration of the latter’s efficiency; Quinn also respects Olson's perspective
and points out to Stanton that without Olson the Club will cease to exist. Yet even
though Quinn does not measure his success in fishing and hunting in acquisitive
terms, he remains unsuccessful even in his pursuit of peace and recuperation-he
cannot fully abandon his business and personal concerns. When he almost
succeeds in doing so, night fishing alone, he nearly drowns as Earl Olive blows
up the dam. Quinn is swept away by the tide that destroys "his" fishing refuge.
His necessary submission to the forces of nature is characteristic of the attitude
he has already started to adopt toward the establishment—Quinn is passive and
fatalistic in acknowledging that "calamity had deprived him of his bland vacation"
(SQ. p. 137).

Quinn is unable to save the Club, just as he is unable to accomplish his
Personal goals and find peace in nature. He is carried away by the tide of events
originated by forces beyond his control. Quinn’s romantic perception of nature as
the grounds for individual retreat is bound to result in frustration because it is

it“possible to have the best of both worlds-civilized and natural—anymore. Quinn

68
exemplifies the urge expressed by Edward Abbey (1968) in DeserLSQlitaire and

Swanson in Jim Harrison’s Wolf. but his ties with civilization are stronger than he
is willing to acknowledge: as a businessman he needs to stay within telephone
reach even while on vacation. His priorities are unclear; he cannot fully define his
alliances. A half-hearted, temporary devotion to "living deliberately" renders him
pathetically inept in both worlds. Consequently, McGuane mocks the superficial
cult of wilderness, both on a mass and an individual scale. Additional insight into
McGuane’s perception of a back-to-nature sensibility is provided by a comparison
to Hemingway’s "The Big Two-Hearted River." Jerome Klinkovitz ( 1986) claims:

As the novel opens he [Quinn] is throwing himself into the routines of fly-

fishing with all the expertise and deliberation of a Hemingway Character.

The Hemingway behavior itself exists as a system of manners, a

referential code to which one can allude by simply acting in the ritualistic

fashion and allowing the narrative full space to record it. McGuane takes
three pages out from otherwise fast-developing action to meticulously
record Quinn’s first visit to the stream and the business of intelligent
fishing, creating a world in which the reader can take refuge from tensions

at Quinn’s workplace and in camp itself. (p. 115)

Because later in the novel Quinn’s attempts to "fish deliberately" culminate
in Quinn’s being stranded in the swamp, McGuane offers an alternative and
distinctly contemporary conclusion to Nick Adams’s adventures. The protagonist
of "The Big Two-Hearted River" is presented as having a choice in the question
of location because "in the swamp fishing was a tragic adventure. Nick did not

want it. . . . There were plenty of days coming when he could fish the swamp"

(Hemingway, 1925/1983, p. 183). Quinn Is already beyond choice in this respect.

69
In McGuane’s world, unlike in Hemingway’s, the time and space available for
redemptive communion with nature are virtually nonexistent.

In Ihe_Sp_orting_Club. McGuane presents the multiple failures of
contemporary approaches to nature. Founded on mistaken notions of instant
gratification, a collective retreat is destructive, whereas an individual one is, at
best, ineffective. Olson, whose environmental attitude is presented as sound and
sane, is banned from the scene, and upon departure leaves Earl Olive as his
successor. Even though such a manager is exactly what the club deserves,
Olson discredits his ecological conscience by putting Olive in charge. All the
protagonists of Ihejportmfllub use nature as a tool for their agendas: as a
playground (the members), a personal retreat (Quinn), an avenger (Olson), and
a weapon (Olive). Even Stanton does so, because in the course of his crusade
to expose society he does not hesitate to welcome Olive as a perfect successor
for Olson. His, and Olson’s, position, however, can actually bejustified. Once the
club is destroyed and its public appeal diminished, the territory may indeed start

to recuperate. However, this rationale is not present in McGuane’s depiction of
Stanton’s actions, and even though he eventually buys the Club property, the
conclusion of the novel takes place in the confinement of his house, not outdoors.
It is the security of an asylum, not freedom from Civilization, that constitutes the
final image of W:
Stanton no longer had his pistols; but he had plywood cutouts that were
much the same; and they paced off, turned and said "Bang, Bang!" at each

other soberly. Then someone upstairs announced Stanton’s bedtime.
Quinn went up too; though it wasn’t until later, in bed and still awake in the

70

big, strangely stilled house, that he felt each of their presences,

compromised and happy, each asleep and dreaming, like bees in cells of

honey. (p. 220)

Whereas the final duel between Stanton and Quinn, the misfits of The
Spertlngflub, marks the progress from the sublime to the ridiculous, Ninety-Lam
inJhLShade evolves in the opposite direction. The conflict over the guiding
territory between Tom Skelton and Nichol Dance begins with a practical joke on
Skelton and results in the violent death of both protagonists at the end of the
novel. Whereas in McGuane’s first novel the club territory cannot accommodate
the escalated and conflicting demands of weekend sportsmen, the fishing world
of Key West proves too small for two competent guides in NW
Shade. McGuane proceeds to demonstrate that the perception of nature as an
individual retreat can have destructive and tragic implications, especially if it is

accompanied by commercial considerations and competitive overtones.

Tom Skelton and Nichol Dance are introduced to the novel in similar terms.

They are both adrift. Skelton’s perception of reality and himself, upon his arrival
in Key West, is painfully distorted. As the opening sentence of the novel
suggests, he perceives that there is something wrong with his world, and
apparently he has been trying to alleviate that sense with drugs and alcohol. That
method, however, only renders him more painfully aware of the lack of connection
between his life, himself, and the world around him. His location, company,

appearance, and possessions do not seem to be determined by himself; his

Senses are not a credible source of information about them:

71

Skelton studied himself until he was sure he was dressed and slipped out
of the hotel. . . . He touched himself and discovered a short heavy gun at
his waistband, a .38 Cold Cobra. What the hell was that doing there. He
took it out and threw it into mosquito ditch and walked on. Then he
couldn’t believe that there had ever been a gun; so he walked back to the
mosquito ditch and saw it lying on the bottom, hard and brilliant in the
stagnant slime. (N18. pp. 4-5)
Skelton is preoccupied with himself and his possible insanity. McGuane
concludes his introduction of Skelton with a moment of resolution: "When the bait
was gone and Skelton was drifting once more in the wooden skiff over the stony,
illuminated reef, he saw that he would have to find a way of going on" (N13, p. 6).
Similar to Skelton, Dance is drifting in his skiff at the moment of
introduction: "Nichol Dance’s guide boat, ’Bushmaster,’ was nosed up the tidal
creek that bisected Grassy Key, not anchored but rammed into the red mangrove
roots in a canopy of mosquitoes and sand flies. . . . Dance lay there, vaguely
alive, his brain curing like ham" (N13, p. 9). Even though Dance is one of the
best guides in Key West, a capable outdoorsman and a model for Skelton, he
does not appear to possess any of Natty Bumppo’s characteristics. His
interaction with nature does not endow him with any particular goodness or
serenity—he is violent and suicidal. lncapable of coming to terms with the world
in general and his own life particularly, he "so rued his life and the things that had
come of it that he drove his entire rather complicated self through the needle’s
9Y6 of a career in guiding" (N13, p. 89). Dance alternates guiding with "drinking

0f the kind that is a throwing of yourself against the threshold of suicide" (N13, p.

9). and generally seems bound to a path of self-destruction. Already in

72

establishing these identities for his protagonists, McGuane tests the limits of the
traditional belief in the redemptive powers of nature.

The patterns of1he_39ertlng_Qlut2 and Njnety:Lnro_ln_the_3hade are similar
as far as the alliances and divisions of the protagonists are concerned: Tom
Skelton and Nichol Dance are opponents in their private duels, yet they are also
allies in their unwillingness to conform to the social norms and obligations,
"heroes tied to their time by a common weakness: extreme unacceptability"
(Katz, 1979, p. 39). They do not care to be accepted by the mainstream; instead,
they seek each other’s appreciation, or rather Tom Skelton wants to impress
Dance, in a manner similar to Quinn’s and Stanton’s wanting to impress Olson,
because McGuane’s "bright, cool, ironic young heroes . . . can respect only men
like Nichol Dance, quiet, capable outdoorsmen unspoiled by culture, given by
Nature to know what college boy types can only gradually learn by thinking and
suffering" (Edwards, 1973, p. 1). Their-and Dance’s-disdain for mainstream
America, specifically its sportsmen, who like Rudleighs and Slatts need to be led
to fish, does not alleviate the conflict between the two protagonists. It triggers its
tragic conclusion because "male competition—less the matter of ’honor’ than of
instinctual commitment to what one has undertaken . . .-makes an impressive
kind of sense in McGuane. In a world where little is worth keeping, a man can at
least keep his word" (Edwards, 1973, p. 2), and Dance has given Skelton his
word that if the latter persists in his determination to guide, he will be killed.

Skelton, on the other hand, determined to guide because this is "the only thing he

73

can do half well," has also resolved to shape himself after Dance, and that
decision also includes Dance’s principle of "following through." Consequently,
while Skelton will not abandon his commitment to guiding, Dance will not abandon
his commitment to killing Skelton if he guides, even though he "wished he hadn’t
set Skelton up like he had; but it was done and now he had to follow through. He
thought he was a nice enough boy. Nichol Dance truly hoped he wouldn’t have
to waste him" (N13, p. 71).

As Albert Howard Carter II (1975) notes in "McGuane’s First Three Novels:
Games, Fun, Nemesis," Dance and Skelton become involved in a game that they
will play by its rules, regardless of the implications:

Games may be defined in a broad sense as a set of arbitrary conventions,

accepted by the players, which guide behavior (often competitive) for

amusement and for escaping the necessities of ordinary reality. On one
hand, games may offer a humorous criticism of the less flexible structures
of society, a satiric potential which McGuane richly exploits. On the other,
games illustrate a tragic nemesis in the competitive opposition and in the

encompassing non-game reality rediscovered at a game’s end. (p. 103)

Getting involved in their game of "following through" temporarily saves both
Dance and Skelton from the most persistent problem of their lives: integrating
their pasts, futures, and presents, as well as finding a link between subjective and
objective realities. "The future cast a bright and luminous shadow over Thomas
Skelton’s fragmented past; for Dance it was the past that cast the shadow. Both
men were equally prey to mirages. Thomas Skelton required a sense of mortality;

and, ironically, it was Nichol Dance who was giving it to him" (N13, p. 89). Their

concentration on the game provides them with a sense of reality, purpose, and

74

logic that they would miss otherwise; however, it is only a temporary salvation.
As Carter (1975) notes, competitive opposition is also a characteristic of the
game, and in Ninety-Inflow it results in a tragic conclusion.

Even though both Skelton and Dance appear serious and determined in
their commitment to guiding as the only thing that makes sense in their lives, this
premise does not explain their lack of ability to coexist. Dance clarifies his
position on this issue early in the novel: "But we’ve kept so many from crowding
our trade, it discourages me to come acrosst a hard case" (N13, p. 11), and his
subsequent behavior—practical jokes and serious threats-aims at discouraging
Skelton from guiding. McGuane presents competitiveness as an inevitable
aspect of outdoor sports, and in doing so he questions the simple-minded
assumption that hunting and fishing can provide an escape into a better and
simpler world. Outdoor sports, as long as they even marginally belong to the
structure of "the republic"-as guiding does when it provides bookings, clients, and
reputation-are bound to conform to the same rules that make civilization so
oppressive. Fishing and hunting have always involved an element of competition,
but originally it was a competition between a hunter and his prey. As McGuane
demonstrates, present-day hunting and fishing are more concerned with the
competition between sportsmen.

Consequently, there is no direct link between these sports and sanity of "a
day’s work for a day’s pay." Fishing and hunting in their present form carry

competitiveness to the extreme—and the tragic outcome of Skelton’s venture into

75

guiding proves that salvation through nature should not be taken for granted.
Skelton is not the first to discover that guiding and fishing can save him; that
refuge is already occupied by Dance, who wants his claim to be exclusive.
Consequently, in W, McGuane continues to explore the
failures of human expectations and perceptions of nature. Whereas in fine
SDQEIIDQJZILID the attention is focused on the collective American attitudes, in
Ninety-JuflntheShade the focus is on individual failures. In the former novel,
Quinn’s misadventures resulted from the lack of commitment; thetragic end ofthe
latter novel results from carrying commitment too far. The common denominator
forthe collective and individual destructive aspects of interaction with nature is the
competitiveness inherent in viewing hunting and fishing as sport and an assertion
of human ego.

There are, however, some redemptive aspects of this interaction that
surface in 1he_3pedlng_c_|ut2 and are further developed in Ninety;mr)_jn_tne
Shade. Such redemption, however, is impossible on a collective level. In both
novels the mainstream (the members in IneSpertlngCIub and the Rudleighs and
Olie Staff in Mnettlwojnthefihade) are beyond such a possibility because their
interaction with nature will never amount to more than a thoughtless pursuit of a
trophy. On the other hand, McGuane’s misfits benefit from their inability to share
the mainstream perspective. Quinn, following Olson’s example, understands that

hunting and fishing do not need to be acquisitive; even less do they need to result

76

in a trophy. The roots of such conviction, however, are not presented in
McGuane’s first novel, nor is the process of developing such an attitude.

In W, on the other hand, the author records
Skelton’s progress toward a new perspective, and in doing so comes closer to
establishing the links between his work and the biocentric outlook of the American
nature writing tradition. Sketton’s initial actions, aimed at establishing his position
as a guide, are not necessarily characteristic of an ecological ethics, even though
they could signify adherence to the principle of "inhabitation" (developed in the
works of Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder), which implies precise and detailed »
knowledge of one’s immediate surroundings: "He had poled the better parts of
full days upwind and up the tide with bent drive shafts and wiped-out propellers
for having had on the map of his brain previously unlocated coral heads or
discarded ice cans from commercial boats; or for having lost surge channels in
the glare crossing shallow reefs" (N13, p. 13). This "slow and painful process"
could just signify his preoccupation with impressing clients at a later date;
therefore, it does not provide sufficient grounds for a claim that Skelton’s fishing
career is supposed to differ from competitive sport of securing trophies. Later in
the novel, however, during Skelton’s first guiding assignment, McGuane
describes his protagonist’s change of environmental perspective, which bears a
close resemblance to events depicted by Jim Harrison in Wolf, Earmer, and Just
BerQre_Qark. McGuane, like Harrison, describes the conversion in terms that

evoke Aldo Leopold’s wolf hunting in "Thinking Like a Mountain"—the realization

77

of interrelatedness between the hunter and his prey that takes place at the final
stage of the hunt. In Skelton’s case, it is fishing for permit that triggers such an
event

For McGuane, just as for Harrison, fishing and hunting follow an individual
system of value. Fishing for permit, in McGuane’s private classification, belongs
to the highest strata of sportsmen’s gratifications, as well as symbolizing the
ultimate meaning of the sport:

For the ardent fisherman, progress is towards the kinds of fishing that are

never productive in the sense of blood riots of the hunting-and-fishing

periodicals. Their illusions of continuous action evoke for him, finally, a

condition of utter, mortuary boredom. Such an angler will always be

inclined to find the gunnysack artists of the heavy kill rather cretinoid, their
stringerloads of gaping fish appalling. No form of fishing offers such
elaborate silences as fly-fishing for permit. . . . There is considerable
agreement that taking a permit on a fly is the extreme experience of the

sport. ("The Longest Silence," in An_Qutside_Qhan_ce, p. 3)

Skelton, by the time he takes his first customers fishing, is already
experienced enough to share that view. Unfortunately, the Rudleighs represent
the typical attitude of customers who want to catch permit as a result of
"continuous action," not "elaborate silences." Skelton, in his desire to establish
a reputation, leads them to permit, yet the contrast between the nobility of the fish
and the vulgarity of his customers gradually destroys his resolve: "His feeling of
hOpe for a successful first-day guiding was considerably undermined by
Rudleigh’s largely undeserved hooking of the fish. And now the nobility of the
fish’s fight was further eroding Skelton’s pleasure" (N13, p. 46). Consequently,

when he is supposed to retrieve the fish, Skelton releases it, fully aware that such

78
an act is incompatible with his general plan of securing a position in the guiding
community of Key West. His decision results from a classic conversion
experience. When Skelton realizes that his life and the life of the fish are
interconnected, he perceives that his affinity with the permit is far stronger than
that with his customers:

Skelton stopped and his eye followed the line back in the direction he had

come. The Rudleighs were at its other end, infinitely far away. . . . An

embowered, crystalline tidal pool: the fish lay exhausted inits still water,
lolling slightly and unable to right itself. It cast a delicate circular shadow
on the sand bottom. Skelton moved in and the permit made no effort to
rescue itself; instead, it lay nearly on its side and watched Skelton
approach with a steady, following eye that was, for Skelton, the last straw.

Over its broad, virginal sides a lambent, moony light shimmered. The fish

seemed like an oval section ofthe sky—yet sentient and alert, intelligent as

the tide. (N13. 0. 49)

Skelton releases the fish, participating in what McGuane considers the
highest gratification of fishing: "I love the feeling when they realize they are free.
There seems to be an amazed pause. Then they shoot out of your hand as
though you could easily Change your mind" ("A New River," p. 172). Because the
whole guiding trip is a practical joke staged by Dance, the outcome of fishing
does not really matter to anyone, except Skelton himself. He realizes where his
priorities lie as far as society and nature are concerned, and he gains a new
insight into his determination to guide. Guiding has been his direct objective, yet
finding the way to save himself continues to be the ultimate goal, and Skelton

begins to accomplish that by establishing an unconditional alliance with nature,

which he perceives as "sentient, alert and intelligent."

79

Even though Skelton is given a glimpse of logic and order, the reward is
not imminent because such salvation is incompatible with the absurd reality
around him. The guiding trip with the Rudleighs marks the beginning of a
showdown between Skelton and Dance. It culminates in another booking, again
inherited from Dance, which provides a background for the final encounter
between the two protagonists. As before, the customer is largely unaware of the
dimension of drama that happens before his eyes. Olie Slatt, the winner of a
cake-eating contest, wants only a reward for his efforts: "I mean to hightail it back
to Montana ten days from now with a trophy under my arm or I’m going to know
the reason why. I have spent my leisure hours on the Missouri after paddlefish
and saugers and dreaming of one day coming home to Roundup with a tropical
trophy. Everybody knows why lam here. My reputation depends on my coming
home with the goods" (N13. p. 140). Slatt’s sense of logic and justice is
consistent with "Hotcakesland" principles, and so the conclusion of Ninety-1m
inthe_3nadetakes place according to its rules: Dance shoots Skelton, and Slatt
kills Dance and starts back to Roundup, Montana: "The white robe he wore
carried behind him and he held the bright trophy to his Chest" (N13, p. 197). Olie
Slatt, the sportsman in Hotmkesland, lives to tell it all.

Both W and Ninatyflojmneshade end on a pessimistic
note. The protagonists are either compromised or dead, while mediocrity
triumphs. The hunting and fishing world in both novels fails to provide salvation

because it is ruled predominantly by absurd competitive and alienating rules that

80

render civilization so oppressive. The latter novel, however, provides certain
clues as to the possibility of redemption through nature by establishing the affinity
with a deep ecological perspective—a less anthropocentric and utilitarian view of
nature. This aspect of McGuane’s writing is hardly ever the subject of critical
attention. The hunting and fishing world of northern Michigan and Key West is
usually discussed in terms of McGuane’s similarity of Hemingway, by value of
subject and location. Steven Kroll’s (1973) statement is characteristic of that
tendency: "With its hard edged prose, its obsessions with death, guns, the
outdoor life and proving yourself, 1he_3perllng_C_|ut2 did bear some resemblance
to early Hemingway" (p. 93). However striking the similarity may appear, it is the
conflict between Hemingway’s and McGuane’s views of the sports that provides
a solid ground for comparison.

Peter Straub (1974) explores this aspect in his discussion of Ninety-lug
in_the_3hade: "Fishing is riddled with technics, all of that tore about what to use
and where to use it, and McGuane makes of this material a giant pun on
Hemingway. His novel deliberately warps the famous Hemingway ethical codes;
it uses these codes obliquely and disbelievingly, since things have got too drastic
for such simplicities to have moral resonance" (p. 127). The simplicities
mentioned by Straub also involve the notions that Hemingway’s fiction often
conveys: redemption through nature in "The Big Two-Hearted River," self-
affirrnation in Ihe_Gre_en_l:Iills_Qf_Africa and "The Short Happy Life of Francis

Macomber," and male-bonding in Ibefiunflsefilees. McGuane’s depiction of

81

hunting and fishing defiates these notions, whereas both nature and the
protagonists appear more vulnerable and impermanent than they do in
Hemingway’s vision of confrontation. ln McGuane’s vision, Civilization invades
Hemingway’s fishing and hunting retreats, destroys both the protagonists and
nature, whereas mediocre hunters (similarto Francis Macomber unwilling to finish
the wounded lion) get their trophies. As McGuane himself points out in his
interview with Jim Fergus (1989), his understanding of hunting differs from
Hemingway’s, and, like Harrison, the author views frequent comparisons to
Hemingway as oversimplifications: "The kind of hunting and fishing he liked to do
is not the kind we like to do. A lot of it was that writer bullshit I find so tedious, just
utter posturing—kind of grabbing your crotch Joe Piscopo style and saying ’l’m
going out and fuck a big fish’" (Fergus, 1989, p. 42). In this respect, again like
Harrison, McGuane would probably be more inclined to welcome the parallels
with Iha_Q|d_Man_and_tlJe_Saa. or with Hemingway's discussion of the division
between "real" and self-proclaimed sportsmen in the "Letters From Tanganyika."
Still, the immediate connection to "early Hemingway" appears to be a more
tempting area to explore, regardless of the oversimplifications involved.
Although the settings of Ninetyfiwojntnefihade and 1he_3perting_Qlub
invite comparisons to Hemingway, McGuane’s novels set in Montana are often
discussed in the context of Faulkner. A certain similarity between McGuane and

Faulkner exists, especially if the inbred, slightly disturbing society of Deadrock,

Montana (the setting of KeanthaChanga. NadeCsAngel. and 59019101091233

82

Desired), as well as the theme of "broken families and psychologically wounded
protagonists trying to heal themselves in a land that itself is being violated on all
fronts" (Fergus, 1989, p.44) are compared to those of Yoknapatawpha County.
The similarity between the two authors’ views of human inability to relate to nature
constitutes the most striking parallel; McGuane, however, does not explore the
theme of hunting and fishing in Montana to the extent he does in the two formerly
discussed novels, or to the extent Faulkner does in "The Bear." Therefore, the
affinity with Faulkner is usually discussed in terms of McGuane’s prose style in
general, as well as his pessimistic view of humankind.

The action of Keepthefltange revolves around the protagonist’s, Joe
Starling’s, efforts to claim his heritage. The heritage is an old family ranch that
has been leased to the local land magnates, the Overstreets, for a considerable
period of time, and they have always coveted it as a missing part in their
othenvvise geometrically perfect property. Joe’s father perceives that his life
mission is to prevent the loss of the land (or at least the mineral rights), even at
the cost of its destruction: "But whatever you do, even if you graze it flat and the
knapweed and spurge cover it up and the wind blows the topsoil to Kansas, don’t
let that old sonofabitch Overstreet get it" (Keepthefihange, hereafter NC, p. 11).

Starling senior leaves his son with this bit of parting wisdom and a legally
unclear Claim to the ranch as a legacy. Such a heritage is not generally welcome
in Joe’s world: "Where had people gone wrong in the west? In the latest joke,

leaving a ranch to one’s children was called child abuse" (KC. p. 63). Joe,

83

however, shares his distrust for ordinary American values with the rest of
McGuane’s protagonists and, in the course of the novel, establishes his own
priorities. He does not perceive his unclear claim to the land as a burden, nor
does he see it as a valuable commodity: "Joe loved the place, but he didn’t
expect or really want to end up on it altogether. If Joe was satisfied by the land
in which the ranch was situated, and he loved it pretty much wherever his eyes
felt, he never quite understood what that had to do with ownership" (KC, p. 11).
He goes back to the ranch after his venture into the artistic and business worlds
fails to be fulfilling, and he spends a season there trying to eradicate the years of
environmental abuse. In the process, he loses the legal claim to the land
altogether, yet the sense that he went there "to be saved" that perpetuated his
decision still persists at the end of the novel: "The sky was blue and the air
coming from under the slightly opened window so cool and clean that he admitted
to himself that his spirits were starting to soar. He thought he’d begin to get his
things together" (KC, p. 208). Joe feels saved regardless of losing the commodity
because he perceives, like F aulkner’s Isaac McCaslin, that the land was never his
to begin with. His father and the Overstreets have lostumetaphorically—their
claim to the land by perceiving it as property, the same theme that had been
developed in WMeses and 1he_3o_und_and_the_Eury. Joe’s satisfaction
is incompatible with the mainstream system of value but is good enough for
himself. In the Thoreauvian tradition, Joe went to the ranch because he wanted

to live deliberately, and that he accomplished. Because his sojourn on the ranch

84

can be summed up in the terms of Harrison’s preface to Dalva ("’We loved the
land but we could not stay’ [an Indian proverb])," Joe’s perception of land can be
compared to that of Native Americans, with the stress on use and guardianship
rather than possession. Keep_the_9_hange offers an alternative to the
possessiveness and greed characteristic of the western perception of land.
Hunting and fishing are hardly ever mentioned in We,
possibly because Joe has already escaped civilization far enough to lift the sense
of oppression. In his own way he establishes the "ancient ritual of gathering our
food." The closest he comes to hunting is the encounter with a bear family,
depicted in terms similar to Harrison’s "The Seven-Ounce Man":
Suddenly, two cinnamon cubs sprang upright into the glitter, weaving to
scent him. As Joe began to back out the way he’d come in, the mother
bear rose on her haunches, swinging her muzzle in an arc. The sun
behind her made the edge of her coat ignite in a silvery veil. The cubs
hastened to their mother’s side and the three of them went up to the top
of the spring and disappeared into the berry bushes. Joe was out of
breath. He couldn’t believe his luck in receiving such a gift. (KC, p. 156)
Like Harrison’s Brown Dog in "The Seven-Ounce Man," Joe feels lucky, rather
than threatened, and takes precautions to avoid confrontation instead of forcing
it. His attitude is that of the nonacquisitive hunter who values sighting higher than
shooting. His feeling of gratitude for the encounter resembles a primitive frame
of mind, which views interaction with nature as a sign of mutual consent. This

attitude toward hunting invariably constitutes the basis for a meaningful

experience for the two authors.

85

Joe, like Skelton in Ninety-Mojmnejhade. is given a glimpse of logic,
order, and permanence in nature that may reassure and "save" him from his
doubts concerning reality in general. This aspect of the interaction with nature
again provides a link to Faulkner. Quentin in 1he_3eund_and_tbe_Eury is in
similar need of salvation, and on the day of his suicide he is offered a chance of
redemption by nature. Victimized by the passing of time and imperrnanence of
things, Quentin sees an image of eternity and balance in nature: a trout capable
of maintaining its poise in the current, "delicate and motionless," forever eluding
the fishermen. Had Quentin been more attentive and less preoccupied with self-
pity, he might have noticed the answer to his problems in that image; instead, he
cannot disassociate himself from the oppressive inner monologue, cannot cease
to associate nature with death and sin, and instead of redemption by nature
chooses death by it.

This image and the notion of learning from the balance of nature might
have influenced McGuane, who in "A New River" describes the rewards of fishing
in similar terms. Like a trout, "we must find a way of moving through water with
the least amount of displacement. The more we fish, the more weightlessly and
quietly we move through a river and among its fish, and the more we resemble
our own minds in the bliss of angling ("A New River," p. 170). In metaphorical
terms, McGuane’s prescription for life is to imitate nonhuman nature in its grace.
Those of his heroes who are in need of an example are usually given a glimpse

of it by nature, and even if their salvation cannot be measured by any ordinary

86

system of value, on a subjective level they feel saved. Ultimately, it is their affinity
with a trout, a permit, a bear, or nature in general, that puts McGuane’s heroes
in opposition to the mainstream. Usually, this sensation is evoked by hunting and
fishing, yet in the case of Joe Sterling the sports can be foregone because he
finds a more direct way to achieve it: "Instead of being someplace, where he
waited for the breeze through a window, Joe had gone where the breeze came
from" (KC. p. 157).

Hunting and fishing is also a marginal subject in Nebedtr’eAngel. When
it surfaces it is the destructive aspect of sport and trophy hunting that McGuane
brings to the reader’s attention. In the manner of W. the author
presents an eccentric protagonist, Tio, whose devotion to the competitive world
of outdoor sports fails to provide a sufficient barrier between himself and insanity.
"Tio is a sportsman. Got a bunch of records and all. He shot the ninth largest
whitetail to ever come out of Texas" (Nebedtr’eAngel, hereafter NA, p. 299). Yet
all these accomplishments fail to assert Tio’s masculine power because, in the
course of the novel, his wife falls in love with Patrick Fitzpatrick. Tio, however,
does not seem to view his hunting success as any particular proof of his general
prowess; instead, more like Stanton, he exerts himself in outdoor sports in order
to penetrate and ultimately denounce the values of the establishment to which he
belongs, thanks to his wife’s money. Tio carries to the extreme the life of the rich

oil heir, hunting and fishing in exclusive society; yet his view of life does not

87
convey emotional stability: "Life is a shit sandwich and I take a bite every day"
(NA. p. 367).

As in theSpertingfilub and Ninetyflmejnthejhade, there is affinity and
opposition between Fitzpatrick and Tio, a game of proving masculinity in
competition over Claire. Tio, whose sporting gratifications apparently do not
provide him with a sufficient test of power, originates the game by suggesting to
Fitzpatan that he should keep Claire company while Tio himself works on
expanding his oil business. Both men appear insecure and unfulfilled in reality
and expect to validate themselves in the competition for Claire. The pursuit ends
in frustration for both protagonists, just as it does in hunting viewed as a means
of securing a trophy. McGuane does not deal directly with outdoor sports in this
novel, but he presents the competition between Tio and Fitzpatrick in terms that
evoke hunting, complete with the notion of "bullet-proof" Claire.

Hunting and fishing fail to provide redemption in NebedyLAngel.
McGuane reinforces that view by depicting the frustration of Fitzpatrick’s escapist
hopes. The protagonist seeks refuge in the horse ranch after his military career
ceases to provide momentum for his life. Initially, the ranch and outdoor sports
fulfill his hopes, and Fitzpatrick says, "I love this scene. It has no booze or
women in it." The novel, however, revolves around Patrick’s drunk and sober
attempts to secure himself a woman. Civilization and society has, as before in
McGuane’s novels, a miraculous power of invading the simplicity of life in nature

and destroying the protagonist’s illusion of peace and escape.

88
The only positive aspect of hunting in NebedyLAngel is Patrick’s

grandfather’s feat. At the end of the novel, Patrick relinquishes his hopes of a
fulfilling relationship with Claire and, instead, fulfills a promise to his grandfather
by taking him hunting. During this hunting expedition, "Patrick’s grandfather shot
the best elk of his life. Patrick packed it out for him and arranged for it to be
mounted and hung In the Hawk Bar, the place the old man could see from the
window of his apartment" (NA. p. 438). In this event, Patrick finally recaptures the
feelings he vaguely associated with his childhood on the ranch, the hunting and
exploring the territory together with his grandfather, that probably were the
reasons for his return in the first place.

Semetning_te_Be_Desired, McGuane’s third novel set in Deadrock,
Montana, explores the theme of hunting more fully. It begins with a typical
American experience of a father and son camping in the woods. Yet, just as
immediately, it pierces the stock situation by pointing out that while the father has
no clue as to their whereabouts, Lucien, "a small-town boy buried in Ernest
Thompson Seaton," is the one to find the way back. In a typical situation for
McGuane’s protagonists, the father exposes Lucien to the joys of escaping from
Civilization to nature, but he fails to provide the boy with any valid instruction about
how to stay in nature or how to return to society. This fishing trip, which Lucien
recalls later in the novel, provides an additional illustration of that tendency. As
a result of a practical joke proposed by his drunk father, Lucien succeeds in

destroying his friendship and fishing bliss with Andrew MacCarthy, McGuane’s

89

version of Faulknerian Sam Fathers. The initiative in discovering nature is left to
Lucien, who subsequently cultivates the romantic streak in a predictable manner.
"His heroes were Ernest Thompson Seaton and Theodore Roosevelt. Like all
boys, he dreamed of consequentiality, and of romantic unrest" (SemethingteBe
Desired, hereafter 3130, p. 19). At the beginning of the novel, Lucien
establishes his affinity with nature, but in a superficial manner, by being prone to
"all the mindless sins of youth committed in the haze of reading Edgar Rice
Burroughs, Zane Grey, James Oliver Curwood, Jack London and Ernest Seaton;
wanting to be a steely half-breed Robert Mitchum type with hatchet, revolver,
cartridge belt and along mane of hair trained with bear grease" (Harrison, "The
Violators," in W. p. 70). McGuane depicts Lucien as a victim of
that tendency later in his life, when
his craving for sport had become less a sign of buoyant youth than of
crankiness and approaching middle age. In the nature documentaries that
appeared on TV he identified with the solitary and knowledgeable male,
whether baboon or penguin; and this foolishness represented the same
gap of wishful thinking that had plagued him all his life. (3131), p. 29)
On the other hand, in the course of the novel, Lucien’s hunting and fishing
gradually become more than sport, and his identification with nature exceeds his
narcissistic tendencies. This happens because his lack of fulfillment in ordinary
American life undermines his belief in ordinary American role models, including
the brave sportsmen celebrated in sporting magazines:
What gave "This Happened to Me" its special brimstone quality, apart from
the illustrations of sportsmen dangling, sliding, or being pursued, was that

each segment was signed by the survivor. For a long time Lucien
identified himself with these nearly anonymous men and began seeking

90

out ways of living that would produce civilian versions of "This Happened

to Me." . . . Now, sunk in consequences, he no longer wished that more

would happen to him. (3130, p. 55)

In other words, Lucien grows distrustful of the illusions of continuous action that
constitute the appeal of sporting life and instead begins to look "for a kind of
stillness" experienced by an angler described by McGuane in "Close to the Bone":

When a serious angler insinuates himself into the luminous, subaqueous

universe of the bonefish and catches one without benefit of accident, he

has, in effect, visited another wortd whose precise cycles and conditions
appear so serene to the addled twentieth-century angler that he begins to
be consoled for all he has done to afford the trip in the first place. In his
imagination he is emphatic about emptiness, space, and silence. ("Close

to the Bone." in An_Qutside_Qnance. p. 59)

Lucien, like Quinn, Skelton, and Steriing, illustrates the process of
acquiring an individual environmental perspective. On his own, finally, without the
guidance of his father or sporting periodicals, Lucien transcends the limits of sport
in hunting and fishing by renouncing competitiveness and trophy sport: "Lucien
concentrated himselfto shoot well, walked past Sadie to make the flush; but when
the grouse went up he just watched them go, brown and mottled against the open
sky" (3130, p. 69). This restraint, resembling the attitude displayed by Joseph,
Harrison’s protagonist in Earmer, has a similar rationale. Lucien gradually
becomes aware of the consequences involved in hunting and fishing, not only in
the way they affect him, but also in the way his actions affect nature. After
shooting two drakes, Lucien contemplates that "long stringy Vs seemingly in the

stratosphere, headed south. Lucien looked forward to his dinner and could not

avoid realizing that these two weren’t going" (313:), p. 71). Just as Harrison’s

91
protagonist does, Lucien acknowledges the sense of guilt inherent in hunting, and
that feeling limits his acquisitiveness.

Lucien’s interaction with nature is not as much destined to remove him
from society as to enable him to reestablish some of the severed ties. Lucien’s
goal is to gain the confidence of his estranged son, James, and to introduce him
to nature in the way Lucien’s father tried to do but never succeeded in doing. The
father-son bonding in the next generation is equally complicated. James is
apprehensive and slightly suspicious of his father’s plans and does not appear
likely to accept uncritically Lucien’s beliefs concerning nature. Lucien’s choice of
setting for the occasion is as atypical as his son’s attitude. Even though his
original intention is to take James fishing, he eventually chooses hawk-banding.
That choice is characteristic of McGuane’s distrust of CIIChéS involved in the
interaction with nature, and it also signifies Lucien’s nonacquisitive bias. Finally,
the setting has metaphorical implications because it parallels the process in which
Lucien, who identifies with hawks, is "banded" by acknowledging his family ties.
James is skeptical of Lucien’s admiration for the birds of prey, as well as of the
violence involved in the interaction with nature. Instead of sharing Lucien’s joy
of "being married" to the hawk, James feels affinity with the dead pigeon, the bait:

When Lucien looked over at James, he was holding the pigeon in his

hands. Its eyes were closed. Its head was angled harshly onto its back.

Blood ran from the nostrils down the domestic blue feathers of its narrow

shoulders. Lucien said nothing.

"We both fell asleep at the same time," said James in an unsteady voice.
(5160. p. 121)

92

McGuane portrays the initiation of Lucien’s son into the natural world as
a more complex situation than mere apprenticeship. James establishes his own
system of values and alliances, just as later in life he may establish his own
sporting codes. Lucien, however, manages to get his main points across that
nature is no less beautiful for being violent and that human interaction with it does
not need to be perceived in practical terms. The symbolic implications of the
event are not lost on James, who ceases to resent the inevitability of pain in life,
or specifically, his father’s conduct. Consequently, his estranged wife Susanne
tells Lucien that James "seems to appreciate that you and he had some kind of
adventure. When I said it was sad about the pigeon, he said that’s how hawks
have to live. He was kind of taking up for you in that, Ithought" (3130, p. 125).

The ties between James and Lucien are further reinforced by their shared
outlook on fishing, which they both perceive in nonacquisitive terms, and resolve
that inflicting pain is not a prerequisite of their success (3130, p. 144). As a
result, outdoor sports provide more than relief from civilization for Lucien; they are
also his way back to establishing his own social order. . Atypically for McGuane,
SemetmngjeBeDeslred is not about a failed attempt to escape from reality. It
is about a success in reentering it. The fact that the novel also depicts the most
mature attitude toward the environment--an awareness of interdependence, the
affinity and responsibility between human and nonhuman nature-signifies that at

least some of McGuane’s tormented protagonists can find their place in society

93

without compromise, and as a result of achieving a new, less egocentric
perspective.

The connection between outdoor sports and reentering society recurs in
McGuane’s short stories. As Vance Bourjaily (1985) points out,

In Thomas McGuane’s ”Sportsmen" the rationale for hunting is existential--

you achieve identity by what you do: existence precedes essence. . . .

McGuane’s Characters, a couple of kids, see life as a Choice between

becoming hoods and becoming sportsmen. If they have some violence in

them, as the hoods have, they will express it as duck hunters by the lake
waters they love. That’s the premise of this strong surprising piece.

Threaded into its fabric is an awareness of fear and love, friendship,

compassion and pain in maturing. (p. xiv)

Unfortunately, Jimmy Meade, the narrator’s friend, suffers a spinal injury
in the process of becoming a sportsman. Typically for McGuane, neither
intentions nor commitment can save the protagonist from destroying his life.
Becoming a sportsman does not always warrant success in objective terms
because nature is not a predictable refuge for everyone. In "Sportsmen,"
McGuane stresses the fact that being a sportsman is a frame of mind rather than
what one does. Consequently, Jimmy participates in hunting, even though his
friend asks, "What fun is there if you can’t shoot?" ("Sportsmen," in Ip_3ldn_a_C_at,
p.102)

Whereas choosing a way to live is the issue of "Sportsmen," choosing a
way to die is the subject of "Flight." Of all McGuane’s works, this short story can
be most justifiably compared to Hemingway. due not as much to the portrayal of

the joys of hunting as to the iceberg style of narration. Just as in "Hills Like White

Elephants," the actual event—in this case, the suicide of a terminally ill hunter—is

94

understated, yet the progress of the story warrants the assumption that it is
suicide, not hunting, that concludes it:
Dan smiled at me and said, "Wish me luck." He closed his gun, walked
over the rim and sank from sight. I sat on theground until I heard the
report. After a bit the convey started to get up, eight dusky birds that went

off on a climbing course. I whistled the dogs and started for my truck.
("Flight," in Ie_3ldn_a_C_at, p. 160)

The narrator of the story thinks, "Maybe life wasn’t something you lost at
the end of a long fight." Consequently, the story is concerned with the issue of
self—determination, including the choice to die. Hunting and fishing provide a
setting for the decision because in McGuane’s fiction self-determination is
ultimately what they are about. Making the decision as to what kind of hunter you
are going to be is parallel to the decision of how you want to live your life:

Camus said that the only serious question is whether or not to commit the

suicide. This is rather like a nymph question. It takes weight, weighted

rod, split shot. Casting becomes a matter of spitting this mess out and
being orderly about it. It requires a higher order of steamcraft than any
other kind of fishing, because it truly calls upon the angler to see the river

in all its dimensions. ("A New River," p. 169).

Self-determination, attentiveness toward nature, and a sense of affinity with
the "river in all its dimensions" appear to be hard-earned individual qualities of
McGuane’s outdoorsmen rather than the components of hunting and fishing in
general. An_Qutside_Qhance reinforces this view by pointing to the incompatibility
between "blood riots of the hunting and fishing periodicals" ("The Longest
Silence." in AnDtnsidefihance. p. 3) and societal sanity. In AnOutsideQnance.

more than in any of his novels, McGuane explores the reasons for such a

division. He traces them to Americans’ fascination with instant gratification, which

95

manifests itself not only in preoccupation with tangible success in sports, but also
in environmental destruction for the sake of a more convenient lifestyle.

The older men remember the California fishery when it was the best of

them all, the most labyrinthine, the most beautiful. A great river system

initiating in the purling high-country streams, the whole thing substantiated
by an enormous stable watershed. Now the long, feathery river systems
are stubs and even those are squabbled over by Cyclopean morons who
have somehow institutionalized their love of useless dams. ("Twilight on

the Buffalo Paddock," in An_Qutside__C_hanee, p. 30)

In acknowledging the degree of environmental destruction, McGuane joins
the sentiments expressed by the representatives of the ecological perspective in
American nature writing, most notably Aldo Leopold, Edward Abbey, and Rachel
Carson. McGuane devotes more attention to Civilization than to nature in his
works, yet it is the interaction between the two that provides clues to the
persistent question of "why we are having all these troubles with our republic"
(N13, p. 3). The absurdity of contemporary life results from the distance from the
basic facts of existence. Nowhere is this phenomenon more visible than in
contemporary hunting and fishing, where the alienation from nature and the
search for instant gratification are manifested in excessive equipment and
insufficient knowledge. McGuane juxtaposes this vision of outdoor sports with
hunting and fishing performed in the "old way," Characterized by appreciation of
difficulty, disregard of success, and a sense of kinship with the prey. This view
closely resembles Harrison’s hunting and fishing ideal, as well as the appreciation

for the primitive perception of nature explored in the works of Gary Snyder,

Richard Nelson, and Barry Lopez. In contrast to these authors, however,

96

McGuane hardly ever presents such ideal hunting and fishing in his works—more
often, he concentrates on the frustrated efforts to those who aspire to it, as well

as on the dangers of perceiving nature as a field for human glorification.

 

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CHAPTER IV

GARY SNYDER, BARRY LOPEZ, AND RICHARD NELSON:

RITUALS OF APPEASEMENT

Old man in the fur coat, Bear! Come out!
Die of your own choice!
(Snyder, 1960)

Jim Harrison’s "La Venerie Francaise" depicts Ia chasse—deer hunting in
France, performed in accordance with its centuries’ long tradition. La chasse
differs considerably from the encounters with nature Harrison usually describes—it
remains an aristocratic privilege involving a considerable number of participants
whose roles are determined by an elaborate set of rules. The objective, however,
stays the same as in its American, more egalitarian, counterpart—the stag is
supposed to be chased down and killed. Even though Harrison’s description
suggests that the author is impressed with the ritualistic quality of la chasse, its
conclusion triggers reflection on the justifications for contemporary hunting:

There is no apologia now for hunting except that the desire is in us. Some

are born hunting and rarely in our time out of need. I thought of the

painting I had seen last summer in Browning, (Montana, of a Blackfoot

Indian delivering an arrow while riding full speed along a buffato’s side. Of

course then it was what is called "necessary" but at the very least la

chasse had preserved the ritual dignity of the hunt. It wasn’t a million
licensed hunters in my home state wandering around the shrinking woods,

97

98

probably killing more trees with their stray shots and target practice than

the sixty to ninety thousand deer taken yearly. Without becoming stupidly

atavistic one might say at base that we are meat eaters still and some like
to kill the meat they eat, which is not far removed in dignity from letting

someone else do the killing. (in Juslfleioraflark. p. 96)

Harrison’s comment on la chasse illustrates the apprehension of a
contemporary hunter who thinks that hunting might have outlived itsjustification.
This sentiment is echoed by Tom McGuane in "The Heart of the Game": -

Nobody who loves to hunt feels absolutely hunky-dory when the quarry

goes down. The remorse spins out almost before anything and the

balancing act ends on one declination or another. I decided that unless I

become a vegetarian, I’ll get my meat by hunting for it. lfeel absolutely

unabashed by the arguments of other carnivores who get their meat in
plastic with blue numbers on it. I’ve seen slaughterhouses, and anyway,
as Sitting Bull said, when the buffalo are gone, we will hunt mice, for we

are hunters and we want our freedom. (In An_Quteide_Qnance, p. 230)

These two statements have an important characteristic in common. Both
Harrison and McGuane claim that the only justifiable type of hunting is that on
which one’s subsistence unconditionally depends. Both authors evoke Native
American hunting as an illustration of such a thesis. Such a thesis, however,
finds its counterpart in a "million licensed hunters" who define a contemporary
variation of the hunt. The two authors' protagonists cannot escape classification
among the members of this antithetical group, at least not from the practical point
of view. With the exception of Skelton in Ninetflmlnjnejnade, they do not
choose to depend solely on their hunting or fishing skills for survival. On the other
hand, however, they refuse to subscribe to the mainstream version of hunting,

and the majority of their outdoor adventures are described in terms of finding a

synthesis between their unavoidable identity as modern sportsmen and the native

99

hunting ideal. La chasseis an example of such a synthesis because its elaborate
form evokes the thoughtfulness and care that characterize primitive subsistence
hunting. More characteristically, however, it is the individual rituals of hunting and
fishing—and the frame of mind of the fishermen and hunters--that preoccupy the
two authors.
In presenting their hunting and fishing protagonists as on a quest for such
a synthesis, the two authors indeed seek to produce their own "apologia" for
contemporary hunting. Their main reservations against hunting are of an
ecological rather than a sentimental nature because they are generally more
inclined to mourn the environmental destruction than the death of individual
animals; and the grim ecological reality magnifies the difficulties of finding
justification. "The hunt would be finally doomed not by its outraged opponents but
by the fact that there is simply little room left in which to ’chase’ an animal," claims
Harrison (W, p. 96), referring to the end of la chasse, which
involved chasing the stag along a busy interstate and across the grounds of an
insane asylum. The only way in which hunting could appear defensible in the
contemporary world is if it contributed to maintaining ecological balance, instead
of destroying it further.
This argument is hardly a revolutionary idea. It has been used by hunters
and govemment-sponsored conservationist agencies throughout the twentieth
century. Most notably, it appeared in Aldo Leopold’s GameManagement(1933)-—

and was later rejected in A_3and_C_o_unty_Alrnanae (1949I1974), in which the

100

author criticized conservationist logic and its adherence to an ecologically
ignorant "Abrahamic concept of land." As Roderick Nash (1967) demonstrates
in W. "as an ecologist, Leopold regretted his own
youthful contributions to the campaign against predators. Not only did the
elimination of the beasts of prey remove a desirable check on the population of
other species, but the whole idea of undesirable species was entirely synthetic"

(p. 196). Due to Leopold’s influence on the contemporary perception of nature,

the present ecological rationale for hunting has to be of a different type, and of a
much less simplistic character. If anything, earlier ecological justifications of

hunting, such as predator control or subsequent "trimming” of excessive deer

populations, are arguments against rather than for hunting because they

exemplify conservationists’ oversimplifications and lapses in long-term thinking.

A more valid argument for the ecological value of hunting would have to suggest
that hunting as a pastime-4f it cannot be a lifestyle—promotes development of an
environmentally valid mode of coexistence. In other words, hunting would not
have the responsibility for correcting ecological imbalance, but for promoting the
consciousness that would eliminate the possibility of such imbalance occurring.
Harrison and (less often) McGuane refer to the Native American worldview

as the one capable of integrating hunting and an ecologically sound approach to
nature. Their references, however, are often oblique-such as those quoted
above—and, as a result, they do not fully convey the explanation as to whynative

hunting traditions could be capable of providing solutions to the current ecological

101

crisis. Consequently, it is necessary to discuss their treatment of the outdoors
theme in the context of works by other authors who devote more space to the
Native American perception of nature whenever the subject ofhunting and fishing
comes into focus: Barry Lopez, Gary Snyder, and Richard Nelson. For these
authors, with the exception of Nelson, hunting and fishing are rarely the main
topics, but their outlook on current ecological issues and their interest in native
perception of the environment justify such a selection. As far as Snyder is
concerned, the selection isjustified not only because the poet provides important
insights into the Native American and paleolithic worldviews, but also because in
Mytheandlexts (published in 1960) the poet makes hunting a leading metaphor
of (Leopoldian) ecological conscience. Lopez, in turn, supplements Snyder’s
poetic and philosophical considerations with detailed information on primitive
worldviews and on hunting practices. Richard Nelson’s worltsnljuntersettne
Northacha and Shadmflhaflumat. for instance—provide further insights into
primitive hunting, whereas 1he_|sland_Withlr1 illustrates the author’s personal
attempt to integrate the primitive worldview with present-day hunting.

Two important terms need to be defined before discussing these authors.
The first is hunting itself, which for our purposes includes both hunting and fishing
and generally denotes the "ancient art" of securing food. The second definition
concerns the Native American belief system as expressed by J. Baird Callicott
(1 989) in "Traditional American Indian and Traditional Western European

Attitudes Towards Nature: An Overview":

102

There is no onething that can be called theAmerican Indian belief system.

The aboriginal people of the North American continent lived in

environments quite different from one another and had culturally adapted

to these environments in quite different ways. For each tribe there were

a cycle of myths and a set of ceremonies, and from these materials one

might abstract for eacha particular view of nature. However, recognition

of the diversity and variety of American Indian cultures should not obscure

a complementary unity to be found among them. (p. 177)

Callicott subsequently quotes Joseph Epes Brown’s definition of such
cultural unity, which is useful as well: "All American Indian peoples possessed
What has been called a metaphysics of nature: all manifested a reverence forthe
myriad forces of the natural world, specific to their immediate environment" (p.
177). Furthermore, because the works discussed in this study also include
references to a paleolithic worldview (as representative of similar attitudes toward
nature), both native and prehistoric modes of subsistence will be labeled
"primitive hunting."

Snyder, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of1urtle_|e|and, seldom refers to
contemporary outdoor sports. On the other hand, his references to primitive
hunting are frequent and are always related to the issue of an environmentally
sound mode of existence. Continuous education derived from hunting is for
Snyder, as well as for Harrison and McGuane, a possible way out of the
contemporary ecological and psychological crises.

Similar to Harrison and McGuane, Snyder claims that the contemporary
world faces the death of wildness outside and within:

A war against earth.
When it’s done there’ll be

no place
A Coyote could hide

103

Envoy
I would like to say.
coyote is forever
Inside you

But it’s not true.
("The Call of the Wild," in 1urtle_|sland, hereafter II, p. 21)

Coyote, whose howling is referred to as the call of the wild, is a recurrent symbol
of wilderness outside and within for Snyder. The coyote figure not only indicates
the species whose presence annoys "the heavy old man . . . A catholic, A native
Californian," but also the Trickster hero of Indian lore. The destruction of
"Trickster," in turn, signifies a considerable psychological impoverishment, a loss
of "something in ourselves which is creative, unpredictable, contradictory" ("The
Incredible Survival of Coyote," in IneQIdJNays, hereafter OW, p. 75). In
addition, the extermination of Coyote provides a pessimistic comment on the
future of civilization, who finds his presence annoying: "The Trickster plays a vital
role in the Indian mythology by explaining the existence of ’bad luck,’ mischief,
sorrow and death as inseparable from the brighter sides of life. The Coyote
brings all of them to people; he is both a curse and a blessing" (QW, p. 69).
The existence of Coyote in mythology justifies the existence of mischief in
people, proves that a trace of evil does not exclude good, and shows that the two
are interconnected. In a civilized society that takes pride in exterminating
wilderness, darkness, and evil, both the Coyote and the Trickster myth are found
to vanish. In "On the Psychology of the Trickster Figure," Carl Jung (1956/1988)

foretells the results of such loss:

104

The so-called civilized man has forgotten the trickster. He remembers him
only figuratively and metaphorically, when irritated by his own ineptitude,
he speaks of fate playing tricks on him, or of things being bewitched. He
never suspects that his own hidden and apparently harmless shadow has
qualities whose dangerousness exceeds his wildest dreams. As soon as
people get together in masses and submerge the individual, the shadow
is mobilized, and, as history shows may even be personified or incarnated.
(p. 269)
Jung predicts that the failure to "accept" the Trickster results in repression,
accumulation, and eventually expression of evil within individuals and society. In
Snyder’s vision, the extermination of Coyote symbolizes both psychological and
environmental crises.
"The Call of the Wild" introduces a recurrent concern of Snyder’s poetry:
3 war against the earth waged by modern political, social, and religious systems,
leading to psychological, spiritual, and ecological void. The outcome evokes T. S.
Eliot’s pessimistic prediction that "this is the way the world ends/Not with a bang
but with a whimper," as well as a more immediate parallel with Harrison's
"suffocation by chintz, not apocalypse" (wolf, p. 159). The anticlimactic end of

the world—the world worth living in—acquires additional dimension due to Snyder’s

use of the "Climax" concept, whose definition the poet ascribes to Ramon

Margalef’s (1968) W and Eugene Odum’s (1963)
EundamentalmEcologx:

The condition called "Climax" is an optimum condition of diversity-
optimum stability. When a system reaches climax, it levels out for
centuries or millennia. By virtue of its diversity it has the capacity to absorb
all sorts of impacts. Insects, fungi, weather conditions come and go; it’s
the opposite of monoculture. . . . This is also what is called maturity. Many
species exist in relation to the possibility of climax and to its reinfOrcement.

105
Certain human societies have demonstrated the capacity to become
mature in the same way. Once they have achieved maturity, they are
almost undestructible. But this kind of maturity has nothing to do with
civilization [the only societies that are mature are primitive societies].
("East-West Interview," in W, hereafter BIN. p. 117)
According to Snyder, the climactic stage of civilization is represented most
closely by the primitive tribal community of the paleolithic period, which indeed
stayed relatively stable for millennia, capable of maintaining the ecological
balance of the environment and the spiritual balance of the individual.
Consequently, Snyder views the paleolithic community as the fullest stage of
human development, a type of social organization that promoted "wholeness" of
existence, nondestructive and almost indestructible. He illustrates the emergence
of this community in "Towards Climax":
Salt seas, mountains, deserts--
cell mandala holding water
nerve network linking toes and eyes
fins legs wings-
teeth, all purpose Iittle early mammal molars.
primate fiat-foot
front fore-mounted eyes--
watching at the forest-grassland (interface
richness) edge.

scavenge, gather, rise up on rear legs.
(ll. 9. 83)

As he proceeds in his description ofthe early society at its best, Snyder stresses
its climactic characteristics. That society is characterized by spiritual refinement,
artistic achievements, life in harmony with other life forms, and strength of myth

and ritual:

106

learn more plants, netting, trapping, boats.
bow and arrow. dogs.
mingle bands and families in and out like language
kin to grubs and trees and wolves

dance and sing.
(II. p. 83)

Evolving in the flow toward climax, this society was not, however, climactic itself.
It had stayed close to the ideal for a long time, but eventually it evolved further-

and in a wrong direction:
begin to go "beyond"—
get better off, get class,
make lists, start writing down.
forget wild plants, their virtues
lose dream-time
lost largest size of brain--
(II. p. 83)

In this manner, Snyder describes the "fatal flaw" of humanity, visible as
early as in its paleolithic stage: the compulsive urge toward progress and power.
This feature takes the form of acquiring superficial control over nature—and from
then on, constant struggle to preserve and reinforce the usurped superiority
because one intrusion into ecological balance creates an avalanche of effects:
"start farming/cows won’t stay away, start herding" (II, p. 83). In the meantime,
spiritual refinement, awareness of the immediate (wild plants), and mystical
(dream time) worlds vanishes, replaced by technological concerns and ignorance
-or forgetfulness--of literacy. The result is a degradation of the species, which

in stead of further refinement within the climax-oriented flow, directs its energies

into a sidenalley of a technocratic civilization:

107

get safer, tighter, wrapped in,
winding smaller, spreading tighter
lie towns out in streets in rows,
and build a wall.
(II, p. 83)

This image corresponds to Snyder’s vision of contemporary Western (most
typically American) society, characterized by overpopulation, expansionism,
excessive urbanization, monoculture, alienation, and insecurity in "Four Changes"
(11, p. 91). Most alarming for Snyder, however, is the loss of energy, which,
similarto the disappearance of the Coyote, carries a double meaning for the poet.
In a literal sense, the loss of energy implies our dependence on--and forthcoming
exhaustion of—fossil fuels, as well as the environmentally destructive search for
more energy sources to satisfy the addition of "fossil fuel junkies" (II, p. 103).
Snyder points out that the addiction to external energy resources marks the loss
ofan ability to "generate" energy from within—which used to characterize primitive
life "dependent on an interpenetrating network of wild systems" ("Energy ls
Eternal Delight," in II, pp. 103-105). As James McClintock (1994) demonstrates
in W015, Snyder’s concept of inexhaustible energy is linked to
the fundamental ecological principle of succession:

Snyder often cites Eugene Odum and Margalef in stating his

understanding that essentially in any ecosystem over time there is a

pattern of change from initial instability and simplicity to a mature "climax
state" of optimum stability and optimum diversity. It is a lesson Aldo
Leopold had taught in W—food chains constitute an
energy circuit for the biotic pyramid, and the evolutionary pattern is
towards a diverse and stable biota. (p. 116)

108

In this respect, hunting—as a means of direct participation in the food chain-
implies a direct link to the energy source, as well as being the source of energy
itself. "It is an act, related to eating and dancing, of participation and communion
for the continuation of the species. The steps of the hunt—stalking, killing, eating,
growing, procreating and dying—recapitulate the cycle of life" (Steuding, 1976, p.
85).
In the light of its transformation from internal to external energy sources,
a primitive society can be considered Snyder’s social ideal only as long as it stays
within the frame of evolution toward climax, which means evolution toward
stability and equilibrium. Having remained relatively stable and undestructive for
millennia, the paleolithic community proved as close to the climactic ideal as
humanity has ever gotten; however, it was not ideal itself because ultimately it
failed to absorb and discuss the urge toward technocratic civilization.
Consequently, it would be an oversimplification to claim that Snyder advocates
a return to the paleolithic order because going back would create a vicious cycle.
Instead, he advocates reevaluation and imitation of the valuable heritage of the
prehistoric past, while bearing in mind recent experience, even using
technological achievements:
A decentralized energy technology could set us free. It’s only the
prevailing economic and government policies that block us from exploring
that further. There is a people’s technology. This means that in eight or
nine years where we live up in the Sierras without electricity but tied to
buying that fifty-five gallon drum of kerosene for our lights, we’ll have
photovoltaic solar cells charging a couple of car batteries: which will be

essentially free energy once the investment of the cells is on the roof. And
everybody could do that. ("The Bioregional Ethics," in BIN. p. 147)

109

Thus, Snyder urges a return to the point where the right path was abandoned and
reentering the flow toward Climax, without obliterating the valid heritage of the
recent past: "It is only the temporary turbulence lam setting myself against. I’m
in line with the big flow" ("East-West Interview," in BIN, p. 112).

The model of life suggested by Snyder as an antidote to contemporary
crises is both unorthodox and complex. It becomes comprehensible only in the
context of specific ideas—such as bioregional ethics, re-inhabitation, Zen
Buddhism, and planetary consciousness, to mention just a few. Each of these
concepts could provide a starting point for the detailed discussion of Snyder’s
program—this purpose, however, can also be accomplished by exploring Snyder’s
vision of primitive hunting, which becomes the symbol of overcoming alienation
and expanding awareness of biocentric equality.

In the already quoted "Towards Climax," the hunting images still belong to
the portion of the poem where humanity retains the climactic orientation; the
decline of species follows transition to herding and farming. Consequently,
Snyder presents hunting as the ultimate stage of a mature society, a notion that
introduces arare note of disagreement between Snyder and Thoreau. The latter
claims that:

There is a period in the history of the individual, as of the race, when the

hunters are the "best men," as the Algonquins called them. We cannot but

pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is not more humane, while his
education has been sadly neglected. This was my answer with respect to
those youths who were bent on this pursuit, trusting that they would soon
outgrow it. No humane being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will

wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same tenure as
he does [italics mine]. (T horeau, 1854/1985, p. 492)

110
The conflict concerns Snyder’s conviction that the only mature society was the
prehistoric one (whose mode of subsistence was hunting), and Thoreau’s claim
that hunting is merely a stage in human education, a necessary rite of
adolescence.

On the basis of the latter statement, American nature writers—whose views,
according to Peter Fritzell’s NatuLeJAmnngjndAmeLica (1990), have all been
influenced by Walden—have traditionally condemned hunting as inconsistent with
a sense of oneness with nature. Joseph Wood Krutch’s "The Vandal and the
Sportsman" (1958) exemplifies that tendency of linking any form of killing to a
discredited Carthesian cruelty toward animals. Krutch advocates learning from
nature in a gentle way, through intuition rather than participation in the dramatic
aspects of life: "Despite the cruel dilemmas with which a contingent universe
continually confronts us, we can still sometime elude and mitigate them" (p. 146).
A similar argument will be discussed later in relation to Nelson’s Inelslandmmn
(1989) and Sherman Paul’s response to that book in mm
(1992). As far as Snyder’s views are concerned, the answer to the conflict lies
in the fact that the poet considers contemporary society to be infantile rather than
mature; therefore, the education derived from the primitive hunter's worldview still
remains to be integrated in the course of reentering the climactic flow:

Americans have a supermarket of adulterated ideas available to them,

thinned out and sweetened, just like their food. They don’t have the

apparatus for critical discernment either. So that the term infantilization is
something I can relate to. I think there’s a lot of truth in it. The primary
quality of that truth is the lack of self reliance, personal hardiness—self
sufficiency. . . .There’s a triple alienation when you try to avoid work: first

you’re trying to get outside energy sources/resources to do it for you;
second, you no longer know what your own body can do, where your food

111

or water come from; third, you lose the capacity to discover the unity of
mind and body via your work. (BIN, 103)

In Mxthsfilexls. Snyder’s second collection of poetry, published in 1960,
"logging" is the metaphor for anticlimactic progress of modern society. As Bob
Steuding (1976) claims, "’logging’ has come to represent for Snyder the mindless
rapaciousness of society and the destruction which has occurred due to man’s
egotistical manipulation and exploitation of his environment” (p. 74). Steuding
further declares that, in the second part of Mflhsjslexls. "hunting" represents
an antithesis to the process of environmental destruction. Just as in the cases of
Harrison and McGuane, however, it is a specific kind of hunting that (as Steuding
suggests) Snyder has in mind:

"Hunting," in contrast to its practice by weekend tourists in the mountains

for a shot at a deer, is an act of worship for Snyder. If undertaken with

knowledge, full awareness, and reverence, the hunt, in contrast to logging,
represents the communion of all life forms and the participation of man in
his ecosystem. Hunting makes clear man’s place in the food web. To
hunt and then to eat the flesh of the slain animal is in Snyder’s words,

"making love with the animals." (p. 75)

Whereas hunting for entertainment and "logging" are sacrilegious in
Snyder’s poetic vision, primitive hunting practice is sacramental (Steuding, 1976).
The difference between sacrilege and sacrament lies in the perception of nature
by the logger and hunter, who respectively understand it as an opponent and as
a powerful ally.

The roots of the loggers’ perception are traced by Snyder, as well as Lynn

White (1968) in "The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis"-to the combination

of progress and Judeo-Christian tradition, where nature is viewed as opposite of,

112
and inferior to, technological and spiritual refinement. The same attitude is
discussed by Callicott (1989) in "Traditional American Indian and Western
European Attitudes Toward Nature," in which the author traces the roots of
Western attitudes toward nature even further back than emergence of Judeo-
Christianity and discusses such attitudes in the context of their relationship to an
ecological as well as a primitive worldview:

The Pythagorean/Platonic concept of the soul as immortal and other-

worldly, essentially foreign to the hostile physical world, has profoundly

influenced the European attitude towards nature. . . .Aristotle’s taxonomic
hierarchy . . . resulted in a view of living nature which was, if that is
possible, more ecologically blind than Plato’s. Relations among things

again are, in Aristotle’s biological theory, accidental and inessential. A

thing’s essence is determined by its logical relations within the taxonomic

schema rather than, as in ecological theory, by its working relations with

other things in the environment. (pp. 182-183)

Western attitudes toward nature appear ecologically blind due to their
disregard of the interconnectedness of life, not to mention their trust in human
superiority and uniqueness. The primitive worldview, according to Callicott
(1989), is just the opposite:

The implicit overall metaphysics of American Indian cultures locates

human beings in a larger social, as well as physical, environment. People

belong not only to the human community but to a community of all nature

as well. Existence in this larger society, just as existence in a family or a

tribal context, places people in an environment in which reciprocal

responsibilities and mutual obligations are taken for granted, and assumed

without question or reflection. (p. 189)

Snyder’s poetic vision of hunting supports this claim. In his poetry, the key

transformations In the process of acquiring a sense of belonging are the

acknowledgment of the animal within the hunter and a "person" within an animal.

113

The sense of belonging to the same community as all of nature begins with
knowledge, which overcomes fear and alienation. One can acquire this
knowledge most directly through hunting simply because hunting both demands
and promotes it. Snyder points out that the attention and awareness involved in
Ieaming animal behavior, in addition to developing the biocentric perspective,
eliminate human dependency on technological aids: "Why then does it seem to
be a weakness in their [American lndians’] hunting technology. The answer is
simple: they didn’t hunt with tools, they hunted with their minds. They did things-
learning an animal’s behavior—that rendered elaborate tools unnecessary" ("East-
West Interview," in BIN. p. 107). In this respect, primitive hunting in Snyder’s
opinion could provide a valuable lesson for a contemporary Western world
characterized by alienation from nature and addition to elaborate technology.

Snyder proceeds in his description of the process of studying animals by
pointing out the importance of animal imitation:

You learn the animal mind by becoming an acute observer—by entering the

mind—of animals. That’s why in rituals and ceremonies that are found

throughout the world from ancient times the key component of the
ceremony is animal miming. The miming is a spontaneous expression of
the capacity of becoming physically and psychically one with the animal,

showing the people know just what the animal does. (BIN, p. 107)

The pragmatic aspect of education through miming, for the sake of a successful
hunt, should not overshadow the spiritual importance of acquiring a sense of

oneness with the animal. Such identification, in Snyder’s opinion, signifies the

unity with Original Mind, the Buddhist/Native American notion of universal,

114
subconscious, creative power and knowledge, unrestricted by dogmas of specific
religions:
Original mind speaks through little myths and tales that tell us how to be
in some specific ecosystem of the far flung world. . . . To go beyond and
become what-a seagull on the reef? Why not? For an empty moment
while their soar and cry enters your heart like sunshaft through water, you

are that, totally, we do this everyday. So this is the art that gives art, style,
and self-transcendence to the inescapable human plantedness In a social

and ecological nexus. (WW. 9 X)

For Snyder, the social and ecological orders converge because his notion
of society—where both "four-legged" and "two-legged people" (11, p. 48) are
equal-does not exclude ecological balance. The perception of all elements of
nonhuman nature as enspirited and sentient promotes ethical restraints upon any
interaction, and that in turn promotes ecological balance, according to Leopold’s
land ethics. In Snyder’s poetry such perception of animate and inanimate nature
recurs whenever primitive hunts are evoked. The division between human and
animal is often blurred, as it happens in Mfihfllexls in the shaman’s power
vision experienced in the process of "hatching a new myth":

Dying carp biting air\
in the damp grass,
River recedes. No matter.

Limp fish sleep in the weeks.
The sun dries me as l dance.

(MW, p. 37)

Similar imagery of enspirited and sentient nature is evoked directly in relation to

hunting:

115

this poem is for the deer

"I dance on all the mountains
On five mountains, I have a dancing place
When they shoot at me I run
To my five mountains"

(Mubsmns. D- 25)

The anthropomorphic perception of prey might suggest that the act of
killing is morally indefensible, and it is, as Steuding (1976) points out, when
performed without full self-knowledge and reverence by a hunter who does not
share the primitive wisdom. The killer is not only an inattentive sportsman, but
also a driver on an interstate, as well as the civilization that builds roads. The
modem-primitive hunters should begin their hunting not by killing, but by the
rituals of atonement for the deaths unaccounted for because they should first
assume responsibility for the sum of human transgressions.

The doe apparently was shot
lengthwise and through the side-
shoulder and out the blank
belly full of blood
Can save the other shoulder maybe,
if she didn't lie too long-

Pray to their spirits. Ask them to bless us:
our ancient sister’s trails
the roads were laid across and kill them:
night-shining eyes

The dead by the side of the road.
("The Dead by the Side of the Road," in II. p. 7)

Snyder, however, also offers an interpretation of hunting that turns
sacrilege into sacrifice, thus affirming the act of killing. In "Long Hair," the animals

initiate the hunt:

116

Once every year, the Deer catch human beings. They
do various things which irresistibly draw man near them:
each one selects a certain man. The deer shoots the man,
who is then compelled to skin it and carry its meat home
and eat it. Then the deer is inside the man. He waits
and hides in there, but the man doesn’t know it. When
enough Deer have occupied enough men, they will strike
all at once. The men who don’t have Deer in them will
also be taken by surprise, and everything will change
some. This is called "takeover from inside."

(in Regardinnflaxe. p- 65)

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this poem, as far as
Snyder’s vision of hunting is concerned. "Long Hair" contains all the key
elements of a redemptive ritual: nature is perceived as sentient and enspirited;
the divisions between humans and nonhumans, hunter and the hunted, are
blurred; the prey consents to participate in the hunt; finally, wilderness is essential
in overturning the anticlimactic status quo. Even though these notions evoke the
primitive hunter’s perception of the hunt, the poem’s ending suggests that the
setting is contemporary—or rather futu ristic--due to its insistence that the situation
has to change. This implied change, takeover by the wilderness "within," is the
necessary condition for reentering the big flow toward "Climax." Snyder’s vision
of hunting suggests that human alienation is overcome gradually and mostly on
the subconscious level. Even if contemporary hunters (or people in general) have
lost the ability to sense that hunting restores their ties with the wilderness, their
weakness in this respect does not undermine the possibility of "everything
changing some." The wildernessnor the Deer-~is presented not as the object of

the hunt, but as the initiator of both the hunt and the subsequent change. This

117
image might imply that humanity/hunters need not feel the responsibility to
acknowledge, explore, and revere the wilderness outside and within because they
are to be "taken over" anyway. This interpretation undermines most of the
distinctions drawn earlier between careless, recreational, profane hunting and
hunting performed within the primitive frame of mind. It also undermines the
thesis that only the exercise of the latter type of hunting can produce long-term
ecological and psychological benefits. The answer to this problem lies in the
beginning of the poem. Snyder presents the Deer coming to the human beings
purely out of choice. In Snyder’s poetic vision, as well as in the primitive belief,
the animals may refuse to do so ifthe hunters behave inappropriately. Callicott
( 1989) presents this principle as central to the Native American dealings with the
environment:
In one’s practical dealings in such a world it is necessary to one's well-
being and that of one’s family and tribe to maintain good social relations,
not only with proximate human persons, one’s immediate tribal neighbors,
but also with the non human persons abounding in the immediate
environment. (p. 188)
Snyder illustrates this in the final part of the poem "for the deer," which
immediately follows the description of a deer blinded by headlights, shot by a
drunken driver".
Deer don’t want to die for me
I’ll drink sea-water
Sleep on beach pebbles in the rain

Until the deer come down to die
in pity for my pain.

118
Primitive hunting does not end with the kill because it is followed by rituals
of appeasement and atonement: "It is thanking a friend for cooperating in a
mutual relationship. And if you didn’t thank him, the species would become
offended," as Joseph Campbell puts it in W341: (1988, p. 74). In
Snyder's poem, the need for a proper ritual is even greater because the animal
was killed in a thoughtless fashion. Failure to do so might result in "refusal" of the
game to participate in the hunt or, in broader terms, "unwillingness" of the
wilderness to assert its existence. In both cases, it leads to breaking the chain
of life, and therefore physical, spiritual, and ecological death, just as it is

described in Snyder’s vision of "logging."
The first mention of hunting performed by the author in Lopez’s Arctic
Dreams also evokes the image of animals that "will not come": "Always we were
hunting This particular habitat, the number of cod in the water, the time of the
year—everything said ringed seals would be here. But for us they weren’t" (Arctic
QLeams, hereafter AD, p. 78). The futile hunt described by the author is part of
a scientific experiment. The purpose of the experiment is to determine the effects
of offshore oil development on Maine wildlife. As Sherman Paul (1992) points out

in W, hunting is a scientific and moral issue for Lopez:

The gathering of ecological data involves killing seals . . . , data that will be
used "to guide oil and mineral development." Lopez's sentiments are clear
enough: He would like this immemorial hunting and fishing land to remain
inviolate. But he also respects knowledge, the scientific inquiry that
always seems to be used to alter old ways and stable ecosystems. So he
does not settle the matter "as if there were no seals" but uncomfortably
stands in the middle of the question" in the way he stands between the
scientists and the crew that abhors the killing. (p. 78)

119

Paul’s description of the author torn between the two conflicting
perspectives is reflected in the opening quotation. However, the claim that the
seals "were not there for us" also suggests that Lopez’s perspective has already
assimilated to a large extent the primitive hunting worldview, and his choice of
expression (denoting lack of volition on the part of the seals) proves that in the
author’s view seals are more than the object of the experiment.

In describing the arctic landscape, Lopez draws attention to the notion of
ecotones: "the edges of any Iandscape-horizon’s, the lip of the valley, the bend

of a river around a canyon wall—quicken an observer’s expectations. . . . In
biology these transitional areas between the two different communities are called
ecotones" (AD, p. 123). In W313, McClintock (1994) claimsthat
”the edges he [Lopez] ’walks’ are more than ecological, however; they are thin
boundaries between human and non human, between knowledge and mystery,
between the mundane and the sacred" (p. 145). The notion of an eootone can
be applied both to the actual landscape and to human consciousness, according
to Lopez, because in "The Country of the Mind" the author professes his belief in
the claim that "what lies at the heart of the religion of hunting peoples is the notion
that a spiritual landscape exists within the physical landscape." Lopez’s
perception of hunting, like his perception of the arctic landscape, is an example
of a spiritual and intellectual eootone, where Western and primitive worldviews

converge.

120

W is not a diary of conversion to a totally different ecological
outlook, in the way Leopold’s "Thinking Like a Mountain" is. It is rather an
account of a process of realization that science-even the science of ecology-4s
not enough to comprehend any landscape, and only when the spiritual and
physical landscapes converge in human consciousness, human actions can
contribute to maintaining the ecological balance of their surroundings. A3113
Dreams, published in 1986, follows a sequence of Lopez’s works in which the
author demonstrates both his knowledge of human--primitive and civilized-
response to nature and of nature of itself (mm and Emblems).
as well as his appreciation of Native American lore (Wm

WM). Consequently, the

author is familiar with both Western and primitive environmental perspectives
when he approaches the arctic landscape, and in his book these perspectives
finally merge with the landscape.

‘ Lopez’s enthusiasm for the primitive hunter’s environmental practices is
not devoid of certain reservations:

Hunting wild animals to the point of extinction is a very old story. Aleut
hunters, for example, apparently wiped out populations of sea otter in the
vicinity of Amchitka Island in the Aleutians 2500 years ago. . . . Man’s
ability to destroy whole wildlife populations goes back even further than
this. Arthur Jelinek, a vertebrate paleontologist, has referred to early man
in North America in very harsh terms, calling him predator "against whom
no (naturally) evolved defense systems were available" and "a source of
profound changes" in the ecosystems of North America at the beginning
of the Holocene. . . . The specific events on which Jelinek bases these
judgments are the catastrophic die-offs of large mammals that began
about 18,000 years ago in North America and in which he believes man
played the crucial role. (AD. pp. 50-51)

121

Even though these data do not directly contradict Snyder’s thesis about the
ecological nondestructiveness of primitive hunters (because Snyder’s paleolithic
ideal goes further back in the human past, whereas his appreciation of Native
American hunting practices is always in direct relation to their adherence to the
paleolithic worldview), the evidence that Lopez considers checks the inclination
to unconditionally praise the environmental conscience of primitive hunters. In a
scientific manner, Lopez proceeds to investigate the data, and he arrives at the
conclusion "that man played a significant, ifnot decisive, role seems inescapable"
(AD, p. 52). Still, Lopez shares Callicott’s (1987) Conviction that instances of

environmental abuse do not totally deny the existence of environmental ethics
among primitive hunters:

To point to examples of wastage—buffaloes rotting on the plains or beaver
all but trapped out during the fur trade-which are supposed to deliver the
coup de grace to all romantic illusions of the American lndian’s reverence
for nature would be very much like pointing to the examples of murder and
war in European history and concluding that Europeans were altogether
without humanistic ethic of any sort. What is lacking is the useful
understanding of the function of ethics in human affairs. Ethics bear, as
philosophers point out, a normative relation to behavior; they do not
describe how pe0ple actually behave, they rather set out how people
ought to behave. . . . Examples of occasional destruction of nature on the
pre-Columbian American continent and even the extirpation of species. . .
do not, by themselves, refute the assertion that the American Indian lived
not only by a tribal ethic, but by a land ethic as well, the overall and usual
effect of which was to establish a greater harmony between Indians and
their environment than enjoyed by their European successors. (pp. 249-
250)

Lopez does not, in his initial discussion of native hunting, relate the specific
details of primitive land ethics; he does so later in the book whenever the

land$6ape triggers his thoughts on human interaction. In the initial chapter,

122
however, he sums up his discussion in a way that evokes both Snyder’s and
Callicott’s convictions:
The cold view to take of our future is that we are therefore headed for
extinction in a universe of impersonal chemical, physical, and biological
laws. A more productive, certainly more engaging view, is that we have
the intelligence to grasp what is happening, the composure not to be
intimidated by its complexity, and the courage to take steps that may bear
no fruit in our lifetimes. . . . Their [Eskimo] traditional philosophy is insistent
on the issue of ethical behavior toward animals. Within the spirit of this
tradition and within the European concept of compassionate regard may
lie the threads of a modern realignment with animals. We need an attitude
of enlightened respect which will make both races feel more ethically at
ease with animals, more certain of following a dignified course in the years
ahead, when the animals will still be without a defense against us. (AD, pp.

52-53)

Lopez illustrates both the native practice of "being ethically at ease with
animals" and the Western attitudes that are still far from compassionate regard
in "Tomarssuk," the chapter devoted to the polar bear. Lopez describes the polar
bear as "a creature of arctic edges," and indeed the subsequent discussion
depicts it not only as a creature of physical, but also metaphysical eootone: "The
artistic and philosophical evocation of the polar bear by Eskimo and pre-Eskimo
cultures leads one to believe that their insight derives from a special affinity with

the bear" (AD, p. 109). The author ascribes the affinity between the bear and
Eskimos to the similarity in their lines of adaptation, modes of subsistence, and
hunting methods. In addition, he mentions the hunters’ awareness of the
biological likeness between the two species: "From seeing a polar bear stripped

of its skin, how disquietingly human his appearance is" (AD. p. 109), which

echoes Harrison’s proclamation, "When you hang up a deer and strip its hide it

123

looks a bit too human for my taste" (Wolf, p. 117). The realization of a basic
identity is magnified by the fact that "there is something deeper in their
involvement, for each is prey to the other" (AD, p. 109). Consequently, the
primitive belief that during the hunt the roles of the predator and the prey are
sometimes blurred—a notion that becomes Snyder’s poetic metaphor in "Long
Hair—finds its very concrete illustration in Lopez’s discussion of Eskimos and
polar bears. The awareness of the immediate danger does not, however, cause
hostility toward the species, as Lopez points out in his description of polar bear
hunting:

These were not simply terrifying moments but moments of awe and
apotheosis. These were the moments that kept within the culture the
overreaching presence of being held in fearful esteem. Tornarssuk, the
Polar Eskimo called him, "the one that gives power." To encounter the
bear, to meet it with your whole life, was to grapple with something
personal. The confrontation occurred on a serene, deadly, and elevated
plain. If you were successful you found something irreducible within
yourself, like a seed. To walk away was to be alive, utterly. To be assured
of your own life, the life of your kind, in a harsh land where life took insight
and patience and humor. It was to touch the bear. It was a gift from a
bear. (AD, p. 110)

The history of European encounters with polar bears is a study in fear and
alienation:

To men who grappled, instead, with abstractions of geography, with
dreams of a mother lode of wealth in the New World, the bear was
something else. Thousands of miles from familiar surroundings, genuinely
frightened, and perhaps strained by the grim conditions of shipboard life,
Europeans took to killing any polar bear they saw. They shot them out of
pettiness and a sense of rectitude. In time, killing polar bears became the
sort of amusement people expected on an arctic journey. (AD, p. 111)

124

In listing the usual reasons for European polar bear hunting, Lopez points
out that the bears symbolized the harshness and indifference of the arctic
landscape, and killing them signified triumph over the inhospitable land. The

Eskimo hunters reinforced their sense of kinship with bears by stories concerning

bear-human marriage (similarto Snyder’s poem number 6 in the "hunting" section

of Mxlhifilens) or stories concerning the noble character of bears (AD. p. 1 14).
The European hunters drew on their own set of myths (bears purposefully
poisoning their killers, for instance) in order to justify further extermination. "Such
stories only confirmed some in their sense of being offended, of being trifled with
in this difficult place" (AD, p. 111).

Lopez adds new insight into the subject of the origins of destructive sport
hunting by pointing out that the main reasons for it are insecurity and alienation
caused by displacement. Although it would be an oversimplification to claim, on
the basis of this statement, that the only destructive hunting is that performed by
Westerners and tourists, data supplied by Lopez prove that, in the present, native
hunting still needs less supervision:

Recent research into the size and dynamics of polar bear populations has

resulted in a hunting moratorium in Svalbard and a partial ban on hunting

in the United States. (According to the terms of the Marine Mammal

Protection Act, which supersedes the stricter provisions of the IUCN Polar

Agreement, there are no seasonal limits and no limits on the number of

bears that can be killed by native hunters. Nor are cubs, females with

cubs, or denning females protected.) (AD, p. 116)

Lopez’s discussion of native arctic hunters suggests that their

understanding of nature should be consulted, respected, and incorporated into

125

contemporary environmental science. Lopez often draws attention to the
insufficiency of Western science in penetrating the complexity of ecological
connections, where precision does not necessarily equal accuracy and "the
animal itself will always remain larger than the sum of any sets of experiments.
To acquire a closer understanding of, for instance, the life of an arctic fox, one
should try to penetrate its world, or its Umwelt (as Lopez calls it, borrowing the
phrase from Jakob von Uexkull):

The discovery of an animal’s Umwe/t and its elucidation require great

patience and experimental ingenuity, a free exchange of information

among different observers, hours of direct observation, and a reluctance
to summarize the animal. This in my experience is the Eskimo hunter’s
methodology. Under ideal circumstances it can also be the methodology

of Western science. (AD. p. 265)

In practical terms, the study of Umwelten of the inhabitants of a certain
ecosystem can, in addition to expanding scientific knowledge, provide guidelines
for minimizing human interference. This can be accomplished by both ethical
restraints toward "the familiar" as opposed to aggression toward "the alien," and
by learning principles of coexistence from animals, who appear to have had a
better record in this respect than humanity. Snyder’s poetry provides an image

to illustrate Lopez’s claim:
the man who as the soul of the wolf
knows the self-restraint
of the wolf
aimless executions and slaughterings

are not the works of wolves and eagles
("Spel Against Demons," in II, p. 16)

126

Lopez, however, is skeptical as far as the possibility of transmitting Eskimo
knowledge, not to mention animal Umwelt, to mainstream science is concerned.
"A belief in the authority of statistics and the dismissal of Eskimo narratives as
only anecdotal is a dichotomy one encounters frequently in arctic environmental
assessment reports. . . . The Umwelt of a statistician, certainly, plays a role in
developing the ’statistical picture’ of a landscape" (AD. p. 270). If the Western
and the native environmental perspectives are to merge, it can happen only over
a long "field trip" on which the scientist can participate directly in the interaction
with the land and expand his awareness through hunting:

Hunting in my experience-and by hunting I simply mean being out on the

land—is a state of mind. All of one’s faculties are brought to bear in an

effort to become fully incorporated into the landscape. It is more than
listening for animals or watching for hoof prints or a shift in the weather.

It is more than the analysis of what one senses. To hunt means to have

the land around you like clothing. . . . It means to release yourself from

rational images of what something "means" and to be concerned only that
it "is." And then to recognize that things exist only insofar as they can be

related to other things. (AD. p. 200)

Lopez’s understanding of eootone applies to such an image of hunting.

Once one transcends the Western heritage of perceiving all elements of natural
work as objects, and once one establishes a "local and personal" (AD, p. 201)
relationship with animals and land, the hunt will take place on the edge of
consciousness, between the physical landscape and the "landscape of the mind.”
Because Lopez insists that ecology should be equally concerned with both

landscapes-the environment and its perception in a native mind-such a hunt

takes one closer to an actual ecological science.

127

Skeptical as Lopez is about the Western receptiveness to the primitive
worldview, he nevertheless provides examples of successful experiments in this
area. Richard Nelson, whose anthropological works are based on research
among northern hunters, is characteristically quoted in this respect:

Several Western scientists, including anthropologist Richard Nelson,

marine mammal biologists John Burns, Francis Fay, and Kerry Finley, and

terrestrial mammal biologist Robert Stephenson, have sought out Eskimo
hunters as field companions in order to get a better understanding of arctic
ecology. Nelson . . . wrote a line any one of the others might have written
after a year of traveling through the country with these people: "[I'heir]
statements which seem utterly incredible at first almost always turn out to

be correct." (AD, p. 271)

Referring to Nelson’s HuntersanNdeeche and Hunteabijbe
Nanhemflmsj. Sherman Paul (1992) draws attention to the subtitle of the latter
book: "Both are studies in the ’Designs for Survival—designs suggesting that we,
too, may find something valuable in them" (p. 144). In other words, Nelson’s
study of the native hunting practice can provide some solutions to the current
crises of an ecological nature and contribute to our survival on a larger scale.
Their solutions are of a nature similar to those suggested by Snyder and Lopez:
expanding our environmental awareness by the study and practice of primitive
hunting, as well as alleviating our sense of spiritual estrangement from nature by
accepting the prescientific, mystical view of the natural environment. Nelson’s
works provide a detailed description of hunting techniques, as well as information
Concerning primitive hunters’ beliefs, myths, and rituals. In this respect, Hunters
91.1mm. for instance. and MakeEmersJtheBaven supplement

each other, whereas Wm synthesizes the information coming

128

from both sources in its fictionalized hunting narratives. The latter book
represents the primitive hunters’ worldview, not only its content but also in its
form, where the divisions into hunting seasons replace traditional chapters, while
the narrative method evokes the primitive mode of teaching—transmission. As
Paul (1992) points out in Eor_tbe_Love_of_tbeJlLodd. Nelson’s interest in
transmission as the only valuable method of learning adheres to Snyder’s vision
of education: "And the stories, telling of old, adultrand apprentice hunters
concern transmission (the ancient way of learning upheld by Snyder in Axe
Handles) and are themselves its instrument" (p. 142). This type of learning from
ancient hunting experience is also, according to Barry Lopez, the only reliable
way to supplement contemporary ecological knowledge.

The possibility of acquiring knowledge through transmission, however, is
diminishing. This is happening not only because of the reluctance of Western
science to accept "unscientific" data, as Lopez points out in ALQtiSLDLeams, but
also because the process of acculturation leads to a decline in traditional hunting
experience. Regardless of the fact that the primitive hunting tradition of the
Koyukon or the Eskimo peoples is presented as grounded in a set of stabilizing
myths and rituals, Nelson admits that the tradition is declining:

The young man must be willing to shrug off continual ridicule and teasing

for his errors, and seldom is he able to strike a counterblow. The would-be

hunters of the past have been required to endure this "hazing" treatment

because for them there was no alternative. . . . Today he can leave the
village, find a job in the village, or live as an unproductive consumer.

(WM. hereafter 1:11:11. 9. 387)

129

Nelson, similarto Lopez and Snyder, expresses hope that Western civilization will
be able to recognize the process of cultural destruction and act in time to reverse
it:
It is obvious, therefore, that the native economy will die with the passing
of the present adult generation. And along with it the fascinating and
impressive body of knowledge which has been developed over these
hundreds of generations will be lost. It is fortunate that we realize ahead
of time that there is considerable practical value, to say nothing of limitless
intrinsic worth, in collecting and preserving this information. (tiNl. p. 387)
While optimistic, Nelson does not provide many examples of the
successful transmission of the primitive hunting heritage into a modern
environmental outlook. When he presents success in this regard, it is only on the
individual rather than the collective scale. IberlandJthn serves as an
example of such transmission. As the author claims, it is
an account of my efforts to learn about the island and understand my
relationship to it, drawn from a journal I’ve kept since the process began.
At the outset l was mostly interested in exploring the terrain, experiencing

the natural community, finding ways to subsist from the animals and
plants, and integrating these activities with the teachings of Native

American people among whom I had lived. (Inelslandmmn, pp. xi-xii)

Nelson’s work documents a conscious contemporary attempt to live in the
Old/New way (as Snyder would call it) where hunting would constitute one of the
chief means of subsistence. Consequently. IhelfilanMithin is a valuable test
for the proclamations of contemporary hunters who disregard the idea of sport

and attempt to expand their ecological perspective by adhering to primitive
hunters’ worldview. In Paul’s (1992) MW, Nelson’s work is

the subject of a dispute between the two authors (Nelson responds by a letter to

130

Paul’s discussion of the book). One of the main points of this dispute is the issue
of moral and ecological justification of hunting. Thus, the argument between
Nelson and Paul—in addition to illustrating two interpretations of the book—
concems directly the search for "apologia" for contemporary hunting.

As Paul (1992) points out, Ibe_lsland_lMtbin begins and ends with a
recollection ‘of the words of Grandpa William, a Koyukon elder: "A good hunter
. . . that’s somebody the animals cometo" (p. 152). Paul, usually intent on finding
parallels among Snyder, Lopez, and Nelson, does not comment on the
relationship of this opening to similar comments in the works of the other two
authors. As a result, he overlooks the distinction--vital in the primitive worldview--
between sacrificial (voluntary on the part of an animal) and sacrilegious (voluntary
only on the part of the hunter) aspects of hunting. Disregarding this distinction
leads to a considerable conflict between the two authors’ understanding of
hunting, which gives rise to an argument highlighting the division between
Snyder’s and Thoreau’s views. Paul reveals his underlying concern with hunting,
even before he begins his discussion of IhelslandJMtbm. In his comments on

W131, he objects to violence in hunting:

Life is taken and life is renewed; the "conversation of death," as Lopez
calls it, makes sacred the necessity of killing.

Granted that we need to recover a sacramental sense of life, is
there no other way to do this? Is the sacred, as Rene Girard tells us,
always coupled with violence? Must civilization always rest on victimage?
(p. 144)

131
As a result of such objections, Paul (1992) deems Nelson's attempt "to live
deliberately" a questionable choice:
For reasons that are creditable yet still, I think, insufficient, Nelson . . . has
chosen not only to live as the Koyukon people do, with respect, humility,
and restraint in the watchful world, but to hunt, "to take a portion of [his]
family’s food from the land and sea." Necessity does not press him to do
this; not even the desire to know where his food comes from, so much as
the desire to participate in the flow whereby death furthers life, to be an
agent and locus of his fundamental transformation, itself a paradigm of

how the world enters us, how an island without becomes an island within.
.. (p- 153)

Paul’s (1992) objections are rooted in an impressive heritage of ecological
thought, beginning with Thoreau’s already quoted claim that hunting is to be
"outgrown" in the course of acquiring a biocentric perspective. Paul not only
views Nelson’s book from such a critical angle, he also ascribes similar doubts
about hunting to the author himself: "But Nelson has misgivings about hunting--
these more often than want of luck brings failure-and more often than not
foregoes killing" (p. 153). Paul ascribes this tendency to Nelson's double cultural
allegiance, where the "civilized" outlook promotes humane restraint. In the
conclusion to his discussion of We Paul claims that:

For most of us, the hunter’s way is not an ontological possibility. Leopold’s

husbandry of the wild, Snyder’s inhabitation of the San Juan Ridge, and

Berry’s settlement of America are most useful and demonstrably political

models. This is not to say that we have nothing to learn from the ancestral

wisdom of hunting peoples. They have thought, Nelson to be watchful in

a watchful world, and this is a fundamental lesson that we too much Ieam.

(p. 162)

However fundamental, such a lesson appears limited, compared with the

faith Nelson puts in the environmental value of primitive hunting. Consequently,

132

in his letter to Paul, he meticulously lists the forrner’s reservations about hunting
and responds to them in a detailed fashion. In the subsequent discussion of
Nelson’s defense, the arguments will be presented in order following that of Paul’s
objections, rather than in the way they were presented by Nelson—because the
order of Paul’s objections appears characteristic of the mainstream reservations
against hunting.

Nelson does not directly address Paul’s omission of the distinction
between sacrilegious and sacrificial hunting. On the other hand, he responds to
the notion of victimage as a basis of hunting. His response points to the
persistent presence of killing of one kind of another in life, which we deem
"victimage" only if its manifestation is fairly obvious:

The essay asks Girard’s question, "Is the sacred always coupled with

violence?" I believe that it is true only if "violence" includes the killing of

plants by gatherers and the destruction of natural communities by
traditional and modern agriculturists, many of whom surround their plant-
focused activities with sacred beliefs and religious rituals. The further
question, about civilization resting on victimage, is an interesting one.

Perhaps the most elementary of ecological principles is that life sustains

Itself in other life. If we accept the idea of "victimage" and the moral

judgment it implies, then worms are the victims of robins and mice are the

victims of foxes, as surely as goldthread and flowering dogwood are the

victims of deer. (Paul, 1992, p. 169)

Whereas Nelson tactfully dismisses Paul’s argument on logical grounds,
he does not use any of the arguments that come from the primitive worldview. He
might have done so in order to further dismiss the notion of victimage

(incompatible with voluntary sacrifice) by pointing out the concept of reciprocity

in primitive hunting beliefs. This concept is the basis on which Roderick Nash (in

133

Calicott, 1987) demonstrates certain inconsistencies in Aldo Leopold’s land
ethics: "Leopold simply dismissed the notion that animals, plants, and soil had
reciprocal ethical obligations toward people. For Leopold itwas a one-way street:
Humans were the ones to exercise restraint, to extend their ethics to include
nature" (p. 79). This concept of unilateral obligations is at odds with the concept
of biocentric equality and delegates to humans a superior position.
Consequently, when Paul (1992), influenced by Leopold, views killing of animals
as victimization, even when it is combined with ritualistic restrictions that ensure
survival of the species, he steps outside of a perspective that he professes to
represent.

Nelson’s subsequent argument concerns the necessity of his hunting,
which in Paul’s opinion is a weak justification of the author’s experiment. Nelson
responds by drawing attention to the fact that "Athabascan Indians and lnupiaq
Eskimos have long had access to imported agricultural foods," and it is by choice,
not necessity, that they depend on hunting for subsistence (Paul, 1992, p. 175).
Consequently, Nelson himself should not be condemned for choosing to hunt, any
more than the native population should, provided that hunting indeed becomes
his chief means of subsistence. Moreover, because Whirl
demonstrates how hunting contributes to developing the primitive view of the
environment, and that in turn contributes to successful hunting, Paul’s implication

that an ecologically valid mode of life can be developed without hunting seems

to be oblivious to the connection between the two. His use of Snyder’s

134

inhabitation of Shasta Nation as an example of a valid mode of existence
alternative to hunting appears to contradict Snyder’s vision of primitive hunting as
a way of atonement for contemporary "logging." A similar instance of Paul’s
selectiveness in recognizing connections between lifestyle and its effects on the
land is related to his belief that we are capable of "outgrowing" hunting in the
present. As Nelson points out, "If we accept the lifeways of traditional people like
Eskimos and Athabascan Indians as one valid measure, my focus on active,
outdoor living is appropriate for a mature adult" (Paul, 1992, p. 170). In addition,
Nelson points out that Paul’s implication that hunting is a somehow childish
endeavor is determined by the latter’s inability to transcend the outdated aspects
of Western anthropology:
In our Western tradition, removed from day-to-day working relationship
with our surroundings, we often regard the outdoors primarily as a source
of adventure, play, pleasure for the senSes, and other pursuits commonly
associated with the freedoms of youth. Hunting is strongly perceived as
a form of recreation, not as a kind of legitimate work or a way of life to be
undertaken by responsible adults. As a serious endeavor, hunting and the
intensely outdoors Iifeway associated with it are conceived as the realm of
the "primitive" or "archaic" peoples, whom we may respect but also believe
we have evolved beyond. (Anthropologists, of course, recognize that these
cultures are highly evolved in their own direction as we are in ours, just as
biologists recognize that all organisms are equally "advanced," though on
separate evolutionary courses.) (Paul, 1992, p. 165)
For Nelson, just as for Snyder, one matures into being a hunter, not
regresses toward it. This mature identity of a hunter, however, does not exclude
the possibility of deriving pleasure from the pursuit. Even if such pleasure

Signifies indulgence in bloodthirsty instincts, it is natural rather than wrong, ifwe

Iook at it from a biological point of view: "A similar challenge of sorting out

135

motivations with regard to biological processes seems to underlie the religious
edicts deeming sex for procreation conscionable while sex for pleasure is not; as
ifitwere possible to carry out the act of procreation without pleasure" (Paul, 1992,
p.176)

This last argument is to some extent related to the issue of hunting for
pleasure and entertainment. Nelson does not seem to agree with Paul's
implications that only "civilized" allegiances promote nonacquisitive hunting.
Instead, he points to the native practices of "hunting" or stalking animals: "I have
been with Koyukon people when they stalked within a few yards of animals,
having no intention to hunt them, wishing only to be near them and to see them
closely" (Paul, 1992, p. 171). As a result, Nelson refuses to acknowledge the
validity of Paul’s distinction between "civilized watcher" and "primitive hunter." As
far as the Western hunting for sport is concerned, Nelson treats this issue with
more equanimity than Harrison, McGuane, or Snyder, and even admits some
basic affinity between himself and a typical sportsman: "Although I do not
consider myself a sport hunter or sport fisherman, l have much more in common
with those who are, than with the leaders of Exxon or Dow Chemical. To me, our
shared purpose of keeping natural communities intact is more important than the
differences in how we choose to engage ourselves with those communities"

(Paul, 1992, p. 169).
Nelson appears considerably more at east in his defense of primitive

hunting that Paul is in his attack. This may be ascribed to the fact that Nelson’s

136

arguments reflect the same interconnectedness and consistency that characterize
the primitive hunting worldview, where the lapses of scientific nature are
compensated with the mystical and ethical perception of the environment. On the
other hand, occasional shortcomings of Paul’s arguments reflect the same
insufficiency of the Western worldview, which Lopez considers characteristic of
our science of ecology-inadequate knowledge of connections due to our lack of
willingness to supplement science with awe, as .well as the persistent conviction
that humanity has to perform a special role in the natural community. Nelson’s
defense of hunting in W to some extent provides an
answer to the torn ecological conscience of the contemporary hunter. Nelson,
similar to Snyder and Lopez, suggests that the rituals of appeasement, a humble
acknowledgment of human dependence on nonhumans’ benevolence toward us,
are not only a necessary element of primitive hunting, but also something that we,
as humans, should perform in relation to the earth in the nearest future, if we want
to survive. A revival of primitive hunting could be the most direct way of
acknowledging such dependence. On a mass scale, however, it would probably
be sufficient to realize our indebtedness to nature and the wilderness for

sustaining our life.

CHAPTER V

AFTER HEMINGWAY: THE EVOLUTION OF THE SPORTING MYTH

But the most satisfaction is to dominate and convince the fish and
bring him intact in everything but spirit to the boat as rapidly as
possible. (Hemingway, 1936)

. . . To expect nothing of nature, but to humbly receive its mystery,
beauty, food and life. . . . This is the source of success for a hunter
or a watcher; not skill, not cleverness, not guile. Something is only
given in nature, never taken. (Nelson, 1989)

Critical responses to contemporary American literature dealing with hunting
and fishing often include references to "the Hemingway tradition." This tendency,
resented by writers such as Jim Harrison and Tom McGuane, provides an
interesting insight into the American understanding of hunting and fishing.
Regardless of the fact that Hemingway was neither the first in American history,
nor the only writer in his time, to deal with the subject of hunting and fishing, it is

his accomplishment rather than Cooper’s, Melville’s, or Faulkner’s that still serves
as a common denominator for the theme of the outdoor adventures. Seemingly,
Hemingway’s treatment of the subject has given the fullest expression of
American understanding of human interaction with nature.

The opening quotations illustrate the difference between Hemingway's

perception of the ultimate thrill of hunting and fishing and that of Richard Nelson,

137

138

a contemporary anthropologist, writer, and hunter. Whereas Hemingway stresses
the triumph of human will over nature, Nelson expresses the primitive belief that
human will plays only a subordinate role in the outcome of the hunt. For
Hemingway, hunting or fishing is a matter of "taking" a fish, a lion, or a deer; for
Nelson, it implies life being given. For Hemingway, hunting or fishing is a test of
self, whereas Nelson sees it as a test of belonging to a larger than human
community of sentient and enspirited beings. In short, the differences between
the two attitudes toward hunting and fishing stem from anthropocentric and
biocentric perspectives on nature.

The quotations, however, illustrate only an extreme case of disparity
between Hemingway’s and contemporary perception of hunting in American
literature. The contrast is, of course, much more complex. Hemingway’s
description of the greatest satisfaction in fishing does not convey the sum of his
outlook on hunting and fishing. Even though it emphasizes recurrent ideas of the
author, it fails to render the evolution of the hunting theme in Hemingway’s later
works. This evolution beyond the "sporting" myth is apparent in Ihe_Qld_Man_and
thefiea, where the protagonist perceives his contest with the fish in terms of
human sin rather than human right. The comparison between Hemingway’s and
Nelson’s ideas of a successful hunt reflects two distinctly different outlooks on
human interaction with nature; the evolution in Hemingway’s perception of hunting
and fishing validates the claim that these two different traditions share some

common characteristics. This study reevaluates a critical approach, both to

139

Hemingway and to contemporary American literature, in the light of recent
developments in the literary treatment of human interactions with nature.

Just as "the Hemingway tradition" is the common denominator for
American literature of hunting and fishing, "outdoor sports" is the term that critics
such as Carlos Baker, Edmund Wilson in Hemingway’s time, Gregory S. Sojka,
and Wiley Lee Umphlett more recently commonly apply to describe Hemingway’s
understanding of the subject. As Wiley Lee Umphlett (1975) suggests,
Hemingway perceived hunting and fishing as a sport or a game:

In presenting his heroes’ experience through the dominant metaphor of the

game or confrontation, Hemingway has forged a vividly dramatic and

forceful means of conveying universal ideas about twentieth century man.

From the episodic experiences of Nick Adams to the epic quest of

Santiago and even the posthumously published IslandsiMbeStream. the

Hemingway vision has dramatized through ritualistic sports of hunting,

fishing, boxing, and bullfighting, modern man’s struggle to define himself,

not only on a literal but also a deeper, metaphorical level. (p. 18)

Umphlett’s description of hunting and fishing as ritualistic sports provides
an important qualification. The ritualistic dimension of Hemingway’s treatment of
the outdoor subject contributes to the appeal of the sporting life because the
notion of the rituals, rather than rules, suggests the sacred rather than profane
occupation. This quality of hunting and fishing is often evoked by Jim Harrison,

Gary Snyder, Richard Nelson, and Barry Lopez. The similarity, however, is only
superficial. For Hemingway, "fishing evolves as a ritualistic act that saves men
from nada their chaotic lives" (Sojka, 1985, p. 40), and so the rituals exist as an

individual defense against emptiness-or lack of any belief system-rather than as

an expression of a belief system itself.

140
The contemporary authors, in turn, discuss the ritualistic quality of hunting
and fishing in terms of a definite belief system, characteristic of a primitive
worldview. Snyder’s description of a Native American hunter illustrates the

interrelatedness between rituals and beliefs:

Let me describe how a friend of mine from a Rio Grande pueblo hunts. He
is twenty seven years old. The Pueblo Indians . . . begin their hunt by
purifying themselves. They take emetics, a sweat bath, and perhaps avoid
their wife for a few days. They also try not to think certain thoughts. They
go out hunting in an attitude of humility. They make sure that they need
to hunt, that they are not hunting without necessity. Then they improvise
a song while they are in the mountains. . . . It is a song to the deer, asking
the deer to be willing to die for them. They usually still-hunt, taking a place
alongside a trail. The feeling is that you are not hunting the deer, the deer
is coming to you; you make yourself available for the deer that will present
itself to you, that has given itself to you. Then you shoot it. After you
shoot it, you cut the head off and place the head facing east. You sprinkle
corn meal in front of the mouth of the deer, and you pray to the deer,
asking it to forgive you for having killed it, to understand that we all need
to eat, and to please make a good report to the 'other deer spirits that he
has been treated well. ("Energy ls Eternal Delight," in II, p. 110)

Snyder presents a vision of hunting in which all the rituals are
manifestations of a powerful, nature-oriented myth, and the hunter’s behavior is
not indicative of a search for order; it expresses it instead. Those of Hemingway’s
works that demonstrate the "proper" hunting conduct share only superficial
similarities with this vision. Both Nick Adams in "The Big Two-Hearted River" and

Jake Barnes in IhefiunAlseBises do not talk (or think) about certain things, yet
their restraint results from different reasons than respect for the act of hunting.
The subjects that are avoided deal with war, women, and God; thus, they are
related to personal disappointment and emotional crisis. A similar kind of

restraint, which characterizes contemporary hunting protagonists, results from the

141

conviction that nature is aware of the hunter’s behavior. Adherence to this belief,
characteristic of the primitive hunter’s worldview, is illustrated in Nelson’s
description of Koyukon speech taboos:
Sometimes, for instance, a man will decide against hunting an occupied
den alone; but when he comes home he avoids any mention of his find,
knowing that the animal’s spirit is ever aware. Then, shortly before he
begins his trip back to the den, he goes to another man and explains his

discovery with indirect words, asking if he will come along for the hunt.
Talking openly about it would assure that the bear would be gone when

they reached the den. (MakeflaverstmneBaven. hereafter M138. 9- 1 76)

The conduct of a contemporary hunter who wants to reenact the ancient
rituals is related to nature’s, not personal, awareness. Hemingway’s ritualistic
quality of hunting reflecting the search of personal order does not imply reverence
for nature or the act itself. Contemporary literature dealing with the subject of
fishing and hunting, however, evokes rituals as a tribute to the sacred exchange
of life. This distinction is further magnified by the fact that, in Snyder’s
description, hunting requires prior, ritual, purification, whereas for Hemingway
hunting and fishing themselves are supposed to purify the protagonist. Even
though critical discussions of Hemingway’s sportsman code stress the fact that
"the pursuit, not the goal, is the thing" (Umphlett, 1975, p. 49), this claim may be
true only as far as the actual process of hunting or fishing is concerned; these
activities are not valued for themselves, but for their beneficial effect on the
protagonist.
Both Umphlett and Sojka stress that the world of ritualized sports provides

an escape from reality: "Fishing and other activities that Hemingway and his

142

fictional people participate in serve an important function as alternative realities
that are not only ideal but also more viable than life in the real world. A game with
its own set of clearly defined rules provides an ordering process" (Sojka, 1985,
p. 4). The preference for the "alternative reality" of hunting and fishing can be
viewed as a common denominator for Hemingway’s and contemporary hunting
protagonists. Nick Adams and Harrison’s Swanson (IALQII) or McGuane’s Skelton
(HIS) believe that their sanity is restored in such a retreat. However, the
relationship between hunting and fishing and the "real" world is different, as far
as Hemingway’s and the "biocentric" hunters are concerned. For the former,
disappointment with reality results from the loss of ideals and beliefs, alienation
and displacement-not from environmental destruction. For the representatives
of the latter perspective, environmental destruction is invariably linked to
psychological and spiritual impoverishment and provides one of the chief
arguments against the world as it is. Hunting and fishing for Hemingway signifies
an alternative reality in terms of its effects on protagonists’ psyches, rather than
on the world itself. For contemporary writers, such as Harrison, Nelson, Lopez,
and Snyder, the world of hunting and fishing is the world as it should be, not only
in terms of human conduct, but specifically in terms of human relationship with the
natural environment. As a result, outdoor sports for Hemingway imply an escape
from society toward self and affirmation of self in a competitive endeavor. For

contemporary, "biocentric," hunters, it means escaping from human society

143

toward a larger community of interconnected life forms where the boundary
between human self and the nonhuman "other" is often obliterated.

The evolution of public ecological consciousness has developed more
slowly than the evolution of the theme of hunting in literature. The difference
between Hemingway’s perception of hunting and fishing as sport (separate from
reality) and a contemporary vision of hunting and fishing as a way of life (ultimate
reality) is radical, yet the latter is still considered to be a subcategory of the
former. Harrison illustrates that tendency in "La Venerie Francaise":

As an instance, whenever most fellow writers of assistant professor

mentalities learn that l hunt and fish they usually say something on the

order of "Oh gawd, the Hemingway bit!" The grand one from Oak Park has

made it difficult for others in his craft. In any event my usual response to

the quip is unquotable. (.Lu31_B_e_f_QLe_Dark, p. 90)

That Hemingway’s literary treatment of hunting and fishing still provides the
matrix for evaluation of contemporary literature dealing with this subject results
from the combination of two factors: the persistence of the Judeo-Christian,
anthropocentric perspective toward nature in Western culture, and the appeal of
the sporting myth to the American public.

The first factor, referred to as the "Abrahamic concept of land" in Aldo
Leopold’s "The Land Ethic" explains the appeal of Hemingway’s protagonists'
quest for peace and self-affirmation in the great outdoors even if the trail of such

a quest is marked with skeletons of marlins, lions, and kudus. In his
preoccupation with the human side of hunting and fishing, Hemingway adheres

to a centuries-long tradition of subjecting nature’s priorities to those of human

144

kind, where the death of an animal is justified not only as a means of providing
subsistence, but also when it provides a test of courage, a measure of skill, or—in
an extreme caseupure entertainment. Hemingway’s criticism of society
sometimes includes the denunciation of its attitude toward nature (this aspect of
his writing will be discussed later in this chapter in relation to 13311333311130]?
Africa). Hemingway’s criticism of human interaction with nature, however, does
not culminate in rejecting the belief in humans’ superiority over nature. The
philosophical summary of Santiago’s fishing trip is "a man can be destroyed but
not defeated," whereas contemporary ecological philosophy (and its
representatives, Snyder, Nelson, and Lopez) indicates that anthropocentrism
leads to both self-defeat and self-destruction. Whenever Hemingway’s
fascination with hunting and fishing is criticized as an expression of a juvenile
mentality, an obsessive search for self-assertion, or a manifestation of insecure
masculinity, these arguments reflect an opposition toward hunting in general
rather than toward Hemingway’s treatment of the subject. This criticism of
Hemingway’s favorite theme stems from the conviction that literature should
outgrow outdoor sports as a subject because humanity has already outgrown its
hunting stage. This conviction is essentially anthropocentric because it
perpetuates the belief in the unique ability of humans to progress beyond their
direct dependence on killing for survival. Consequently, whether Hemingway's
description of hunting is applauded or denounced, the public reaction to his

writing is rooted in the sense of human superiority to the natural order.

145

The lack of a popular appeal of a biocentric approach to fishing and
hunting as a literature subject, and its subsequent classification under "the
Hemingway tradition," result to a large extent from the lack of spectacular
competition in the primitive type of hunting that Nelson and Harrison depict. As
the opening quotation suggests, Nelson perceives the death of an animal as a
result of a voluntary sacrifice to the hunter; consequently, self-affirmation and
victory in the encounter are secondary to the sense of cooperation and
benevolence of the participants. Hemingway, on the other hand, even if he
perceives the struggle with an animal in terms of a temporary alliance in 131an
Mannflhefiea, portrays this alliance in terms of a contest between the two
noble opponents, where the kill results from man’s superiority, not from the
magnanimity of the fish. Whenever Hemingway presents nature as noble, the
nobility reinforces the value of human victory. lnvariably, for Hemingway, hunting
and fishing is a competitive endeavor. The reverence for competition is
characteristic of American culture, as Umphlett (1975) points out in I3e§penjng
M113 and the Amen'ean Experience:

For a country in which "society" as a compactly organized unit never really

existed, the search for identity or a sense of community could be realized

through the hunt or the game because these activities demanded for their
successful pursuit or performance qualities that Americans have always

admired. . . . Here is an experience that is so indigenous to American
fiction that characters who undergo it often take on mythical dimensions.
(pp. 20—21)

Hemingway’s vision of hunting and fishing has been elevated to a mythical

dimension due to its adherence to the basic elements of the American

146

experience. As Umphlett claims, these elements consist of the antithetical
treatment of nature and society (p. 22), mobility of the protagonist (p. 24), and a
quest for innocence and self-realization (p. 24). These notions provide parallels
not only between Hemingway and James Fenimore Cooper, but in more general
terms signify an affinity between the author and the history of the country.

The contemporary treatment of hunting and fishing adventures evokes a
different set of ideas. Whenever nature and society appear as antithetical (for
instance, in McGuane’s Ine_Specting_Club or Snyder’s Iufllerland) it is an
"unnatural" condition that should be amended by a transition to a biocentric
community. The mobility of an archetypal American invites critical comparison to
a "grasshopper man" in Snyder’s poetry, where uprootedness and the
consequent disregard for natural surroundings is juxtaposed with the notion of
"inhabitation" (implying more responsibility and restraint in the interaction with
one’s permanent location). The search for innocence in nature, or the image of
nature as a playground for humans, is contrasted with the belief in ontogenical
maturity of the primitive hunters expressed by Snyder in Beammns (p. 117) and
Nelson in W (p. 165). Finally, self-realization on
Harrison’s, Nelson’s, or Snyder’s terms denotes the obliteration of the boundaries
between nature and self, rather than self-definition accomplished by a competitive
encounter. As a result, the contemporary perception of fishing and hunting in
literature renounces rather than reflects the American experience. This tendency

is most visible in Snyder’s Wham and Iunlerlann. and Harrison’s

147

"Passacaglia on Getting Lost," where the authors link environmental destruction
to American history.
The USA. slowly lost its mandate
in the middle and later twentieth century
it never gave the mountains and rivers
trees and animals
a vote.
("Tomorrow’s Song," in II, p. 77)

Harrison is more direct than Snyder in his criticism of American history: "It
was greed that discovered this country, greed that murdered the Indians, greed
that daily shits on the heads of those who love nature" ("PGL," p. 233). The
contemporary authors present redemptive encounters with nature in terms of a
search for the primitive, specifically Native American, experience, rather than a
reenactment of the pioneer experience. As a result, their treatment of the subject
is not likely to be absorbed into the mainstream American culture as a canon of
outdoors literature; instead, it is safely and inaccurately classified as the
continuation of the Hemingway sporting myth on the basis of a superficial
similarity.

Hemingway’s hunting and fishing is the search for affirmation of one’s
outstanding status among other humans and nature. Hunting and fishing
depicted by Harrison, McGuane, Nelson, and Snyder is the search for affirmation
of one’s equal status among all life forms. This difference is apparent whenever
Hemingway and contemporary authors depict nature. For Hemingway, nature is

either a background or an adversary; it is never a protagonist itself.

Contemporary literature of hunting and fishing often portrays nature-both the prey

148

and the setting—as an enspirited and sentient participant. This is the way that
Snyder presents the bear in 34313331132113, when he asks him to "come out and
die of your own choice," the way in which Harrison depicts Joseph stalking the
coyote in Earmer, or the way Nelson portrays and island and the deer in 133
131an_dJM1313. This perception of nature derives its heritage not only from the
biocentric outlook of American nature writing, but also from a much older tradition
of primitive hunting peoples.

When Hemingway attempts to penetrate the mind and motions of the prey,
he does so in a manner that stresses the difference and opposition between the
hunter and the hunted:

The lion still stood looking majestically and coolly toward that object that

his eyes only showed in a silhouette, bulking like some super-rhino. There

was no man smell carried toward him and he watched the object, moving
his great head a little from side to side. . . . He trotted, heavy, full bellied
through the trees toward the tall grass and cover, and the crash came
again to go past him ripping the air apart. Then it crashed again and he
felt the blow as it hit his lower ribs and ripped on through, blood sudden
hot and frothy in his mouth, and he galloped toward the high grass where
he could crouch and not be seen and make them bring the crashing thing
close enough so he could make a rush and get the man that held it. ("The

Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," in W331
W, hereafterEQ. p. 114)

The lion, in Hemingway’s description, sees humans as "objects," similar
to the way humans see the lion. Hemingway’s attempt to penetrate the lion’s
emotions results in a predictable image of anger, hatred, and vengeance. The
fictional lion does not exceed the limits of human expectations; its emotions justify
the hunter’s urge to kill. The lion exists purely as a prop in providing the setting

for the test of Macomber’s sportsmanship. Hemingway objectifies the prey by

149

portraying its responses as purely instinctual, and its role in the hunt as
secondary. Critical responses to the short story reinforce that impression and
perpetuate the tendency to objectify nature: "Where the lion was an instrument
for the establishment and build-up of emotional tension, the oncoming horns of
the buffalo are the pronged forceps for Macomber's moral birth" (Baker, 1963, p.
187)

Unlike Hemingway and his critics, contemporary writers avoid describing
the prey in a predictable manner. Snyder describes the deer as initiators of a
hunt (83933333131333, p. 65), and Harrison’s protagonist in Earmer envisions the
coyote amused by human clumsiness. This disparity between Hemingway and
contemporary "biocentric" writers is most evident in their description of the
culmination of a hunt. Whereas in Harrison’s Earme: or McGuane’s N1ne13-Lae
injnefinedethe protagonist’s moral growth is marked by eventual reluctance to
bring hunting or fishing to a conclusion, Macomber’s maturity follows his
resolution to participate in another hunt and to shoot the buffalo, this time without
hesitation. For Richard Nelson, the teachers are the Koyukon elders who say "a
good hunter is somebody the animals come to," and in 13e_13|3311331313, the
author integrates their teachings in his very selective hunting. Macomber's
education follows a different course: "The lessons Wilson has been teaching him
are now his own. A wounded buffalo gets away, as the lion did, and he can

hardly wait to go in after the beast" (Young, 1966, p. 65).

150

In Hemingway’s works, the education of a hunter promotes a competitive
attitude toward the hunt. Hemingway’s heroes strive against three categories of
opponents: nature, other hunters, and self. The competition against other
hunters reflects Hemingway’s personal traits more than it reveals his philosophy
of hunting. Consequently, most instances of competition among hunters come
from the autobiographical 133_G[e_en_t3113_o_f_Afnea.As Gregory Sojka (1985)
suggests, this type of competition is equally apparent inHemingway’s attitude
toward writing, or life in general:

Hemingway’s life illustrated his competitive spirit and determination to

excel. .The intense competition with "Karl" in GreenjiflmAfLica

provides another example of Hemingway’ s competitive spirit. .Central
to Hemingway’s philosophy of life and literature stands the necessity for
each man to use his innate potential: if he does not reach his full potential,

his life is a failure. (p. 9)

The size of the trophy is the measure of success in this contest. The
author eventually denounces this aspect of hunting and fishing, most notably in
IheDIdManandjbeSea, yet recurrent references to the size ofthe prey in most
of his works remain a distinctive characteristic. Even Santiago’s return with the
largest skeleton of marlin ever seen in his village is a manifestation of a (possibly
subconscious) need to validate his status as an ex-sa/aa, othenNise, it is
impossible to see a reason for hauling the skeleton back to the port. Although it
would be unfair to discuss Hemingway’s understanding of hunting and fishing
predominantly in terms of competition with other sportsmen, this aspect

constitutes the most visible difference between his and contemporary attitudes.

Trophy hunting in the works of Harrison and McGuane-is the subject of criticism

151

and ridicule. Competition between hunters is presented not only as an instance
of environmental destructiveness, but also as the path of self-destruction. This
aspect of competitiveness is most apparent in McGuane’s W.
where Stanton goes beyond the boundaries of caution and reason, and fishes the
stream during a violent thunderstorm. He almost dies in the process; however,
he lands the largest catch of the day. Nobody is particularly impressed with his
feat; his friends are mostly worried about his sanity, while the other members of
the sporting club are drunk and distracted. The triumph does not seem to affect
Stanton either, and in the course of the novel his mental instability deepens. In
13e_$p_33139_Q|113, McGuane presents a skeptical version of Santiago’s
experience just like in Njne1yAT131_in_13e_Snage he explores the risks of
Hemingway’s idea of apprenticeship, the sporting code, and masculine
competition.

Competition against nature and competition against self, the remaining two
elements of Hemingway’s "essential encounter," can be linked together.
Competition against self (one’s own weakness, fear, and self-indulgence) also
signifies a contest with nature because the protagonists have to conquer their
own animalistic instincts in order to become mature hunters. Never is this
tendency more highlighted than in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," when Harry’s soul
transcends the domain of the hyena (animalistic, materialistic existence) and joins
the league of the dead leopard in "man’s attempt to transcend his animal nature

and to reach a spiritual plane of existence, no matter what the cost," according to

152

Robert O. Stephens (1960). Stephens links the theme of this short story to that
of Ibe_QldMan_and_tbe_Sea and considers the common denominator for both an
"account of man against animal instinct with the motifs of fateful choice and of
search beyond ordinary limits" (p. 86). According to Robert W. Lewis (1966) in
"Vivienne de Watteville, Hemingway’s Companion on Kilimanjaro," an attempt to
transcend the animal nature can be fulfilled only in death because "in life such
transcendence is denied" (p. 79). .

Thus, the highest level of Hemingwayan hunting denotes the triumph of a
human soul over the limits of the physical world. The juxtaposition of animalistic
body and divine soul is, according to both J. Baird Callicott (1989) and Lynn White
(1968), yet another aspect of Western cultural heritage, contributing to the
environmental problems of the twentieth century:

The Pythagorean/Platonic concept of the soul as immortal and other-

worldly, essentially foreign to the hostile physical world, has profoundly

influenced the European attitude towards nature. . . . The essential self,
the part of a person by means of which he or she perceives or thinks, and
in which resides virtue or vice, is not of this world, and has more in
common with gods than with nature. If the natural world is the place of trial
and temptation for the soul, if the body is the prison and the tomb for the
soul, then nature must be despised as the source of all misery and

corruption, a place of ear and loathing. (Callicott, 1989, p. 182)
Contemporary "biocentric" writers do not glorify the notion of going beyond the
physical world. Snyder advocates hunting as an affirmation of physical life, an
activity in which body and soul, the hunter and the hunted, are not subject to any

hierarchy of values, but united in their participation in the circle of life. Hunting,

in his works, promotes physical and, on a wider scale, environmental existence.

153
It does not signify going beyond geographical, topographic, or psychological
limits, but staying at psychobiotic home.

The difference between Hemingway’s and contemporary hunting tradition
is apparent not only as far as the contest with nature "within" is concerned, but
also in relation to challenging nature "outside." The basic reason forthat division,
the primitive belief in "life being given, not taken," has been discussed earlier, in
relation to Richard Nelson’s IherlandJMthin. The division between triumph and
sacrifice, however, is not the only indication of the evolution in hunting literature.
Hemingway, as Stephens (1960) suggests, employs "an intuitive ranking of the
hunted animals into the noble and the obscene. The prehistoric rhinoceros and
the hermaphroditic hyena are obscene; the lion, leopard, kudu, and water buffalo
are naturally noble" (p. 87). To some extent, this classification suggests similarity
between Hemingway’s and Harrison’s, Nelson’s, and McGuane’s views. Nelson,
in his study of the primitive worldview, discusses the classification employed by
Koyukon people, which, for instance, ranks a wolverine and brown bear higher
than a black bear or an elk (M128, p. 184). Harrison often expresses his personal
reverence toward a wolf, a coyote. and a crow, whereas McGuane talks in a
similar manner about permit and bonefish. However, the similarity ends at this
point. For Hemingway the nobility of the game enhances the value of the kill;
therefore, the confrontation with the noble species is the ultimate goal of the hunt.
The contemporary writers refrain from killing their "totem" animals; instead, they

derive value from the inconclusive pursuit. Killing these animals is a sacrilegious

154

act for Harrison and McGuane and, if described, serves as a further
denouncement of those who do it for sport.

Another aspect ofthe differences between Hemingway’s and the biocentric
view of the hunted species is of a philosophical and scientific nature: from the
deep ecological point of view, any distinction between desirable and undesirable
species is artificial and environmentally ignorant. Biocentric equality, by definition,
assumes equal standing of all forms of life and interconnectedness that exceeds
the range of human judgment. Even if the primitive hunting worldview
"discriminates" against certain species in matters of spiritual power, as Nelson
demonstrates in W, it does not imply that such species
should be eliminated. In this respect, Hemingway does not stop at expressing his
dislike for the "profane" animals: "We shot thirty five hyena out of the lot that
follow the wildebeest migration to keep after the cows that are about to calve and
wish we had ammunition to kill a hundred" ("ad in Africa: A Tanganyika Letter,"
p.146)

Hemingway’s action and rationale resemble American conservationist
policies aiming at the elimination of wolves in order to maintain a high deer
population. Snyder’s and Harrison’s responses to such a practice, exemplified,
respectively, by "The Call of the Wild" and 13LQII, evoke Aldo Leopold’s (1949/
1974) criticism of human arrogance in manipulating the natural orden "[I] thought
that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunter’s

paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the

155

mountain agreed with such a view" (p. 138). Consequently, the contemporary
distrust of a conservationist rationale for hunting further supports the thesis that
Hemingway and the "biocentric" authors should not be classified as exponents of
the same worldview.

The notion of "noble" and "profane" animals in Hemingway’s works is
linked to the recurrent characterization of outdoor sports as a masculine domain.
In Hemingway’s diction, "noble" animalsare invariably male. As Robert 0. Lewis
( 1966) points out in "Vivienne de Watteville, Hemingway’s Companion on
Kilimanjaro," "Hemingway’s bestiaries . . . divide animals into eitherthe rapacious,
foul, cowardly, and villainous or the noble, courageous, and ’manly’" (p. 78). It is
the pursuit of a "manly" animal that constitutes the proper hunt; killing the female
of the "noble" species (as well as any member of the "profane" species) is only
a preparatory measure: "’In the old days,’ the white hunter said, ’the rule was to
shoot the lioness first. Damned sensible rule’" ("Shootism vs. Sport: The Second
Tanganyika Letter," p. 19).

Hemingway’s outlook is quite contagious, because his critics also perceive
the adventures of his protagonists in terms of documenting one’s manhood
instead of documenting courage, determination, or moral growth. Phillip Young
(1966) exemplifies this tendency when he claims that Margot shoots her husband
because she is unable to recognize "the hero’s new life as a man" (p. 74).
Hemingway’s critics hardly ever miss the implications involved in the division

between a "profane" female and a "noble" male; thus, a large portion of their work

156

is devoted to this juxtaposition. In most cases, including Leslie Fiedler’s (1960)
statement that women in Hemingway’s fiction represent oppressive society (as
opposed to restorative nature), this assumption is well documented. As Oliver
Evans (1961) demonstrates, Helen in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" comes closest
to the embodiment of feminine destructiveness because she shares the symbolic
implications of "death in life" with society, wealth, hot plains, and the hyena: "Of
the various death symbols, Helen is the most important: the vultures and the
hyena are waiting in the hope that he will die; Helen is waiting in the hope that he
will live—but live a death-in-Iife" (p. 604). Consequently, Hemingway’s
contribution to the sporting myth reinforces the assumption that the outdoors is
a place for men without women, and such men (including authors) represent an
extremely sexist attitude.

Preoccupation with the pattern should not, however, dismiss the possibility
of exceptions. Although most of the critics (Philip Young, Carlos Baker, Edmund
Wilson, and Leslie Fiedler) claim that in Margot Macomber Hemingway portrayed
an ultimate "bitch" who murders her husband on the verge of his graduating to
"moral manhood," Warren Beck (1955) in "The Shorter Happy Life of Mrs.
Macomber" and Robert B. Holland (1967) in "Macomber and the Critics" adopt a
different approach. "Surely if Hemingway had meant that there was a pretense
of aiming at the animal, if Margot merely ’ostensibly’ aimed at it, he would not

have written that she ’shot at the buffalo," claims Holland. Beck supports this

157

thesis by demonstrating that Margot is portrayed from Wilson’s point of view—and
Wilson, as a narrator, is inadequate in his judgments:

Perhaps Wilson’s absolute and complacent assurance about the ethics he
does understand leads him to estimate too carelessly other matters which
may lie beyond his intuitions; or perhaps it is Wilson’s naivete and
uncertainty beyond his narrow limits which has accustomed him to
muddling along by blunt guesswork. In either case, who is Wilson, that so
many readers have strung along with him—this hunter with a first and great
commandment and no other, who will welcome an employer’s wife to his
cot but not if it seems inexpedient, who would illegally order the natives
lashed because they may prefer it to having their wages docked, who will
illegally chase buffalo in a car as long as the shooting is done on foot to
take the chance of the animal’s charging, this steely-eyed professional with
the muddy boots, this red-faced Mr. Wilson with the white forehead, whose
speculations about the Macombers reiterate a yes and then again no. (p.
32)

This approach to "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" opens new critical
possibilities. The most immediate result is a reevaluation of the "bitch" stereotype
in Hemingway’s works and criticism. A less direct-and more relevant for this
study—implication of a thesis that Margot Macomber is not a "bitch" results from
her questioning Wilson’s hunting code.

As Beck (1955) points out, Margot notices that Wilson’s hunting code is
inconsistent. Under usual circumstances, Wilson is as strict as Hemingway
himself about shooting animals from cars:

For a man to shoot at a lion from the protection of a motor car, where a lion

cannot even see what it is that is attacking him, is not only illegal but is a

cowardly way to assassinate one of the finest of all game animals. . . . If

you shoot as you should on the Serengeti, having the car drive off as you
get out, the chances are that the first shot will be a moving shot, as the
lions will move off when they see the man on foot. That means that unless

you are a good or a very lucky shot there will be a wounded lion and a

possible charge. So do not let anyone tell you that lion shooting . . . is no
longer a sporting show. It will be exactly as dangerous as you choose to

158

make it. The only way the danger can be removed or mitigated is by your

ability to shoot, and that is as it should be. . . . But you will be more of a

sportsman to come back from Africa without a lion than to shoot one from

the protection of a motor car, or from the blind at night when the lion is
blinded by a light and cannot see his assailant. ("Shootism vs. Sport: The

Second Tanganyika Letter," p. 150)

Wilson’s priorities and emotions, however, are likely to undermine the
commandments that differentiate hunting from shootism. In "The Short Happy
Life of Francis Macomber," this happens when, anxious to fulfill his contractual
obligations as soon as possible, Wilson allows a car chase of the buffaloes. This
breach of the hunter’s code is not unprecedented in Hemingway’s works.
Hemingway himself, in 131G[een_31113_3[_A1Lice, perseveres in his search for a
wounded buffalo only to the point where his guide tells him it is time to quit: "We
both felt good because we had made Droopy do the calling off and I was relieved
as well" (133_GLeen_l:11113_31_Amea, hereafter QtlA, p. 117). Thus, he breaks
another mle of a safari, explained by Wilson to Macomber, namely, that one has
an unconditional obligation to follow the wounded animal: "For one thing he’s
certain to be suffering. For another, someone else might run onto him" (EC, p.
117). It appears that for a Hemingway sportsman the main objective is not to
compromise oneself and not to endanger the others. The remaining
commandments, such as moral obligation to a wounded animal, are less urgent.
As a result, the hierarchy of rules promotes occasional breaches of the sportsman

code, and the whole system that differentiates hunting from murder is

undermined.

159

If we accept the basic premises of Holland’s and Beck’s claims, and
assume that Hemingway does not present Margot as a scheming destroyer of
men, it appears that neither Wilson’s perspective, nor his actions, are presented
as justifiable by the author. This implies that Hemingway himself occasionally
doubts the sporting code. Additionally, it is a woman who points out to the
sportsman that his code is faulty. Therefore, Hemingway does portray a woman
whose affinity with nature is closer than that of an inconsistent hunter. However,
Margot’s possible innocence in relation to her husband’s death, and her disgust
with arrogance displayed in the process of "achieving manhood" by Macomber,
do not in themselves endow her with an ecological conscience. For Hemingway’s
male protagonists, proper behavior in nature is a matter of arbitrary rules rather
than a spiritual sense of kinship with the prey. Similarly, Margot’s distrust of these
rules does not reflect her system of environmental beliefs. As a matter of fact, her
belief system does not play a significant role in Hemingway’s story. This again
evokes the initial claim that women in Hemingway’s outdoor theme represent the
"less equal" category but with an important reservation. At times, they speak
against the hunters, and with good reason.

Contemporary writers who deal with the subject of hunting and fishing
inherit from Hemingway not only the "outdoor sportsman" stigma but also the
"macho" label. Consequently, both McGuane and Harrison are classified among
the authors who present women as sex objects, interchangeable yet not

compatible with the delights of hunting and fishing. If any similarity between their

160

and Hemingway’s portrayal of women exists, it is Margot Macomberuof Holland’s
and Beck’s interpretations-—who constitutes the common denominator.
McGuane’s Miranda in Nine1y;‘[m_13_13e_anade or Claire in W333
appreciate hunting yet distrust "shootism." which includes all the instances of
male competitiveness and arrogance, not only in relation to nature. They excel
in piercing the protagonist’s ego if his conduct appears inconsistent. In 3333113
We, Miranda refuses to have her sexual life perceived in terms of
masculine competition:

"Tom, what’s the matter?”

"Jealousy."

"Well, that’s wrong. And you weren’t going to have any drugs any more.

. . . I’m twenty four and I’ve been with a bunch of men . . . and lwon’t have

it made an ugliness. You’ll have to think of another kind of innocence"

(N15. 9. 19)
Although Miranda resolves to stay faithful to Skelton once he acknowledges her
equality, Clair’s infidelity to her (record sportsman) husband in Nebedy’eAngel
causes his emotional breakdown and suicide. Superficially, these situations
evoke Margot’s affair with Wilson. However, because McGuane’s novels are also
concerned with the absurdities of competitive attitudes toward nature, his
portrayal of women and love can be discussed as a metaphor for human relations
with nature, which, like women, fails to provide gratification unless treated as

enspirited, sentient, and equal. Any breach ofthis contract ultimately leads to the

self—destruction of a protagonist.

161
Whereas McGuane’s female characters relate to nature on a metaphorical
rather than an actual level, Harrison often portrays women whose worldviews
include complex and specific ideas about humans’ relationship to nature. If they
are to be identified as cultural archetypes, their identity goes much further back
than Hemingway’s Margot Macomber. Just as the philosophical roots of
contemporary hunters’ worldview are pre-Christian, the character of some of the
female protagonists in Harrison’s novels is that of the pagan divine huntress:
As the goddess of hunting, Artemis embodies all the ambiguities inherent
in the figure of the hunter. Though she persecutes the wild animals with
her "arrows of anguish," she is also their friend and protector. She killed
(or contrived the death of) the great hunter Orion because he boasted in
her hearing that he would kill every wild beast alive. The wild places of the
earth are sacred to her, especially mountain forest. (Cartmill, 1993, p. 33)
Even though this characterization seems also to apply to Margot
Macomber, the last sentence dispels the affinity because nowhere in the text of
Hemingway’s short story do we find any indication of Margot’s sense of the divine
in nature. On the other hand, the same sentence establishes a close similarity
between Harrison’s Dalva, Julip, and Diana (pun intended as Thomas Maher
Gilligan [1984] points out in "Myth and Reality in Jim Harrison’s Warlock"),
although they do not directly participate in any hunt. Their views of nature,
however, considerably influence the male protagonists, who begin to perceive
hunting and fishing in less anthropocentric terms, as Tibey does in "Revenge":
"Miryea had made him promise not to shoot coyotes and showed him a book on

the subject that he read with curiosity. He made the promise" (Legendsmm

Eall. p. 61).

162

The reluctance of critics to acknowledge the evolution in the portrayal of
women in the hunting and fishing context persists regardless of the obvious
changes. Snyder, whose poetry and essays explore the subject of femininity with
reverence-inspired, among other ideas, by Gaia Hypothesis—slights women in
Mary Kinzie’s (1983) opinion: "His poem on breasts is at once offensive and
hilarious (his is not a world for women, except in their function as squaws)" (p.
41). It is doubtful, to say the least, that the function of "squaws" applies to such
a perception of women as Snyder presents in "The Real Work" interview:

So a woman who, of her own nature, has a dark side—she will also be

creative. Something is triggered by being a witness to that most

paradoxical of human situations, witnessing the dark and the light side of
the mother simultaneously. . . . If you only see the dark side you probably
go crazy. The poet holds the dark and the light in mind, together. Which,
by extension, means birth and death in its totality. We worship not only the
positive forces, the life-giving forces—not just that. We can all say, "Ah,
planet earth biosphere, mother earth, mother wonderful—all these green
plants." But there is also death, there’s also the unknown, there is also the
demonic. And that’s the womb and the tomb, that’s samsara, that’s birth

and death, that’s where the Buddhists go in. (8131, p. 81)

The accusation of excluding the female principle from the world of hunting
and fishing can be rejected not only on the basis of the works of contemporary
writers, but also on the basis of anthropology. The primitive worldview, which
constitutes the ideal of environmental consciousness for these authors, elevates
the position of woman, as Joseph Campbell (1988) claims in W3:
"For a long time in primitive societies, the female is the dominant mythological

image. . . . Moving back toward nature will certainly bring forth the mother

principle again. How it will relate to the patriarchal principle I do not know. . . . But

163

certainly nature is coming back" (p. 182). As a result, female characters in the
works of Hemingway (with the exception of Margot Macomber) and those
depicted by Harrison, McGuane. and Snyder do not belong to the same
perspective; the difference in their portrayal provides yet another proof that the
contemporary treatment of the outdoor theme belongs to a different tradition
altogether.

The critical controversy over Hemingway’s portrayal of Mrs. Macomber,
however, provides an insight into possible affinities between his and
contemporary treatments of the outdoors theme. Just as Margot’s ambivalent
status has been overlooked by a majority of critics preoccupied with the "bitch"
hypothesis, contemporary authors have been compared to Hemingway on the
superficial basis of occupation and location, rather than a common worldview. If
a similarity between the two traditions exists, it is based on the aspects of
Hemingway’s writing that hardly ever have been used as a basis for comparison.
Regardless of the similarity, however, it is impossible to claim that Hemingway
has given the fullest expression to the tradition exemplified by writers such as
Harrison, McGuane, or less directly, Nelson, Lopez, and Snyder. Theirtraditions
converge whenever Hemingway introduces a new element into his perception of
hunting and fishing inconsistent with the "sporting myth." In "The Short Happy
Life of Francis Macomber," an example of such a departure from the pattern is
Mrs. Macomber’s questioning of the validity of the sporting code, if we agree with

Holland and Beck in assuming that she, not Wilson, should be trusted.

164

The insecurity about the sporting code that Hemingway conveys in this
story bears a strong resemblance to the issues that preoccupy the "biocentric"
hunters. They frequently reiterate the anxiety about the validity of human
conservationist practices first expressed by Aldo Leopold (1949/1974) in
"Thinking Like a Mountain." In broader terms, they are concerned about the
validity of any rules regulating human interaction with nature, if such rules are not
based on philosophical and moral considerations. The belief in the ecological
value of a primitive hunting worldview, expressed by Lopez, Snyder, and Nelson,
provides an answer to these doubts and an alternative to the arbitrary and
anthropocentric sportsman’s code. Hemingway’s doubts about the sportsman’s
code, however, do not promote his search for more consistent guidance. As A.
Carl Bredahl and Susan Lynn Drake (1990) demonstrate in tlejjmnaficinman
flemingwaylsifimemjfllsptAfflealasEmuflQnanmaflaflye, the author, having
explored the primitive attitudes toward nature (exemplified by Droopy and
M’Cola), dismisses them as inadequate and progresses toward building his own
perspective (p. 95). Bredahl and Drake view this kind of progress as constructive
and creative, a sign of personal and artistic growth. This view, however, is not
likely to be reiterated by Snyder, Lopez, or Nelson, who treat the "civilized" urge
to progress beyond the primitive perception of environment as premature.

Another instance of the similarity between the two traditions occurs in
relation to their preoccupation with environmental destruction. In Inefineenfljue

eLAfriea, Hemingway voices his concerns with the state of African nature:

165

A continent ages quickly once we come. The natives live in harmony with

it. But the foreigner destroys, cuts down the trees, drains the water, so

that the water supply is altered and in a short time the soil, once the sod
is turned under, is cropped out and, next, it starts to blow away as it has
blown away in every old country and as I had seen it start to blow in

Canada. The earth gets tired of being exploited. . . . A country was made

to be as we found it. (QtlA, p. 284)

The affinity between this vision and that of the contemporary "biocentric"
hunters is striking. Hemingway’s comment foreshadows the anxiety and anger
expressed by Harrison, McGuane, and Snyder, as well as the majority of
American nature writers and ecologists. However, his response to the problem
signals disparity rather than affinity between the two traditions: "It [America] had
been a good country and we had made a bloody mess of it and I would go, now,
somewhere else as we had always had the right to go somewhere else and as we
had always gone. . . . We always went in the old days and there were still good
places to go" (GHA, p. 285). Hemingway advocates disassociating oneself from
the destroyed environment and moving on to discover a more pristine setting.
Whereas in the earlier passage the author demonstrates his comprehension of
the ecological interconnectedness around him, he fails to perceive the same
aspect in relation to his own actions. In his resolution to disassociate himself from
America, and in justifying such resolution by the American tradition of movement
beyond an inhabited/corrupted area, he exemplifies an illogical assumption that
his own actions, even though they reflect American history, would not result in a

similar outcome. In broader terms, his sense of being an exception to the rule

parallels the irrationality of anthropocentric belief in human uniqueness, which

166

recurs in his hunting and fishing accounts. Harrison and McGuane react to the
grim ecological reality by exploring the new dimensions of wilderness "at home"
because they believe there is no place left to escape and "each with privacy and
tact must secure our own wildness" ("PGL," p. 232). Consequently, whereas in
Hemingway’s vision one progresses to the new hunting grounds in terms of
geographical mobility, contemporary authors fight the sense of confinement by
expanding their awareness of wilderness in psychological and ecological terms.
The strongest case for the claim that Hemingway and contemporary
hunters understand fishing and hunting in similar terms can be built on the
evidence provided by 13e_Q|1Men_an1133_S_ea, where the protagonist lovingly
addresses the marlin as his brother. The portrayal of Santiago and the fish
merging into one entity in the moment of struggle (parallel to the fishing episode
described in lelandsjnjnefireem), and the image of the marlin rising from the
safe depth of the ocean to meet the fisherman, evoke the instances of hunting
presented by Harrison (13323) and McGuane (Ninetyfiwnjnjnesnede), as well
as illustrating the basic beliefs of primitive hunters presented by Snyder, Lopez,
and Nelson. An additional—and strongest-affinity with the modem/primitive
perception of hunting arises from Santiago’s conviction that, in going too far and
subsequently wasting the marlin, he committed a sin against the fish, or nature
in general. The novel, however, as suggested earlier, glorifies the value of human
victory over nature and affirms human uniqueness. Consequently, another claim

to as general affinity between the two outlooks on hunting and fishing has to be

167

dismissed on the basis of incompatibility between the anthropocentric and
biocentric perspectives.

Howevertempting, the comparisons between Hemingway and contempo-
rary writers, who describe hunting from a biocentric perspective, are bound to be
superficial. As Peter F ritzell (1990) and Joseph Wood Krutch (1958) demonstrate
in W and QLeatAmeflQanflaluLeJNflting, the origins of
a biocentric perspective in contemporary American literature, specifically nature
writing, go back to Thoreau’s sense of kinship with all life forms developed in the
course of the Walden experiment. The treatment of hunting and fishing in the
works of Harrison, Nelson, and McGuane, who evoke the primitive environmental
outlook, can be more accurately viewed as an extension of Thoreauvian tradition
than a variation of the "Hemingway bit." Even though Hemingway affirms hunting
and fishing while Thoreau denounces it as ontologically juvenile, the affinity with
the former’s biocentric perspective is direct and basic, whereas that with
Hemingway’s sporting myth is often contrived. Hemingway’s treatment of the
hunting and fishing theme, in turn, occasionally shows an insight incompatible
with the anthropocentric sporting code, which suggests that his understanding of
these activities was undergoing an evolution. This evolution, however, had not
changed Hemingway’s basic outlook on humans’ position in nature by the time
of the author’s last novel. Hemingway’s statement about Thoreau can be viewed
as an illustration of the author’s incomplete evolution toward the biocentric

outlook: "There is one at that time that is supposed to be really good, Thoreau.

168

I cannot tell you about it because I have not yet been able to read it. . . . Maybe
I’ll be able to later. I can do nearly everything later" (GHA, p. 22).

The biocentric approach to hunting and fishing in literature is a recent,
unique phenomenon. Comparisons to the Hemingway tradition are inevitable
because the ecological philosophy underlying hunting and fishing in contemporary
literature is still relatively new and hard to accept. To discuss writers such as
Snyder, Harrison, and Nelson as independent of the "sporting myth" demands a
departure from the anthropocentric worldview, which, as Lynn White (1968) and
J. Baird Callicott(1989) demonstrate in their works, underlies the very foundations
of Western civilization. The historical and philosophical roots of the "biocentric"
hunting tradition are both more contemporary and more ancient than those of the
"sporting myth." The Old/New way of a hunter advocated by Snyder in M13333
Iexts and Iufllelsland as an answerto contemporary environmental and spiritual
crises combines the most recent ecological awareness and the prehistoric
reverence for nature.

The biocentric perspective underlying the works of Harrison, McGuane,
Snyder, Lopez, and Nelson shares philosophical grounds with American nature
writing. Both ecological awareness and the Thoreauvian sense of kinship with
nature constitute the common denominator for these writers, yet their choice of
hunting and fishing as frequent subject matter introduces a new element into the
environmental philosophy. For these writers, ecological awareness is less a

question of scientific understanding of the interconnectedness of life than of

169

personally experiencing that principle at work, not only by observation but also
through participation. But, because a similar rationale has been used in modern
times to justify the competitive aspects of outdoor sports, these authors depict
outdoor adventures where limitations are consciously imposed on their
protagonists’ hunting potential. The purpose of such hunting and fishing is to
experience the original human perception of the environment and to evoke a
sense of kinship and awe. Such an exercise in environmental awareness, in their
opinion, will endow everyday interactions with nature with an ecological
conscience and ethics that is still missing, regardless of developments in

ecological science.

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