"Sibir" by Farley Mowat, Reflections On An Older Book About Siberia

 

For many years, I have read the works of Canadian naturalist and author Farley Mowat, and several months ago my wife and I read several of his books together which had been the first time she had ever been exposed to his wonderful writiing.  The only negative comment I can make about Mowat and his work is that after he had become widely and wildly successful for works like "Never Cry Wolf" and "A Whale For The Killing", some of his later works were less interesting, less exciting, and, of course, less popular.  But every book I have ever read by Mowat was still filled with occasional shots of his splendid writing and voluminous vocabulary.  When I was younger, I would often read his books with a dictionary by my side because I knew I would find some words along the way that I had never heard, some from his life as a world traveling Canadian, and some from his having been descended from Scottish ancestors who must have passed a great deal of their linguistic panache along with their DNA.  

This book we are discussing was published in 1970, and came about because Mowat was invited to come to Russia by a Russian writer who also lived in and wrote about the extreme north of the country, Siberia, one of the coldest climates on earth with the possible exception of the peaks of the Alps and Himalayas.  Naturally, Mowat took the man up on his offer and eventually made several trips to Russia and Siberia.  In spite of the cold war, and because international concerns were different in those days, Mowat said that he was always well received and well treated wherever he went in the Russia, and particularly in Siberia.  I have been motivated to remember and write about this particular book, because my wife and I are currently reading a much less scholarly book about that region, "Last Of The Breed" by Louis L'Amour which I picked up on a whim in a Goodwill store because it was uncharacteristic of L'Amour's western writing.  I had also picked up two other L'Amour books for the same reason, already read and written about one of them, "Yondering" which is a collection of his short stories.  "Last Of The Breed" has led me back to this Mowat book because, to his credit, L'Amour had done some reasonable amount of research about Siberia before he wrote his book about an American pilot who escapes from a Siberian prison and is attempting to cross Siberia to Alaska in order to escape.  

Issues such as those in the L'Amour book never arose in Mowat's experience in Siberia although the two men do write about several similar aspects of the region which was far less developed in the times Mowat traveled there than it was in 1986 when L'Amour wrote his novel. The vast majority of the region was what is known as the taiga, a vast forested area which was replete with wildlife and few people.  Mowat was being guided on his visits by Yuri Rythkheu, a Russian nature writer and naturalist whose works were motivated by many of the same concerns which motivated Mowat.  The two became close friends over the years they knew each other and corresponded regularly, and in those times, Russia was considerably less repressive than it is today.  Mowat was allowed to travel extensively in the country, was often given official welcomes by local government officials and greeted much like a celebrity might have been even in America at the time.  He came to love Siberia, the Taiga, the people, and the vast wildlife of the region, and writes about it with a great deal of the same emotion and general protective concern he wrote about his native Canadian north.  The people he eoncountered in his travels there were much more open than Russians are today and, at times, Mowat found himself invited into homes and even involved in fairly wild parties.  

I have also known a few others of my friends and acquaintances who have been privileged to travel to Russia in the past including a nurse practitioner who went there as a  young nurse with a Christian based medical entourage and claims to have bribed an airport security officer in order to be allowed to take some medications into the country which she said the officer claimed were not permitted.  Nearly forty years ago, I also knew a few people who traveled to Russia as part of a group sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group.  But none of those people were ever received in Russia in the open hearted way that Mowat was.  This is a fascinating book despite its age and good reading for anyone who likes to learn the history of other places in the world.  If you can find a copy, read it.  You won't be disappointed.  And, you might even like "Last Of The Breed" by Louis L'Amour. 

"Yondering", A Short Story Collection By Louis L'Amour-Some Thoughts On How My Reading Has Changed...and changed my life

   

In my teenage years, I read a lot of Louis L'Amour westerns along with some by writers like Zane Grey and Luke Short among others.  I was also reading a lot of science fiction at the time.  About the time I got into high school at 13, I had begun a lifelong shift to primarily what we sometimes pompously call "GREAT Literature", the masters of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.  Between the time I was 14 and 18 or so, I met Albert Stewart, William Howard Cohen, Harry Caudill, and others in the field of Appalachian Literature and Appalachian Studies and made a deep commitment to work for the rest of my life to improve the lives of Appalachian people while also studiously preserving Appalachian Culture.  At that time, I began a lifelong dive into Appalachian Literature, primarily non-fiction but also a lot of fiction and poetry which has also been coupled with full fledged efforts to improve Appalachian life.  But still, once in a while, I will briefly revert to some of the older styles I was reading including science fiction and a rare western. 

Long ago, I also developed the habit of frequenting used stores like Salvation Army, Goodwill, and others, both privately and corporately owned, to buy used books, and I have found a bunch of authors and books I never would have read otherwise.  I also have found some relatively rare and collectable books that way.  But on a recent trip to a Goodwill store in my area, I found that some recent contributions must have come from a devoted reader of westerns.  The shelves were stocked with a wide variety of western paperbacks from numerous authors and the pile included at least 20 or 30 by Louis L'Amour.  I really had no intentions of buying and reading any of them until I saw this collection of his short stories and a couple of others of his books which I had never seen.  One of those was a novel called "Last Of The Breed" which appears to have been prompted by the story of Francis Gary Powers, the US spy pilot who was captured by Russia in the 1950's, and I bought it but haven't started it yet.  It is set in Siberia where the protagonist is imprisoned in the Russian Gulag and eventually escapes. That character is of Native American heritage and, after escaping, he is chased by a Russian who is of Native Siberian heritage as the American pilot attempts to make it across Siberia to Alaska which is the fastest, but most dangerous route to safety.  I ca't wait to read it.  The other L'Amour book I bought was an epic western called "The Lonesome Gods" which I had never seen.  It is almost 450 pages and much longer than the standard, well formatted, medium sized western novel that made L'Amour's reputation and fortune.  I will eventually read it but not anytime soon.  

The book we are actually discussing here is the collection of short stories called "Yondering" as I said in the title of this blog post.  I had never read any of L'Amour's short stories and definitely wanted to try it.  I was surprised to find that, just like the "Last Of The Breed", it is about subjects which were not standard subject matter in his novels.  As a native of Appalachia who had several relatives who worked in coal mines, I was very pleasantly surprised to find that it contains a short story which is one of the best I have ever read about men trapped in a mine by a roof fall.  The story is not set in a coal mine but, rather, some form of hard rock mine, maybe a gold, silver, or copper mine, and L'Amour actually had worked in such mines for a short time in his early years.  It is a fabulous story of men trapped underground who know they have long odds of ever seeing the light of day again.  The ending is maybe a bit impractical but it is a story well worth reading.  There are also stories about sailors, which L'Amour was also employed as for a short time,  and a couple of good to better stories about life in Asia, in particular, Asian seaports.  One of those is an excellent, well written story about a sailor and his crew mates who befriend a poor local family who are among those who live on small boats in the harbor and make a living by both salvaging and begging. 

This is a book which many people who would not bother to read one of L'Amour's westerns will enjoy.  And, I believe most of you will be pleasantly surprised, as I was, to learn that Louis L'Amour was a better than average author of short stories in several genres he was not well known for.  Years ago, I had read his autobiography and was still surprised by this collection. 

Reading Ace Doubles--A Blast From The Past

Sometimes when my normal load of reading of a political nature combined with a cross section of Appalachian Literature becomes too depressing, in the case of the political literature in light of the current tragic condition of American politics and the ongoing crime spree by TRAITOR & International Terrorist Trump, or just too much of a good thing in the case of Appalachian Literature, I will take a clearly demarcated break in my reading material and pick something up which is either completely outside my normal bailiwick or rather light and meaningless.  Recently, I took such a break with an Ace Double edition of two science fiction novellas by Jack Vance called "The Houses Of Iszm" and "Son Of The Tree".  

When I was young from about ten or twelve until about the time I graduated from high school, I read a lot of Ace Double books in both science fiction and western formats.  Ace Doubles, for those of you who have never encountered them, were a paperback imprint of Charter Communications which ran from about 1952 to 1978 and published books, usually novellas by a single author in tete-beche format, that is inverted and back to back, and in western, science fiction, mystery, and some general fiction.  The one I found in my collection and read had been published in 1964 and sold for .95cents.  For a young boy in Eastern Kentucky in those days, a dollar could sometimes seem as big as a wagon wheel and being able to get two stories for a single buck was a great thing.  As I was developing a more mature and personalized reading taste and style, I wove my way through several genres including the aforementioned science fiction and westerns, horse stories, dog stories, and some of the less strenuous classics.  I have since noticed that most of the work published under the Ace Double imprint had a tendency to not be top of the mark literature.  Jack Vance who wrote the two novellas I just read was both prolific and successful in the genres of mystery, fantasy, and science fiction winning numerous major awards including two Hugo's, a Nebula, a Jupiter Award, two World Fantasy Awards, and an Edgar.  

To say the least, Jack Vance could write just as could most of the other authors whose work appeared under the Ace Doubles imprint.  Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, and Andre Norton all published work under the imprint and each of them is arguably among the best science fiction authors of all time as is Jack Vance.  John Farr (aka Jack Webb) published under their mystery label.  Louis L'Amour, Nelson Nye, and Brad Ward all published westerns under the Ace Doubles imprint.  Their overall stable of authors across all the genres was talented.  But it also appears that many of them were simply chasing a buck in a tough world where every publication might lead to another and many authors accepted the imprint who might not have if they had been at the top of the public approval charts at the time they signed their contracts.  

Ace Doubles served a legitimate purpose in that period when money was less than free flowing for many Americans and they do have a place in the history of American publishing and literature, especially in the genres of western, mystery, science fiction, and fantasy.  I will always remember them fondly and doubtless I will pick others up in the future at some time when I need a break or simply run into them at yard sales, auctions, used book stores, or Little Free Libraries.  So should you, especially if you have never had the pleasure of reading one before.