What I Am Reading...
The Bitter Roots by Norman MacLeod
Mollie, the dog, and I went up to Bonner’s Ferry to visit Bonner’s books. Well I went for the books, she had to stay in the car as they have a resident black cat. I go there frequently because it is the best bookstore in the area and one of the best anywhere. It is well curated with a wide range of topics.
Mollie goes along because she prefers that to staying home and she gets walks. This time to Snow Creek Falls, around Bonner’s Ferry, and Mickinnick trail on the way home as I wrote about below...
Doug Morse
I shop for books usually by browsing. I tend to have nothing in mind and my mood and eye guides me. This day, I browsed the new books and found Bitter Roots by Norman MacLeod.
What attracted me was it was a reprinting of a book published in 1941 about growing up in Missoula Montana at the start of WWI. Missoula is not far and it would be interesting to read what it was like then. If you have read Norman MacLean (most famous for A River Runs Through It) then you know Montana was a very rough and violent place at that time. (MacLeod was friends with MacLean’s brother in high school.)
The book is a coming of age story and it turns out very autobiographical. In addition to the themes of girls and boys and social awkwardness, learning to be a man as it was defined then and basically fitting in; the book covers the politics of the time. The Wobblies (labor unions) striking at the mines in Butte and mills around Missoula. The war and how it was used to cast the unions as first agents of the Germans then later the Russians once the revolution got underway. These children grew up in violent circumstances and as a result their lives did not turn out well for them. It is fascinating and in some ways reflects today’s politics.
I found the writing captivating and unique. Sometimes it is hard to follow and the subject switches without obvious breaks. Sometimes the language is poetic. The first paragraph swept me up…
The house on Connell Avenue was a soft brown bird in early silence. Not yet was the meadowlark of the sun come over the mountains . To the southwest the Bitterroots were febrile in darkness, but Squaw Teat Peak to the northwest and McLeod Peak to the north over rattlesnake country quickened in the sky. Then Jumbo and Mount Sentinel to the east— the cold and separate rock that housed Hellgate Canyon, through which the Clark Fork of the Columbia flowed west to the salmon lidded eyes of the Pacific Southeast, the Saphire Mountains…
Norman was a poet and professor most of his life. There is some autobiographical material in the afterword which adds interest. The book is of the times and can be a challenging read for those that take offense too easily.
The book turns out to be a metaphor for MacLeod’s life. He spent a lot of time early in his life finding a place in the world and fitting in much like his early school days.
If you are interested in life in the West at that time I recommend it. It is somewhat like Wallace Stegner but less self-conscious and better I think. I think Stegner is over-rated, however, so not all will agree with me.
