I just want to preface this post by saying that I love The Land of Little Rain. I think its
lyrical prose are absolutely beautiful, but let’s face it, the narrative lacks
drive and plot. Approaching this book, I brought with me some generic
expectations that I think most readers would also bring with them. From the
outset, the reader knows that the book is a series of essays and/or short
stories about the deserts of southern California. As a result, the reader
expects some driving force, such as a central argument or plot, to organize the
fourteen vignettes. Austin teases the reader with short tastes of possible avenues
for plot throughout the text and then quickly dispenses with them. First, she introduces
the Pocket Hunter and his tale: “I remember very well when I first met him.
Walking in the evening glow to spy the marriages of the white gilias, I sniffed
the unmistakable odor of burning sage” (Austin 25). What follows is a taste of
character development, but then Austin drops the Pocket Hunter’s story in favor
of the history of the Shoshone medicine man, which she in turn dispenses with
in favor of a sketch of Jimville. After Austin’s suggestion of plots and quick dismantling of
those potential plots in favor of lyrical ruminations, the reader is left with
a sense of desire for that which is present, yet denied.
I argue that Austin uses this “thirsting” as an intentional
rhetorical technique that parallels the primary symbol of the book—water—and
the principle theme of the text—thirst, which are established in the very title.
I argue that as the stranger
s in the desert thirst for water, so the reader of this book thirsts for a plot. However, I think the thirst for a plot is just as tragic as the outsider who dies of thirst in the desert while water can be found all around him underneath the surface: “There are many areas in the desert where drinkable water lies within a few feet of the surface…it is this nearness of unimagined help that makes the tragedy of desert deaths” (Austin 5). Austin defies the reader’s generic expectations because she presents a book that is more like a prose version of lyric poetry, broken into cantos/subheadings, rather than a tale or a novel with a driving plot.
An example of Austin’s lyricism can be found in the final
paragraph of her opening vignette, “The Land of Little Rain:”
For all the toll the desert takes
of a man it gives compensation, deep breaths, deep sleep, and the communication
of the stars…It is hard to escape the sense of mastery as the stars move in the
wide clear heaves to risings and settings unobscured. They look large and near
and palpitant; as if they moved on some stately service not needful to declare.
Wheeling to their stations in the sky, they make the poor world-fret of no
account. Of no account you who lie out there watching, nor the lean coyote that
stands off in the scrub from you and howls and howls. (10)
Like lyrical poetry, this short passage of prose is spoken
in the present tense and depicts present observations and emotions. However,
unlike the typical generic conventions of lyric poetry, Austin does not use a
personal pronoun (“I”), but rather an indefinite pronoun (“one”) in this
passage. This choice of perspective points to the fact that Austin’s lyricism
is not just for herself and not just from herself. The land and its creatures
speak through her and this lyrical speech brings the beauty and the experience
of the land to Austin’s readers. Both Austin and the reader lie watching the
stars and feel the mastery of nature in this passage, which acts as the
moralizing summation of the first essay as well as the entire book. Austin’s
text is a hybrid genre that builds up and breaks down multiple genres (is this
reminding anyone of Moby Dick?). It
leaves the reader thirsting for more vividness of observation, which ends up
being the driving force of the novel, instead of plot.
~ ~ ~
A digression: I discovered that Mary Austin co-authored a
book with Ansel Adams called Taos Pueblo
(1930), which is about the Santa Fe area of New Mexico. From what I understand,
Adams took the photographs (as you might assume) and Austin wrote the
descriptions. Apparently, this book records the beginning of a transition in
Adam’s work towards his more popular sharp-focused landscape images where there
is a great contrast between light and dark. There were only 108 copies of the
book (one hundred signed copies plus eight artist copies) printed and they were
sold for an extremely high price during the Great Depression ($75/book). With
the help of Austin’s friend, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Adams gained permission to take
photographs in and around the Taos Indian village of Taos Pueblo.
I have attached two photographs to this post for your visual
pleasure. I find the images of the Taos Indians more striking than the
landscape photography, which surprises me given Adam’s fame for landscapes:
Thanks for the photographs--I see what Austin is doing as an attempt to monumentalize the desert, and it is kind of obvious why she liked Adams. I know we said that portrait photography is not what we usually associate with him, but he renders the faces as if they were landscapes too. Regarding the "thirst for plot," I find ir unusual that Austin would begin her career with such a relatively experimental book--her subsequent novels and non-fiction books are more conventional, though lyrical description sometimes gets in the way of plot, too. I like how you use water as an analogy for meaning--but if we were to extend it, does this mean that the reader is forever left thirsty (unsatisfied)? Is there a point where the analogy stops? Would the final chapter--with its allusion to the Little Town of Grape Vines-mark some sort of resting place: a place where one can "drink and be merry" (p. 103). A kind of reward for the reader, though it's still a place where Anglos will be strangers.
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