Literature in the Landscape: The Maclean Literary Festival
It’s the most shopworn cliché in Montana literature: the landscape is a character. The implied quotes hovering about the phrase would suggest that leaning heavily on mentions of peaks, plains and rivers is a literary if not literal crutch, a cheat for propping up works which lack the sturdy limbs of plot, characterization, authenticity or style. There can be no doubt that a thousand purple-prosed ships have been launched from fishing accesses statewide, rhapsodic gusts of praise for this land billowing their sails.
And it might be the case, if only so many brilliant counter-examples weren’t strewn in the way. Whether drawn from tales of Napi, the Corps of Discovery’s rustic journals, the plain prose of Dorothy M. Johnson, the poems of Hugo and Harrison, or the gonzo fireworks of Livingston’s Seventies crowd, the “Montana-ness” of our literary landscape is littered with prime acreage. Even the titles of Montana books become terse paeans to its irreducible beauty. Long before it was conscripted for use in the tourism trade, The Big Sky was an evocative name for A.B. Guthrie’s novel of early trappers’ explorations and exploitations. The title of the iconic 1990 anthology The Last Best Place was deemed so valuable it spurred Congressional legislation to bar present-day speculators from staking any claim—after all, the term had been coined by Douglas Chadwick in the course of arguing against oil development in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
But if we’re forced to choose a single work of literature which most indelibly weds the worth of our forests and waters to the lives and values of its people, it can really be only one book: A River Runs Through It. Norman Maclean’s slim 1976 novella bridges the values of what we used to call sportsmen and the emerging ecological concerns of that decade. Indeed, the story wastes no time in fusing the land to its inhabitants’ preoccupations, both pastoral and pastor-al. The immortal first line, “In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing,” makes the case that here, people and place and pious pursuits all…well, merge into one.
After paying out that perfect leader and unspooling a tale of fishing and family and loss, Maclean frames his final lines with a Biblical cast, speaking in the softest silence about a great flood and rocks from the basement of time, beneath which are the words. By which he presumably means the Word. Maclean’s opening paragraph, after all, goes on to note that the disciple John, the Lord’s favorite, would surely have been a dry-fly fisherman; it’s perhaps no coincidence that the Gospel of John opens with a killer first line of its own: “In the beginning was the Word….”
And it’s no coincidence at all that disciples of words and wilderness will congregate at Missoula’s Wilma Theater from June 24 to 26 for a gathering which bears a familiar name. “In the Footsteps of Norman Maclean,” the biennial literary festival honoring the Book of Norman and its author’s cherished legacy, will bring together a deeply respected group of writers speaking on the importance of Western landscapes to the written word—and vice versa.
“The Maclean Festival was initially designed to celebrate the literature of the West,” said Festival Director Jenny Rohrer. “Our 2022 festival is moving beyond that mission to respond to conservation issues. Our goal is to challenge our audiences to think outside of the book—to leave the festival with not only a greater understanding of the threats to our environment, but to commit to the protection of our sacred lands.”
Titled “Public Land & Sacred Ground,” this year’s festival will feature National Book Award winner Timothy Egan, conservationist Terry Tempest Williams, artist Kevin Red Star, authors Doug Peacock, John N. Maclean, Michael Punke, Debra Magpie Earling, Sterling HolyWhiteMountain, Rick Bass and others. Offering a wide range of viewpoints from within Montana’s borders and beyond, these writers will speak about our ever-evolving relationship with the land, how we make use of and enjoy and belong to it.
From the land’s traditional use by Indigenous peoples as a home, source of food and sacred territory, to its contemporary activities like hunting and fishing, mining and timber, agriculture, and recreation, Montana’s public lands face evolving challenges and pressures. How do we ensure the enjoyment of our open spaces without damaging its lands and waters? With an influx of new residents, how can Montana balance growth with preservation, recreation with solitude, and economic gains with ecological concerns?
These are among the issues the 2022 Maclean Literary Festival will hope to address and find answers for. It’s a hope that here, in this last, best place, under the biggest of skies, the power of the written word may help us ensure that future generations have the chance to know what came before as we’re awed by the character of Montana’s landscape, to chase elk or trout, to take both photos and solace in open spaces. The chance to be a little part of something so big. The chance to be, even just once, haunted by waters.
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Tags: outdoors, Norman Maclean, river, Literature and festival