Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest, with a Few Observations by Frank Dobie

 

Nobody should specialize on provincial writings before he has the perspective that only a good deal of good literature and wide history can give. I think it more important that a dweller in the Southwest read The Trial and Death of Socrates than all the books extant on killings by Billy the Kid. I think this dweller will fit his land better by understanding Thomas Jefferson's oath ("I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man") than by reading all the books that have been written on ranch lands and people. For any dweller of the Southwest who would have the land soak into him, Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," "Ode: Intimations of Immortality," "The Solitary Reaper," "Expostulation and Reply," and a few other poems are more conducive to a "wise passiveness" than any native writing.

That title tells you right up front—This is a Reference Work.

What that title does not tell you is that it is beautifully written and full of pith and trenchant observation.

It is, essentially, a list of historical and non-fiction works on the West, with a heavy focus on the Southwest. There are fictional works sprinkled here and there.

Mr. Dobie has apparently read it all, has an opinion on all, and is a wise guide with an observation ever at hand.

Most books of this sort are meant for browsing, but this reader was charmed almost immediately, and I read it cover to cover as if it were hot-off-the-presses fiction.

The volume is manna for historians and researchers, or fiction writers looking to add authenticity to their tales, and simply those who love good writing and mature opinions voiced in a frank manner.

Easily one of the best reference works of its kind.