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The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth

1987; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 21; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wal.1987.0171

1948-7142

William Evans,

South Asian Cinema and Culture

Reviews 367 Idaho Folklife: Homesteads to Headstones. Edited by Louie W. Attebery. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1985. 237 pages, $19.95.) Idaho Folklife: Homesteads to Headstones is a first-rate anthology of essays and scholarly articles about Idaho's complex and varied folklife. Edited and introduced by Louie W. Attebery, a professor of English at the College of Idaho, Idaho Folklife is also a model introduction to the folklore of a particuregion , in this case, the intermountain West. Students of folklife in America generally, and in the West particularly, should welcome this intriguing collection into their libraries and classrooms. Unlike most anthologies of folklore, which set out their material by genre (folk song, folk dance, folk food, etc.), Idaho Folklife is organized into five sections, each dealing with a dynamic aspect of regional culture. "Folklife and Regionalism" examines the diversity of tradition which helps to delimit a region, covering such topics as hay derricks, vernacular language, Finnish log building, folk songs and adobe in Idaho folk architecture. "Folklife and Group Identity" focuses on Mormon folklore, Swedish, Lumberjack, and Basque celebrations and a Nez Perce ecology myth. Three articles on family folk singing, a teller of tall tales, and the factors influencing the selection of homestead sites comprise the third section on "Folklife and Individual Style." In "Folklife and Change," entries deal with dairy barns, medical care, folk ballad charactel~istics and gravestone art. The fifth section, "Folklife and History," examines a local legend, the narrative of "Chief Bigfoot," the use of folklore in Carol Brink's regional novel Buffalo Coat, and land use attitudes and ethics. Atterbery's selection of both categories and illustrative entries is excellent. Despite the variety and complexity of the subjects, each entry seems to fit naturally in its section, and there is never the feeling that the editor has arbitrarily selected a series of pigeonholes and squeezed the most interesting articles he could find into them. Rather, his overall approach is inductive, and the book has a natural, unforced ring about it. f daho Folklife: Homesteads to 1Ieadstones will be particularly useful to h~gh school and college teachers responsible for courses in Idaho and western hIstory, folklore and literature. This is an excellent contribution to our literature on the American 'Vest and its unique folklore and folklife. JAY A. ANDERSON Utah State Universit,y The Golden Gate. By Vikram Seth. (New York: Random House, 1986. 307 pages, $17.95.) In the hands of a competent artist, the sonnet becomes a graceful vehicle for the gradual unfolding of a novel's story. Particularly when the story is not complex in plot, the sonnet serves well, though it demands huge attention. The artistic focus makes up for leanness of episodes. Seth performs well in 368 Western American Literature telling of the five well-drawn characters: John Brown, lovelorn Silicon Valley executive; his nearly-lover Janet, artist; Liz, lawyer, John's nearly-wife; Phil, scientist, John's longtime friend, who marries Liz out of a growing despera_ tion; Ed, Liz's brother, who cannot give himself fully to a homosexual relationship with Phil. All of them flounder in relationships in the shadow of the Golden Gate, not one comfortable in love, not one quite able to be loved. What Seth says about babies ("How heedless / Of all else than their bulging selves..."), he implies about most of his adult Yuppie characters. Now about the sonnet. Seth keeps the plan over 591 sonnets, and usually he does not strain to maintain the rhyme scheme. However, breakdowns do occur in the meter: one line may be iambic and another trochaic in varying numbers of feet, and very often the beat is not regular. J\10reover, Seth Uses anacol\lthon in dialogue often to achieve rhyme--an artistic cop-out. Seth is best when he controls the lines sufficiently to employ asyndeton, polysyndeton, homeoteleuton, alliteration, isolation, and parenthesis. These devices define the craftsman, and Seth uses them often. Perhaps The Golden Gate will challenge and encourage more writers to use the language for more than simply telling a story--for providing also an aesthetic experience that most creative literature lacks nowadays. WILLIAM A. EVANS Georgia State University...