I. In Which I Extol the Virtues of SolitudeThe last few winters I’ve been living alone in a house on a hillside in the north of Thimphu valley, way outside the city. The house is almost at the edge of the forest, and no people live around me. Once in a while when it snows the mud track to the house ices over and I’m effectively trapped in.On Sundays or if I take a day or two off work, I like to sit outside after breakfast and enjoy the morning sun. Sometimes I’ll pop a cold beer or roll myself one and lie in the grass with a book or a guitar. Sometimes I might even go a few days without speaking to anyone. I’ll just be up there on the hill, pretending to be the only human left alive.People often ask me how I manage- how I can bear to be so alone and not go crazy, or be scared. I just smile and shrug- truthfully, I don’t really understand the question.II. Who is this Rick Bass guy anyway?I’d never heard of Rick Bass before this book was recommended for my book club. It turns out he is an environmental activist along with being a rather prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction. He was born in Texas, worked in Mississippi, and lives in Montana. All of this is evident in his writing, in each of the ten stories collected in this book. Ten beautifully written stories too short to be even called short stories- more the kind Kawabata liked to call ‘Palm of the Hand Stories’.All stories are told in first person by a lonely, disconnected male narrator, and almost all of them take place in a lonely, disconnected valley or town somewhere off the map, the kind of place that has a dozen, maybe two, residents. People live off the land, hunting, fishing, and off such company as afforded by the townsfolk. Most of these people are here by choice, not lack of imagination.III. Geography as a CharacterJames Joyce did it for Dublin throughout his oeuvre, Woody Allen did it for the titular borough in Manhattan, Rick Bass does it here for remote rural America- the animation of Setting as Character. The land, the mountains, the valleys, and the rivers are more than scenic backdrops- they are what form the actual heart of the stories- the humans are, in a way, mere framing devices for the plots. The men and women seek out the desolate solitude of these landscapes for comfort and escape. Quite often, they find it.The Earth is a vast and magnificent place. We humans are but a dirty speck in its grand history. Yet, in our hubris, we trivialize what we should be grateful for, ruin the very thing that keeps us alive. Give thanks to a book like this then, that reminds us, and beautifully.
I met the author in a reading at Powell's. He signed my book in 1995 when the book first came out. 07/22/07I just re read three of his short stories in one sitting. 'Fires', 'Antlers', and 'Valley' are beautiful stories. I like short stories for the simple reason that it get to the point with metaphors and not clutter it up with too many details or side stories. 'Fire' is a metaphor for the relationship between the Runner, and the Narrator. I think of Hemingway and some of his Nick Adams stories. The local is exotic. The landscape fuels the narrative. The characters have an independent streak to them making them ever more interesting to sit down with and have a cup of coffee or a dip in the lake.
What do You think about In The Loyal Mountains (1997)?
I really liked this collection of stories. I could read "The History of Rodney" again and again and again. It's a hard story to follow. Still, I loved "Swamp Boy," "Fires." "The Wait," and "In the Loyal Mountains" would be included among my favorites, as well. Rick Bass is such an interesting writer to me. I'm going to be on the hunt for "The Stars, The Sky, The Wilderness" and "Platte River." I feel like I'd be enamored by the fully realized worlds he creates for longer pieces and I think the novella would be an ideal form for his great writing. Very good.
—Michael Whitaker
Beautiful escapist stories for adults, set in the most idyllic settings in nature. I want to describe the style or at least the perspective as primal romantic. These are the kinds of stories that say "seek your dreams", and then give great examples of what that could be. It makes me wish I could have had the life of a trust fund baby, maybe living 6 months a year on an island, and 6 months in Montana. Great stories, full of life, they feel like springtime, I'm not the best audience, my season is autumn.****The first story 'The History of Rodney' was a visual artist's conception. I saw it entirely in sepia, it was crisp, darkly shadowed, filmed with moonlight, so beautiful it was dreamlike.
—Kirk Smith
I'd heard Bass' "Fires" read aloud on the radio one day, and since it was about a woman moving up to WA state to do some trail running, it seemed right up my alley. I really enjoyed a few of these stories - "Fires", "The Legend of Pig-Eye", "In the Loyal Mountains", and especially "Days of Heaven". All of them were worth reading, and he does a really good job of painting some vivid and believable mountain/wilderness scenes. Some of the scenes are almost mythic-seeming, and still stick with me - as with those of the trainer on his wild, angry horse swimming into the lake in "Pig-Eye", the drunk partiers with antlers on their heads and skis on their feet being towed home from the bar after winter-time parties, and that of the humongous house and elk locked together in a fight in "Days of Heaven". A lot of these scenes make me feel at home, as someone who finds himself with a perpetual desire to return to the mountains and the west when I'm not there already.Despite the great scenes and some great lines, a lot of these stories didn't really stick with me, or "pop", or just stand up as remarkable, as I feel my favorite short stories often do. Something about his dialogue feels a bit stilted to me too. But overall, I found the majority of these pretty enjoyable, and very easy to read.
—Ted
