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True West: Authenticity and the American West
In no other region of the United States has the notion of authenticity played such an important yet elusive role as it has in the West. Though pervasive in literature, popular culture, and history, assumptions about western authenticity have not received adequate critical attention. Given the ongoing economic and social transformations in this vast region, the persistent nostalgia and desire for the “real” authentic West suggest regional and national identities at odds with themselves. True West explores the concept of authenticity as it is used to invent, test, advertise, and read the West. The fifteen essays collected here apply contemporary critical and cultural theory to western literary history, Native American literature and identities, the visual West, and the imagining of place. Ranging geographically from the Canadian Prairies to Buena Park’s Entertainment Corridor in Southern California, and chronologically from early tourist narratives to contemporary environmental writing, True West challenges many assumptions we make about western writing and opens the door to an important new chapter in western literary history and cultural criticism.
372 pages, Paperback
First published January 3, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 5, 2019
Spied this compelling cover at a bookstore in Medora, North Dakota (population 60), gateway to the Teddy Roosevelt National Park. Combined with the interesting subject I knew I had to read it, but I should have remembered that caution : don’t judge a book by its cover.
True West is a collection of 15 essays which are all written in an academic style. I try not to blame the book, it is just that they are not written in an entertaining fashion, but for their professorial audience. There is interesting info, for example, the title finds its origins in that as far back as 1830s, when Ohio was considered ‘the West’ writers had to continually promote that their writings were -authentic - real stuff! - indeed the True West to a public that wanted to know and be entertained by only the real thing.
This ’True’ theme runs through to present day writings. After all any fan of western novels has certainly sought out the ’True’ gun fight. Was there such a thing? Where there any meetings at High Noon on the Main Street?
A down home western vocabulary won’t get you through these essays: ‘environmental determinism’ I hadn’t read term since college and that was just after the OK corral shootout, not to mention ‘geographical isomorphism, anglophone, antimythological, anthropocentric, ethnographical representations ‘, shoot pardner !
While each of the 15 essays cover a perspective of the West, they are not related to each other, that is one may be more interesting to you than the other, so hard to judge the whole book by its wide range of contents.
A couple of essays particularly seem out of place and are more agenda driven, one is a curiously placed essay on the FDR Japanese internment camps of World War II, not exactly what I think about during a cattle drive, and the final essay was on how the Los Angles amusement parks, especially Knotts Berry Farm, do not represent a True picture of the Wild West !
The author goes so far as to expose the ‘ Western Ghost Town’ part of the park as not an authentic ghost town as there are people there ! Imagine, no ghosts !
You can find interesting positions in these essays. I almost wanted to re-read some of them again, might make me smarter, then I said boy-howdy, that would feel like taking the long way around the barn.
True West is a collection of 15 essays which are all written in an academic style. I try not to blame the book, it is just that they are not written in an entertaining fashion, but for their professorial audience. There is interesting info, for example, the title finds its origins in that as far back as 1830s, when Ohio was considered ‘the West’ writers had to continually promote that their writings were -authentic - real stuff! - indeed the True West to a public that wanted to know and be entertained by only the real thing.
This ’True’ theme runs through to present day writings. After all any fan of western novels has certainly sought out the ’True’ gun fight. Was there such a thing? Where there any meetings at High Noon on the Main Street?
A down home western vocabulary won’t get you through these essays: ‘environmental determinism’ I hadn’t read term since college and that was just after the OK corral shootout, not to mention ‘geographical isomorphism, anglophone, antimythological, anthropocentric, ethnographical representations ‘, shoot pardner !
While each of the 15 essays cover a perspective of the West, they are not related to each other, that is one may be more interesting to you than the other, so hard to judge the whole book by its wide range of contents.
A couple of essays particularly seem out of place and are more agenda driven, one is a curiously placed essay on the FDR Japanese internment camps of World War II, not exactly what I think about during a cattle drive, and the final essay was on how the Los Angles amusement parks, especially Knotts Berry Farm, do not represent a True picture of the Wild West !
The author goes so far as to expose the ‘ Western Ghost Town’ part of the park as not an authentic ghost town as there are people there ! Imagine, no ghosts !
You can find interesting positions in these essays. I almost wanted to re-read some of them again, might make me smarter, then I said boy-howdy, that would feel like taking the long way around the barn.
October 1, 2021
True West explores racialized and gendered ideas about the "authentic" U.S. West, with an emphasis on nostalgia, historical erasure, and claims to authority. It's an interesting collection of essays, with Lewis's "Truth or Consequences" standing out.
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