Volume 47, Number 8 · May 11, 2000
Figures in a Landscape
By Hilary Mantel
Close Range: Wyoming Stories
by Annie Proulx
Scribner, 285 pp., $13.00 (paper)
When writers of fiction go out to peddle their wares to the public, one of the favorite audience questions is 'How long did this book take to write?' It is a question which makes sense to readers, obviously, and to journalists, who like to sift authors into categories like 'late starters' and 'overnight successes.' But it seldom makes sense to practitioners. Maybe it's possible to pin down the moment when a particular plot line showed its colors against the undergrowth, or when a shift of the light threw up a detail once invisible against its background. You can say where an idea begins, but not where a sensibility has its root. Annie Proulx has emerged over ten years as a writer of classic stature, and profile writers are fond of remarking (quite incorrectly) that she didn't begin writing until she was in her fifties. They are confusing 'writing' with 'publishing,' which is an elementary and condescending error. Everything in her work attests to long practice of keen observation, a hoarding of images and facts, and the painstaking perfection of a craft which allows her to address the most pungent and raw subject matter in a style remarkable not just for vigor but for delicacy and finesse. If you were to ask of the stories in Close Range, 'How long did these take?,' the answer would surely be 'a lifetime.'
Review, 2877 words
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