Gale E. Christianson
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3
Average rating: 3.0 of 5
All the Strange Dours 1 out of 5 stars.
14 of 18 people found this review helpful.
As to the quality of the scholarship, there can be little question. With few exceptions, it appears that all of the "i's" are dotted, all the "t's" crossed. Christianson rightly avoids emotional involvement with his "subject," except for occasional pronouncements and conclusions about Eiseley's character, mostly negative. The author avoids hero-worship with a vengeance. This makes the book interesting in another dimension, because it starts one to thinking about Christianson himself. The downside is that this inevitable digression of thought gets in the way of thinking about the subject of the work. But at least it's not a starry-eyed whitewash.
One can't help wondering why the author, who does let some positive elements shine through via quotes by Eiseley himself, seems resentful of his subject rather than understanding. Perhaps he admired his subject so much that he went overboard and emphasized the "warts" too much. Perhaps he began as one seduced by his subject's work, but had his bubble burst when his research exposed the "warts." Perhaps he was jealous. Perhaps he took pleasure in attempting to topple one more successful than he, a practice known as "trophy hunting" in some circles. One way of "standing tall" is to put down, but it is a curious way.
Read this book for information but not for a sympathetic treatment of Eiseley. Just as an overly sentimental treatment would be flawed, this book lacks balance, lacks any depth of understanding of the complex relationships of insight and science and literature and how these were combined in Eiseley. It is linear in its "analysis," and many a reader will want that.
It is a fair guide to the facts, but not skillfully written in the sense of being "reader-friendly." While real contortions of prose are relatively rare, the writing is not easy to follow. Certainly the author knew his subject well (at least one guesses that this must be the case), but the reader does not close this scholarly tome with a coherent picture of the subject. One is left with more of a sense that one has been present while Eiseley's closets were not only emptied of their skeletons, but watched while they were scattered about. One imagines Eiseley's own skeleton among them, disarticulated, incomplete, broken, even pulverized. But dead men cannot protest, eh?
Editorial Review:
Loren Eiseley challenges us to this day with his uneasy interpretation of humanity's place in the world. The haunting melancholy that pervades much of Eiseley's work grew out of a loveless childhood in which he spent much time alone in the natural world. His mother was mentally ill and his father, a singularly unsuccessful traveling salesman, spent little time at home. Perhaps in an effort to compensate, Eiseley drove himself relentlessly to succeed. Gale E. Christian-son's biography offers an unexpurgated evaluation of a man whose difficult past helped shape the brilliant essays that continue to dazzle new audiences.
