Word: gilberte
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WESTERING MAN by Bil Gilbert Atheneum; 339 pages...
...first sheriff of Independence, Mo., the first white man to lead a party to the brink of the Yosemite Valley and the first to lead a wagon train into California, in 1843. Frontiersman Joseph Walker, says Biographer Bil Gilbert, "should have become a gaudy boon to the toy and TV industries" like his contemporary, Kit Carson. The reason he did not: Walker's stubborn refusal to embroider his achievements for legend-hungry Eastern journalists. So they "moved on to men and events that could be conventionally romanticized...
...Westering Man offers an unfamiliar frontier landscape. Here, the Indians are con men, whisky distilling is a regional pastime, and meteorites terrify intrepid explorers. The mood is antic, but the True West is not always the most appealing of places. Still, Joseph Walker is its true exemplar, and Bil Gilbert is its true celebrator. Those in search of myth should try Louis L'Amour or Zane Grey...
...Gilbert Grosvenor, president, National Geographic Society, at George Washington University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences: "I think of J.R.R. Tolkien. The year is 1926. He sits in his study at Oxford correcting a student's thesis. The student had, for some reason, left a page blank. When Tolkien came to it, he picked up his pen and wrote on the blank page: 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.' Thus launched one of the great literary careers of our century. He was asked why he had done that, and he replied...
...During the DNA debate, I insisted that fame and fortune were reasons for science wanting to push ahead too fast. Not the only reason, but reasons. Now that Walter Gilbert has won the Nobel Prize and has made a fortune with Biogen, Inc., it would be nice if he wrote to me and admitted that I was right...