"Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It": The Search for Beauty is the first book-length study of Norman Maclean or any of his works. Since the publication of "A River Runs Through It" in 1976, readers and critics have considered it to be one of the most carefully crafted stories in American Literature, both in terms of its structure and its style. The beauty of the story came with much hard work. This study traces Maclean's revisions through four hand-written drafts and three typescripts, quoting extensive from previously unpublished material. The analysis of Maclean's composition process lays the foundation for original and detailed discussions of other aspects of Maclean's craft, such as his approach to genre and style. The study publishes for the first time the complete text of the notes that Maclean wrote after the first draft of "A River Runs Through It.""--
Norman Macleans A River Runs Through It: The Search for Beauty is the first book-length study of Norman Maclean or any of his works. Since the publication of A River Runs Through It in 1976, readers and critics have considered it to be one of the most carefully crafted stories in American Literature, both in terms of its structure and its style. The beauty of the story came with much hard work. This study traces Macleans revisions through four hand-written drafts and three typescripts, quoting extensive from previously unpublished material. The analysis of Macleans composition process lays the foundation for original and detailed discussions of other aspects of Macleans craft, such as his approach to genre and style. The study publishes for the first time the complete text of the notes that Maclean wrote after the first draft of A River Runs Through It.
Norman Macleans A River Runs Through It: The Search for Beauty is the first book-length study of Norman Maclean or any of his works. This study traces Macleans revisions through four hand-written drafts and three typescripts, quoting extensive from previously unpublished material.
Recenzijos
" While reading Jensen and Harris, it's fascinating, inspiring, and sometimes downright disorienting to witness the story [ "A River Runs through It"] develop from its most primitive state into its most beautiful and refined shape......Jensen and Harris have written a brilliant book that may inspire writers and serious Maclean readers all over the English-speaking world."
--Jim Hepworth, The Limberlost Review, 2025 Edition
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Note on Diplomatic Transcriptions,
Citations from Maclean Papers, and Bibliographic Terms Foreword
Jean Maclean Snyder Preface Chapter 1: Macleans Improbable Writing
Career Chapter 2: Evolution of the Beginning The First Draft
(MS1) The Second Draft (MS2) The Third Draft (MS3) and
the Fourth Draft (MS4) Revisions on the Typescripts
Conclusion Chapter 3: No Clear Line between Fiction and Nonfiction
Shifting Time Metanarration Real People and
Characters Pauls Death Conclusion Chapter 4:
Variations of Time Clock Time Calendar Time
Historical Time Life Span Diurnal Time
Biblical Time Geological Time Eternity All
Things Merge into One Conclusion Chapter 5: The Problem of
Genre Genre and Emotions Romance and Nostalgia: Norman
and Pauls Childhood Ceremonial Rhetoric: The Montana
Club Paul and the Beautiful: The First Fishing Trip A
Little Tragedy: Paul in Jail Comedy: Neal at Black Jacks
Bar Mock-Tragedy: The Second Fishing Trip Comedy: The
Third Fishing Trip Romance and the Sublime: The Last Fishing
Trip Tragedy: The Aftermath of Pauls Death Resolution:
The Lyric and the Beautiful Conclusion Chapter 6: Style and Hidden
Art Reverend Macleans Commonplace Book Storytelling
around the Campfire A Personal Poetic Language Rhythm
in Macleans Prose Sound in Macleans Prose
Conclusion Chapter 7: The Evolution of the End Notes
Version A Crude Version MS2B Fair
Copy Revisions on Typescript Pages Print
Versions Afterword Works Cited Appendix 1: Notes on Revising Fly
Fishing (MS1) Appendix 2: Typescripts, Fonts, and Typists Fonts
and Typists Rejected Type
George H. Jensen is a Professor Emeritus with the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Arkansas Little Rock. His books include Personality and the Teaching of Composition (with John K. DiTiberio, 1989), Storytelling in Alcoholics Anonymous: A Rhetorical Analysis (2000), Identities Across Texts (2002), and The Ethics of Nonfiction: Rhetoric, Ethos, and Identity (2023). In addition these scholarly works, he has written Some of the Words are Theirs: A Memoir of an Alcoholic Family (2009). He currently lives in Roanoke, Virginia.
Heidi Skurat Harris is an Associate Professor and the Graduate Coordinator with the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She is co-author (with Michael Greer) of Multimedia in the College Classroom: Improve Learning and Connect with Students in Online and Hybrid Classes (2024). She is also the lead editor of the Bedford Bibliography of Research in Online Writing Instruction (2017). She has published creative nonfiction and research on professional development.
