Norman Maclean

Norman Fitzroy Maclean (born December 23, 1902 in Clarinda , Iowa ; died August 2, 1990 in Chicago , Illinois ) was an American author and professor of English literature . He was best known for his books A River Runs Through It and Other Stories (1976) and Young Men and Fire (1992).

Life

The Maclean family (Norman left) around 1911

Maclean was born on December 23, 1902 in Clarinda, Page County to the Reverend John Maclean (1862-1941), a Presbyterian pastor, and his wife Clara (1873-1952). Until 1913, the father took over the instruction and training of his two sons Norman and Paul on his own. In 1909 the family moved to Missoula , Montana . Maclean grew up there with his younger brother. The years in Missoula had an extraordinary influence on Norman Maclean and formed the basis of the inspiration that led him to his writings - this is particularly evident in his short story The Woods, Books, and Truant Officers (1977) and the semi-biographical novella A River Runs Through It (1976).

Too young to enlist in the military during World War I , Maclean worked for the warehouse administration and the United States Forest Service in the Bitterroot National Forest . The novella USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky and the story “Black Ghost” in Young Men and Fire (1992) are semi-fictional reports of the experiences from this time.

Maclean attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire , where he was also editor-in-chief of the humor magazine The Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern ; the editor-in-chief who succeeded him there was Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss . Maclean completed his college education in 1924 with a Bachelor of Arts. He then worked until 1926 as a teacher at Dartmouth College - a time to which he was in : "This Quarter I Am Taking McKeon A Few Remarks on the Art of Teaching." Recalls.

In 1928 he began studying English language and literature at the University of Chicago . He became a professor there three years later and stayed at the university until his retirement in 1973. Maclean, a scholar of the works of William Shakespeare and the romantic poets, occupied the position of William Rainey Harper - Professor of English Literature. In 1940 Maclean received his doctorate from the University of Chicago. During the Second World War he was employed there as dean and director of the Institute for Military Studies. Maclean was working on the Manual of Instruction in Military Maps and Aerial Photographs at the time. Maclean was honored three times by his university with the Award for Excellence in Teaching Students, an award that other university faculty members typically received at most once in their careers.

Norman Maclean was married to Jessie G. Burns (1905-1968), also born in Montana, from 1931 until her death. They had two children together: daughter Jean (born 1942), now a lawyer; and son John (born 1943), now a journalist and author of Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire (1999). Norman Maclean died in Chicago in August 1990 at the age of 87.

Works

In addition to Shakespeare, Maclean described poets such as William Wordsworth , Gerard Manley Hopkins , Robert Browning and Robert Frost , whom he also had as a teacher in Dartmouth, as great influences on him . He was also sympathetic about Ernest Hemingway . After his children had persuaded him several times and he retired in 1973, Maclean began to write down the stories he had told so many times in his life.

In 1976, A River Runs Through It (German title A River Runs Through It ) published a story about his childhood and youth in the Big Blackfoot River and the position of fly fishing in his family. The murder of Maclean's younger brother Paul, who was a newspaper reporter and was killed in Chicago in May 1938, is echoed in the work. Maclean offered the manuscript to some New York publishers in vain. Ultimately, the work was brought out by the University of Chicago Press , self-published by Maclean's longtime home. It quickly developed into an American cult book and was well received by literary criticism. Two years after his death, Robert Redford's literary film adaptation From the Middle A River (1992) came into the cinemas, which made Maclean's name even better known.

Maclean also published a number of shorter stories during his lifetime: The original American edition of From the Middle A River contained two stories that autobiographically described his work in the forests of Montana as a young man. His second major work, the non-fictional book Young Men and Fire , was published posthumously in 1992. He had worked on this book for the last 14 years of his life. It meticulously deals with the Mann Gulch forest fire that killed 13 firefighters in Montana in 1949. Although the perfectionist Maclean - who always revised his work three or four times - was still in the revision phase at the time of his death, Young Men and Fire also received excellent reviews and won the National Book Critics Circle Award .

Awards

The Pulitzer Prize jury recommended Maclean's River in the Middle for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction , which was rejected by the Pulitzer Prize Board of Directors - who has the final say. Therefore, no Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was awarded in 1977.

Young Men and Fire won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992 .

Works

• A River Runs Through It and Other Stories (1976), German: A river rises from the middle (1991). The German edition only contains the cover story of the American original edition.
• The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky , German: The Ranger, the Cook and a Hole in the Sky. Stories (1993). Contains the remaining stories from the American original edition.
• Young Men and Fire (published posthumously 1992), German: Young Men in Fire (1994)
• Norman Maclean , published by Ron McFarland and Hugh Nichols. American Author's Series, Confluence Press (1988). The volume contains unsorted writings, interviews and essays by, with and about Maclean.
• The Norman Maclean Reader , edited by O. Alan Weltzien. University of Chicago Press (2008). The volume contains further short stories, narrative fragments, essays and correspondence from Maclean, some of which were previously unpublished.

Web links

• 100 most influential montanans of the century
• Excerpt - Young men and fire
• Excerpt - A river runs through it
• Literature by and about Norman Maclean in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Martin J. Kidston: The other Maclean , Lee Montana Newspapers, July 16, 2000
2. ↑ PETE DEXTER: The Old Man and the River | Esquire | JUNE 1981. Retrieved August 19, 2020 (American English). 
3. ↑ Jessie G. Burns at Find A Grave
4. ^ C. Gerald Fraser: Norman Maclean, 87, a Professor Who Wrote About Fly-Fishing . In: The New York Times . August 3, 1990, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed March 24, 2020]).
5. ^ The Writer's Workshop Review - An Online Literary Magazine. Retrieved August 20, 2020 . 
6. ↑ Paul Davidson Maclean (1905-1938) - Find A Grave ... Retrieved April 7, 2018 . 
7. ↑ MARTIN J. KIDSTON Lee Montana Newspapers: The other Maclean . In: missoulian.com . ( missoulian.com [accessed April 7, 2018]).
8. ^ Norman Maclean, O. Alan Weltzien (Editor): The Norman Maclean Reader. University of Chicago Press, 2008. p. 170.
9. ^ Edwin McDowell: Publishing: Pulitzer Controversies . In: The New York Times . May 11, 1984, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed August 18, 2020]).