Many Many Moons/Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Books say Yes to life. Or they say No. "Many Many Moons" says Yes.
Picking classics in contemporary books is like picking winners in baseball or durable forms of government among nations. One man's guess is as good as another's.
We might say, "Herewith is entered Lew Sarett and 'Many Many Moons' as a runner for a place among the classics." And it would be only a guess.
However, there is nothing in the stipulations of the Espionage Act nor in the Code of Chesterfield nor in the Marquis of Queensbury rules, that stops us from asking:
"Why not have the loam and the lingo, the sand and the syllables of North America in the books of North America?"
And so Sarett . . . with tall timber, freshwaters, blue ducks, and a loon in him. The loon, a poet's bird for sure, is here. Unless there is a loon cry in a book the poetry is gone out of it. We have too many orderly, respectable, synthesized poets in the United States and in England. In their orientation with the library canary fed from delicatessen tins, they are strangers to the loon that calls off its long night cry in tall timber up among the beginnings of the Mississippi.
Sarett has equipment. Years a forest ranger and a woodsman, other years a wilderness guide, companion of red and white men as an outrider of civilization, university instructor, headline performer at western Chautauquas, magazine writer, he brings wisdom of things silent and things garrulous to his book. Old men with strong heads and shrewd slow tongues, young men with tough feet, the wishing song of mate for mate—they are here. The loam and the lingo, the sand and the syllables of North America are here. "Many Many Moons" says Yes.
Carl Sandburg