The Literary Art and Activism of Rick Bass

Edited by O. Alan Weltzian University of Utah Press (Paperback, $21.95, ISBN: 0874806976, 10/2001) Art or activism? Why not both? Why worry about burning out in activism or failing in art? What else are our lives but diminishing tapers of wax, sputtering already in long flame? Rot or burn, it\u27s all the same to the eye of time. ―Rick Bass, Brown Dog of the Yaak In his controversial 1998 book Fiber, Rick Bass introduced a troubling dilemma of the literary artist and activist: How can any nature writer engage in celebration of the natural world in the face of environmental degradation? Perhaps, Bass speculated, the activist is the artist\u27s ashes, the identity that emerges finally from charred remains of a pure devotion to the art of nature writing. In The Literary Art and Activism of Rick Bass, the first comprehensive collection of literary criticism to address Bass\u27s work, fifteen scholars elucidate the development of social, political, and personal issues in Bass\u27s fiction and nonfiction. O. Alan Weltzien is professor of English at Western Montana College of the University of Montana. He lives in Dillon, Montana.https://egrove.olemiss.edu/mwp_books/1373/thumbnail.jp