It’s a mystery to me how a person can live in North Dakota without a Labrador retriever. Over the past four decades I have been blessed by a succession of four noble beasts, each one named for an eminent historian: Bancroft (for the early national historian, George Bancroft); Arnie (for Arnold Toynbee, the British historian best known for the concept of challenge and response—which, frankly, is a pretty good summary of Arnie’s field training); Angie (for Angie Debo, the great historian of the Indian Territory); and now, Tuch (for Barbara Tuchman).
Barbara Tuchman won the Pulitzer for her book about the beginnings of the Great War, The Guns of August. Which is the inside joke about the naming of our Tuch, for each August, as we hear the cannonade from the goose leases around our place on Willow Creek, we are reminded of her naming origins.
A Labrador retriever possesses the combination of hardiness and sensuosity that makes it possible to survive and thrive on the northern plains. Plus an understanding of the concept of collaboration. Such a companion is good for your attitude.
Recently I’ve been writing about the idea of declensionism on the Great Plains: the determination that our best days are behind us, it’s all downhill from here, not much we can do about it. I’ve written about Kathleen Norris, Elwyn Robinson, Larry McMurtry, and other literati of the prairies who have caused me to label my own generational cohort on the plains the Last Picture Show Generation.Perhaps I just need to spend more time with my retrieving dog. Or, perhaps I need to get to the bottom of this declensionist trope in our regional storytelling.
We spent the past week in Bozeman, where I had a paper to give about declensionism on the plains, which was well received, but I really didn’t finish with the subject. I concluded, for the moment, that while we have reasons to be discouraged at times, the broad, persistent declensionist narrative is suspect, and perhaps harmful. I came to wonder about its origins, whether this story is truly of the land.
I’ve gone looking for answers in two classic works, the first being The Decline of the West, by Oswald Spengler. The German historian, writing just prior to the Great War, argues that Western society has been in decline for centuries, and will continue to decline until the twenty-first century, when it will reach crisis. His theory is that nations and cultures are organic entities, with definite lifespans, which cannot be denied. Spengler is in disrepute today, but the DNA of his thought is in our literature and culture. What troubles me is that it has no recognition of agency, the capacity of humankind to learn and take corrective action.
So I turn to the obvious masterwork, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by the English historian Edward Gibbon, writing about the time of the formation of our republic. I love how he begins by ascending the heights of Rome to survey the ruins roundabout. I love his frankness and wit. He does not reveal any thesis or purpose for his work until the final chapter (after six volumes preceding). Gibbon then confesses that he writes about decadence, decline, and fall not for some instructive or moral purpose, but because people like to read about these things. It is possible that we people of the plains like these stories, too—and maybe too much.
As for me, I think our Tuch may be my best hunting dog ever.
