诺曼·麦克林

Norman Fitzroy Maclean (December 23, 1902 – August 2, 1990) was an American professor at the University of Chicago who, following his retirement, became a major figure in American literature. Maclean is known for his collection of novellas A River Runs Through It and Other Stories (1976), and the creative nonfiction book Young Men and Fire (1992).

Family origins

In his novella, A River Runs Through It, Maclean wrote that his paternal ancestors were from the Isle of Mull, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. According to his son, however, their paternal ancestors were Gaelic speaking Presbyterians and from the Isle of Coll, which is "located about seven miles west of the Clan Maclean stronghold, the Isle of Mull".

Maclean's great-grandfather, Laughlan Maclean, was a carpenter who, accompanied by his wife, Elizabeth Campbell, emigrated to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, in 1821, before they settled on a homestead in Pictou County.

Maclean's father, Rev. John Norman Maclean, was born on July 28, 1862, to Laughlan's son Norman and his wife Mary MacDonald on the family farm in Marshy Hope, Pictou County, Nova Scotia where much of the community spoke Canadian Gaelic. John Maclean showed signs of academic promise and trained for the ministry first at Pictou Academy, where academic records refer to him as "J.N. Mclean of Glenbard", Maclean's father completed his education at Dalhousie College in Halifax and at Manitoba College in Winnipeg. MacLean's parents met while his father was riding circuit in the summers among the many small Presbyterian congregations in the pioneer communities of the Pembina Valley Region of Manitoba. His mother, Clara Davidson was a schoolmarm. Maclean's maternal grandfather, John Davidson, was a Presbyterian immigrant from Northern England who had first settled near Argenteuil, Laurentides, Quebec, where his daughter Clara was born. Finding the farmland there poor, John Davidson and his family moved west by oxcart and settled on a homestead at New Haven near Manitou, Manitoba. During their courtship, Clara often accompanied John Maclean while he was riding circuit. In 1893, John Maclean completed advanced studies at San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, California, and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. John Maclean and Clara were married in Pembina, Manitoba, on August 1, 1893.

Biography

Early life

Maclean was born at Clarinda, Iowa, on December 23, 1902, and was the son of Clara Evelyn (née Davidson; 1873–1952) and the Rev. John Norman Maclean (1862–1941). Maclean and his younger brother, Paul Davidson MacLean (1906–1938) were homeschooled by their father until 1913. Maclean recalled about being homeschooled by his father, "I think the most important thing is that he read aloud to us. He was a minister, and every morning after breakfast we had what was called family worship. We'd all sit with our breakfast chairs pulled back from the table and he would read to us from the Bible or from some religious poet. He was a very good reader... that was very good for me because in doing that, he would bring out the rhythms of the Bible. That reading instilled in me this great love of rhythm in language." His father also passed on to both of his sons a passion for fly fishing which he had begun and developed in Clarinda. As a child, Maclean also often witnessed his father, whose first language was the distinctive Nova Scotia dialect of the Scottish Gaelic language, working hard to hide all traces of a foreign accent by learning proper diction and elocution.

In 1909, his family relocated to Missoula, Montana, at the invitation of its Presbyterian church elders. The following years considerably influenced and inspired Maclean's writings, appearing prominently in the short story The Woods, Books, and Truant Officers (1977) and the semi-autobiographical novella A River Runs Through It and Other Stories (1976).

Forest Service

When Maclean was 14 years old, he found work with the United States Forest Service in the Bitterroot National Forest of northwestern Montana. 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-fictionalized accounts of these experiences.

Dartmouth

Maclean later attended Dartmouth College, where he served as editor-in-chief of the humor magazine the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern. His successor as editor-in-chief was Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, whom Maclean described as "the craziest guy I ever met." He was also a member of the Sphinx and Beta Theta Pi.

During a 1986 interview, Maclean described the "privilege" he felt having taken creative writing classes at Dartmouth by the poet Robert Frost. In the same interview, Maclean recalled that Ernest Hemingway "was an idol of mine for a while. . . . I don't see how you could be a real American writer unless you knew Hemingway well, and had learned a great deal from him."

Maclean received his Bachelor of Arts in 1924 and chose to remain in Hanover, New Hampshire, to serve as an instructor until 1926, a time he recalled in "This Quarter I Am Taking McKeon: A Few Remarks on the Art of Teaching".

Personal life

Maclean met his future wife, Jessie Burns, during a December party in the Helena valley. They were returning home after the party with another couple in Jessie's car, when a blizzard descended and the car's radiator froze. He tried pouring water in, only to have the water freeze as well. He then started hiking through the blizzard to seek help but soon found that the car had caught up with him, as the cold had prevented the engine from overheating. He felt foolish, but Jessie always considered him the hero of the blizzard. He and Burns married on September 24, 1931, and had two children: daughter Jean Maclean Snyder (1942–2025), who was an attorney, and son John Norman Maclean (born in 1943), who became a journalist and author.