Vardis Fisher - Criticism

Criticism

Fisher was, perhaps, the most significant twentieth century novelist who was both a native and longtime resident of Idaho. He chafed at being compared with such better-known writers associated with the state as Ernest Hemingway and Ezra Pound. When appointed to head the Idaho branch of the Federal Writers Project under the WPA, Fisher quipped that he had been chosen because there were only three writers in Idaho, and he was the only one who was unemployed. Fisher was said to achieve a naturalistic, straightforward style, like that of Hemingway. Frederick Manfred, who was among Fisher's staunchest literary champions, declared that Dark Bridwell (1931) was Fisher's best novel and that Hemingway never wrote anything so good. Manfred described Fisher's portrait of Mrs. Bridwell as more of a three-dimensional person than any of Hemingway's female characters.

With a few notable exceptions, most critics have been harsher than Manfred. While they might regard a handful of Fisher's total of 38 books as worth reading, many critics would not recommend the rest. A general consensus seems to be that Fisher's work is uneven: occasionally brilliant but more often workmanlike, promising in his early years but disappointing over all.

His twelve-volume Testament of Man series, to which Fisher devoted several decades of his life was, by and large, negatively received by the public as well as critics. As demonstrated by the collection of critical essays, Rediscovering Vardis Fisher (2000), the author still draws praise as well as criticism for his work. (The anthropologist Marilyn Trent Grunkemeyer, who read the Testament of Man series, was most critical of his work.)

Fisher wanted to be accepted as a mainstream novelist, but has been considered important in regional Western literature. His Western novels are must reading for aficionados of that genre. His fans include such Western writers as novelist Larry McMurtry and essayist Mick McAllister.