Challenging the Mountains, the Life and Times of Wendell T. Robie -
The Critque
There are quite a few problems with this book despite the subject being so very accomplished and interesting. It attempts to “novelize” or “conversationalize” Wendell Robie’s life by telling or making up conversations and even Robie's thoughts. It doesn’t improve the story at all and because it’s difficult to capture someone’s thoughts to share with readers, there is left a nagging doubt about veracity. We wonder whether all of Robie’s thoughts are accurate. Robie was interested in the emigrants and their trails so to illustrate that the author has some internal musings, Robie “could see the wagons tilt as the wheels rolled up a big boulder, and for a moment, he heard the crash of the wheel when it slid off the rock… He could smell the sweat of the Missouri mules, and hear the crack of a bull whip… The yells, the creaking of the timbers, and the rattle of cooking pans… ‘I was there. I came over the trail with the pioneers,’ he said to himself.” It’s evocative imagery but did Robie really think it?

On the birth of Robie’s son, Wilson has Robie walk outside to muse about his disappointment, “it was a devastating blow to him, a man who wanted many sons and could only have one. What had befallen him? He thought he had always done the right things, at least most of the right tings. His world had appeared bright, and now the curtain had been drawn tight. He ached inside, and the torment was just beginning.” That last was never followed up upon.

“Inez turned around from the piano bench and smiled. He felt better when she acknowledged him, an assurance of his role as a husband.” As self-assured as Mr. Robie appears to have been that sounds a bit doubtful. The larger question is how did the author, Bill Wilson, come up with those thoughts?

Then too, the author just makes up scenes to make his points. In response to Wendell’s father saying Wendell would never “amount to a hill of beans” the author says, “His mother, always proud and protective of her son, listened intently but went on with dusting the baby grand piano.” Really, this was so momentous that the family remembered mom was dusting the grand piano?

Another problem is the continual repetition of so many things in the book. Over and over we hear about the disappointment Wendell had about his son, that he was a terrible and dangerous driver, that he sold winter sports, that his interests continued to expand, the purpose of the lumber yard was to help people get homes, lumber was his work but there were other interests and challenges, and some variation of his "future was before him." If you’ve made your point adequately you don’t need to repeat. The repetitions, just thrown in, lends to the feeling of disorganization. Cover a subject and move on; don’t keep going back.

The chapters are arbitrary and don’t divide the book into discrete subjects.

Sometimes the book is a mash of ideas. On page, 101, Robie loves his wife, wonders about his son, a public relations vendor comes by and Robie talks about tough men and his being tough, there’s a comment from someone about how Robie wanted to be loved and was due more than he had, and then the text goes to Robie roaming the hills as if he owned them. That’s all within a few hundred words on one page. Included in that, for some reason the author has Robie partially dressed and drinking in the beauty of the American River Canyon.

Sometimes idea are broached but not followed up upon. For example, one passage say Robie had critics and “antogonists” but never identifies who, why, or the ramifications.

At another point in the book Robie helped save a grove of redwoods east of Foresthill, then it was on to a fountain in downtown Auburn, and then to a car wreck. That was all in one page.

There are many irrelevancies in the book: there are stories about a killer mule, a goat, dynamite, and a skunk story. They don't add to Robie's character. At one point there are a couple of paragraphs about a store in Auburn having a multi-day sale, the prices charged, and the closing of the street in front. Then there immediately follows meat prices, teacher salaries, and a new Placer County song.

A variety of the irrelevancies are gratuitous thoughts, “Wendell enjoyed extracurricular activities, but he also knew he had to direct much of his attention toward business. Without the lumber operation he did not have a base to operate, nor funds to do the things he wanted. He had to make sure that his work and outside interests were compatible. But business always came first.” It might occasion interest if there was tension between the ideas of fun and work, but for Wendell Robie, that was apparently never the case.

Getting past the book’s problems there is a lot about Wendell Robie here. The author interviewed everyone and got a lot of stories and quotes. Then, because he’d accumulated so much and did not want to waste the work, he felt he had to “shoehorn” it all into the book – hence the continual repetitions and disorganization.