Zane Grey (1872–1939)

A big classic of western literature (western as in Old West, not as in Western civilization).

I have some mixed feelings on this book. The story is very good, a suitably dramatic and epic western, with a man who has been looking for his kidnapped younger sister for many years, a Mormon woman oppressed by her brethren, rustlers, gunfights, romance, horse chases...

However, the writing didn't always work for me. It's just too wordy. The author never says something in ten words if he can say it in one hundred. The longish descriptions of the sage plains will be evocative for some readers, but they tired me out, and I would skip whole paragraphs. Same with the characters' feelings, which are described sometimes in a too exuberant manner.

However, I'm glad I persevered, because the book is not that long and in the last part the action speeds up to a very interesting conclusion.… (más)

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS
(Print: 1915 | 8/10/2020; 978-9354044311; Alpha editions; 298 pages )
(Digital: Yes.)
Audio: 1/21/2010; 9781449877262; Recorded Books; Duration 10:25:55 (10 parts); Unabridged.
(Film: multiple times).

CHARACTERS: (Not comprehensive)
Buck (Buckley or Dodge) Duane – (more commonly referred to by his name, Duane, in the narration) A fellow, fast with a gun, excommunicated from his home when he shot someone in self-defense, forcing him to go “on the dodge” which is a Nomad status that generally put one in company with Outlaws.
Luke Stevens – The first fellow Buck befriends after going “on the dodge”.
Bland – an outlaw
Kate Bland – Bland’s wife
Jenny – A captive of the Blands held in servitude under the constant threat/fear of sexual abuse.
Euchre - An outlaw Buck befriends
MacNelly – A Texas Ranger who wants to recruit Buck
Bullet – Buck’s large black horse

DEDICATION:
This book was dedicated to Texas Ranger Captain John R. Hughes who it is believed inspired the protagonist. Hughes is also believed to be the inspiration for the radio and tv series, “The Lone Ranger”. There are many similarities, but the reason in the series for the name “Lone” was apparently because the character lost all of his fellow Rangers including his Ranger brother, leaving him the only Ranger left. Whereas, with this book it is because Texas is “The Lone Star State”.

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
I never got attached to any Western themed movies or books, but several years ago I woke with the name Zane Grey in my consciousness. I didn’t realize, until several days later when I saw a biography about him in a used book sale, that this was actually a person. Seeing that he’d been the author of Western books, I didn’t purchase the biography at the time, but was still curious why I had the name on my mind when I woke up. I didn’t think of it again until one of the recent Connelly books I listened to mentioned a hotel on Catalina Island named Zane Grey. That re-ignited my curiosity enough to decide to listen to at least one of his books, so this was one of the few that was available on LAPL’s Overload.
It made me realize that what I don’t like about Westerns is that they romanticize and promote violence. Gunplay is always involved and the stereotypes of the characters were never appealing. The horses were the only attraction.
This was originally written in 1915 and things were much different then, but I still can’t help but find the many racial slurs distasteful.
BUT, if you LIKE Westerns, no doubt you’ll like this one.
I did enjoy it for its historical value.
Something I found mildly annoying was that a more current decade was mentioned. I believe it was 1970’s—there seemed to be no need to update the time period and it was incongruous. It also made me wonder what other edits had occurred.

AUTHOR:
Zane Grey (1/31/1872 – 10/23/1929). From Amazon-dot-com: “Zane Grey, the greatest and most prolific storyteller of the American West, was born in Zanesville, Ohio, on January 31, 1872. In his youth, Zane was a semi-professional Zane Greybaseball player and a half-hearted dentist, having studied dentistry to appease his father while on a baseball scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania. He wanted above all to write and taught himself to do so with stern discipline to free his innate and immense storytelling capacity. Many a lean year came and went as he searched for a publisher, but Zane soon became the best-selling Western author of all time as well as the best selling author of non-fiction fishing novels. For most of the teens, 20s, and 30s, Zane had at least one novel in the top ten every year. His marriage in 1905 to Lina Roth, whom he called Dolly, was a triumph of the old-fashioned, “complimentary” model of matrimony, wherein the husband ranges freely to sustain the inspiration for his calling and the wife tends to the family, edits the manuscripts and makes deals with the publishers. It is fair to say that Dolly’s belief in Zane’s literaZane Greyry works was the single factor most responsible for the success of his lengthy career. Zane and Dolly had three children, Romer, Betty and Loren. Zane’s breakthrough success of Heritage of the Desert in 1910 enabled him to establish a home in Altadena, California and a hunting lodge on the Mogollon Rim near Payson, Arizona. A lifelong passion for angling and the rich rewards of his writing also allowed him to roam the world’s premier game-fishing grounds in his own schooners where he set thirteen deep-sea angling records, most of which stood for decades. Zane would develop and invent tackle still being used today and his exploits in fishing would gain him recognition as the “Father of Modern Big Game Fishing”.

NARRATOR(S):
Ed Sala. From Tantor-dot-com, “Ed Sala, an actor and a writer, has appeared at Carnegie Hall and both on and off Broadway. His plays have been performed in regional theaters across the country. He has won numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards for his audiobook narrations, including one for Finn by Jon Clinch, and Best Books for Young Adults Awards from the American Library Association. His performance of White Doves at Morning by James Lee Burke was selected by AudioFile as one of the fifteen best audiobooks of the year.”

GENRE:
Western

LOCATIONS:
Texas

TIME FRAME:
Early 1900’s

SUBJECTS:
Texas, Outlaws, Rangers, Cattle Rustling, outlaw gangs, posse

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From Chapter 1:
“So it was in him, then—an inherited fighting instinct, a driving intensity to kill. He was the last of the Duanes, that old fighting stock of Texas. But not the memory of his dead father, nor the pleading of his soft-voiced mother, nor the warning of this uncle who stood before him now, had brought Buck Duane so much realization of the dark passionate strain in his blood. It was the recurrence, a hundred-fold increased in power, of a strange emotion that for the last three years had arisen in him.
‘Yes, Cal Bain’s in town, full of bad whiskey an’ huntin’ for you,’ repeated the elder man, gravely.
‘It’s the second time,’ muttered Duane, as if to himself.
‘Son, you can’t avoid a meetin’. Leave town till Cal sobers up. He ain’t got it in for you when he’s not drinkin’’
‘But what’s he want me for?’ demanded Duane. ‘To insult me again? I won’t stand that twice.’
‘He’s got a fever that’s rampant in Texas these days, my boy. He wants gun-play. If he meets you he’ll try to kill you.’
Here it stirred in Duane again, that bursting gush of blood, like a wind of flame shaking all his inner being and subsiding to leave him strangely chilled.
‘Kill me! What for?’ he asked.
‘Lord knows there ain’t any reason. But what’s that to do with most of the shootin’ these days? Didn’t five cowboys over to Everall’s kill one another dead all because they got to jerkin’ at a quirt among themselves? An’ Cal has no reason to love you. His girl was sweet on you.’
‘I quit when I found out she was his girl.’
‘I reckon she ain’t quit. But never mind her or reasons. Cal’s here, just drunk enough to be ugly. He’s achin’ to kill somebody. He’s one of them four-flush gun-fighters. He’d like to be thought bad. There’s a lot of wild cowboys who’re ambitious for a reputation. They talk about how quick they are on the draw. They ape Bland an’ King Fisher an’ Hardin an’ all the big outlaws. They make threats about joinin’ gangs along the Rio Grande. They laugh at the sheriffs an’ brag about how they’d fix the rangers. Cal’s sure not much for you to bother with, if you only keep out of his way.’”

RATING: 2.5 stars. (It finally occurred to me that while I am limited to a non-fractional number of stars by Goodreads, I don’t have to be in my reviews. )
I think this was a great story for its genre and its day, just not for me.

STARTED-FINISHED 5/10/21-5/21/21
… (más)

Riders of the Purple Sage is a book I might have enjoyed when I was a less mature reader, both in years and in taste. Living up to the jacket blurb claiming that "Zane Grey epitomized the mythical West that should have been", it is filled with cliched characters and a standard plot of good against evil, with good triumphant. A virtuous woman torn between the requirements of her Mormon faith and her goodwill towards her unwashed fellow man. A rich man determined to bring her to heel by putting her where a woman of the 1800s belongs. A ranch hand hounded by the townspeople because he dares to befriend the woman despite not being a member of their faith. A hardened gunfighter seeking revenge for the death of the woman he loved. A mysterious outlaw, the Masked Rider, who terrorizes all who interfere with his cattle rustling. All crossing paths in a small town in Utah where law comes from the barrel of a smoking gun.

Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey's best known novel, is an easy, predictable read that provides a satisfying story if read strictly as entertainment.… (más)