BS: Zane Grey & western stories...

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: Giac
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 10:33 AM

It's been 45 years, at least, since I read Zane Grey. Read most of them between 10-15 years of age, when my best friend got a membership in a Zane Grey book club. She read them as soon as they arrived, then loaned them to me. I can still visualize all those books lined up on her bookshelves. What a treasure!

Uh, Amos, wasn't Claude Derriere also the author of Incident at Red Butts?

~;o) Mary

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: DonMeixner
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 08:58 AM

Bradford,

That is the book "Conagher", made into an excellent movie with Katherine Ross and Sam Elliot. They are a production team aswell as a married team who seem to revel in doing L'Amour stories and doing them well. Elliot played "Tell Sackett" in the "Sacketts" movie with Tom Selleck as "Orrin" Jeff Osterhage as "Tyrell" and the late Ben Johnson as "Cap Rountree".

There is a fight seen in a saloon that was filmed with available light that is a brilliant piece of set work. It rivals the closing scene to "The Searchers".

The book is an excellent read, the movie is a great watch.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: RangerSteve
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 06:03 AM

If anyone is interested, Grey's home is open to the public. It's in Narrowsburg NY, on the Delaware River, a little north of where NY, PA, and NJ meet. I haven't been there yet, so I can't review it.

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 01:29 AM

His family seems to have scads of them, Bardford! I think I remember reading somewhere that they actually had quite a supply.

No way on Ralph Connor!! Kewl story even if it did prove to be a, well...a story.:-) "Recent research?" Hmmmm...gots me ta' thinkin'!:-)

BTW, got my mail, today!! THANK YOU!! More in a PM, tomorrow!!

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: Bardford
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 12:45 AM

I devoured Louis Lamour books when I was kid. Come summertime, if I'm in a used booksore I'll pick up a few for a quick read. He researched well, his male protaganists were generally well-read, thoughtful men of action, and the womenfolk had moxie.

There was one story, I'm pretty certain it was L'amour's, about a woman living out there on the prairie, either alone, or in a bad relationship. She would tie her poems to tumbleweeds and let them drift. What an evocative image.

And hey, Kat re: Ralph Connor - before he became a big author, he was a Presbyterian preacher in Banff and Canmore (Alberta) in the 1890's. Family anecdote had him hitching my greatgrandparents, but recent unearthed documents disproved that theory.

Another thing about Louis L'amour - hasn't he written about as many books after his death as before? Seems there's another new one on the shelf every few months.

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: Kaleea
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 12:28 AM

I only read a couple of Mr. Gray's books--but I visited the site of his shack in Arizona, in the formerly-known-as-forrest, before the forrest burned a few weeks later. Beautiful & amazing country, in the shadow of "the rim."

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 10:49 PM

One that impressed me was "The Shepherd of the Guadaloupe." Many worth reading.
Zane Grey was 40 when he wrote "Riders of the Purple Sage" in 1912- his eighth novel. Born in 1872, he knew some of the old timers who were still around in the 1890s-1910s period. He had a good feel for the early west.
Most of L'Amour is worth reading. He did quite a lot of research for his books and it shows.

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 10:05 PM

My my reckoning, Zane Gray wrote 72 novels. Most were western, a couple on baseball. The first, Betty Zane, in 1903. Fifty-seven were published before his death in 1939, and fifteen postumously from manuscripts (one of these, "Reef Girl," was not a western). Four more books were in the "King of the Royal Mounted" set. He wrote about ten non-fiction books on fishing (some of these are also considered classic). With H. C. Wetmore, he wrote a biography of Buffalo Bill ("Last of the Great Scouts"). He also wrote the story of Boulder Dam.

Lots of reading ahead of you.

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 10:04 PM

Other western authors you might enjoy, still living, are Elmer Kelton (a fairly easy read, traditional westerns for thinking folks), Larry McMurtry (more along the lines of westers-as-literature), and Cormac McCarthy (his will blow you away. Once you read McCarthy's Blood Meridian you'll never forget it). Ron Hansen has also written a couple that would classify, in a literary way, as westerns. His The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a real pleasure to read.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 09:32 PM

LOL, Little Hawk.

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 08:36 PM

Well, great! There's hope yet for scale modeling...

Mostly you get guys in their 40's, 50's, and 60's. Heavyset guys with glasses and big fat fingers, squinting painfully and desperately trying to handle tiny little parts and struggling with photoetched aftermarket add-ons.

And now, back to the westerns....

The main street of Deadman's Butte lay bare and silent before Frane's eyes, as he squinted against the unrelenting August sun. Not a horse nor a man was moving. A few idlers could be seen, not moving either, but scattered in little knots in front of the hotel and the Avalanche Saloon. They waited in unspeaking anticipation for the confrontation that all knew was now unavoidable.

Then Frane saw the Culligans step forth from the shadows. He knew these two all too well. Jed Culligan, dark and brutal in his features, renowned for his merciless speed and accuracy. Bolt Culligan, taller by at least an inch, broad across the shoulders, but almost catlike in his movements, as deadly as an angry rattler on a hot day.

The time of decision had come. Frane walked forward, step by measured step. The taut silence on Main Street seemed to grow and expand into an enveloping cloud, a harbinger of unavoidable fate, a portent of doom.

With every tread of his foot Frane was walking, he knew, into the jaws of an uncertain destiny that could only end in the demise of himself...or of the Culligans. But there was no time for regrets or second guessing now. The die was cast.

At last they stood within range.

"Is this whar yuh want it?" sneered Jed Culligan.

"If'n it is, we aims to oblige," added his brother, Bolt, running his tongue indelicately over his yellow teeth and thick, broken lips, as if licking his chops at the thought of destroying Frane once and for all, and leaving his bones for the buzzards.

Frane regarded them calmly. He felt strangely at peace for the first time in weeks.

"Make yer move!" he replied.

Jed Culligan's eyes narrowed, but he did not draw. A bead of saliva dropped off the end of Bolt Culligan's tongue. The air was electric. The fire hydrant was only inches away. Still Frane waited.

The play, when it came, was more sudden than a lightning bolt from a clear September sky. Jed's massive, dark-haired frame reared up before the hydrant with a speed that was both terrifying and unexpected, and Bolt was only a fraction of a second behind him...but to their disbelieving astonishment Frane was even faster!

Jed and Bolt had never seen a leg lift that fast before. They had not even given water by the time Frane irrigated that fire hydrant from foot to crown with a devastating stream of acrid yellow liquid that staked his claim to the Main Street of Deadman's Butte in terms no hound could deny!

"Yuh'd best leave now," growled Frane in the stunned silence that followed, and he pulled himself proudly up to his full height of 7 and a half inches.

The Culligans glowered back morosely, but they knew they'd been beat fair and square. Slowly they turned, tails between their legs, and slouched off to the shadows whence they had emerged.

Folks afterward said it was the first time in the history of Deadman's Butte that a dachshund had outdrawn a Black Lab and a Weimaraner.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: DonMeixner
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 07:46 PM

Well George,

My daughter Rebekkah is a past master at kit bashing. You should see what she does with car boat and plane kits for use in the theatre props departments where she has workt.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 07:35 PM

Well, I shore am mighty pleased tuh hear thet thuh womenfolk read westerns too! Yuh shouldn't take nuthin' fer granted when it comes to thet sorta thing....I hev larned my lesson and will not make such all-encompassin' statements thet exclude the ladies from the readership of tales about scallywags, rustlers, and fast guns.

Now, what are we going to do about model kit builders?

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: Amos
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 07:33 PM

Actually, L'Amour's classic was "Comstock Lode" about a vein of ore. There was a much less successful western called "Comstock Load" about a marshall who was caught -- by a mountain lion -- with his pants around his spurs while taking a dump behind a cactus , but I don't think it's in print anymore. Guy named Claude Derriere wrote it, I think....


A

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: DonMeixner
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 07:29 PM

I have admired Louis L'Amour for years. I strongly suggest you read his auto biography Education of a Wandering Man. I have so many favorite L'Amour stories its hard to limit them to a couple.

The Iron Marshall- Excellent western murder mystery

Bendigo Shafter- Just a big historical read, greatr fun.

Comstock Load- Good history and a fine education in geology

The Sackett stories- Rollicking is the best way to describe them

All his books are mental popcorn and I reread them quite often.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: Ely
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 07:24 PM

My great-uncle was a Western historian (I believe he specialized in the Apaches), but he supplemented his income by writing Western novels under the pen name X.X. Jones ("Double Cross" Jones).

I haven't had time to read any of his novels yet. I've read a few of his nonfiction books and I'm afraid that, although the research seems sound, his writing style was much better suited to cheap fiction.

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 06:33 PM

Aw, c'mon, Little Hawk. I'm female and I grew up reading all of the Zane Grey books, and so did my sisters and brothers.

By the way, one book I've never heard anyone remark upon was a non-fiction one about mountain lion hunting- was it in the Grand Canyon? It's been many years since I've seen a copy of the book but I still remember its atmosphere.

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 06:30 PM

Pshaw, LH! You and your assumptions! Every woman in my family has read them and that's at least me, my three sisters and my mom and two neices, as well as at least one of my daughters! However, my ery favourite of L'Amour's is not even a Western; it's Walking Drum:-)

I have a lot of my granddad's old favourites Zane Grey, Ralph Connor, Will James (illustrated his own, too!), Wister's Virginian, and definitely Eugene Manlove Rhodes, as well as the author of the Hopalong Cassidy books, Clarence E. Mulford.

My dad said one of Zane Grey's The Lone Star Ranger took place about the time my great-granddad was in that area. He says it reads as though it was a "wild and wooly" time, but my great-granddad made the remark it wasn't really any more so than elsewhere at the time.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: Wesley S
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 05:54 PM

I was lucky. I had a good friend that read ALL of the westerns. Let he would let me know about the really good ones like "Welcome to Hard Times" "Little Big Man" "The Cowboy and the Cossaks" and Will Henry as an author. As Theodore Sturgons Law says - "75% of everything is crap". But the other 25% is worth checking out.

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: Kim C
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 05:44 PM

Tell Sackett ROCKS. I been in the Louis L'Amour book club for EIGHT YEARS and I still don't have all the books. I'm pretty close, though.

I read Riders of the Purple Sage a few years ago, and thought it was very, very good. It surprised me that he was a little harsh on the Mormons in the story, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 05:38 PM

Yeah, I just read a Louis L'Amour one too in the same anthology, called "The Trail To Crazy Man". It's a classic adventure tale all around, more along the typical western storyline than the Zane Grey one. Pretty darn good entertainment. I bet there isn't one woman in 15,000 that ever reads these stories...

Kind of like model kits. Those are an almost exclusively male interest too.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: Amos
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 05:29 PM

Little Hawk:

Here in this country -- which you wouldn't know about -- we take our Westerns pretty seriously, and we have always considered Zane Grey's "Riders of the Purple Sage" to be just about the paradigm Western Tale.

Now you have a treat in store for you -- reading all the Zane Grey you've missed. I suggest you also start reading everything ever written by Louis L'Amour, with speciall attention to the tales of the Sackett brothers.

A

Subject: BS: Zane Grey & western stories...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 05:21 PM

I've never been much of a reader of western stories, but I happened to come across a book with 3 short western novels in it, one by Zane Grey, and read it. I was quite surprised by the Zane Grey story "Tappan's Burro". It really is an exceptional story, in my opinion, and it does not fall into the sort of cliched western gunfighter mode I was expecting at all. It's very atmospheric, tragic, noble, very much about the internal struggles of a man, and its descriptions of the natural landscape are tremendously evocative. The burro herself is a pretty memorable character. It's a grand story.

Now I'm wondering if anyone else has read some stories by Zane Grey that they have a similarly high opinion of?

Previously to this, the only western tales I've been much impressed by were a couple by Larry McMurtry, although his endings are a real downer...he's such a pessimist.

- LH