by Zane Grey
Kanab, Utah. Kanab is transparently the town of Cottonwoods, for anyone who's been there. (incidentally, Kanab is a rough transliteration of a native american word meaning "willows", so yeah...) Me, I only lived there 5 months, but that red dirt is in my soul and I ache to go back always. Kana...
Set in the Utah of 1871, it deals with a Mormon woman, heir to a ranch, resisting pressures to become a junior wife of a Mormon elder. I tried this because it's recommended on The Ultimate Reading List in the Western section. This is Zane Grey's most famous novel, supposedly one that set the mold fo...
There's a decent story in there if you can get past all the "pretty" writing.
A sharp clip-crop of the iron-shod hoofs deadened and died away, and clouds of yellow dust drifted from under the cottonwoods out over the sage.So begins Zane Grey's best known Western, Riders of the Purple Sage. Originally published in 1912, Riders of the Purple Sage has been called the most popula...
Never having read a book by Zane Grey I thought I'd give this a go. First thing to remember here is this book was written in the early 1900s. There are certain prejudices and women do things like faint and cling to men for support like they were a tomato plant growing on a stake. Actually the story ...
I haven't read a Zane Grey novel in years, but I recalled from before that his descriptions of western landscapes were nearly epic. And so they are. Worthy reading for that alone.
There's a long introduction to this edition which discusses gender and sexuality in the novel and how they relate to its enduring popularity. At one point the essayist wonders why the initial audience included such a high proportion of women. This seems obvious to me; the story consists of two roman...
"Riders of the Purple Sage" was my first western and, of course, first Zane Grey. As such, I was expecting something along the line of the classic western movies of the 40s and 50s. Obviously, it did not live up to those expectations. The hero of the book is not even a cowboy.Having said this, "...
The original western novel. Period. Most of the major tropes of the genre are established here, except that the ethnic villains aren't Indians, they're Mormons. The book gets pretty boring at times, but the end is riveting. Definitely going up on the blog someday.
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