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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
This is a favorite of mine. Hondo Lane, scout for the military, comes across a woman and her boy living alone on a ranch smack dab in the middle of Apache land. The movie adaptation with John Wayne and Geraldine Page is fun too.
Part of my work in this Readers Advisory class I'm taking is to read from outside my typical genre. Although I read a lot of fiction, I don't tend towards genre fiction so that ought to make it easy to choose. I've most certainly read fantasy and sci-fi novels, and with having read all of Austen and books like [b:The Blue Castle|95693|The Blue Castle |L.M. Montgomery|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1442108651s/95693.jpg|1298683] I wouldn't call myself unfamiliar with certain subgenres of romance, and while I wouldn't say I read a lot of horror I think of Shirley Jackson and [b:House of Leaves|24800|House of Leaves|Mark Z. Danielewski|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1403889034s/24800.jpg|856555] and the spooky October reads I find for myself, and I've read too much Agatha Christie to say I don't read mysteries. Nonfiction? Well, philosophy and Augustine's [b:Confessions|27037|Confessions|Augustine of Hippo|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1266454051s/27037.jpg|1427207] and writing books, so again, while I could extend my reading of subgenres within any of those categories, there was only one where I really hadn't had recent/significant encounters with. (Okay, that's a bit of a lie because [b:My Ántonia|17150|My Ántonia|Willa Cather|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1389151307s/17150.jpg|575450] shows up now and then on Westerns lists, but not everyone would count it.)
So here we are. Westerns. I tried to start with [b:Riders of the Purple Sage|90160|Riders of the Purple Sage|Zane Grey|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1320415192s/90160.jpg|2663060] but it was so ridiculous I put it down for a bit. I took up this one instead, wanting to find the pulpiest most Western-y of Westerns before I moved on to more diverse subgenres. And this is just what you'd expect with a man who is Fraught but Strong and loves his Dog and Woman, and who Respects the Indians but also kills them. (He has lived with them, learned from them, but he's also a white man and better at Apache skills than any actual Apache. Because that's how it always is.) He doesn't kill the Good Indian but we the readers are supposed to be glad he's dead anyways because it makes the plot nice and neat.
I was aware before I started this assignment that I would be reading some stereotypes of Native Americans and would see violence, both of outright and insidious kinds, enacted against them in many of these books. It is exactly what I expected, exactly what you see in the old Western TV shows, or even Westerns that aren't that old at all.
It's also just what you expect in terms of characterization and romantic development. I'm pretty sure I could've described these characters to you before I ever read the book. It succeeded in being the most typical Western novel imaginable, which works for my purposes.
So here we are. Westerns. I tried to start with [b:Riders of the Purple Sage|90160|Riders of the Purple Sage|Zane Grey|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1320415192s/90160.jpg|2663060] but it was so ridiculous I put it down for a bit. I took up this one instead, wanting to find the pulpiest most Western-y of Westerns before I moved on to more diverse subgenres. And this is just what you'd expect with a man who is Fraught but Strong and loves his Dog and Woman, and who Respects the Indians but also kills them. (He has lived with them, learned from them, but he's also a white man and better at Apache skills than any actual Apache. Because that's how it always is.) He doesn't kill the Good Indian but we the readers are supposed to be glad he's dead anyways because it makes the plot nice and neat.
I was aware before I started this assignment that I would be reading some stereotypes of Native Americans and would see violence, both of outright and insidious kinds, enacted against them in many of these books. It is exactly what I expected, exactly what you see in the old Western TV shows, or even Westerns that aren't that old at all.
It's also just what you expect in terms of characterization and romantic development. I'm pretty sure I could've described these characters to you before I ever read the book. It succeeded in being the most typical Western novel imaginable, which works for my purposes.