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youarenotthewalrus's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Religious bigotry
byrdlynd's review against another edition
Beautiful prose, but two dimensional characters (especially the women), and a plot that didn't engage me.
clayjs's review against another edition
4.0
As one of the great westerns of all time, as the herald of the birth of a new genre, as a literary masterpiece cleverly disguised as popcorn fiction, this book promised for 3/5 of its duration to disappoint violently. The characters have become cliches, the dialogue was jarring, and there is (almost) literally an exclamation point after the main character's name every time somebody speaks it. Lassiter! What an ass.
That said, once my disbelief and disgust were safely suspended and I start to get into the story a bit, I also started to find it remarkably charming. I can easily see why fans of westerns would love it--it's really lovable, and they don't have to look down their noses to see that, like I did. The characters (except maybe Lassiter!) have some depth and really feel human sometimes. At least when they're not speaking. The real gold here is the story, though. The tension builds steadily, and Grey slings a Chekhov's gun with the best of them, and by the time you get to Venters's vengeful race across the sage, it's legitimately difficult to put down the book. It's hard to care about the Lassiter! and Jane subplot (which many might argue is actually the main plot, except that it's about a third as exciting, and the characters are about a sixteenth as likable), but Venters is a legit badass, and though he doesn't mill a stampede riding a blind horse like Lassiter! does, he feels actual human emotion and makes mistakes and shit, which is significantly more worth my snobbish, snobbish time.
Please understand, if it hasn't come across yet, that I'm a book snob. I generally only read the driest, wormeatenest old volumes of British highbrowery I can find. And though I almost poked my eye out with a dull stick (in order to maximize its distracting power) about six times in the first 100 pages of this book, I legitimately enjoyed the last 100.
Please also understand that Riders of the Purple Sage slings a lot of religious intolerance around in a way that might not be palatable to all people. If you happen to be Mormon, or if you are sensitive to such things, it'll likely leave a pretty bad taste in your mouth. As a reader of old British highbrowery, religious intolerance is pretty par for the course in my reading catalogue, and I hardly noticed it. It was almost novel to read a novel hating on a different group for a change.
That said, once my disbelief and disgust were safely suspended and I start to get into the story a bit, I also started to find it remarkably charming. I can easily see why fans of westerns would love it--it's really lovable, and they don't have to look down their noses to see that, like I did. The characters (except maybe Lassiter!) have some depth and really feel human sometimes. At least when they're not speaking. The real gold here is the story, though. The tension builds steadily, and Grey slings a Chekhov's gun with the best of them, and by the time you get to Venters's vengeful race across the sage, it's legitimately difficult to put down the book. It's hard to care about the Lassiter! and Jane subplot (which many might argue is actually the main plot, except that it's about a third as exciting, and the characters are about a sixteenth as likable), but Venters is a legit badass, and though he doesn't mill a stampede riding a blind horse like Lassiter! does, he feels actual human emotion and makes mistakes and shit, which is significantly more worth my snobbish, snobbish time.
Please understand, if it hasn't come across yet, that I'm a book snob. I generally only read the driest, wormeatenest old volumes of British highbrowery I can find. And though I almost poked my eye out with a dull stick (in order to maximize its distracting power) about six times in the first 100 pages of this book, I legitimately enjoyed the last 100.
Please also understand that Riders of the Purple Sage slings a lot of religious intolerance around in a way that might not be palatable to all people. If you happen to be Mormon, or if you are sensitive to such things, it'll likely leave a pretty bad taste in your mouth. As a reader of old British highbrowery, religious intolerance is pretty par for the course in my reading catalogue, and I hardly noticed it. It was almost novel to read a novel hating on a different group for a change.
jbarr5's review against another edition
4.0
Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey
Recall a band by this name and love their music. This book starts out with a few men who tend to Jane Withersteen's horses that she's raising and selling after training them.
In Utal the Mormoms rule the land and they want her land and round up men to steal her horses. Before she knows it a little come Fay comes to stay with her because the woman taking care of her has died.
There are many trouble and upheavals during this book involving many different sets of people. Liked the scenery because it is so descriptive from the daybreak to the full sun and at dusk-the purple sage is always being described.
Love how they band together and make a run for it. Learned so much about this area-even gold! Great Book.
Recall a band by this name and love their music. This book starts out with a few men who tend to Jane Withersteen's horses that she's raising and selling after training them.
In Utal the Mormoms rule the land and they want her land and round up men to steal her horses. Before she knows it a little come Fay comes to stay with her because the woman taking care of her has died.
There are many trouble and upheavals during this book involving many different sets of people. Liked the scenery because it is so descriptive from the daybreak to the full sun and at dusk-the purple sage is always being described.
Love how they band together and make a run for it. Learned so much about this area-even gold! Great Book.
tittypete's review against another edition
3.0
Straightforward westren fare. The morms are being shitty to people in Utah. Trying to polygamize the women-folk and steal kidsfor fuckin’ purposes and some gentile MFers shoot the shit out of them. There’s a masked bandit that turns out to have titties and be a woman and there’s some corny love shit. The word sage is said about a bajillion times and a lot of attention is paid to some capable horses. Not a ton of action. I liked that the morms were scumbags but I got sick of the main lady character being so against the diddler bishop and his henchmen getting murdered by Lassiter, the good guy. Couldn’t wrap my head around why she sucked so much.
nickyxxx's review against another edition
2.0
Uhm... What to say, what to say...
I did not hate it. Let that be clear. It took me a while get used to the writing style and the odd and unnatural dialogues - but then it was okay.
I just didn't feel it. I fell off the western bandwagon halfway through and I couldn't climb back up, and then there was a growing variety of pet peeves in the book that began to irritate and aggravate me. And I don't normally skim, but a) this was a western which I usually love, and b) this was a group read, so I couldn't dnf it. So I continued, but I began to care less and less about the characters; sure, So I can't tell you which character I liked most, because there was none of them that really captured me in the end.
I did not hate it. Let that be clear. It took me a while get used to the writing style and the odd and unnatural dialogues - but then it was okay.
I just didn't feel it. I fell off the western bandwagon halfway through and I couldn't climb back up, and then there was a growing variety of pet peeves in the book that began to irritate and aggravate me. And I don't normally skim, but a) this was a western which I usually love, and b) this was a group read, so I couldn't dnf it. So I continued, but I began to care less and less about the characters; sure,
Spoiler
Bess was cute, but I felt she treated Venters a little... unfairly, as in, she took to complaining a little too quickly? And Jane was a nag, too, I thought - trying to change Lassiter into a man he wasn't.enchntdrose's review against another edition
1.0
This book! ...Oh!...This book! How miserable...how wretched! May God have pity on those...who read this book! Oh! The drama! Oh...the horses! Oh!...the sage! So much sage! Purple...purple sage! I will hide this book in Surprise Valley! I will hide it! And I will...I will roll the great Balancing Rock! I will roll the great Balancing Rock and close forever the outlet to Deception Pass!
codeliusthe2nd's review against another edition
4.0
It took me ages to actually get invested into “Riders of the Purple Sage”, but I’m glad that I stuck through to the end. It’s a thrilling tale, filled with a ton of action and romance. I’ve seen many people comment on the romance, saying that’s the primary genre and not it being a western, but I’d say that the two go hand in hand here. The basic story is a romance, but it’s most definitely a western in every sense of the word. Grey’s writing style took a while to get into; it’s easy to read, but it’s a bit bulky and clunky at times. Despite that, he was able to craft some captivating characters, along with creating some landscapes that I now will have burned into my memory. I really enjoyed this novel, I just had to take a lot of time to find my footing with the novel.
twilliamson's review against another edition
4.0
Grey's 1912 novel Riders of the Purple Sage is probably a prime example of what I would expect from a Western: horse riders, gunfights, funny accents, and romantic notions of masculinity recovered from working a hostile landscape into hospitable condition. Grey's West is a world inhabited by larger-than-life characters whose fates are intricately connected by melodramatic twists and whose landscapes seem to exist somewhere between reality and the painter's vision.
Riders is a romance, though, in a more classical sense. Grey cannot help himself from expressing his admiration for the West, and his romantic notions seep into every bit of his prose. From sweeping plains of purple sage to hidden paradises tucked in the canyons of Utah, Grey juxtaposes the idyllic West with the vicissitudes of human vice, associating virtue with virginal land and vice with unnatural human politicking.
The politicking in question pertains to the corruptive elements of the Mormon faith, and Grey is fairly unapologetic here: he deliberately points out that, while Mormonism may be a true and just faith to some, human will to power will always corrupt institutions of power, and thus his Mormon characters are unscrupulous villains hell-bent on the consumption of both land and man. Through Jane Withersteen, Grey's protagonist, the author dives into what separates a good Mormon from a bad one, and through Lassiter, Jane's romantic interest, Grey shows that a virtuous Gentile can often be more just than a corrupt Mormon--and that religion, in the case of Mormonism, is just another tool the corrupt use in their lust for power and privilege.
Human politics aside, Grey also imbibes his story with melodrama and romance, such that his novel feels less like a rootin', tootin', cowboy shootin' novel of gunslinging action than it does rustic romance. For Grey, his women are distinctly feminine, his men distinctly and ruggedly masculine (when they're the heroes, of course), and they're inevitably drawn to each other such that they each can only accentuate the gendered performances of the other. This is probably the one aspect that has aged most poorly in the novel, although Grey does find some ways to subvert these expectations on occasion. This is by no means a transgressive novel, but Grey does at least make an attempt to inspect the ways in which our social situations can reflect on our own gender performances.
What I loved about the book is its prose (even if he overuses words like "purple" and "sage" and "purple sage" and "riders" and "riders of the purple sage"), its themes, its philosophical questions about religion and our duty to it, and its action. What I didn't like was the constant romanticism, or its absolutely god-awful dialogue (Fay, the child, being the absolute fucking worst).
Nevertheless, it's easy to see why this book is a classic. I think Grey deserves his accolades, if using this book were to serve as the sole representation of his ability. It's far from a perfect book, but it connects where it needs to. I think it's a worthy read.
Riders is a romance, though, in a more classical sense. Grey cannot help himself from expressing his admiration for the West, and his romantic notions seep into every bit of his prose. From sweeping plains of purple sage to hidden paradises tucked in the canyons of Utah, Grey juxtaposes the idyllic West with the vicissitudes of human vice, associating virtue with virginal land and vice with unnatural human politicking.
The politicking in question pertains to the corruptive elements of the Mormon faith, and Grey is fairly unapologetic here: he deliberately points out that, while Mormonism may be a true and just faith to some, human will to power will always corrupt institutions of power, and thus his Mormon characters are unscrupulous villains hell-bent on the consumption of both land and man. Through Jane Withersteen, Grey's protagonist, the author dives into what separates a good Mormon from a bad one, and through Lassiter, Jane's romantic interest, Grey shows that a virtuous Gentile can often be more just than a corrupt Mormon--and that religion, in the case of Mormonism, is just another tool the corrupt use in their lust for power and privilege.
Human politics aside, Grey also imbibes his story with melodrama and romance, such that his novel feels less like a rootin', tootin', cowboy shootin' novel of gunslinging action than it does rustic romance. For Grey, his women are distinctly feminine, his men distinctly and ruggedly masculine (when they're the heroes, of course), and they're inevitably drawn to each other such that they each can only accentuate the gendered performances of the other. This is probably the one aspect that has aged most poorly in the novel, although Grey does find some ways to subvert these expectations on occasion. This is by no means a transgressive novel, but Grey does at least make an attempt to inspect the ways in which our social situations can reflect on our own gender performances.
What I loved about the book is its prose (even if he overuses words like "purple" and "sage" and "purple sage" and "riders" and "riders of the purple sage"), its themes, its philosophical questions about religion and our duty to it, and its action. What I didn't like was the constant romanticism, or its absolutely god-awful dialogue (Fay, the child, being the absolute fucking worst).
Nevertheless, it's easy to see why this book is a classic. I think Grey deserves his accolades, if using this book were to serve as the sole representation of his ability. It's far from a perfect book, but it connects where it needs to. I think it's a worthy read.
minty's review against another edition
3.0
Revisiting this book--I know I read it either for a class or for pleasure while I was in college (20+ years ago), and I really really liked it, but I remembered nothing.
I am so impressed at the riveting, fast-paced action sequences. I finally get it: Westerns are the original action movies! Overall this story was also more focused on women than I ever imagined, too, and I had zero memory of it being about the tension between Mormons and "gentiles." Definitely still liked it though!
I am so impressed at the riveting, fast-paced action sequences. I finally get it: Westerns are the original action movies! Overall this story was also more focused on women than I ever imagined, too, and I had zero memory of it being about the tension between Mormons and "gentiles." Definitely still liked it though!