About book The Virginian: A Horseman Of The Plains (2002)
Beware of the Frog! This is what, as I would recommend, should be put as a warning appendix to the title of Owen Wister's famous Western novel "The Virginian", which was first published in 1902 - because, as I felt, one third of the novel in some way or other centres on the preparation and consumption as well as the "harvest" of our amphibious friends. "The Virginian" is commonly regarded as t h e literary forebear of the western, next to James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, and it probably has been adapted for the screen quite as often, amongst others by the renowned director Cecil B. DeMille in 1914. The most famous version derived from the book is probably the 1929 film starring Gary Cooper and Walter Huston. However, directors of "The Virginian" generally took a lot of liberties with this novel, basing their films rather loosely on Wister's tale. If you ask yourself why these directors may have felt that they had to re-invent the story instead of carefully sticking to the original, you might come to a conclusion that will not go down well with public opinion, which is inclined to hold the book in high esteem as the starting point of the most American genre. This unpopular conclusion is that "The Virginian" is a botch of a novel that may probably still be of interest to the scholar, though hardly to the literary pleasure-seeker - a conclusion that clearly ranks it with Cooper's five novels. First of all, it must be noted that Owen Wister is not much of a story-teller. Most of the action taking place in "The Virginian", for example the infamous lynching scene, is presented to the reader via time-delayed teichoscopy, i.e. characters give an account of what happened elsewhere. This device, which may be useful in plays, usually destroys quite a lot of tension in a novel, and is most cleverly applied in order to shed some light on the character reporting an event. Secondly, the tale is told by a first person narrator who is alien to the old West and its ways and who by and by earns the respect of the eponymous hero, as he emancipates himself from the reputation of the tender-footed greenhorn. Unfortunately, Wister more often than not feels the need to narrate events that took place in the greenhorn's absence, which imbues the narrator with a God-like omniscience at times and which allows him to even go into detail with regard to the most intimate conversations between the Virginian and his lady-love. Wister's failure to stick to perspective likewise detracts from the appeal of the book. You may say that Melville did the same thing in "Moby-Dick", but then Wister is no Melville in terms of depth and style, and where Melville still keeps up his narrative flow, Wister clearly runs dry more than once. Thirdly, the characters he describes are hardly able to create interest. His scoundrel, the sly and cowardly farm-hand Trampas, remains colourless and flat. The Virginian's love interest is a pasteboard character, and his hero has nothing to do with the grim, hard-nosed loners, or the bitter men that ride the Westerns of Anthony Mann or Budd Boetticher. Neither is he a mysterious knight-like Shane. The Virginian just seems to be a character created to illustrate Wister's naïve belief in Social Darwinism, which he sometimes has his narrator advocate in his typically stilted, but hardly skilful prose - just like this: "There can be no doubt of this : - All America is divided into two classes, - the quality and the equality. The latter will always recognize the former when mistaken for it. Both will be with us until our women bear nothing but kings.It was through the Declaration of Independence that we Americans acknowledged the ETERNAL INEQUALITY of man. For by it we abolished a cut-and-dried aristocracy. We had seen little men artificially held up in high places, and great men artificially held down in low places, and our own justice-loving hearts abhorred this violence to human nature. Therefore, we decreed that every man should thenceforth have equal liberty to find his own level. By this very decree we acknowledged and gave freedom to true aristocracy, saying, 'Let the best man win, whoever he is.' Let the best man win! That is America's word. That is true democracy. And true democracy and true aristocracy are one and the same thing. If anybody cannot see this, so much the worse for his eyesight." This is a bit hard to take for us who know that it is money that makes presidents, and it would still be hard to take, were it more skilfully written. All in all, "The Virginian" is quite similar to the afore-mentioned frog in that you might have difficulty in keeping this book in your hand and that, like many a bloated frog, it will be found smaller than assumed.
To think that the western movies, TV shows, space westerns, etc. were merely the shadows of this book, published in 1902. The impetus to read this book came from listening to Teddy Roosevelt's biography. The west made a big impression on TR and this book and Owen Wister were largely responsible for his, and our, romantic images. Lots has been written on this. Gun fights. High Noon. Dramatic and memorable music. Moral dilemmas did not exist within the code of the west. Good was clear, simple and triumphant. Evil was also clearly delineated, diabolically, talented and doomed. It also helped that the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black hats. To this day I take time warming up to "cowboys" in black hats. I won't comment further on these well known points. But there were two aspects of the books that surprised me. The "westerns" and the romance that I grew up with had explicit action. First....... In this book... the parent of all "westerns", much of the action takes place off the pages. The Indian attack on the Virginian is described only in the aftermath, when Molly finds him wounded and near death. Furthermore, the gunfight at the end of the book is missed if you don't read two sentences carefully. This is a profound difference from the drama attending western duels on TV and movies. Here, violence and sex take place off the pages. Further to this point, this book is about the land more than the people and their actions: "No hand but nature's had sown these crops of yellow flowers, these willow thickets and tall cottonwoods. Somewere in the passage of red rocks the last sign of wagon wheels was lost, and after this the trail becaem a wild mountain trail. But it was still the warm air of the plains, bearing the sage-brush odor and not the pine, that they breathed; nor did the forest yet cloak the shapes of the tawny hills among which they were ascending." In this fashion, much of the text is devoted to description of places... and when describing people, the author conveys the same sense of timelessness, nature and inevitability.People merely inhabit this country. They are a product of this country. We see occasional visitors from the east who may or may not be able to adapt. Even those who are there are one mistake away from disaster (Shorty). It is a beautiful but unforgiving place. The country defines the people.Second.... since this book marks the inception of the "western" and code of the west.. what went before. So much of popular literature since has been on this subject or used these themes... what preceded the cowboy and the west to capture and stimulate our imaginations? Was it the Civil War? The War of Southern Rebellion? Were our heros in the last half of the 19th century brave but regional partisans of that war? In that case, did Wister do a great service by drawing our attention away from the myths and tradgedies of that war war as a source of our national identity and projecting it onto new myths and ideals of the west and the cowboy?FASCINATING
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THE VIRGINIAN. (1902). Owen Wister. ****.tThis was another book on my pile of “guilt” novels – one of those classics that I kept meaning to read but never got around to doing so. I finally did. It was well worth it in a sad0-masochistic way. What you have here is the grand-daddy of all cowboy novels. It was the inspiration for all succeeding novels, plays, movies and TV shows that came after that featured cowboys of the Old West. It was immensely popular at the time, going through fifteen printings in its first eight months after initial publication. It went on to become a successful adaptation as a play – playing four months in New York and eight years on the road. All of those “cliches” we now associate with westerns seem to have originated in this novel. You have to remember when you are reading this book that you are reading them for the first time in print, including the famous, “When you call me that, SMILE!” Owen Wister (1860-1938) tried his hand at lots of things before finally settling down to writing. He was counseled to do so by his friend William Dean Howells. His early efforts were proof-read by another friend, Theodore Roosevelt. He may have gotten some help along the way from his grandmother, Frances (Fanny) Kemble Butler. If he did fail in his writing, he always had his law degree from Harvard to fall back on. The story line in “The Virginian” was sort of based on Wister’s experiences in Wyoming. At the time of his visit there, the true Old West was long gone, but the ghost of its days still remained in the character of its people and the stories that were passed around. The attraction of the Old West was still high for the people who lived Back East who had never gone much further west than the Ohio River. Wister’s tale hit a chord that managed to reverberate among readers and to spark a desire for much more of the same. A lot of the novel will seem old hat to current readers, but it’s worth the effort. Remember that you are now reading the Founding Father of the western. Recommended.
—Tony
Apparently the first 'western'. It was really nice. I loved the story about the chicken taking care of everybody else's offspring, and sitting on and attempting to hatch rocks, mangos, pine cones, etc. The Virginian himself was great. The discussion about "taking the law into your own hands" - as a community, was really interesting. The Judge rightly points out that the people gave the power to courts/congress in the first place. If they people dead/crippled, who is to say the people cannot revoke/reclaim that power unto themselves. To do what the majority would wish - lynch the cattle rustlers. Personally, I oppose capital punishment, but I'm not sure what else these people would do with their prisoners once they were caught. Great book.
—Travis
This was a lovely read and I highly recommend it. Some of the descriptions of the times and the places are just glorious. Occasionally there will be a phrase that is hard to understand, since it was written in 1902, but that certainly doesn't detract from the wonderful writing.The slow-paced understated love story is interesting, since both the Virginian and his schoolmarm lady friend from Vermont are so original...both a bit laconic, wry and reserved. The larger picture of the process of civilization of the Wild West is beautifully presented in a very down-to-earth, realistic way, and the Virginian's struggles to do what is right and just and Miss Woods' grappling to understand his actions are wonderfully handled. I found the Judge's musings and explanations to her to be a fascinating discussion of the issues good, ordinary people would have faced as the West was settled.
—Dianne
