- Hello all,
I've been an absentee for a bit due to last minutes studies for the captain's test, which I'm pretty sure I BOMBED. Now I'm back, ready for some R & R, maybe even enough of it to match the three and a half months of study I just went through for that test.
So... Books, huh? Well, this will probably be a little surprising other than to those who know me pretty well, but I find it a lot easier to list favorite movies than favorite books. The reason? Number one, I'm an author, not a movie maker. And I'm not an actor, either. So perhaps I'm a little more easily impressed by movies because of the personnas who are right there before us.
If it's someone with the looks and charisma of Gregory Peck, Robert Redford, Clint Walker, Charles Bronson, Paul Newman... I can more easily forgive historic errors in place, time, weapons, clothing, etc., than I can when I'm already being asked to invent a an entire movie in my head while reading a book.
So when I have authors like Louis L'Amour talk about how "authentic" they are while at the same time their characters have thongs on their pistols to hold them in the holster and tie-downs on the bottom of their holsters, and when they do way too many things of an almost super-human nature I don't have much patience for it. So I can't truly explain why I like such superman-type movies as Quigley Down Under and Silverado, where they constantly do the impossible with guns, horses, etc., and generally don't give a hoot about authentic costuming.
However... (And I guess you can all see why I'm a novelist and not a short story author) the original topic was favorite books.
Even while a stickler for authenticity, and having re-read this book a number of times and discovered the many errors of reality, etc., that gleefully escaped me as a young boy reading it, I have to say I love the book "Shane." I remember the magical feeling when my dad gave me my first "grown-up" Western book. (Of course, back then I called them all "cowboy books." Anyway, as I said, it was magical. The cover art, the smell, the heft, the fact that it actually had chapters, just like my dad's books. And the narrator was a boy himself, which made it that much closer to my heart. So I will always have a spot of nostalgia for Shane, and although I know a lot of teenage readers, forced to read it in school, malign it horribly, I hope all adult readers will take the time to read and enjoy this book. It is one of the top books in the genre and always will be, one of the archtypical books about the heroism of the West but a book that did not make the antagonist actually be "bad." He was a man who owned a big ranch and was desperate to keep it from being overrun by settlers after all the hard work he did to gain it. This was portrayed as well in the movie. A great book and great movie, perhaps my favorite of the former.
I enjoyed the writing of the novel that wins most Western contests to this day, The Big Sky. But the subject, the storyline, and the ending were too dark for my taste. I don't care for the lack of realism and authenticity in Louis L'Amour books, nor the sloppy writing, but I love the romance, the heroism, and how good always triumphed. I know it's not that way in real life, but generally, especially in my teenage years, I was reading to escape, not do research.
I've enjoyed most novels I've read by Elmore Leonard:
Hombre (as good as the Paul Newman movie that was made from it)
Last Stand at Saber River (better than the Selleck movie)
The Bounty Hunters
T.V. Olsen is a good author and uses a lot of foreigners in his books to great effect, but unfortunately, other than The Stalking Moon (from which the movie was made) I don't remember any specific titles except Gunswift.
Another favorite author, the predecessor of L'Amour, was Ernest Haycox. He was much more realistic than L'Amour and therefore more readable. Likewise with Luke Short. Again, no favorite titles come directly to mind.
Elmer Kelton (It seems you generally have to have a dorky name to be a successful Western author).
He did The Texas Rifles, The Buffalo Guns, and quite a number of really good stories. His stuff generally centered around the less than superhumans like you and me who, in spite of their fear, set their teeth, bowed their necks, and did what was right.
Wayne Barton, a friend of mine like Kelton, is also a great author. Return to Phantom Hill was the first I read by him and I was hooked.
And Brian Garfield, if he had stuck to a clean style, was an awesome writer, but he kicked me in the guts with a book named Sweeney's Honor, and I never could pick up any of his stuff again. It was basically a porn Western, and there is no place in Westerns for that, in my opinion.
So.... I realize that I've listed mostly favorite authors, rather than favorite books. I hope this adds a little bit to the discussion. Most of my favorites now are non-fiction. That and books by Kirby Jonas. haha. I say that half in jest, but naturally, I prefer my books because obviously the play out and end the way I think they should. THat's why I'm writing them! I don't have to rely on anyone else to be realistic, to put in the amount of description, action and romance I require of a Western novel.
So there you go.
It's good to be back on the forum!
Kirby
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