Rating: 
Summary: one of the truly great Westerns
Review: Her father's death has left Jane Withersteen in possession of the richest land holding in the Cottonwoods, a Mormon village on the 1871 Utah frontier. Most importantly, Amber Spring runs through her property and so she controls the water supply that makes possible the rolling fields of purple sage. But now the Mormon church wants to gain contol of the spring by forcing an unwilling Jane to marry Elder Tull. They've been steadily increasing the pressure on her and as the novel opens, Tull and his henchmen have come to arrest Venters, the Gentile foreman on her ranch. Outnumbered and outgunned, Jane prays for deliverance. Just as Tull is about to whip Venters, a rider in black appears--Lassiter, the scourge of the Mormons. Lassiter is an archetype of the mythic Western hero. In him we see the origins of both Shane and Ethan Edwards (from The Searchers, Amos in the novel)--a lone gunmen fighting for Justice, he has descended upon Mormon Utah with a vengeance, obsessively searching for the sister who was kidnapped by a Mormon proselytizer. Jane takes him on as a ranch hand, but makes him swear to forsake violence. Inevitably (as in High Noon), events force her to release him from his oath. Despite an extremely harsh view of Mormons, this is one of the truly great Westerns; a must read. GRADE: A
Rating: 
Summary: A classic?
Review: I enjoy a good western. I understand that the good guys are often too good to be true, and the bad guys are as bad as can be. Still, I was very put off by this "classic." As I fought to stay awake through over 250 pages of the words 'purple' and 'sage' being used in various ways, I couldn't help but wonder what all the hype is about this book. Basically, it's this: the good guys are Venters and Lassiter, two practically superhuman cowboys who can do anything--head off a stampede with a blind horse, take 5 bullets and still be able to walk all day, and shoot a man from a horse on the dead run, while on a running horse himself. The bad guys fall into two groups. The Mormons, the evil, black-hearted women stealers, polygamists every one (though the heroine's father seems not to have been one, though he was a Mormon leader), and the cattle rustlers, who are bad, but not as bad as the Mormons, because the rustlers are "honest thieves." The action is pretty dull, the romance is nothing short of corny, and each page is dripping with sappy descriptions of landscape. In short, be forewarned. If you want to read this book, fine, but be prepared for Grey to spend more time developing the color of the sage than developing all the characters combined. There are much better Westerns out there.
Rating:
Summary: My first Western, but not my last...
Review: I had never read a Western, so when I gave it a try I thought I'd start with the best Western author -- Zane Grey -- and read his most famous work -- Riders of the Purple Sage. I think I made a good choice. One, the setting is beautifully and gloriously described. Rock formations, plains, desert, sage....his descriptions evoke mental images as if you are watching a movie. Two, the characters are unique, well-described, exhibit growth and development, and interact in deed and dialogue in realistic ways. By the end of the book, you will feel like you know these people. Three, the plot is absolutely fantastic. It starts exciting, and continues to unfold realistically, yet unpredictably, throughout the whole book to the very last page. From the opening pages, to the climax...very exciting. I was on the edge of my seat and could not put this book down. I practically cried at the end...it is that good. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: My first Western, but not my last...
Review: I had never read a Western, so when I gave it a try I thought I'd start with the best Western author -- Zane Grey -- and read his most famous work -- Riders of the Purple Sage. I think I made a good choice. One, the setting is beautifully and gloriously described. Rock formations, plains, desert, sage....his descriptions evoke mental images as if you are watching a movie. Two, the characters are unique, well-described, exhibit growth and development, and interact in deed and dialogue in realistic ways. By the end of the book, you will feel like you know these people. Three, the plot is absolutely fantastic. It starts exciting, and continues to unfold realistically, yet unpredictably, throughout the whole book to the very last page. From the opening pages, to the climax...very exciting. I was on the edge of my seat and could not put this book down. I practically cried at the end...it is that good. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: I'd mosey on past this one, partn'r....classic or not.
Review: I picked up this book thinking I was going to get a classic spaghetti western: a gun-slinging rapid-firing rapid-reading book. Instead I got a soap opera set in Utah with purple prose tiringly describing purple sage, cliffs and rock formations. There is an astounding lack of action. Not being familiar with genre, maybe my expectations were off, but I shant be coming back to Zane Grey soon.
Rating:
Summary: More purple than sage, but worth reading
Review: If you are not an aficionado of the Western novel but would like to sample the genre, then you should try one or more of the three great classics; Jack Schaefer's "Shane", Owen Wister's "The Virginian" , and this novel by Zane Grey. Of the three, "Shane" has the most literary merit and is the only one with claims to being great literature. "The Virginian" is often regarded as the first true representative of the genre, establishing as it does many of the great archetypal characters and incidents of Western myth, and "Riders of the Purple Sage" remains the best-selling Western. "Riders" has two very remarkable features. The first is the surprising complexity and mythic depth of the story. There is for example, a Garden of Eden theme, with two of the characters isolated for an extended time in a lush wilderness. This is so strikingly like the Emil Zola novel "La Faute de l'Abbe Mouret" (The Abbe Mouret's Sin) that one wonders if Grey had read and been inspired by that work. Interwoven with this is an Oedipal theme. If all of this sounds a bit much for a cowboy yarn, I can only say that it really is all there. The other remarkable thing about the book is its attitude toward the Mormon religion. The hero is an avowed "killer of Mormons". The LDS church is depicted as essentially brutal and tyrannical. This, I suppose, reflects a prejudice of the time, but I wonder how present-day members of that church regard this novel. It has to be said that Grey is not a great writer and in particular, he cannot do dialogue. In fact, the dialogue in the first few pages is so appalling that I nearly gave up on the book there and then. However, I'm glad I stuck with it. It is such a fine and strange story and has such a wonderful sense of place.
Rating:
Summary: More purple than sage, but worth reading
Review: If you are not an aficionado of the Western novel but would like to sample the genre, then you should try one or more of the three great classics; Jack Schaefer's "Shane", Owen Wister's "The Virginian" , and this novel by Zane Grey. Of the three, "Shane" has the most literary merit and is the only one with claims to being great literature. "The Virginian" is often regarded as the first true representative of the genre, establishing as it does many of the great archetypal characters and incidents of Western myth, and "Riders of the Purple Sage" remains the best-selling Western. "Riders" has two very remarkable features. The first is the surprising complexity and mythic depth of the story. There is for example, a Garden of Eden theme, with two of the characters isolated for an extended time in a lush wilderness. This is so strikingly like the Emil Zola novel "La Faute de l'Abbe Mouret" (The Abbe Mouret's Sin) that one wonders if Grey had read and been inspired by that work. Interwoven with this is an Oedipal theme. If all of this sounds a bit much for a cowboy yarn, I can only say that it really is all there. The other remarkable thing about the book is its attitude toward the Mormon religion. The hero is an avowed "killer of Mormons". The LDS church is depicted as essentially brutal and tyrannical. This, I suppose, reflects a prejudice of the time, but I wonder how present-day members of that church regard this novel. It has to be said that Grey is not a great writer and in particular, he cannot do dialogue. In fact, the dialogue in the first few pages is so appalling that I nearly gave up on the book there and then. However, I'm glad I stuck with it. It is such a fine and strange story and has such a wonderful sense of place.
Rating:
Summary: surprised by Great Literature
Review: This is the only western I've ever read; I'm mostly into classical literature, science writing, and non-fiction, but I asked friends for a book rec in the field, and they said read this one and the two Thomas Berger novels about Little Big Man. The novel is interesting in that it's not a stereotypical western story. The main character is a woman who owns a large cattle ranch and is basically the mainstay of the little town of Cottonwoods, a Mormon town on the Utah border, sort of like the Cartwright family was in the popular TV western series, only in this case, Lorne Green is replaced by a female lead. The novel also is unusual in that it shows her struggling against the tyranny and even criminality of her fellow Mormon ranchers, who don't like the fact of a beautiful, wealthy, but unattached woman, who wields considerable influence in the local town despite their best attempts to undermine her. One the things that sparked my interest in the novel was hearing an English prof in a radio interview on National Public Radio talk about some of the scholarship that is being devoted to genres like the western novel. She was working herself on the books of Karl May (The Legend of the Llano Estacado), Owen Wister (The Virgianian), and Zane Grey. One of the interesting things she had to say had to do with Grey's vivid prose descriptions of the western landscape. She said Grey's prose sensualized the landscape, giving it an almost masculine sensuality and almost sexuality. I'm about halfway into the book, and I can say that the rugged countryside of sheer, rock-walled canyons, arid plateaus and valleys, and wide-open spaces of this part of Utah are vividly described by Grey and serve, not just as a dramatic backdrop against which the novel's events take place, but as a palpable force for good or evil by itself...I think the book has a strong plot with a lot of powerful elements going for it: interesting characters (including a dangerous and mysterious but chivalrous gunslinger), a sympathetic main character who struggles and triumphs against society's evils (not just a few western-style bad guys), beautiful and evocative descriptions of the landscape, and, as the backcover says it, "hairsbreadth escapes." One last interesting thing is that, if I remember correctly, Zane Grey was actually a Pennsylvania dentist who failed in his attempt to set up a profitable dental practice in New York. He wanted to get into writing westerns, and when his first novel was a big success, his writing career was launched and he never looked back. Riders of the Purple Sage is probably his most famous book, and despite it's not being a typical western novel, it has become a classic in its field.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Example of the Western Genre.
Review: Zane Grey is one of the best-known and most prolific writers in the Western genre. Riders of the Purple Sage is perhaps his most famous novel. And deservedly so. The story starts rather slowly by today's fiction standards, and has a meandering story line that leaves one wondering what the book is all about--or whether it's actually about anything particular at all. But then with Dickensian brilliance he weaves a series of seemingly unrelated tendrils into one complex, exciting, and satisfying conclusion. Rich and beautiful Jane Withersteen has inherited her father's ranch and cattle herds on the Utah frontier border. She resists the demands of church elders to marry Tull, a fellow Mormon, instead showing interest in Gentile sage-rider Ventors. This insubordinate behavior causes high tension in the Mormon town of Cottonwoods, already edgy from an insurgence of Gentiles and years of cattle-rustling mayhem led by the legendary Oldring and his mysterious Masked Rider. At the moment that Mormon ire peaks over Jane's intransigence, Grey adds the catalyst to a chain reaction of violent drama: the arrival in Cottonwoods of Lassiter, the infamous Mormon-killing gunman. The plot plays out with plenty of surprising revelations on the true identity and intentions of the various parties. Grey's style is heavy on scenic description, with almost redundant recitation of the virtues of the purple prairie. But the book has a classic, literary quality to it, something the genre sorely missed until Larry McMurtry brought it back with Lonesome Dove. And horse-lovers will appreciate Grey's knowledge and detailed rendering of everything equestrian. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.
Rating:
Summary: Writers of the Purple Phrase!
Review: Zane Grey was a fixture in American letters when it came to the Western. In fact, one might suggest that he invented the modern form of it (though, of course, there were writers of dime novel westerns before him, not to mention James Fenimore Cooper and his leatherstocking tales). But Grey certainly did someting memorable and lasting with the form, if this book is any measure. I had never read Grey before, so I picked this one up with some uncertainty. Thought I could not count myself well-read until I'd tried one of his books and this seemed to be the one with the most literary weight. It's certainly named well enough. As it happens, I enjoyed the book in the end, but have to admit that it is weak in a number of serious ways. Set in Mormon Utah in the late 1800's, it's the tale of a young Mormon woman who is the sole heir of her father and owner of the substantial ranch he has left her. Because of the significance of her ranch and because she is a rather headstrong young woman, the Mormon elders feel it essential to rein her in and get her married into the fold as quickly as they can. One particular Mormon Elder, a man named Tull, has his eye on her especially, with the support of his mysterious Bishop. But Jane, pious as she is, demurs, recognizing that becoming one more of Tull's wives (in those days the Mormons were still taking several wives) will only strip her of her freedom and clout in the little community (which she has inherited along with her father's extensive ranch). The story opens with Tull and his other pious brethren about to administer a sound thrashing to a young cow hand who has been working for the heroine, Jane Withersteen, and who Jane has been flirting with. Jane is powerless to prevent the beating and worse until the appearance, out of the hazy, distant horizon, of a man called Lassiter. Lassiter proves to be a hard sort and a known gunman with a special dislike for Mormons. His arrival proves salutary and the end of it is he stays on with Jane at the ranch while the cow hand heads out and the Mormons scatter, tails between their legs. Jane sets out to convince Lassiter that not all Mormons are bad while the Mormon elders conspire to bring Jane down by scaring off all her Mormon and non-Mormon ranch hands. Meanwhile, the esrstwhile cow hand (his name escapes me) stumbles onto the secret hide-out of the rustlers who have been robbing the honest folk in the area. There are lots of chases and hiding outs and some gun play. The cow hand finds his love in an unlikely place in the box canyon in which he holes up (hard to believe this man and his intended are together an entire week, feel the way they do about each other and yet never touch one another, but it was a simpler time then, wasn't it?), the gunman hangs around Jane who exerts her feminine wiles to get him to give up his guns before he can hurt anymore Mormons, and the Mormon elders continue their nefarious schemes to break Jane to the halter. Thoughout it all, Lassiter seems oddly passive and inert for the deadly, single-minded gunman he is made out to be. And yet, one of the remarkable things about this book is the rich prose in which the landscape is surrealistically painted, which gives it both its title and the feel that this is more than just a silly story about good guys and bad guys. And there is a strong sense of suppressed sexuality underlying the entire tale here as embodied in the highly visual rendering of the countryside, its canyons, its sage and its sky. The descriptiveness of the narrative is, however, somewhat repetitive and overdone as though apparently reflecting the turbulent emotions of the characters themselves, as though their innermost feelings are laid bare upon the landscape of their tale. The ending is a bit melodramatic too and rather predictable, but, in all, I can see why this tale has the good name it's got. It's intriguing and enthralling (it kept me reading through to the end -- a harder thing these days as my eyes are not what they used to be and I have less patience than I once did for the fictional word). But in comparison with many other works which I have read and enjoyed, I had to conclude that this one is not quite in their league. Using the amazon "five star" system, I usually reserve five stars for the really good to the great, four for the pretty damned good to the good, and three to the "good but" category. This one is thus a "three" on that measure since it was strongly enough written to carry me as a reader and interesting enough in its unexpectedly powerful use of language but, in the end, that very usage went over the top and slid into the dream-like purple of the sage in which the characters cavort. And the characterizations, themselves, are rather stilted, the tale kind of flat and just plain contrived. I think it is the underlying sexual energy in the writing which really carries the day. "Good but . . . "
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