The Virginian

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful presentation filled with action
Review: A full-cast dramatization keeps this Western story fast-paced and involving. Set in Wyoming, this tells of a Southerner who is peaceful, fair, and strong - but lacking in romance. Enter a beautiful Eastern woman to complete his life. The dramatic recording style makes for a wonderful presentation filled with the action and defects of an old-time radio show, but with modern players (the St. Charles Players).

Rating:
Summary: No doubt about it -- a great Western romance . . .
Review: For anyone fascinated by how the myth of the Western hero came into being, this is the book to read. Published in 1902, it became hugely popular for decades and inspired movies (a version with Gary Cooper in 1929) and a long-running TV series (1962-1971). A modern reader could easily guess the storyline without reading a synopsis - the classic elements are all there: tall, dark, handsome cowboy hero; pretty schoolmarm from back East; the villain who must finally face justice at the end of a gun.

Few historical novels are dedicated to American presidents, however, and another whole dimension of the novel opens up with the name appearing on the dedication page -- Theodore Roosevelt, a college friend of the author's. What Wister does, besides telling a story of adventure and romance, is portray a particular kind of heroic figure, a natural man whose integrity is untainted by the corrupt (though civilized) values of the East.

The book is a deliberate and often worshipful character study for the age of Teddy Roosevelt-style masculinity. The young Virginian charms us (and the narrator) with his courage and modesty and his thoughtful attempts to understand a world in which some men (even good ones) act dishonorably and make cowardly choices. Stoic and cool on the surface, the currents of sentiment run deep in this man. So does the will to self-improvement, as he reads Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott.

This book connects with so much of American myth over the last 100 years that you could easily write another book about it. Or you can simply enjoy it for what it is, a historical romance so well conceived, in spite of its sometimes dated views, that you keep on reading through each episode of the story, glad that Wister was in no hurry to cut to the chase. This is a book for any reader of Western literature, fiction or nonfiction. In it the many traditions of the western come together in popularized form for the first time.

Readers who enjoy this book will also like Elmer Kelton's novel, "The Day the Cowboys Quit." While it's more historically accurate in its portrayal of working cowboys, it captures many of Wister's same narrative elements, in the courage, modesty and thoughtfulness of its hero, its portrayal of the relationship between a top hand and his boss, its fateful pursuit of cattle rustlers, an account of a troubled friendship between two men, and of course the loneliness and yearning at the heart of a man who loves a woman from afar.




Rating:
Summary: surprisingly good
Review: I was assigned this book in a English class, and never expected to like it. It took a while to get into it, but now I've decided that I can't wait to meat a man just like the Virginian.

I was surprised by Wister's humor and ablility to pack such emotion and life into the dessert. After the first few chapters, I couldn't stop reading.

Rating:
Summary: Good if your looking for a western romance.
Review: I was assigned to read this book by my American Literature teacher, I just purchased the e-book format because I wouldn't have to wait for shipping or pay for shipping, plus the added convenience of possibly reading on a pocket pc 2002 - or just at my computer, well anywho, its a pretty good book [not that I would recommend it to my buds, I have a reputation to uphold ;)] but a fairly good book if you are looking for a Western romance. sometimes the author described things a little too much, but thats just my opinion. All in all a good book

--J

Rating:
Summary: Would have been a guilty pleasure if the book wasn't so good
Review: I was in the used book store and I saw this book. The Virginian. "Hm," I thought. "I used to watch that show on television when I was a kid." By Owen Wister. "So, it's a book!" And I though that was pretty cute. Oh, and I liked the cover. The edition that I bought was in the Pulp Fiction section of the book store, that real old book smellin', yellowing pages, origional cover price anywhere between 15 and 99 cents section. So I bought it, read a couple of pages expecting to find out that it was the cheesest thing I'd picked up in a hundred years. And before I even knew what was happening The Virginian, black curly hair in desperate need of a cut, quick draw, lonesome maverick, the new teacher for the one room schoolhouse-yes, even the one room schoolhouse!-all were in my purse, going with me everywhere...Never mind that it's a western, get over yourselves and read this book! It's so much fun. Mr. Wister gives a good story, well told.

Rating:
Summary: a classic showing its age
Review: There can be no doubt of this : All America is divided into two classes,--the qualify 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 hangs.

It was through the Declaration of Independence that we Americans acknowledged the ETERNAL EQUALITY of man. For by it we abolished a cut-and-dried aristocracy. We had seen little mere 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. -Owen Wister, The Virginian

A friend of Theodore Roosevelt, to whom he dedicated this novel, Owen Wister is considered the father of the Western. The Virginian has been filmed at least five times and was voted the greatest Western of all time. Even if you've never read the book or seen one of the movies, you're more than likely familiar with the one great line : "When you call me that, smile!"

All of that said, it has not worn as well as some other classic novels. It's influence, particularly in establishing the idea of a code of the West, is undeniable, but it just doesn't read all that smoothly. It suffers from several significant flaws : the romance which occupies the center of the novel is both too reserved and too idealized; the author uses a woefully awkward dialect to render the Virginian's speech; and is affected by a too delicate sensibility about the rough justice that is meted out. This last may well be the product of some Eastern embarrassment over the still wild nature of the West, but it is also a wee bit dandified. There's a very amusing review at Amazon which claims that this is an unacknowledged gay classic. I don't know that I'd go that far, but I take the reviewer's point that the true love in the book is between the narrator and the Virginian, and that the schoolmarm is mostly annoying. Likewise, the narrator betrays a certain squeamishness throughout which at least borders on the effete.

It's still a book worth reading, if for no other reason than that it spawned one of the most popular genres in all of literature and the movies. There are also several asides in which Wister delineates the rough moral code which would become so familiar in the many Westerns to follow. But the prospective reader should be prepared for a novel which is showing every year of its age.

GRADE : B-

Rating:
Summary: notyouraveragewestern
Review: This book is not as well known as it once was, but it is a wonderful classic. The drawings are exquisite. The original version was illustrated by Charles M. Russell before he became famous.

Rating:
Summary: When you call me that, smile!
Review: This is the classic story by Wister (1860-1938) of the ranch foreman, known only as the Virginian, his courtship of Molly Starkwood, the "schoolmarm" from Vermont, and his conflicts with Trampas. In 1977, the Western Writers of America voted this novel as the top western novel of all time. It probably started the whole genre (even if one counts the pulp fiction popular in the late 19th century). Historians have always pointed out that there never really was a "Code of the West." This was just something thought up by writers, journalists, and film makers. The West was made up of both good and bad men, just as today. But, in my opinion, this book challenges that concept. Wister based his characters on real people he interacted with in the West a few years earlier. There really were men like the Virginian. There really were people who, unknowingly, followed a Code (just as there are today).

Rating:
Summary: The Western as Historical Novel
Review: This one's the tale of a tall, silent and supremely competent cowboy in old Wyoming, who hails from the South, a young fellow who ran away from his kin at 14 and made his life in a variety of places out on the Great Plains of the American West. A little bit simple and not much on plot, it chronicles this cowboy's growth, from rootless 25 year old cowhand to ranch foreman and, ultimately, success in his own right via the uplifting influence of his passion for a New England school marm, come west to change her own life. Somewhat episodic, it reflects events reported to us by an eastern companion of our hero who, for reasons never described, makes numerous visits to the western ranch of Judge Henry, the Virginian's employer, going from mistrusted tenderfoot to confidant of the new foreman. In the mix is an ongoing feud with the no-good cowhand, Trampas, which culminates in a battle with rustlers and a final showdown that happens so swiftly, and internally within the Virginian's own perceptions, that we almost miss it! Rife with cliches that we may assume were somewhat fresher at the beginning of the twentieth century when this book was written, the tale rises above the noble hero and conflicted school marm at its core to give us a look at how the West really was just as it was losing its frontier flavor. I found the first-person narrative which seemed to drift, repeatedly, into unexplained third-person (since the narrator kept reporting on things and events he could not possibly have known) somewhat clumsy and distracting, but, on balance, this was a most enjoyable read, a Western that transcends its genre to give us a real sense and flavor of another time and place, one that lives on in our American mythology. The characters were not strongly drawn and most were mere shadows in the background, but the Virginian, himself, came through quite clearly and we grow to appreciate this lonely paradigm of the American frontier type who became a staple in the Western mythos. Good book and worth your time. -- SWM

Rating:
Summary: A Real Classic
Review: When I was growing up, my Mother told me that she had been given this book by a beau, had read it and enjoyed it. This was in the early 1900s! When I saw it in a used Book Store about a year ago, I picked it up. I am just now reading it. I was totally surprised to find that it is beautifully written, presents a wonderful picture of a vanished time and people and is funny. I find myself smiling at the phrases that have become cliches - "When you call me that smile." and at the fact that I am getting as much pleasure from reading it as my Mother did all those years ago.