Hombre

Rating:
Summary: A good, not so typical Western
Review: 'Hombre' is another entry in the western genre from Elmore Leonard. This novel tells the story of a man named John Russell that was raised as an Apache. He owns some property that he needs to sell and is about to take a stage coach ride with one Mr. Mendez to get where he is going. Quickly, several other passengers join the coach. When they discover Russell's background, they refuse to allow him to ride in the coach with him. It doesn't take too long for the coach to get into trouble when it becomes obvious that Mr. Russell is not the only one who isn't as he appears.

This is a good Western. The scenes are laid out well be Leonard and unfold nicley. For the most part, the characters are what you expect in a Western given their backgrounds. The various prejudices of the white man against the Apache's are obvious. In other words, the characters match the time period.

This novel has a moral that we've all heard before. Leonard simply repackages it. In addition to not judging a book by its cover, you need to walk a mile in its shoes. That is the lesson to be learned from this novel, which will become apparent by the time you get to the end.

As is usual, Leonard has created some wonderful characters. In addition to Russell, there is "the McLaren" girl who has her own ties to the Apaches. She had been kidnapped by them, and while she resents them, she has learned a few things from them. There is Dr. and Mrs. Favor. Dr. Favor isn't quite the good doctor, and his wife doesn't quite obey the rules of polite society. Mr. Mendez is the Mexican coach driver, and kind of a mentor to Russell. There are a few colorful bad guys that round out a diverse cast.

This isn't Leonard's best novel, but it is a very good one. Anyone that enjoys Leonard's work should like this. I'd also recommend it to fans of Westerns.

Grade: 4 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Elmore Leonard Western
Review: After having read almost all of Leonard's crime novels, I finally got to this, his best known western. Written in 1961, it was made into the 1967 Paul Newman movie. I was surprised at the differences here compared to recent Leonard novels. The anti-hero, John Russell, is a young white man raised by Apaches in 19th century Arizona. He inherits some property which requires taking a trip away from the reservation. On this trip a stage coach robbery goes wrong and Russell fights the robbers to the death. Like all other Leonard protagonists, Russell is a man of action and of few words. Unlike other Leonard heroes, he inexplicably sacrifices himself at the end of the book to save a women that neither he nor the others really care about. Chili Palmer, Frank Ryan, or Ernest Stickley would have never done a thing like that. Leonard employs an unusual device of having one of the minor characters narrate the story. Later books have either an omniscient narrator of the protaganist's inner dialogue serving as narrator. Very good but not as much fun as more recent hits.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Elmore Leonard Western
Review: After having read almost all of Leonard's crime novels, I finally got to this, his best known western. Written in 1961, it was made into the 1967 Paul Newman movie. I was surprised at the differences here compared to recent Leonard novels. The anti-hero, John Russell, is a young white man raised by Apaches in 19th century Arizona. He inherits some property which requires taking a trip away from the reservation. On this trip a stage coach robbery goes wrong and Russell fights the robbers to the death. Like all other Leonard protagonists, Russell is a man of action and of few words. Unlike other Leonard heroes, he inexplicably sacrifices himself at the end of the book to save a women that neither he nor the others really care about. Chili Palmer, Frank Ryan, or Ernest Stickley would have never done a thing like that. Leonard employs an unusual device of having one of the minor characters narrate the story. Later books have either an omniscient narrator of the protaganist's inner dialogue serving as narrator. Very good but not as much fun as more recent hits.

Rating:
Summary: HOMBRE - an absolute classic of the novel form
Review: Elmore Leonard's HOMBRE is, irrespective of genre, an absolute classic of the novel form. In my opinion it's the best example since THE GREAT GATSBY of what I'd loosely term "self-effacing first person narrative", by which I mean narrative wherein the author so contrives things that the narrator - Carl Allen in HOMBRE - is not the main character or event in the story. Personally I think this tends to make for a greater semblance of objectivity since the person telling the story necessarily remains, like the reader, on the periphery of the central events.

I would unreservedly recommend Elmore Leonard's 's westerns to anybody interested in "a good read"- but especially to any reader who's completed his "modern" books. It's not that I'm a fan of the western genre in particular, but Elmore Leonard's output is infinitely superior to the norm. With great dialogue and memorable characters they make for a very tight read: more like Hemingway than Louis L'Amour.

There's a sort of underlying thematic quality to HOMBRE (to VALDEZ IS COMING, too) wherein the young United States is itself the hero - or heroine, as the case may be. For example, Gay Erin in VALDEZ shucks off her attachment to the small shopkeeper and the cattle baron in favour of the man of honour . . . and the man of honour (VALDEZ, HOMBRE), social outcast though he may temporarily be, is able to come into his own precisely because he was born in the Land of the Free.

You just know this ain't gonna happen in downtown Detroit or present day Dade County FLA.

Beats me why WHEN THE WOMEN COME OUT TO DANCE had to reprise so many stories out of THE TONTO WOMAN when there are so many uncollected Elmore Leonard western stories out there just waiting to be corraled.

PS If you like the narrative voice in HOMBRE, mosey on over to Arkansas and Missouri and check out TRUE GRIT by Charles Portis. It's another classic of the western genre with a quite differently stunning first person narrative voice. Meanwhile, here's a spoof reprise of that scene from the film where Richard Boone stomps into the stagecoach office and confronts Paul Newman . . .

`Frank Braden,' he said. His hands spread out along the counter.
I said, `Yessir? As if I still worked for the Sweetmary Library Service. Hell, I shouldn't have been behind the counter but I'd dropped off to sleep reading the latest John Grisham (hate the books; love the movies).
`Write it down for EL's EO.'
`I'm sorry.'
`I said: "Write it down for Elmore Leonard's entire opus.'
`That's a special batch.'
`I heard. That's why I'm having it.'
I looked down at the four orange library cards on the counter, lining them up evenly. `I'm afraid that one's taken. Four here and those two. That's all we could get a-hold of.'
`You can get another one,' he said. Telling me, not asking. `Sunny side up, easy on the adverbs, exclamation points and hooptedoodle.'
`Well, I don't see how.'
`On top of what you ordered.'
`We got half a dozen is all. That's a library service rule. I was just telling these boys here. Certain people can read . . .'
`You say they've got 'em?'
`Yessir. Both of them.'
He turned without another word and walked over to John Russell with that clumpy thumping sound as the Max Brands, Louis L'Amours and Zane Grays hit the library floor. He still had the Jack Schaefers slung low in his left hand: SHANE, THE KEAN LAND, THE COLLECTED SHORT STORIES. You can say what you want about Frank Braden but he was nobody's fool.
He said, "That boy at the counter said you got the Forty less One.'
`Uh?' said John Russell.
`Elmore Leonard's stuff.'
`John Russell opened his hand on his lap. `This?'
`That's it. And the others. You give them to me and grab a Stephen King.'
`I have to take them,' Russell said.
`No, you want is all. But it would be better if you waited. You can read Captain Corelli, get drunk. How does that sound?'
`I have to take these,' John Russell said. `I have to take these and I want to take them.'
`Leave him alone,' the ex-soldier said then. `We were first in line, you find your own batch of books.'
Frank Braden looked at him. `What did you say?'
`I said why don't you leave him alone.' His tone changed. All of a sudden it sounded friendlier, more reasonable. `He wants the Forty less One, let him take them,' the ex-soldier said.
You heard the clumpy thumping sound again as Frank Braden shifted to face the ex-soldier and Charles Portis' TRUE GRIT hit the ground. He scooped it up again, stacked it alongside the Schaefers, stared at him and said, `I guess I'll have your Forty less One instead.'
The ex-soldier hadn't moved, his big hands resting on his knees, his feet propped on the canvas bag that contained the thirty-nine books. `You just walk in,' he said, `and take somebody else's Forty less One?'
Braden's pointed hat brim moved up and down. `That's the way it is.'
`Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!' I said - exclaimed even - thinking I was still in the employ of the Sweetmary Library Service.




Rating:
Summary: A Western with a moral.
Review: I'm new to the Western genre. After a few L'Amours, a friend put me on to Leonard's Westerns. So I'm reading them; they are a world apart (and very much a better one) than the good but stolid L'Amour.
I read Hombre just after Valdez is Coming, and now I'm going through the Leonard western list; he's my definite favorite for the time being.
Hombre is a distinctly moral tale. The moral punch comes suddenly and unexpectedly at the end. The hero (not anti-hero, in my opinion; here I differ from an earlier reviewer)is so laconic that you don't get much foreshadowing of his actions until they happen. This is a style I very much like, instead of the author's own ruminations through the thoughts and bloviations of his protagonist-- a major L'Amour characteristic. (I suppose I shouldn't dwell on L'Amour, but he's my only other Western author so far; and he's a solid 3-star writer, a very respectable thing to be.)
Leonard is very spare in his writing and very suited to the Western, in my mind. I'll be getting the well-regard Paul Newman movie, which I've never seen.

Rating:
Summary: HOMBRE IS THE MAN!
Review: John Russell was not welcome to ride in the coach with the other passengers but they all want him after they are robbed and left to walk. Th story tells of their trying to get away and the outlws trying to catch them. Enough action to keep you interested. If everyone had been like Hombre the book would have ended differently. Russell was a great character. I liked his Indian ways and his quite silent wat if getting things done. The book is a fairly quick read and will hold you attention. As Henry Mendez says in the book, "Take a good look at Russell. You will never see another one like him as long as you live."

Rating:
Summary: His Best Western
Review: No writer chronicles the battles of misfits, underdogs, and renegades like Leonard. In Hombre, Leonard captures a land where the rich, the poor, and the wandering come together as equals __ and where honor is earned by courage and by blood.