Westerns and the West
People who live in the West marvel at some of the odd ideas others have about our region -- most inspired by Western movies. Writers in the West face a double challenge, as some people think we should write "Westerns." I've been thinking a lot recently about the difference between the Western and real life.
It seems the Western started departing from actual experience when Zane Grey wrote descriptions of landscapes so passionate they were no longer exactly landscapes on the ground, but those of his mind. Soon Max Brand was writing exciting adventures set in lands he'd never seen. Hollywood pushed the trend to an extreme, and the Western became what Richard Slotkin called a "mythic space" -- a place in which cultural myths are acted out.
I'm particularly struck by a comment Jane Tompkins makes in the book "West of Everything," a postmodern literary analysis of the Western. Regarding the formula of Louis L'Amour in particular, she writes that the "image of the hero, isolated, in pain, involved in an endless kill-or-be-killed struggle for existence, reflects and magnifies the emotional reality of many readers' lives."
We read Westerns for what they say about the injustice of our lives -- not what they say about the West.
What do YOU think? Drop a line to info@johnclaytonbooks.com. To receive these posts via email, write to johnclaytonoutreach-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. (You need not put any text in the message.)
It seems the Western started departing from actual experience when Zane Grey wrote descriptions of landscapes so passionate they were no longer exactly landscapes on the ground, but those of his mind. Soon Max Brand was writing exciting adventures set in lands he'd never seen. Hollywood pushed the trend to an extreme, and the Western became what Richard Slotkin called a "mythic space" -- a place in which cultural myths are acted out.
I'm particularly struck by a comment Jane Tompkins makes in the book "West of Everything," a postmodern literary analysis of the Western. Regarding the formula of Louis L'Amour in particular, she writes that the "image of the hero, isolated, in pain, involved in an endless kill-or-be-killed struggle for existence, reflects and magnifies the emotional reality of many readers' lives."
We read Westerns for what they say about the injustice of our lives -- not what they say about the West.
What do YOU think? Drop a line to info@johnclaytonbooks.com. To receive these posts via email, write to johnclaytonoutreach-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. (You need not put any text in the message.)
