Books I Read in June 2023: Gothics and Westerns

 Six books this month.

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (Oxford University Press, 2014) First published 1764.

The Castle of Otranto is the first gothic novel. Just as Manfred’s only son Conrad is to be married to Isabella, Conrad is killed. Manfred decides to divorce his wife and marry Isabella himself. The novel has a haunted castle, a prophecy of doom, damsels in distress, secret passages, a duel between knights, ghostly apparitions, and secret identities. 

I enjoyed the story, the atmosphere, the imagery, and all the melodrama. Some parts read smoothly, but the paragraphs are quite long and all the dialogue runs together. This made most of the novel a bit of a struggle to read. Important historically as many of the plot devices and character types show up in later gothic novels.

The Vampire by John William Polidori (Open Road Media, 2017) First published in 1819.

Aubrey, a naive young man, befriends the mysterious Lord Ruthven and begins traveling with him through Europe. Aubrey soon realizes that Ruthven has a sinister side and decides to leave him. While in Greece, Aubrey falls in love, learns about vampire folklore, but also learns that leaving Ruthven wasn’t as easy as he had thought. 

Published decades before Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this is considered the first modern vampire story. It came about as part of a contest among Polidori, Mary Shelly, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelly, the same contest that produced Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein. 

Short, atmospheric, and dark, but I thought Aubrey was a little too clueless as to what was happening around him.

June on the Range 

For the rest of the month, I read westerns for a YouTube/BookTube reading event called June on the Range. 

True Grit by Charles Portis (The Overlook Press, 2012) First published in 1968.

In 1878, fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross convinces U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn to help her track down the man who murdered her father. The writing drew me in from the first paragraph. I loved the story, the prose, the characters, and especially Mattie’s voice as she narrated the story. Outstanding. My favorite book of the month.

The Films 

After I finished True Grit I watched both film adaptations. The 1969 film stars John Wayne, Kim Darby, and Glen Campbell. I knew Kim Darby from an episode of Star Trek titled “Miri.” Star Trek is my favorite TV show, so it was a lot of fun recognizing three other actors who guest starred on the show. The 2010 film stars Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, and Matt Damon. 

I enjoyed both films. I like that they both use a lot of dialogue straight from the book, but I prefer the 2010 version for a couple of reasons. It follows the book more closely, and as much as I like Kim Darby’s portrayal of Mattie, Hailee Steinfeld took it to the next level. 

The Hell Bent Kid by Charles O. Locke (Open Road Media, 2015) First published in 1957.

After being forced to defend himself at a dance, Tot Lohman winds up killing Shorty Boyd, the son of a powerful rancher. Tot decides it’s best to leave the ranch where he’s working and then soon finds that he's made the right decision as the Boyd family is out for vengeance. The writing was straightforward but didn’t grab me. I enjoyed parts of this book, but I thought some sections were slow. It got more interesting towards the end which felt very noir.

The Tall Stranger by Louis L’Amour (Bantam Books, 2012) First published in 1957.

Fast talker Mort Harper convinces a wagon train of settlers to take a different trail, going against the advice of their scout Rock Bannon. Eventually Harper convinces the settlers to start a town on land claimed by someone else. Trouble ensues. 

It starts off strong but becomes predictable with no real character development and the characters make some head scratching decisions. The story also seems to jump around a bit. The strongest aspects of the book are the descriptions of the characters, the landscapes, and the action scenes. A quick, light read with no surprises.

After reading other reviews and doing some digging, I learned that this book is an expanded version of one of L’Amour’s novellas, “Showdown Trail.” One reviewer wrote that L’Amour’s books can be placed in three categories: great, classic, and cheesy/corny, and that The Tall Stranger is of the latter. I agree. 

The Name’s Buchanan by William Ard writing as Jonas Ward (Piccadilly Publishing, 2020) First published in 1956.

Here we go. This was pretty much the total opposite of The Tall Stranger.

Buchanan is a former hired gun for the Mexican Revolution. He just wants to leave that behind and return to the US when he rescues a young woman who has been attacked. After she’s brought to her family he plans on heading out, but he winds up getting caught up in a fight between two families on either side of the US/Mexican border. 

This book was written by William Ard writing as Jonas Ward. He also wrote detective novels, and it really shows. It often felt like a western noir. It was fast paced with some hard-boiled dialogue. There was some humor as well. It had a great cast of characters and the conflict between them all was well done. I loved it. My second favorite book of the month.

The Name's Buchanan is the first in a series. William Ard wrote the first five and most of the sixth. Robert Silverberg finished the sixth one, Buchanon on the Prod. Brian Garfield wrote the seventh one, Buchanan's Gun and rest were written by William R. Cox.

The picture I included above is of the of the original paperback, but I actually read the Kindle version which has a generic cover. For some reason the Kindle numbering is incorrect. Books 1-6 are numbered as books 18-23.

After reading this book I watched the film adaptation, Buchanan Rides Alone from 1958. Although the script makes a number of changes, the changes work, and the script includes a number of lines from the book. It’s directed by Budd Boetticher and stars Randolph Scott. The westerns that Boetticher and Scott worked on together are known as the Ranown Cycle, named after Scott's production company, which combines the first few letters of Scott's first name with the last few letters of producer Harry Joe Brown's name. The films are well regarded and so far, I can see why. 

Next Month 

I'm thinking about participating in two other YouTube/BookTube events, Book Tube at War and Book Trek 2023. I may read some Richard Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell and I have a few Star Trek Books that have been on my TBR list for a while. As always, we'll see. 

Education of a Wandering Man

“We are, finally, all wanderers in search of knowledge. Most of us hold the dream of becoming something better than we are, something larger, richer, in some way more important to the world and ourselves. Too often, the way taken is the wrong way, with too much emphasis on what we want to have, rather than what we wish to become.” - Louis L’Amour 

I grew up watching a lot of westerns on television. As a child in Germany, my family and I would watch back-to-back episodes of Bonanza. After watching an episode in English, we would switch the channel and watch another episode in German.  

I watched plenty of other western shows as well. Gunsmoke, The Iron Horse, Rawhide, The Rifleman, Wanted: Dead or Alive. The Wild, Wild, West was a particular favorite. After moving to America, I watched The Big Valley, The Lone Ranger, Maverick, and Wagon Train. 

When I got into reading I started with science fiction. It wasn’t until I was much older that I started branching out into other genres. Mostly mysteries and historical fiction. John MacDonald’s Travis McGee, Robert Parker’s Spenser, and Bernard Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe. 

A couple of years ago I was browsing in a Barnes and Noble and found the western section. Most of the shelf space was taken up with Louis L’Amour books. I had heard of him but had never read anything of his. Among the many novels were a series short story collections. I was surprised to see adventure and crime stories included among frontier stories. This was around the time that I had just rediscovered my love of short stories. I picked up the first volume of the frontier stories, read a few stories, and really enjoyed them. 

Recently I learned that Louis L’Amour had written a book titled Education of a Wandering Man, about his experiences traveling, reading, and writing. It sounded quite interesting so I grabbed it. It turned out to be one of those books that one thinks about when you’re not reading it, one of those books that you can’t wait to get back to. 

The book is part memoir, part reading list, and part writing advice. Louis L’Amour writes about leaving school at the age of fifteen and traveling around the western U.S and the Far East during what he calls his knockabout years.  He describes his experiences as a hobo, a ranch hand, a mine guard, a seaman, and a few other occupations. 

The one constant is his search for knowledge and books. It’s amazing how much he read and how interested he was in other cultures. It does jump around a bit. He’ll drop a topic suddenly and start writing about something else. He repeats himself sometimes. He mentions more than once that it’s basically a first draft. It does read that way sometimes. It’s a shame that he passed away before he could revise and add to it, but it still makes for fascinating reading. 

In the last chapter he talks about the efforts that have been made to preserve our record on earth and our need to leave an account of our presence. He also explains that in some parts of Asia, where there are frequent rockslides and cave-ins, one may not be certain if the way will be clear. When people in those regions meet in passing they often greet each other with, “May there be a road!” 

That really spoke to me. I mean, that’s life, right? You never know what kind of obstacles may be in your path, or even if the path you are following will lead somewhere. It seems only natural that people would want to wish each other good luck on their journeys.

I found that last chapter extremely motivating. I’ve gone back and read it a number of times now. 

The appendix includes lists of the books he read from 1930 to 1935, and 1937. It’s an impressive list.

His sincere enthusiasm for books, for learning, for other cultures, and for life in general grabbed me for the start and would not let go.

May there be a road!