Riders of the Purple Sage (Oxford World's Classics) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

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 . . . "

The St. Charles Players turn their considerable talents to creating an Audio Theatre production of Zane Grey's classic western tale Riders Of The Purple Sage in this two cassette, 165 minute, multi-cast dramatization. Here the listener will thrill to the echos of gunfire on the western plan, loyal riders for the brand, a stranger who rides to the sound of the guns, beliefs and passions intertwined with betrayal and violence. Zane Grey was a master storyteller who set the standards for the western novel. This Monterey Soundworks production is flawlessly recorded and offers up a true "theatre of the mind" experience that offers a true saga of enchanting excitement and intrigue set in the days of a mythic western frontier.

In Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey takes the reader to the small Mormon town in Utah called Cottonwoods. The novel is set in the 1870's. The novel is centered on the life of Jane WIthersteen, whose father was the founder and center of the town. Jane faces many troubles in Cottonwoods. The main one is that her cattle have been stolen by Oldring and his gang. Another is that Jane is pressured by the townspeople because she allows Gentiles to live there. She is torn between her feelings and her religion until a stranger, Lassiter, comes riding into town searching for the answers to a secret that only Jane knows the answer to.

Jane is the main character in the book. This book is different because most westerns do not center around the life of a woman. Most westerns are focused on the rough, tough, cowboy who shoots people and lives on the edge to survive. Jane is different. Her father founded the town she lives in and she keeps the town going. She is like the head of the town. She owns almost everything in the town and the landscape around it. She is very wealthy and has no biases. She likes who she likes because of who they are, not what their religion is, like the rest of the town does. The town hates that she acts like that. Jane takes Lassiter in and answers his questions about the secret. I really like that the author uses a woman in this novel because it gives a whole different perspective to a western. Most westerns focus on the cowboy and his journeys, but this book focuses on a woman, Jane, throughout the book and the troubles she encounters living in the West. It gives us a perspective of what women may have been like in the West. It still has the rough, tough cowboy, but he is not the only focus in the book. There is more happening than just the journey of a cowboy.

This book was also a pleasure to read because it does a good job of describing the landscape around Cottonwoods and in the sage. Some westerns give the reader an idea of the landscape, but this book focuses on the landscape and uses it in the book. For instance, Venters travels into the sage and hides behind the rock and in holes in the mountains and terrain around him. The landscape is used throughout the book when the characters are faced with problems such as the one described above with Venters. The landscape helped to hide him. I think it was clever to bring the landscape in and use it as part of the story. Alot of westerns do not use the landscape, they just describe it to give the reader a setting and an idea of the landscape in the book.

The book is a typical western though, because Lassiter is a typical cowboy. He has a deep secret and is in search of answers to that secret. He is a stranger that comes riding into town. He sleeps in the sage under the stars and will not sleep inside. He is on a mission and is not going to let anything or anyone get in his way. Most westerns have the cowboy meet a woman as in this story.

Overall, I think this is a good book for all sorts of readers. Zane Grey is a good writer who includes aspects for all kinds of readers. Riders of the Purple Sage is an action pact, mystery solving, all around good book for anyone who is in the mood for a western.