[Some may consider some of this content spoilers.]
Texan Jimmy Goodnight makes a name for himself by pulling an ax out of an anvil at the fair winning $1000 prize money. Roping a one-ton buffalo doesn’t sound very smart but having your buddy tie your feet to your stirrups after you get paralyzed when the beast knocks you off your horse doesn’t sound too intelligent either. Life in Early West Texas was rough and ready but certainly not boring. The bulk of the novel is set in a caňon along the Red River which forms the border between Texas and Oklahoma in the East. Palo Duro Texas State Park marks the location.
It is said that Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did on the dance floor but she did it backwards. Given the nature of dance that could hardly be avoided but making a woman ride side-saddle seems unnatural for both the horse and the lady, isn’t that why God made culottes for women? Taking an Eastern Lady and putting her in the middle of a gang of ranch hands 100 miles from the nearest settlement is quite something else.
The camaraderie of the bunk house among grown men one hundred miles from the nearest civilization may not have attained to the extremes of Brokeback Mountain but the relationship between the less than good looking Jimmy and the stunningly handsome Jack attained at least to brotherly love. That Jack is the better cowboy in every possible way makes his playing second fiddle a strain. Bringing a beautiful wife into a situation where isolated men lived in close quarters seems an act of cruelty. That Jimmy fails to see the attraction between his beautiful wife and the lady’s man Jack that drove the latter away seems hard to believe. [The book description refers to Arthur and Lancelot.]
The canker that has eaten away at Jimmy’s soul throughout his life is finally revealed in a flashback 2/3rds of the way through the book. We come to learn that’s Jimmy’s white family was largely killed in a Comanche raid on their stockade when he was ten and he was carted off as one of the spoils of war and eventually adopted by a Medicine Man. Seven Years later as a young brave he is spared when a white army and Texas Rangers wipe out another Comanche Raiding party. Years later his past comes back to haunt him. By this circumstance he was deprived of two families and eventually adopted by a surviving Uncle.
Five hundred pages is a long read and the first couple hundred are the most engaging. The book contains the rough language of cowpokes, graphic descriptions of their work, and of rape and cruelty. None of it is gratuitous.
If you don’t like the Arthur and Lancelot analogy Othello and Iago come to mind. Every great empire including cattle empires seem to have the seeds of their demise planted from the beginning.
Texan Jimmy Goodnight makes a name for himself by pulling an ax out of an anvil at the fair winning $1000 prize money. Roping a one-ton buffalo doesn’t sound very smart but having your buddy tie your feet to your stirrups after you get paralyzed when the beast knocks you off your horse doesn’t sound too intelligent either. Life in Early West Texas was rough and ready but certainly not boring. The bulk of the novel is set in a caňon along the Red River which forms the border between Texas and Oklahoma in the East. Palo Duro Texas State Park marks the location.
It is said that Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did on the dance floor but she did it backwards. Given the nature of dance that could hardly be avoided but making a woman ride side-saddle seems unnatural for both the horse and the lady, isn’t that why God made culottes for women? Taking an Eastern Lady and putting her in the middle of a gang of ranch hands 100 miles from the nearest settlement is quite something else.
The camaraderie of the bunk house among grown men one hundred miles from the nearest civilization may not have attained to the extremes of Brokeback Mountain but the relationship between the less than good looking Jimmy and the stunningly handsome Jack attained at least to brotherly love. That Jack is the better cowboy in every possible way makes his playing second fiddle a strain. Bringing a beautiful wife into a situation where isolated men lived in close quarters seems an act of cruelty. That Jimmy fails to see the attraction between his beautiful wife and the lady’s man Jack that drove the latter away seems hard to believe. [The book description refers to Arthur and Lancelot.]
The canker that has eaten away at Jimmy’s soul throughout his life is finally revealed in a flashback 2/3rds of the way through the book. We come to learn that’s Jimmy’s white family was largely killed in a Comanche raid on their stockade when he was ten and he was carted off as one of the spoils of war and eventually adopted by a Medicine Man. Seven Years later as a young brave he is spared when a white army and Texas Rangers wipe out another Comanche Raiding party. Years later his past comes back to haunt him. By this circumstance he was deprived of two families and eventually adopted by a surviving Uncle.
Five hundred pages is a long read and the first couple hundred are the most engaging. The book contains the rough language of cowpokes, graphic descriptions of their work, and of rape and cruelty. None of it is gratuitous.
If you don’t like the Arthur and Lancelot analogy Othello and Iago come to mind. Every great empire including cattle empires seem to have the seeds of their demise planted from the beginning.
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