Most of the action either takes place inside or in an isolated scene easily composed on a stage. Akin to John Ford’s 1962 film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, starring John Wayne and James Stewart, Riders of the Purple Sage is that most rare of westerns, and inexplicably, a chamber western. I am reminded of Mark Twain’s funny descriptions of Brigham Young’s household shenanigans in Roughing It.Īnd that leads to the second observation. Told as it is and it devolves into a melodramatic soap opera. Told a little differently and this is a sensitive and revealing character study of group dynamics with organized religion as a change agent.
Throwing around some big-fish-in-a-little-pond clout, the local uber Mormons make trouble for our damsel in distress and the archetypal clad in black loner gunman. Set in Utah in the 1870s, the local political and economic powers that be are Mormon and everyone else is … not Mormon. Reading Zane Grey’s 1912 Riders of the Purple Sage is a little bit disconcerting.Įxpecting a western, and it is, I also got an illustration of religious intolerance and prejudice. If those covers look good to you, you will like this book. Following are a couple proposed cover designs. Thus, I propose a makeover for this book. There are plenty of heaving bosoms, but no real emotions. A storm in his breast-a storm of real love." That's the way characters in this book fall in love. For with the touch of clinging hands and the throbbing bosom he grew conscious of an inward storm-the tingling of new chords of thought, strange music of unheard, joyous bells, sad dreams dawning to wakeful delight, dissolving doubt, resurging hope, force, fire and freedom, unutterable sweetness of desire. Instead, Grey gives the reader scenes like this: "No more did he listen to the rush and roar of the thunderstorm. 2) Or he could write really great prose that makes me have feelings for his characters and tricks me into thinking they are real people. That would be okay if Zane Grey did it in one of two ways. What Lassiter does instead is fall in love. For a gunslinger, there is a distinct lack of shooting people in Lassiter's life. But what does Lassiter do? Does he shoot bad guys in the buttocks? No. This is not only a great start to a Western. Then on the crest of a hill, silhouetted against the setting sun, appears the image of a man and his horse (always disturbing for the bad guys and hopeful for the good guys.) This is Lassiter, a gunslinger of the highest order, and he's here to chew gum and shoot bad guys in the buttocks! And he's nearly out of gum! He's only got like two sticks of Juicy Fruit left. Its opening pages depict a woman being harassed by her Mormon patriarchs for cavorting with Gentiles. It has been heralded as a foundation of the Western genre. For one thing, this Riders of the Purple Sage is published by Modern Library. This tricky man Zane Grey fooled me into reading a book of the genre I swore I never would read: the official genre of grocery stores and bargain racks everywhere, capital-R Romance. I've been bamboozled! Duped! Hoodwinked! Fraudulated! Deceived! I've fallen victim to tomfoolery! Shenanigans! Monkeyshines! Nefarious antics!
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