Book Club: Discuss/find out about a Classic Tale Set in Wyoming: The Virginian

[Front-Ranger]

Let's read a BetterMost book together! This topic is for discussing The Virginian, by Owen Wister. It was first published in 1902 and updated in 1957. Millions of copies are in print. The book is set in Wyoming, and starts with the final steps in a stage journey to Medicine Bow, where the narrator alights on a visit.


{Edited to add the N to 'Virginian')

[Front-Ranger]

I bought the paperback version from the Casper, Wyoming, library for added authenticity. The cover has a photo of one of the actors who has played the Virginian (the movie has been produced four times and there have also been TV versions). It's hard to tell who it is but I'm guessing Gary Cooper. He's quite a handsome devil with a fine head of black hair, somewhat reminiscent of Jake.

[Toast]

Philadelphia born Owen Wister published this novel in 1902 and in doing so established the conventions of the Western. Although dime novels had already featured cowboys and their ways, the stereotype reached fruition with The Virginian. It is a story of natural justice and of the contrast between American East and West. The narrator sees exquisite beauty in the Wyoming landscape that, like the 'sublime' in the eighteenth century, makes the trivialities of "Fifth Avenue" and the like all the more explicit. "They live nearer nature and they know better", the narrator says of the townsfolk. Even so, the Virginian himself and all the major players in the novel are Easterners. Oddly, despite being responsible for the invention of the cowboy there are no cattle-working scenes. But this is really the tale of new land and the unknown, the name "cowboy" meaning far more than its component parts and standing for an attitude and a lifestyle.

U of Virginia - Complete Text of "The Virginian" in chapters

From Bibliomania - Complete Text of "The Virginian" with page breaks
ps.  there is a link to next page/chapter at the bottom of each page.


Now we have no excuse to not read the book.
Mmmmm

[Front-Ranger]

I noticed that each of these sites has the same typos! But they are fairly minor. The story starts out with a bang: the passengers on a train are stopped due to some kind of difficulty, giving them the opportunity to watch a group of cow-boys (as the author calls them) trying to break (or just lasso at that point) a group of cow ponies. The author doesn't have the same terse delivery that Annie Proulx does, but neither is he flowery and verbose. It's really ingenious the way he introduces the Virginian to us, as the only cow-boy successful in getting a lasso around a horse's neck. The chapters are fairly short too, and eminently readable.

Some background: You may recall from Annie Proulx's lecture to the Center for the American West how feral horses have roamed the Wyoming backcountry. Before the cattle ranching could be done, these horses had to be rounded up and tamed by the cow-boys.

[Front-Ranger]

Chapter One "Enter the Man" finishes up with a discussion of the Virginian's talk with Uncle Harold Hughey!! There's some fine dialogue in this chapter.

[Front-Ranger]

I have never been part of an actual book club, so let me know if I'm goin too fast and need to put the brakes on, or if I have too many spoilers!!

[Front-Ranger]

Okay, Front-Ranger, you are doin just fine, keep it up, don't put the brakes on! Your FRiend, Lee

Back to The Virginian. We first saw him with a whole pen full of low-startle-point horses. He manages to pull the wool over one's eyes by lassoing it without raising an arm. Subsequently, the docile horse falls into step behind him. Well, that horse was me when I read that passage!! It called up a whole host of man-horse relationships from Black Beauty to the Horse Whisperer, to BBM of course. Then I realized that those other scenes were quoting the one and only original!! Another passage which it called into mind was the relationship between Gulliver and the horse mother in Gulliver's Travels. That part of the story always brings tears to my eyes.

[Front-Ranger]

We can discuss Chapter One longer if you like. I will delete the following post which goes on to Chapter Two.

Is there a Western that doesn't have a homerotic subtext? I can't think of one. Anyway, the first of several such subtexts appears early in Chapter Two. The narrator, new in the town of Medicine Bow, is reeling over the culture shock--the distances, the squalor of the town--when he receives a new blow. He and the Virginian run into an acquaintance, Steve, who informs them that all the available beds are taken in the town. The Virginian bets Steve that he will be able to scare one of the travellers into giving up their bed, rather than having to share with a total stranger. Steve is a person we'll see throughout the story who causes a "freak" meaning a fright or a scare of some sort.

[Lynne]

I started reading Chapter One last night, but drifted off midway (not bored, exhausted).  But I'll catch up - y'all just keep on going and I'll hop in when I'm ready.
-Lynne

[Front-Ranger]

The chapters are fairly short, Lynne, so you should catch up easily. You can skip the "To the Reader" section without any harm done.

As Steve and The Virginian are parting, Steve calls him an SOB affectionately, and the narrator's jaw drops. He half-expects The Virginian to take offense and start a fight. But astoundingly, the tall dark-haired one does not. Thus the narrator learns another lesson about the West, just as we did when Ennis exclaimed, "Jack f**kin Twist!" (See the Cowboy Etiquette thread.) This is one of the many amusing and light-hearted parts that punctuate the story.

The two men go to wash up and join all the travelers in the eating hall. The narrator is again shocked at the primitive nature of the washing-up facilities, but the Virginian manages to get the proprietress to change the linen with his simple but eloquent and always respectful ways. Skillfully the author lets us know of the Virginian's and proprietress's mutual attraction without in any way having them act improperly for their mileu. The scene in the eating hall, and the subsequent antics that take place later that night are told with style and dispatch, with just the right dose of authentic dialogue.

[Front-Ranger]

I am missing my own Ennis very much tonight....and it is comforting to read The Virginian, because it reminds me so very much of him.

[Front-Ranger]

Here is what the historian John Nesbitt (who appeared with Annie Proulx at a literary panel in Casper, Wyoming) has to say about The Virginian:

First, on the myth of the cowboy: yes, I think the mystique of the cowboy has to do with his association with fertility and virility, but I think in more modern terms (say, from the 18th century onward), his kind of character in fiction and legend has much to do with chivalry and horsemanship as those honorable pursuits are carried out (in more egalitarian times) by the common man, or, as he was called in the nineteenth century, nature’s nobleman.

As for The Virginian, I see the novel as many do, as a literary attempt to pull together or harmonize cultural values of the late nineteenth century.  First, the Virginian is a horseman; we see that in the subtitle, and we see it in the opening scene when he catches the horse in the corral (end of first paragraph: “That man knows his business.”), and as I said during the panel discussion, horsemanship is a defining characteristic of the cowboy.  As a cultural emblem, he is the embodiment of southern chivalry and natural nobility; his courtship of and eventual marriage with the schoolteacher is a blending together of east and west with north and south, in a kind of vision of a unified nation.  In my interpretation, the novel itself is a blending together of the novel of manners (in the style of Jane Austen and Henry James) and the historical romance (in the style of James Fenimore Cooper and Sir Walter Scott, the latter being a source of Wister’s ideology of the cow-puncher as a latter-day Ivanhoe).  The main character’s being from Virginia is, as I see it, representative of the South, as Virginia was the seat of the Confederacy.  The one time someone calls him by a given name, the name is Jeff, as in Thomas Jefferson (the first great Virginian) or his namesake Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy.  I have never gotten any virginal connotations from the title, although there is an interesting view of virginity and sexuality in the chapter on Em’ly the hen, which is referred to later in the book.

[Front-Ranger]

Here is a quote which illustrates what Nesbitt was saying, above. This is from page 23 of the Pocket West edition:

Truth untamed sat here for an idle moment, spending easily its hard-earned wages....More of death [this Rocky Mountain place] undoubtedly saw, but less of vice, than did its New York equivalents. And death is a thing much cleaner than vice. Moreover, it was no means vice that was written on these wild and manly faces....Daring, laughter, endurance--these were what I saw upon the countenance of the cowboys.

In their flesh our natural passions ran tumultuous; but often in their spirit sat hidden a true nobility, and often beneath its unexpected shining their figures took a heroic stature.

[Ellemeno]

Lee, I bought The Virginian a couple of days ago, but then left home yesterday for two weeks, and didn't bring it with me.  I'm looking forward to it.  The copy I bought has a very oldtimey font, that I think will enhance the experience.

[Front-Ranger]

Okay, Clarissa, but if you get some free time, Toast has posted a link to two sources of the online book, above!

[Front-Ranger]

Chapter Three, Steve Treats, is a kind of tall tale about the shenanigans that go on around the Virginian. It tells how TV gets a bed of his own, winning a bet with another cowpoke Steve, and how Steve subsequently buys drinks all around, leading to a party that ends suddenly with the news that the engineer's wife is sick and is suffering because of all the caterwalling going on. The next morning, TV manages to assuage and charm both the engineer's wife and the eating house proprietress. As Chapter Four, Deep Into Cattle Country, begins, TV is leading the narrator out of town on the 263-mile trek to Judge Henry's ranch, due west of Medicine Bow. (This country is EDelMar's favorite part of Wyoming, he tells me.) The narrator has come from the East at the invitation of Judge Henry and his wife. As they ride away from Medicine Bow, the narrator keeps looking back and noticing that, by a curious foreshortening effect, he can still see the town clearly, although it keeps getting smaller. TV tells him this effect is noticeable all over the West, particularly in Arizona, where shooting stars can be mistaken for train lights and vice versa. Then they have an enlightening discussion on the effect when looking at a whiskey bottle. As always, TV's droll wit carries the dialogue along smartly.

[Front-Ranger]

I heard a chilling story on radio today...it made me think that what I am doing is right. If even just one person reads this, and comes to discover the difference between literature and pornography, then none of my posts will have been in vain.

A woman in rural Missouri was surfing the Internet, and she started to read about cults, and she realized that she had been involved in a cult for several years. As a result, she and her husband left the rural town and moved away.... she did not realize that she had been manipulated. She thought the sex-laced activities she had been involved in were part of Christianity.

[Daniel]

Oh my, Lee... We share such a common thread, you and I... The other day, I was writing to my publisher.

If this work can touch just one life. If it can make even one person consider their life or the universe in a different way that brings them closer to themselves and their personal truth, I will have considered it a success.

It reminds me of that beautiful poem by Emily Dickinson.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life
the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

[Lynne]

Nice poem by Dickinson, one of my favorites...I'm still behind, but I am loving the Virginian's sardonic wit and self-confidence, arising from within.  I also love the language of the early 20th century  - reminds me of Dickinson's 'formal feelings.'

[Ellemeno]

 If even just one person reads this, and comes to discover the difference between literature and pornography, then none of my posts will have been in vain.

Lee, that reminds me of the excellent little paragraph in Chapter 2:

"Talking of conductors," began the drummer. And we listened to his anecdote. It was successful with his audience; but when he launched fluently upon a second I strolled out. There was not enough wit in this narrator to relieve his indecency, and I felt shame at having been surprised into laughing with him.


Thanks for pointing out Toast's post with the online links.  I somehow missed that.  I'm now on Chapter 3, and enjoying the book's descriptions and humor very much.

Has anyone figured out what a drummer is yet?

[Front-Ranger]

I was just rereading that paragraph this morning, CLarissa!! I identified a lot with the narrator who listened politely to one racy story, and then walked out when a second one started!

I'm goin to have to do some research on the word drummer, but I think it refers to traveling salesmen, who crisscrossed the country "drumming" up sales and customers.

I must confess that I have gotten the chapter numbers out of order. Chapter Two is called "When You Call Me That, Smile!" and Chapter Three is called "Steve Treats." Before I go on to Chapter Four, I will do some remedial discussing.

[Front-Ranger]

I looked drummer up in an old Webster's Dictionary from 1935 and it meant commercial traveller.

In Chapter Two we meet up with Trampas, who I have a feeling we'll be seeing again. The Virginian, Trampas, and other cowpokes are playing cards and Trampas calls for TV to bid, calling him an SOB just as Steve did. But instead of overlooking it, TV draws his gun and lays it on the table, saying "When you call me that, smile." Thus the narrator learns that "the letter means nothing until the spirit gives it life."

The author also shows this because the writing doesn't just lay on the page, it leaps up and demonstrates vividly, all the time in cahoots with the reader's imagination. This is an example of writing that doesn't just hope to be a screenplay someday. Maybe if we feel like it after reading the book, we can discuss how we would go about turning the Virginian into a movie (no fair peeking at the four versions that are out there already--altho we could pick one and critique it too!)

[Front-Ranger]

After-BBM I'm always asking myself who is an Ennis and who is a Jack. So, is the Virginian more of an Ennis or a Jack? Although he looks more like Jack, with his black hair, his personality seems to be more like Ennis. He is rather taciturn, but when he does speak, he gets his point across. There are two things that endear me to TV right away and remind me of Ennis. First, his sense of humor. Movie Ennis, anyway, had quite a sense of humor, especially when it came to harmonicas.

Also, Ennis and TV are very curious about people in their own shy way. I remember how Ennis regarded Jack at the bar after they first met and how, almost painfully, he divulged information about himself so that he could learn more about Jack. In the same way, the Virginian always finds a way to get at the meat of the matter, or learn the real meaning of a story, or take the measure of a person without prying.

[Front-Ranger]

The beginning of Chapter Four contains a wonderful vignette in the general store. The narrator drowsily wakes, not suddenly because he's sleeping on the dry goods counter of the store (there being no available beds in the town) and there's little call for dry goods that early in the mornin. (Dry goods is chiefly quilts and fabrics in those parts.)

"...when each horseman had made his purchase, he would trail his spurs over the floor, and presently the sound of his horse's hooves would be the last of him." I could just hear the booming echo of the boots on the wooden floor, the jingling of change and spurs, the voices, and all the other sounds as they gradually came alive as the narrator gained consciousness!

A very short but vivid description occurs here of the label of the can of devilled ham, with a "sultry scarlet" depiction of the devil. The cowpunchers were also buying cans of tomatoes too, not because they loved sauce on their meat, but because it was used instead of water to travel this dry country.

[Front-Ranger]

I am in a bit of a hurry to get to one of my favorite chapters (Em'ly), so I'm skipping over parts of the story about the narrator's time in Medicine Bow, particularly parts about the proprietress of the eating house, who has a crush on TV.

Ridin out from the town on the first leg of their journey, the two men come upon a cabin where two young men live with their many animals. These two men have what would later be called a little cow and calf operation. They also have a coyote and a tame elk, which tries to push the narrator off his chair during dinner. Afterwards, one of the men talks with the Virginian until late, while the other "played gayly on a concertina." Could this have been Earl and Rich? At any rate, two men or any amount of men living together was nothing to remark on in Wyoming, since it's a hard country not suitable for any but the strongest of women.

[Ellemeno]

Hey Everyone reading this book, I'm not sure what to do - I want to read what you all are writing about the chapters, but I only want to read it AFTER I myself have read the chapter you are referring to.  I'm not sure how to do that.  I guess I should try to just get ahead at least a couple of chapters.  Do we have a time table, i.e. read through chapter 6 by this date, through chapter 9 by that date?  That would help me know if I have gone far enough to read this thread or not.

Or do I need to lighten up?

[Front-Ranger]

That is a good point, Clar. I really should put in the header the chapter number if I'm going to talk about a particular chapter, and also put in spoiler warnings. What I would like to do is get agreement from fellow readers before going on to the next chapter. So, I won't go past Chapter Four until we're all in agreement. There's a lot that I want to say about the book in general that will keep me occupied for a while.

Daniel's post earlier reminds me to say that you don't necessarily need to be reading the book to participate. I welcome anybody to jump in with other works, thoughts, parallels to Brokeback Mountain, or personal experiences that are relevant. And poems, lyrics, the whole works!! If this thread or other Book Club thread merit it, I would love it if they would earn a mention on the banner/front page too! (hint, hint)

[Front-Ranger]

We see in The Virginian the development of the concept of "nature's nobleman" and its move to a Western setting. This is an outgrowth of other novels popular at the time, some mentioned in John Nesbitt's post above. This new hero is exalted not because of rank, blood, or birth but because of his intrinsic goodness. Also, there is some feeling that association with the earth, nature, animals, and unspoiled wilderness contributes to his nobility.

The cowboy as nature's nobleman is often eloquent and wise. He is fair and administers frontier justice. He is strong, a sharp shooter, beloved by all animals especially horses, and ever respectful and worshipful of women.

Contrast this to Brokeback Mountain, where Annie Proulx takes great pains to show that the protagonists are not nature's noblemen. In fact, the first sentence reads, "They were raised on small, poor ranches in opposite corners of the state...both high-school drop-out country boys with no prospects, brought up to hard work and privation, both rough-mannered, rough-spoken, inured to the stoic life." Jack is far from a sharp-shooter and provokes fits of crow-hopping in his horse, and both of them are indifferent to women, Ennis treating his wife so poorly that she divorces him. In spite of this, we can see echoes of The Virginian in both Jack and Ennis.

[Front-Ranger]

I had fun this afternoon looking up the various versions of the Virginian as depicted in motion pictures and on TV. I finally decided that the picture of The Virginian on my book is James Drury, who starred on the TV series. Also, I read about Doug McClure, who played Trampas in the series. The Trampas in the book is a scoundrel, but he is much changed in the TV series.

[Meryl]

Lee, I'm enjoying your observations about The Virginian.  I happened to see the book last week when I was hunting for something to take on my train trip and picked it up.  I just finished the Em'ly story and am now up to Chapter 7.

The version I have is a Barnes & Noble Classic with an intro by John G. Cawelti.  There are plenty of footnotes and comments, too, which are very helpful.  A "drummer," for example, is defined as a traveling salesman, but the word was also slang for thief.

It's taken me a while to get used to Wister's style, which feels kind of self-conscious and even prim to me.  I have to remind myself that this was one of the very first accounts of the cowboy life, and Wister was trying to make sure he described everything meticulously to what he knew would be a refined audience.  Despite Wister's descriptions, I haven't got a clear picture of the Virginian yet, and I find his depiction of the southern accent more distracting than helpful.  What I enjoy the most is his descriptions of the landscape, the sun and the pure air and how you could see things so clearly even at quite a distance.

[Front-Ranger]

That's great to read of your annotated version, Meryl. Please share more of those notes with us. Those B&N Classics are on sale now I believe. My copy is a Pocket West in the dime novel tradition, a book that could fit into my jacket pocket just like the books that the schoolmistress gives to The Virginian (just a hint for later!!) I bought it for 10 cents at the Casper, Wyoming, library during their literary festival in October. And, best of all, it has a photo of The Virginian right on the front (tho you can hardly see it since the book is so well used). So it's not difficult for me to visualize The Virginian. He looks much like Jack, with a tan cowboy hat, a grave expression, a red kerchief tied around his neck, thumbs hooked in his belt, a white shirt, and a brown leather vest.

In personality, however, I think TV is more like Ennis. I imagine him being rather reticent and having the maddening (for the narrator) habit of calling people "suh." I agree with you that the author overemphasizes TV's southern accent. But apparently this is done for a reason. John Nesbitt says that TV is depicted as a southern gentleman in the style of Thomas Jefferson, who was the "first Virginian." In fact, Nesbitt points out that "the man with no name" is actually referred to by name once in the story, and that name is Jeff (I'm still hoping to entice Jeff Wrangler over here eventually because of that!)

Let's hope as the story goes on that the writing style will become more fluent. I see a change even in the early chapters whenever the author talks about TV who is plainly his, and our, favorite character.

[Front-Ranger]

Buck and Muggins are the two horses that carry TV, the narrator, and his luggage on the journey to Judge Henry's ranch. Buck is aptly named, a low-startle-point horse, and suddenly decides to go AWOL, taking Muggins with him. The ensuing rampage, just one page long in Chapter 4, is described with all the skill of a sports announcer, but the dialogue adds the icing on the cake. This episode helps advance the narrator's urge to be more familiar with who he calls "the trustworthy man" and for a little while TV drops the "suh."

"...but when the humor seized a bronco, he had to have his spree. Buck would now behave himself as a horse should for probably two months. 'They are just like humans,' the Virginian concluded."

BTW, Meryl, the narrator does use a rather self-conscious, prim style, especially in the beginning, which everybody notices and earns him the designation of "Prince of Wales" (along with his dress). The contrast of the talkative, friendly PW with the reticent, respectful TV reminds me a little of the Ennis/Jack combination.

[Front-Ranger]

I would like to move along to Chapters 5 and 6 shortly! Calling all last comments about Chapter 4!

[Front-Ranger]

We interupt this birthday celebration with Kelda to let you know that we are going to discuss the Virginian shortly, including chapters 5, 6, and 7.

[Front-Ranger]

In Chapter Five, Enter the Woman, we first hear of the schoolteacher who may come to Bear Creek from Bennington, Vermont. I find it interesting that the author is setting up a meeting between a Virginian and a Vermonter. She has written a letter to one of the residents about the position of schoolteacher, and TV first gets to meet Miss Mary Stark Wood through her words. It is clear that he is touched by hearing them.

Traveling on the last leg of their journey, the narrator and TV finally arrive at Judge Henry’s ranch at Sunk Creek. Their friendship that was borne of their mutual survival of the horses’ revolt now retreats again, and the narrator is sorry: “Our common peril during the runaway of Buck and Muggins had brought us to a familiarity that I hoped was destined to last.” Fortunately, in Chapter 6, a personage will intervene to bring the narrator and TV together again.

[Front-Ranger]

Chapter 6: Em’ly
This is my favorite chapter so far in the book. It begins with a description of the ranch, which sounds like a delightful place. There is also an amusing account of the ways that the narrator (who I sometimes call the Prince of Wales, but who now goes by the nickname Tenderfoot) amuses himself on the ranch, first by trying to build a better chicken house, and then by wandering around trying to hunt. He proves to be so inept, and so fast at getting himself lost, that the Judge has to appoint someone to wander around after him so that he won’t get hopelessly lost or shoot himself. And who is the appointed babysitter? You guessed it, our “trustworthy man” the Virginian.

“For though utterly a man in countenance and in his self-possession and incapacity to be put at a loss, he was still boyishly proud of his wild calling, and wore his leathern chaps and jingled his spurs with obvious pleasure. His tiger limberness and his beauty were rich with unabated youth; and that force which lurked beneath his surface must often have curbed his intolerance of me.” (page 49 of the Pocket West version)

Thus the Tenderfoot describes TV. These clearly are the words of a man in love, are they not? Truly, it’s so easy to fall in love when the beloved is so beautiful, the environs are so wild and free, and the pair is so often thrown together. I know that in my case, I would be eager to grab my gun and wander off every morning knowing that TV would be accompanying me!

[Front-Ranger]

So who is this Emily, and how does she bring Tenderfoot and the Virginian together? I don't want to add too many spoilers but, then again, I don't want to stop the momentum! What momentum you say? Well, you may have a point there. Here's your funny FRiend Front-Ranger cooped up in FRont of the Fire while everybody else is out Xmas shopping. But all of you avid readers know what it's like when a story starts to get rolling, and takes hold of your imagination...I'll wait a little while more before introducing Em'ly to you, so everybody get caught up now!!

[Front-Ranger]

Some possible photos of The Virginian. First, thanks to Sheriff Roland, moderator of this site, for supplying this photo:



And here is James Drury, who played the Virginian on TV:



And here is my favorite candidate!

[Front-Ranger]

Continuing with Chapter Six: Who is the mysterious Em'ly and how does she bring the narrator and the Virginian together??

These questions will be answered today!!

[Front-Ranger]

I will keep you on tenterhooks no longer: Em'ly is none other than a hen. A rather deranged hen, who is determined to set on any egg-like objects she can find even though she never lays any eggs (or aiggs) herself. We first meet Em'ly when the narrator kicks her, for the third time, off an assemblage of potatoes that she has rolled together to form a nest. The Virginian saunters in and starts a conversation with our Tenderfoot narrator. More than his feet are tender on this day. Our narrator is nursing a bruised ego, caused when he overheard TV telling the guys in the bunkhouse about one of their most recent and embarassing escapades. TF was so intent on bagging a couple of ducks that he actually jumped in the water after them, and emerged covered with mud. TV informed him then that the ducks were divers, and so not worth eating. Perhaps we can call on Meryl, or one of you duck hunters out there, for more explanation of why diving ducks make poor eating.

[Front-Ranger]

Description of Em'ly:

"Feathers on her breast there were none. These had been entirely worn off by her habit of sitting upon potatoes and other rough abnormal objects. And this lent to her appearance an air of being altogether decollete, singularly at variance with her otherwise prudish ensemble."

Em'ly reminds me a little of Alma, and in some ways serves the same purpose in the story.

[Kd5000]

O/T

So is Front-Ranger the facilitator...  Do you have a list of future books to read. I might be late in joining this book group as I'm in the middle of several books right now.  The Middle Sea ( a history of the Mediterranean), Capote's Christmas stories,


I've been in two bookgroups, never one  on- line. The first group just read gay man's fiction. They had books six months in advance picked out.  I got tired of reading the same genre.  Plus the ones I liked such as THE BLACKWATER LIGHTSHIP, they thought were so low-brow.

The other  bookgroup was more mainstream.  I suggested THE DA VINCI CODE when it first came out.  Never forget the lady who said "I thought books like this went out with Chariots of the Gods."  My next selection was SOLARIS.  Controversial selection as I thought the astronaut got a second chance to redeem himself for walking out on his unstable wife. Other readers thought he needed to get over it. One person said it read like Frankenstein.  I invited a few ppl over to watch the 1972 Russian film version at my residence. The person who compared the book to Frankenstein wasn't invited. 

[Front-Ranger]

Yes, I guess U would call me the facilitator, Karl! Altho I haven't been involved in a book club before so have no idea how to proceed. We are talking about next books to discuss over here:

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php?topic=1059.msg130991#msg130991

Please give us your thoughts! I am especially interested in "buddy" stories, coming-of-age stories, and novels or short stories that have been made into movies.

There is another thread here where we are talking about comparing Brokeback Mountain to other movies. There has been a little about comparison to Hitchcock's work, and I have also compared it to...Solaris! I just watched the Russian version and rewatched the new version with George Clooney a couple of weeks ago.

[Front-Ranger]

More pics of The Virginian. Here is Bill Pullman in the TNT version of last year:



Frankly, he just doesn't ring my bells. He would make a nice dad, but not the Virginian.

Now here is Gary Cooper as TV. He rings my bells, a little anyway:



Here's another photo of someone I imagine would make a nice Virginian, if I can't have Jake:



Stay tuned, I have more!!

[Front-Ranger]

Another shot of Gary Cooper as the Virginian:



And of my mystery man (if you don't know who this is, you've been living under a rock for 20 years!):



And here's another candidate, what do you think?

[Front-Ranger]

I'm starting to get rather distracted by this display of fine masculinity, so I think it is time to get back to our discussion of more paltry...um poultry matters. It seems that our young Virginian is quite taken with the pullet Em'ly even though she is (1) ugly as sin (2) a poor layer and (3) plainly crazy. At first, he is slow to warm to Em'ly, and is surprised to hear that she even has a name. When informed by Tenderfoot that he had named her himself, TV grows thoughtful. TF asks if Em'ly has ever laid an egg before and TV answers that he has never "troubled his haid" over poultry. But about an hour later, he pipes up, "I rechon this hyeh lonesome country ain't been healthy for Em'ly to live in." TF points out that there are lots of other chickens to keep her company, and TV has to concede the point. He continues musing about her like a dog with a bone:

"'Well,' he said musingly, and then his mind took one of those particular turns that made me love him. 'Taylor ought to see her. She'd be just the schoolmarm for Bear Creek!'"

TV finally decides that maybe Em'ly was hatched after a big thunderstorm, because he'd seen cases where eggs were shook by thunder and wouldn't hatch. He surmised that Em'ly survived the thunderous vibrations, but was forever 'touched in the head.'

[Front-Ranger]

Continuing with Chapter Six:

Em'ly next tries to highjack some of the other chicken's chicks. That episode led to an all-out war between Em'ly and the mother hens, which unnerved the Virginian completely. "He went speechless, by himself, back to the bunkhouse, and sat on his bed, while I took the abandoned bantams back to their own circle," the narrator writes.

Em'ly next raised a litter of puppies whose mother neglected them. After they got too big to boss around, Tenderfoot gathers some smooth stones for Em'ly to sit on. But the Virginian doesn't think that's fair. He takes up the stones to toss them away, and is surprised to find them warm to the touch. Then, he slips his hand in another hen's nest and pulls out an egg just for Em'ly.

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Finishing up Chapter Six:

I'm not going to tell you how Em'ly met her demise. You'll have to read that for yourself. Suffice it to say that it was a strange and upsetting experience for Tenderfoot and Virginian alike. Shortly after Em'ly is gone and buried, it's time for Tenderfoot to leave Judge Henry's ranch, and he bids TV goodbye, saying, "Don't forget Em'ly."

"I'm not likely to," answers TV, "she is just one of them parables."

The chapter finishes: "...he had now and for a long while dropped the 'suh' and all other barriers between us. We were thorough friends, and had exchanged many confidences both of the flesh and of the spirit."

After a short period to reflect on all this, let's go on to Chapter 7 and beyond, where the Virginian takes Tenderfoot on a hunting trip.

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Woo-hooo! Over 250 views for this thread already!! (I think it had something to do with the pics  )

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Speaking of pics, here is Owen Wister, author of the book:

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Shall we move on to Chapter Seven then?? I trust you all have had the chance to catch up by now. Chapter Seven "Through Two Snows" is short and is one of those transition chapters that Wister puts in every so often, but it also gives new depth to TV's character. As I mentioned before, TV writes to Tenderfoot, the narrator, who is down in south Wyoming, and offers to take him hunting as a way to help him regain his health after being sick. "'You will be well if you give over city life and take a hunt with me about August or say September for then the elk will be out of the velvett.'"

I would certainly jump to answer such an invitation and TF did too. I did not miss the fact that, unlike Jack and Ennis, this couple did get to have their August together. Not only is it wonderful weather in Wyoming (if a storm doesn't come in from the Pacific) at that time but the elk are reaching their full size, "out of the velvet" as TV says, which means that their antlers have grown to full size preparing them for the rutting season. When the antlers first appear, they are covered with a protective membrane called velvet, which they shed as the antlers grow and harden. There is hardly anything else that grows as fast as antlers do, and so over the years elk and deer antler has been used as an aphrodisiac or male sexual aid, and countless deer and elk have been slaughtered just for their antlers alone. But I digress.

TV has encountered some difficulties on Judge Henry's ranch. It seems he ended up doing both his job and another's (probably Steve's) and so to remedy the situation, he decided to take a break from working at the ranch, theorizing that Judge Henry would soon discover that he was doing the work of two men. As Chapter Eight "The Sincere Spinster" starts, TV is back in good graces at the ranch and the schoolhouse in Bear Creek is complete and ready for a schoolteacher.

[Front-Ranger]

Here is a photo of James Drury as The Virginian.



Now we are ready for "Enter the Woman" namely the schoolmistress, who is now on her way to Wyoming. Discussion of Chapter Eight invited!!

[Front-Ranger]

I'm not goin to have much to say about chapters 8-11 so if any of you other readers want to chime in, feel free. I know some of you have been reading the book on your holiday time off.

Another thing I'll be discussing is the colorful expressions in this book. Let me know some of your favorites!!

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Chapter 8 introduces us to Miss Mary Stark Wood who is destined to become the schoolmistress at Bear Creek. In Chapter 9, she makes the arduous journey to Wyoming, which ends dramatically. A drunk stage driver strands the stage with her in it in a riverbed during a storm, and suddenly a tall rider appears and takes her up on his horse, depositing her gently on the riverbank. She clings to him, so shocked that she forgets her manners and neglects to thank him. Picture time, don't you think??

[Front-Ranger]

Very soon we'll be meeting a new character: a friend of the Virginian's named Scipio. And, speaking of colorful sayings, here is what he has to say one time when he misses a train by just a few minutes (he says this to the disappearing caboose):

"Just because yu' ride through this country on a rail, do yu' claim yu' can find your way around? I could take yu' out ten yards in the brush and lose yu' in ten seconds, you spangle-roofed hobo! Leave me behind? you recent blanket-mortgage yearlin'! You plush-lined, nickel-plated, whisstlin wash room, d' yu' figure I can't go east as soon as west? Or I'll stay right here if it suits me, yu' dude-inhabited hot-box! Why, yu' coon-bossed face-towel--"

Yee-haw, this is my 3800th post!!!

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Chapter Ten

This chapter is entitled “Where Fancy Was Bred.” I think it is referring to the first stirrings of attraction between The Virginian and Molly Wood, the new schoolmistress at Bear Creek. Although we know that TV was first attracted to Molly from a letter she wrote expressing interest in the job. And in their first encounter, he saved her from a stranded stage coach in a roaring stream. Some of these details remind me of the romance between Heath and Michelle. Ang Lee was quoted as saying that Heath contacted him several times before shooting began, inquiring when Michelle would be arriving on set.

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In the first part of the chapter, the single men are gathering at the Swinton’s barbeque to discuss—who else—the new schoolteacher! TV makes the sixth man. The trashy Trampas is there and alludes to her attraction for a cowpuncher named Lin McLean. TV challenges him, and Trampas once again is forced to apologize and back down.

Then, the barbeque begins and Molly arrives. TV hightails it to the bunkhouse to wash up and put on new trousers and scarf. Molly notices him coming out the door and gives him the “Wyoming welcome”: she carefully ignores him and gets totally preoccupied with the children of the guests, who are being laid down to sleep in a storeroom. (Remind you of anything?)

TV bides his time until a waltz begins. Being a Southerner, he is one of the few people around who knows how to waltz. So he approaches Molly and asks her to dance. She says that he must be presented to her first. This dance/flirtation continues on, and Molly goes for dance after dance with married men, fathers of her students.

Disgusted, TV retreats to the storeroom where he can view the turn of events through a window and finds Lin McLean there. Both of them scorned by Molly and partners in misery, they are all of a sudden best buddies again, and three times over they “pledge to each other in tin cups” which means they have a drink of whiskey together. This inevitably leads to mischief, and TV and Lin hatch a practical joke which I’ll not describe here, but it has to do with the items in the storeroom.

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Chapter 11: You're Going to Love Me Before We Get Through

Those two jokesters, The Virginian and Lin McLean, are sleeping off their overindulgence on whiskey the nite before at the Swinton's barbeque. Lin wakes up first and realizes they'd better redline it out of there before people realize the practical joke they played the nite before. Shaking TV, the southerner just says, "'I reckon some of the fellows will act haid-strong,' the Virginian murmured luxuriously, among the warmth of his blankets." Tho Lin rubs his head, TV will not wake up, so Lin takes off by himself. That was a bad move, because when the joke is discovered, the missing man is blamed. But not for long, because TV 'fessed up. Taking the rebukes of the partygoers good-naturely,  he nonetheless charms all the fuming ladies. "'I would mind it less,' said Mrs. Wetfall, 'if you looked a bit sorry or ashamed.' The Virginian shook his head at her penitently. 'I'm tryin' to,' he said."

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End of Chapter 11

After the barbeque, TV pays a visit to Molly on a Sunday, and they have more of the verbal sparring that marks their courtship. He brings up the fact that she shunned him and played games with him during the barbeque, and she replies that she doesn’t think she likes him, prompting the quote that forms the title of this chapter. This exchange may have influenced later works such as “Gone With the Wind” and Rhett Butler’s rapscallion approach to winning over Scarlett O’Hara.

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Chapter 12: Quality and Equality

This chapter’s title is puzzling, and I didn’t even begin to understand it until the next chapter. I still don’t fully understand it, and I invite your thoughts. But I do think the fact that Wyoming is “The Equality State” is relevant here. The reason for the moniker is that Wyoming was the first state where women had the right to vote, and the first state to have a female governor.

We begin the chapter back in Bennington, Vermont, Molly’s home town, where her relatives and friends are puzzling over one of her letters. “’You have no idea,’ it said, ‘how delightful it is to ride, especially on a spirited horse, which I can do now, quite well.’” The letter did not say with whom she rode, and so Molly’s mother wrote back for Molly to seek and accept the advice of the woman who invited her out to Wyoming, not knowing that the woman lived so far away that Molly only saw her once every few months.

A trunkful of books was sent out to Molly by Christmas time, so her riding companion, who was (you guessed it) the Virginian, began to receive books regularly from Molly.

The first one that he likes is a Russian novel. It does not say which one it is but, about the book TV says, “’That young come-outer, and his fam’ly that can’t understand him—for he is broad gauge yu’ see, and they are narro’ gauge.’” Blushing, he confesses to Molly that he “pretty near cried” when the “come-outer” died. So, I’m guessing this is Dostoevsky. But which book?

Molly and TV are paused in one of their frequent rides, listening to the meadowlark “when its song fell upon the silence like beaded drops of music.” And then he speaks of love. She begs him not to, but also asks him to continue taking her for rides. “’Yu’ might as well ask fruit to stay green.’” He replies. Finally she says that if he must continue speaking of his love, she will listen, nothing more or less, and he accepts it. But soon he will be going away on an adventure to oversee the shipment and sale of Judge Henry’s cows.

Looking at her Virginian, Molly can’t decide the color of his eyes. “Sometimes when she had been looking from a rock straight down into clear sea water, this same color had lurked in its depths. ‘Is it green, or is it gray?’ she asked herself.” It’s the same way with my Virginian too. His eyes are what are called hazel, and they seem to change with the color of sweater he is wearing or his mood.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

I know I am coming into this late, but I am a slow reader and am only about at Chapter 8 now, it is a very interesting read, and I look forward to returning to this thread with questions and observations,

I do really get that sense of wonderful isolation and lonliness Wyoming has come to embody for me.

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Thanks for letting me know, shakes. I'm glad I tried to leave out some spoilers from the latter chapters. People are all over the place in reading this book, but most people I've heard from are still in the first half.

The point of view is interesting in Chapter Eight because it switches from the narrator to Molly. The author, IMO, is successful in making this switch without it being jarring. I also think the author is fairly successful in creating the personality of Molly, much more so than Zane Grey, all of whose women characters were quite stereotyped.

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I'm making a pilgrimage to Wyoming soon, and I'm hoping to stop in at The Virginian Restaurant at the Occidental Hotel in Buffalo. Here's what it looks like:

http://www.occidentalwyoming.com/the%20virginian%20restaurant.html

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The Occidental Hotel

(Where The Virginian Got His Man)
 

Come on Boys, an' ride with me

For a Trip back to the Past.

We'll stop at The Occidental,

And step through the Looking Glass.

 

Here everything's just like it was

In a far, far different Age

When the Occidental wrote the Rules

On hist'rys unwrote Page.

 

Her very name means "Western"

This fine ol' Grand Hotel.

Where workin' hands, who ride for Brands

Rub elbows with the Swells.

 

She sits at the foot of the Big Horns

In regal splendor there,

She's the aging Queen o' the Prairies

With Roses in her Hair.

 

Now priceless Orientals

Still grace the well-worn floors

And Crystal Chandeliers

Still hang above the doors.

 

There's china in the Dining Room,

And everything's First Class

Where the Present is overshadowed

By reflections of the Past.

 

The floor still creaks and History reeks

'Til you can hear the Coyotes call,

And the Ghosts of Cattle Barons

Still roam these Hallowed Halls.

 

Here deals were made as cattle herds

And ranches all changed Hands,

And famous Cowboy Singers

Have played their one-night Stands.

 

She was lost one night, in a Poker Game

By a man with a Second-best Hand

And her walls are lined with Pictures

Of Men who, they say, had Sand.

 

Now the little Gal who owns the place

Is a genuine Western Buff,

And to make your stay more Pleasant

She simply can't do Enough.

 

Many a Trail-worn Drifter

Has Stopped here feelin' Rough,

And when a Cowboy's broke n' Hungry

She'll write it on the Cuff.

 

Mister Wister holed up here

And dreamed a Master Piece

In an upstairs room by a Fireplace

Where mem'ry still has Lease.

 

Butch and Sundance slept here, too

Tom Horn got drunk, they say,

An' bragged he'd kill every Cow-thief

That did not ride Away.

 

It's faraway and Mystical,

In a Place called Cowboy Land -

It's the Occidental Hotel,

Where The Virginian Got His Man.

 

- Dan Hess ('05)

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Chapter Thirteen: The Game and the Nation—Act First

This multichapter section delves into the main issue of the day: equality, discussing it both from a micro-perspective and a macro-perspective. Wister in his book The Virginian grapples with basic disconnects about the legal equality of man vs. the inequality that exists in the character and physical capabilities of individuals. He also acknowledges the complementary aspects of women and men and, indeed, the superiority of women in the arena of human emotions.

The narrator and The Virginian are off on an adventure: Rancher Judge Henry has made TV deputy foreman and put him in charge of taking cattle to market back East. More importantly, TV is charged with getting the ranch hands back to Sunk Creek in one piece after the trip is done. The chapter begins with Tenderfoot and TV meeting up at a famous "eating palace" in Omaha, Nebraska. TV orders fried eggs (aiggs) but there is much talk about a celebrated menu item--Frogs' Legs a la Delmonico.

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Chapter 13.

The Virginian is travelling back east by train, and invites the narrator to come with him, after the narrator and his buddies miss their connecting train by minutes (ever had that experience, Eric?). Narrator notices a couple of changes in our hero: he is toting along a copy of Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott that the schoolmistress, Molly Wood, whom TV is sweet on, has given him. Also, the narrator observes that "the boy was altogether gone from his face...the boy who had loved to jingle his spurs. But manhood had only trained, not broken, his youth. It was all there, only obedient to the rein and curb." (page 109 in the Pocket edition)

Chapter 14. Between the Acts

As I mentioned before, we now meet Scipio le Moyne, from Gallipolice, Ohio. After witnessing his outbreak of witty profanity (quoted a page or two ago on this topic) The Virginian is quick to invite Scipio to join the band of cowpokes in the caboose and return back to Judge Henry's ranch. The narrator thinks TV rather rash, since he just met Scipio, but wait! TV remembers that Scipio was a cook at the famous eating place in Omaha (TV never forgets a face). And it's a good thing that Scipio happened along, because TV just had to kick the cook off the train due to drinking. This episode is told in Wister's usual colorful style with plenty of suspense, comedy, and local dialogue.

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Chapter 15: The Game and the Nation—Act Second

The Virginian has his hands full with a caboose full of idle cowpunchers. After kicking the cook off the train and replacing him with Scipio le Moyne, there is “only one left now that don’t sing.” You guessed it—TV’s nemesis, Trampas. “Tramp” is currently plotting to mutiny, taking some of the men with him to Rawhide, Wyoming, to hunt gold instead of returning to the ranch.

Chapter 16: ~~ Last Act

There's not much to do on the trip back West, so the cowboys indulge in one of their favorite activities--jawing with each other and telling tall tales. Comparing scars, one cowpoke relates that he picked up a rattlesnake, snapping it like a whip and severing the head. Only the head flew into his neck and bit him. Snakes, whips, and lassos have their accustomed place here as in subsequent Westerns and they also have a multitude of meanings.

The men marvel that a buck antelope knows to circle around a rattler, then jump and come down with all fours on top of Mr. Snake. "Now you tell me how the buck knows that" they wonder.

[Meryl]

Lee, I'm enjoying  your summaries more than the actual book! 

Here's the lowdown on the Goose Egg Ranch, where the Virginian and McLean played their prank on the revelers:
http://72.232.132.224/forum/index.php/topic,5015.msg119055.html#msg119055

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Cool link, Meryl, and thank yu'!!

I might be able to swing by there on my upcoming trip to Wyoming!!

During this part of the book, the Virginian is reading Kenilworth, by Sir Walter Scott. Remember what John Nesbitt, the professor of history at the University of Wyoming, told us about The Virginian: "The novel itself is a blending together of the novel of manners (in the style of Jane Austen and Henry James) and the historical romance (in the style of James Fenimore Cooper and Sir Walter Scott, the latter being a source of Wister’s ideology of the cow-puncher as a latter-day Ivanhoe)."

Kenilworth is about Queen Elizabeth I and TV and the narrator have a couple of conversations about her. TV reckons that if he played poker with QEI she would certainly win because "she is a lady."

[Lynne]

I'm up to Chapter 9. 
It's not that I'm a slow reader, but you can't read and be online simultaneously, or at least I can't - I will be back eventually.
-Lynne

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Tru and Lynne, let me know when you're ready for me to go on.

[Lynne]

You can go on..don't let me hold you up, at least...I'm capable of not reading this thread til I get ready to! .

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Yeehaw! Four hundred and forty views for this topic!!

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Has anyone guessed yet who the Virginian is for me??

Yes, he's my own Virginian, the one I met 26 years ago and married.

Yes, he's my dear friend whom I've just come to know.

Yes, he's the one I spent time with a long time ago, and have lost track of, but will never forget.

And yes, he's all of you!

Who is your Virginian??

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Chapter 16. The Game and the Nation—Last Act

Continuing with the snake stories. One of the cowpokes swears that when his thumb was bit by a snake, a woman pulled a magical stone out of a pouch that, when placed on the wound, sucked the poison out. He maintained that the stone was taken from an elk’s stomach. While these tall tales were being told, Trampas was biding his time, thinking he could easily steal most of the men away from the Virginian. But, as the train is stalled, TV begins his tall tale. It is all about the lively, hopping market in – who would have guessed – frog’s legs. This story is a true tour de force, sucking its audience in until – surprise! It’s too late to catch the train to Rawhide!! The Virginian has struck another victory!

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Just a few quotes from this pivotal chapter:

"Springtime they'd sing like girls in the organ loft." TV of the frogs in Tulare, California

The story climaxes when Saint Augustine, of Philly's most famous restaurant, and Delmonico, of NY's most famous restaurant, each travel to the frog raising fields, and anonymously meet. After it is all over, they retreat from Tulare and "as soon as they got to a safe distance, they swore eternal FRiendship, in their excitable foreign way. And they went home over the Union Pacific, sharing the same stateroom." Union Pacific indeed!!

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Tall tales always end with a giveaway. And this one was no exception.

But, I won't tell you...you'll have to read it for yourself!! But here's a clue:

"'Rise up liers, and salute your king!' yelled Scipio. 'Oh, I'm in love with you!' And he threw his arms around the Virginian."

Who wouldn't?

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I went out at lunchtime to pick up the annotated version that Meryl got at Barnes and Noble. Not knowing the store very well, I approached the customer service desk to ask where it might be found. And guess what was lying on the desk...The Virginian.

It's destiny!!

Also, this weekend I'll be dining at The Virginian Hotel in Buffalo, Wyoming!!

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A quote from Wister's earlier novel, Lin McLean, which was renamed A Woman's Fool:

"He was evidently howling the remarkable strain of yells that the cow-punchers invented as the speech best understood by cows - "Oi-ee, yah, whoop-yah-ye-ee, oooo-oop, oop, oop-oop-oop-oop-yah-hee!" But that gives you no idea of it. Alphabets are worse than photographs. It is not the lungs of every man that can produce these effects, not even from armies, eagles, or mules were such sounds ever heard on earth. The cow-puncher invented them. And when the last cow-puncher is laid to rest (if that, alas! have not already befallen) the yells will be forever gone." (from Lin McLean, 1898)

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Another interesting quote from the book Novels Into Film:

"Wister's idealization of the Westerner situates the site of American virtue in the West. In a manner suggesting the influence of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Wister views his protagonist as a primal man, often describing him as "natural" or "wild." At the same time, there is an element of Horatio Alger." (from Novels into Film by John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh, 1999)

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From a BrothersJudd review:

There's a very amusing review at Amazon which claims that this is an unacknowledged gay classic.  I don't know that I'd go that far, but I take the reviewer's point that the true love in the book is between the narrator and the Virginian, and that the schoolmarm is mostly annoying

In surfing the online reviews of the book, I find that they are mostly all negative. I don't agree with them, but I see their point. The Virginian can be an impenetrable book for those who are accustomed to Internet chat, etc. It's made for settling in with a nice cuppa coffee and a piece of cherry cake before a snug fireplace.

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Tonight when I arrived home from work about 9:30 p.m. I sat down by the fire with a whole stack of books, some new that I just bought today. But after about 10 minutes I found myself reading TV once again!!

[Meryl]

Have a great time this weekend, Lee!  See if that hotel has frawgs' laigs. 

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You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to this trip!! I'm startin to hallucinate just like the Virginian did when he was recoverin' from that wound in his shoulder (around Chapter 22).

And when we get done, Ennis ain't gonna have to take self-photos up on Brokenback any more!!

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Here it is--the famous Virginian Restaurant in the Occidental Hotel in historic Buffalo, Wyoming. Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed for most of January. I have no idea why.

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And the Occidental Hotel:

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From page 102, one of my personal favorite passages:

"When he was absent from her, and she could sit in her cabin and look at Grandmother Stark, and read home letters, then in imagination she felt it easy to play the part of guide and superior and indulgent companion. But when he was by her side, that part became a difficult one. Her woman's fortress was shaken by a force unknown to her before. [Other men] did not have it in them to look as this man could look, when the cold lustre of his eyes grew hot with internal fire. What color they were baffled her still. 'Can they possibly change?' she wondered. It seemed to her like sometimes when she had been looking from a rock straight down into clear sea water, this same color had lurked in its depths. 'Is it green or is it grey?' she asked herself, but did not turn just now to see. She kept her face toward the landscape."

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I'm ready to delve into Chapter 27 now. Where is everyone else in your reading??

[Meryl]

I'm in the middle of Chapter 26, progressing slowly. 

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After several chapters devoted to the shenanigans of that trash Trampas, who slunk off one day with the gullible cowboy Shorty, an action-filled chapter occurs. Chapter 27 "Grandmother Stark" opens with the schoolteacher, Molly Wood, packing up to go back home to Bennington, Vermont, giving in to her family and friends' warnings not to associate with wild men like that "rustler" The Virginian. She goes for one last ride on the horse that TV has gentled for her. She comes upon Monte, his horse, all wrung-out, and then upon the man himself, severely wounded. It is quite an ordeal getting him back to her cabin, where she puts him to bed amongst all the packing boxes.

While nursing him back to health, they read Browning together, which is their Pentecost. She reads to him a passage about two lovers:

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim--
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.

She doesn't know how to interpret this passage, but he says that the man would return "afteh he had played some more of the game...Life, ma'am. Whatever he was a-doin in the world of men. That's a bed-rock piece ma'am!"

[Front-Ranger]

Time for a pic of "The Virginian"!

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"She had come to read to him for the alloted time, and she threw around his shoulders the scarlet and black Navajo blanket, striped with its splendid zigzags of barbarity. Thus he half sat, half leaned, languid but at ease." Sigh. The Virginian is healing from his wounds and soon he will be able to walk again, will be able to leave the bed where his nurse has sequestered him.

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Chapter 28, "No Dream to Wake From" is a climactic one-page chapter, the only similar one in the book. It is the book's "dozy embrace." This is when the words of love are finally expressed between TV and Molly Wood. He is still recovering from his wound, and she is still nursing him. Here, as in life, the woman benefits from all the feeling that men have built up among each other in the day-to-day adventures in life. Lucky us.

The reason it's called No Dream to Wake Up From is because they are living what most people just dream or talk about. I feel that way many times recently meeself.

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Authors like to underscore the unusualness of a relationship by having the lovers embrace in an unusual way. In Brokeback Mountain, Ennis embraced Jack from the back, not facing him. In The Virginian, the patient was sitting on a chair in Chapter 28, with Molly crouched in front of him. He encircled her bent head in his arms, and they remained that way for a long time, peacefully together at last.

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Chapter 29 "Word to Bennington" is a rather tiresome chapter about TV's and Molly's letters back home telling of their intentions, and the stuffy New Englanders' reactions to them. If you want to skip it, that's okay with me, but there is some awesome writing and enlightenment of TV's character.



Stay tuned, because the story takes a decidedly wild and interesting turn in Chapter 30!

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A lovely passage about clouds is posted here:

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,5109.0.html

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In Chapters 30 and 31, we catch up with the narrator again and once again we are returned to the world of men. (sigh of relief!) The judge has sent The Virginian out on one of his most challenging assignments yet--to capture and bring to justice a band of cattle rustlers! And the ringleader is none other than Trampas, TV's long-time nemesis. After a pursuit through the Grand Tetons of Wyoming, the posse finally catches the band of varmints when one of them makes the fatal mistake of starting a fire. But, only two of the outlaws are captured. And these are a new character in a gray flannel shirt and, <sob> Steve (see the earlier pages of this topic for a discussion of Steve).

The narrator arrives just after the two rustlers have been taken into custody. The posse is camped out near a grove of cottonwoods, the only place for many miles around where frontiier justice can be meted out--hanging!!

[Front-Ranger]

Steve is a long-time friend of the Virginian--maybe his oldest friend. As the other members of the posse say, "you was thick with Steve." Nevertheless, justice must be done, and both Steve and the Virginian understand that.

The narrator arrives several days early, right after Steve and another rustler have been captured, and everybody is uncomfortable.

Even Steve, who tries to make the narrator feel at home. The narrator is so touched, that he lends Steve his newspaper, which Steve devours avidly, even though they are his last hours.

In the morning, doomed men and those who are going to kill them sit down together for breakfast. Steve relives the chase through the Teton Range of mountains, and ends by marvelling "What a strong combination we were!" 

Finally, the Virginian speaks for the first time: "Nothing is stronger than its weakest link." So true. The band of rustlers was caught because one of their number made the fatal mistake of lighting a fire, giving away their location.

[Front-Ranger]

The posse, with the Virginian leading, rides off in the morning to perform their grisly errand, which takes place in the lone stand of cottonwood trees tall enough for a hanging. Later, the Virginian returns to retrieve the narrator and escort him back safely though the Tetons to Sunk Creek.

There is an awkward exchange of information. The Virginian speaks as if in a daze, until he turns and addresses the cottonwood grove, "Goodbye forever!" These were our first natural words this morning, the narrator observes as he hands TV his flask.

On the trail, TV is compelled to speak about Steve, how he had changed over the recent years, how he never said a word of goodbye to TV before he was strung up. He is clearly heartbroken.

[Front-Ranger]

While on their return journey, TV is full of angst: "He knew passionately that he had done right; but the silence of his old friend to him through these last hours left a sting that no reasoning could assuage. 'He told goodbye to the rest of the boys, but not to me.' And nothing that I could point out in common sense turned him from the thread of his own argument. ....'the man I used to travel with is not the man back there. Same name, to be sure. And same body. But different in--and yet he had the memory! You can't never change your memory!' He gave a sob. It was the first I ever heard from him, and before I knew what I was doing, I had reined my horse up to his and put my arm around his shoulders. I had no sooner touched him than he was utterly overcome. 'I knew Steve awful well,' he said."

Sound familiar?

[Front-Ranger]

The narrator and the Virginian made camp in the Tetons, and TN slept in the next morning, even though he bunked on the cold hard ground.

Finally, the Virginian shook him awake. “Both of us were glad when presently we rode into a steeper country, and among its folds and curvings lost all sight of the plain. He had not slept, I found. His explanation was that the packs needed better balancing, and after that he had gone up and down the stream on the chance of trout. But his haunted eyes gave me the real reason—they spoke of Steve, no matter what he spoke of; it was to be no short thing with him.”

[Front-Ranger]

Before taking off on their journey that morning, TV goes off to be with his friend, his horse Monte, and he talked to it as the narrator writes in his diary.

Later, TV observes that Monte is among the few horses that are shod front and back--with horseshoes on all four hooves.

Again, TV is musing about Steve. They used to run together as young men. "'We was just colts then' he said. He dwelt on their coltish doings, their adventures sought and wrought in the most perfect fellowship of youth. 'For Steve and me most always hunted in couples back in those gamesome years,' he explained. And he fell into the elemental talk of sex, such talk as would be an elk's or a tiger's; and spoken so him, naturally and simply, as we speak of the seasons, or of death, or of any actuality, it was without offence, or would be offence should I repeat it."

[Front-Ranger]

The title of this chapter is "Superstition Trail" and on the trail, the narrator and the Virginian suddenly become aware of fresh horse's hooves. They study them for a while, and begin to realize that there are actually two men with one horse--they trade off riding the horse. Since one is much heavier than the other, they begin to call them "Ounces" and "Pounds." Tension mounts as they follow the tracks.

[Front-Ranger]

At the end, the two travelers come upon…Shorty. Yes, there were two men, one horse, and Shorty had the short end of the stick. In his hands was…the newspaper that the narrator had lent to Steve on his last day on earth. Taking it up, the narrator read a note scribbled in the margin:

‘Good-by, Jeff,’ it said. ‘I could not have spoke to you without playing the baby.’

‘Who’s Jeff?’ I asked. “

But, you all know by now who Jeff is.

[Front-Ranger]

Chapter 34: To Fit Her Finger

“The Virginian had touched the whole thing the day I left him. He had noticed me looking a sort of farewell at the plains and mountains. ‘You will come back to it,’ he said. ‘If there was a headstone for every man that once pleasured in his freedom here, you’d see one most every time yu’ turned your head. It’s a heap sadder than a graveyard—but yu’ love it all the same.’”

[Front-Ranger]

Now we have reached the point in our reading where Molly and the Virginian are on their wedding journey. But Molly, that ditz, is all angst-ridden because her mother won't be at the wedding ceremony. And why should she? The woman never answered the letter TV labored over and sent her asking for permission to marry her daughter. In fact, the mother's been spreading vile notions about TV based on a comment he made in his letter, "I never killed a man for pleasure or profit." The East and West are certainly diametrically opposed worlds.

[Front-Ranger]

We will be winding up the discussion of The Virginian shortly, because I have started reading a new book called The Cowboy Way by David McCumber, and I have begun a discussion on Anything Goes. Your last comments about The Virginian go here!!

[Front-Ranger]

If anyone has read thru all eight pages of this discussion, I'm curious. Does it give you too much or too little information? This will help me in future book discussions!

[Shakesthecoffecan]

I was disapointed in the way the Uncle Hughey character was handled. Wisler gave him a good set up and then ignored him. Whine, whine.

[Front-Ranger]

Wister seems to rotate through different characters who provide a foil for the Virginian, such as Scipio, Em'ly the hen, etc. As I recall, Uncle Hughey does appear a couple of times more: when he brings his bride home, and then later during a gathering. But you're right that his character that had such a promising start is largely undeveloped. Annie Proulx did that with her female characters in Brokeback Mountain, and we are lucky to have McMurtry and Ossana come along with their wonderful knowledge of female characters to flesh them out.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Wister seems to rotate through different characters who provide a foil for the Virginian, such as Scipio, Em'ly the hen, etc. As I recall, Uncle Hughey does appear a couple of times more: when he brings his bride home, and then later during a gathering. But you're right that his character that had such a promising start is largely undeveloped. Annie Proulx did that with her female characters in Brokeback Mountain, and we are lucky to have McMurtry and Ossana come along with their wonderful knowledge of female characters to flesh them out.

The greif The Virginian felt over the hanging of Steve was very powerful, and I was not sure what to make of the inuendo, the reference to their younger days and sexual exploits, it does not exactly say who whom.

[Front-Ranger]

The greif The Virginian felt over the hanging of Steve was very powerful, and I was not sure what to make of the inuendo, the reference to their younger days and sexual exploits, it does not exactly say who whom.

I discuss these chapters, which are the climax of the book, here:

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,6809.msg147350.html#msg147350

[Front-Ranger]

It will be so hard to tear myself away from this book, I have enjoyed getting to know The Virginian so much! But, I must, I must! Please leave your parting thoughts here.

[Front-Ranger]

A parting quote about My Virginian,

“For though utterly a man in countenance and in his self-possession and incapacity to be put at a loss, he was still boyishly proud of his wild calling, and wore his leathern chaps and jingled his spurs with obvious pleasure. His tiger limberness and his beauty were rich with unabated youth; and that force which lurked beneath his surface must often have curbed his intolerance of me.”

[Front-Ranger]

A friend of mine called me tonite and recited a passage from memory from page 15 of the book, where the narrator first sites the Virginian. It was heavenly to poke produce while listening to poignant prose!!

[Front-Ranger]

We can restart this discussion for those who have just picked up The Virginian to read recently!

[Jeff Wrangler]

A friend of mine called me tonite and recited a passage from memory from page 15 of the book, where the narrator first sites the Virginian.

Let me guess. That would be our Off-line Chuck, who has quoted it to me on more than one occasion and mentioned the obvious homoeroticism in the passage.

[Monika]

Let me guess. That would be our Off-line Chuck, who has quoted it to me on more than one occasion and mentioned the obvious homoeroticism in the passage.

I had the exact same thought when I read the passage. It read as though he was checking him out and liking what he saw.


Here is the cover of my copy

[Front-Ranger]

You would be right, Jeff and Monika.  

The Virginian was published in 1902, and I'm rereading a lot of turn-of-the-century literature in a new light, comparing it to our own turn of the century and finding many parallels. For instance, writers were chafing against the tight leash of Victorianism and were questioning society's strictures, including that against a man loving another man. What better place to explore an open perspective than the wide open spaces of Wyoming?

Yet, the Virginian was a Southern gentleman with a strict code of honour. But he was also "Nature's nobleman" imbued with the grace and beauty of any sleek, natural animal in the wild. A pleasing combination!!

[Jeff Wrangler]

I'm beginning to wish I had obtained a paperback copy of this book to take with me on my ramble that begins this Sunday, instead of a copy of The Devil in the White City. Unfortunately, I really don't have time to hunt for one, now. 

Maybe my next ramble.

(Psst. "The Virgin Queen" was Elizabeth I. Queen Victoria had--what?--a dozen children? No virgin was she!)

[Monika]

I haven't read it yet, but it's on my list - an essay by Owen Wister called "The Evolution of the Cow-puncher".
Published in Harper's new monthly magazine (1895)
You can red it here.
http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/gaslight/evolcowp.htm


It was a collaboration between Wister and his friend Frederic Remington. Not sure if Remington co-wrote or illustrated it.


It makes sense that Reminton and Wister were friends. They share an admiration for the West that often seems very naive, almost childish.

[Jeff Wrangler]

In Chapter Two we meet up with Trampas, who I have a feeling we'll be seeing again. The Virginian, Trampas, and other cowpokes are playing cards and Trampas calls for TV to bid, calling him an SOB just as Steve did. But instead of overlooking it, TV draws his gun and lays it on the table, saying "When you call me that, smile." Thus the narrator learns that "the letter means nothing until the spirit gives it life."

Ya'll realized, of course, that's a biblical allusion: II Corinthians 3:6.

[Jeff Wrangler]

John Nesbitt says that TV is depicted as a southern gentleman in the style of Thomas Jefferson, who was the "first Virginian." In fact, Nesbitt points out that "the man with no name" is actually referred to by name once in the story, and that name is Jeff (I'm still hoping to entice Jeff Wrangler over here eventually because of that!)

 

Undoubtedly that's short for "Jefferson," not for "Jeffrey."

[Jeff Wrangler]

Now that I've read through this thread, I confess to feeling less of an urgency to read the book. 

There is an entire chapter devoted to a chicken? 

I thought that when hens ceased to produce eggs, they went into the pot. 

[Front-Ranger]

I thought that when hens ceased to produce eggs, they went into the pot. 

It's even worse for the males...they go in the pot as soon as they start being noisy in the morning!!

I've developed greater appreciation for chickens these past few years. I'll never look at, or eat, an egg the same way again!! It's easy to skip over the Em'ly chapter or skim it if you like, but the chapter is very important for character development, and I'm not talking about the character of Em'ly!!

[Front-Ranger]

I just realized I'm a lot like Em'ly myself, forever rolling a few stones or potatoes together to try to make a nest, only to have an exasperated cowpoke kick them apart again!! 

[Monika]

I´m reading the "chicken chapter" now and it´s the best so far

[Jeff Wrangler]

Kind of OT for the novel itself, but an interesting read about Owen Wister's grandmother, the actress and abolitionist Fanny Kemble Butler:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Kemble

Jane Seymour played her in a TV movie back around the turn of the century.

[Jeff Wrangler]

"Brokeback Mountain is not a conventional Western. Yet it is a Western to the same extent that Ridley Scott's Thelma and Louise and Wister's The Virginian are -- neither involves battles between cowboys and Indians but both are studies in gender difference within a nationalized landscape, which might be a broad definition of Westerns."

Shit, that's deep. ...

[Jeff Wrangler]

Tonight Turner Classics is showing a 1946 movie version of The Virginian. Handsome, stalwart Joel McCrea is the Virginian, Sonny Tufts is Steve, Barabara Britton is the schoolmarm, and Brian Donlevy is Trampas.

I saw a preview on TV last night. You know Trampas is the Bad Guy because he's dressed all in black! 

[Jeff Wrangler]

Tonight Turner Classics is showing a 1946 movie version of The Virginian. Handsome, stalwart Joel McCrea is the Virginian, Sonny Tufts is Steve, Barabara Britton is the schoolmarm, and Brian Donlevy is Trampas.

I saw a preview on TV last night. You know Trampas is the Bad Guy because he's dressed all in black! 

I wasn't especially impressed with this movie version. McCrea was too old for the part (41 the year the movie was released), and it seems a little obvious and old-fashioned, even for 1946, to have Brian Donlevy dressed all in black.  Everybody seemed to take the hanging scene way too casually, even the characters who were about to be hanged. 

[Front-Ranger]

Everybody seemed to take the hanging scene way too casually, even the characters who were about to be hanged. 

Yes, but that's the way the book handled it too...they all sat down together at breakfast and talked and laughed about the chase...and then they went out and some of them hanged the others. That's what made it so poignant. Did the movie have the part about the newspaper with the message on it from Steve later on?

[Jeff Wrangler]

Yes, but that's the way the book handled it too...they all sat down together at breakfast and talked and laughed about the chase...and then they went out and some of them hanged the others. That's what made it so poignant.

Maybe it plays better in the book. Nobody got a last meal/breakfast in the movie.  

Did the movie have the part about the newspaper with the message on it from Steve later on?

There was a note, but it wasn't on a piece of newspaper. If that's where, in the book, we learn that the Virginian's given name is Jeff, that wasn't there, either. We never learn his name in the movie. Even the schoolmarm doesn't address him by his name on their wedding day.

Movie Spoiler Alert:

The Virginian uses Steve's gun to kill Trampas.

I also can't resist mentioning a movie detail that would only be noticed by a train lover like me, or only annoy a train lover: The train on which the schoolmarm arrives in the town of Medicine Bow bears the markings of the Northern Pacific Railroad--yet Medicine Bow was and is on the Union Pacific; probably the Union Pacific was responsible for the creation of the town. 

I had time to do only a little research on Medicine Bow earlier today. The town has its own web site, and so forth. According to the last U.S. census, only about 300 people live there. Our friend CDestry would love it there because the population is way, way lower than the elevation, which is higher even than Denver.

[Front-Ranger]

Movies are never as good as the book, except in one notable instance!!

[Front-Ranger]

I'm coming back to this thread three years later to report a small epiphany. I was reading A Study in Scarlet, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (his first novel about Sherlock Holmes). The main character (aside from Holmes and Watson) is named Jefferson Hope. The novel was written in 1886, and may be the first instance of a character named Jefferson in a novel. The main character in The Virginian is named Jeff, probably short for Jefferson, and I just realized that it was probably after Thomas Jefferson, the most famous resident of Virginia. I wonder about other characters named Jefferson. Apparently there is one in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and in A Lesson Before Dying and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.