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

[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!