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

[Front-Ranger]

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! .

[Front-Ranger]

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

[Front-Ranger]

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??

[Front-Ranger]

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!

[Front-Ranger]

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!!

[Front-Ranger]

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?

[Front-Ranger]

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!!

[Front-Ranger]

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)

[Front-Ranger]

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)