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

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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.

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