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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 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.

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