Books about the American West.
I never liked westerns.
Once, I even went to a western marathon. We watched three films on one night. I fell asleep in the middle of the second one, and I remember the third one through the fog. Yes, I loved Winnetou with uncritical love, I was fascinated by Indians and I read a lot about them, but the rest of the western world bored. Or so it seemed to me.
If, in fact, the world of the Wild West did not seem very attractive to me, why did I not only read Karol May's books, but also the Curwood series? I loved all the stories about trappers, about living in constant clash with the wild nature of North America. The myth of the American West was working, though I could not name it or describe it yet.
High Noon source
Until today I am not a fan of western aesthetics, although there are exceptions from this rule - films that I can watch many times, for example "High noon". However, the very idea of the American West (I prefer to define it rather than the Wild West, which is too westernly associated) still has a strong impact on my imagination. For me, the West is primarily a place where people looking for something had to face a landscape so vast and hostile that it's hard for us to even imagine it. Man's contact with wild nature is one of my favorite topics. I like to read about lonely wandering, about mountain climbing, about life close to nature. In the narrative about the American West, people heading towards the land they wanted to make their home, collide with the wild landscape and its earlier inhabitants in an absolutely ruthless manner. Extreme trips are usually made by people aware of what is waiting for them and relatively well prepared. Settlers were ordinary people, sometimes brave and sometimes just desperate. Women who had no idea what they were going to face were going because their husband or father had made the decision. The men were walking because they heard something, not really knew exactly what, but they decided that they would take a chance. After reaching the place, they created their world anew, often in a ruthless and violent way, not always effectively. Their fragility in the face of Western America seems almost absurd.
Maybe you're not interested in cowboys duel, but how man behaves in the most extreme conditions is probably always worth exploring. I have chosen ten books about the American West, which for a variety of reasons have impressed me, but it is certainly not the top ten books about the West. I could not make such a choice, and too many books are still ahead of me.
Joanna L. Stratton "Pioneer Women. Voices from the Kansas Frontier "
A book thanks to which I became interested in the American West many, many years after I put the Winnetou on the shelf for the last time. I read about it on some American blog, and in that time I read a lot about the life of women in the XIX century England, I decided to find out something about what was happening on the other side of the ocean. Joanna Stratton has found a set of notes written by women who lived in the American West, gathered them together and developed them. This is an absolutely fascinating picture of Western women - Indians, settlers, mothers, wives, teachers and students. Their goal was not to survive, they wanted to create a civilized world around them, often fought for their rights and faced unimaginable difficulties. It's a solid historical book that you read like a novel.
S. C. Gwynne "Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History”
”Empire of the Summer Moon" is the story of the tribe that fought against the invaders most fiercely. A rather frightening picture of the world emerges from the book, in which violence was part of the every day life. Nothing, is simple and unambiguous - kidnapped white children do not want to return to their families, white women fall in love with their hijackers, and these are not only genius and cruel fighters, but also skilful politicians.
Hampton Sides "Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West”
This reportage is a classic, western tale. The hero is Kit Carson, a trapper-legend who fought with the Indians, but also was their ally. Through the prism of his ambiguous biography, the author tells the story of the conquest of the West. Carson's fate is so colorful that it's hard to believe that all this really happened.
Philipp Meyer "Son”.
Meyer spent many years working on a book that was supposed to demythologize the history of the American West. A family saga established in Texas, which is a kind of lens that focuses on what America really is. I did not need to get rid of illusions, but I enjoyed reading it anyway. The fate of the three heroes who are incredibly alive becomes a pretext to tell us who the Americans actually are.
Larry McMurty "Lonesome Dove"
This is not a book about which you can write in a few sentences. This is an absolute novel, which probably contains everything that you can think of in the context of the American West. Perfectly built figures, road theme and in the western background, overwhelming landscape. I will read it at least once before I am tempted by a longer text. For his novel, McMurty got Pulitzer.
A. B. Guthrie "The way to the West"
A group of very different people goes to Oregon to start a new life there. A few-month trip in a small group is not only a physical challenge. Above all, it is a time when their weaknesses will come to light, and the story of life on the trail is really a story about who the people who traveled this trail were. The novel can be read as an independent work, but it is part of the six-volume cycle and is the second volume in the series.
Cormac McCarthy "Crossing"
In fact, I could put any Cormac McCarthy novel in this post, maybe with the exception of "The Road". Why I choose ”Crossing" the second volume of The Border Trilogy? Maybe because one of the heroes is a bitch-wolf, and I like wolves? For me, this is another perfect novel, containing everything why I love stories about the American West. There are a man here and a wild animal, it is a journey into the unknown, it is a struggle with itself and with the surroundings. I do not know how McCarthy does it, but for each of his books I've been making a night out.
Thomas Berger "Little Big Man”
I realize that I have not written about most of these books so far. I'm not sure why, perhaps because I read each of these books and knew that I would want to read them again. It was no different with the "Little Big Man," with whom I had made acquaintance relatively recently. This is a racial rogue novel set in the realities of the Wild West, another one that tells the history of America through the prism of a particular character. Hilarious, sad and addictive.
John Williams "Butcher's Crossing”
Williams books appeared more than fifty years ago, after which they were forgotten over fifty. In 2013, a British bookseller discovered the world of "Professor Stoner", but in my opinion "Butcher's Crossing" is even better. Williams mercilessly deals with the myth of the Wild West by sending an idealistic and completely unfit young man to the prairie. This is a pure, condensed story about the confrontation between man and nature, there is no unnecessary word in it. There are also no Indians and cowboys, but there is a lot of brutal truth about life in the wilderness and who we are and who we can become.
Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little House on the Prairie"
This book could not be missed, although it is a thickly polished and polite tale for children. Laura Ingalls Wilder, writes stories based on her own memories, and her vision of a family building a house on the prairie (as well as in a dense forest and a stream in other parts of the cycle) really works on the imagination. We know that this is a luscious version, with a bit of imagination you can add a lot, and it's best to reach for one of the author's biographies and find out how it really was. The whole cycle, consisting of nine parts, is really lovely and very relaxing reading.
Are you interested in the subject of the American West? Have you read May or Curwood in your childhood? Who would you put in your top ten?
I share your feelings. I didn’t like westerns either. However, recently some characters and the very atmosphere of this time have become interesting. Your recommendations are very helpful to me, thanks.