Richard S. Wheeler's Blog, page 24
July 30, 2012
The Puzzle of Popularity
I've been mystified for years by the popularity of western gunman fiction, especially the sort that involves the violent death of dozens of males before the end of the story. These books are storytelling at its worst. They are fantasy, and have nothing at all to do with reality. They don't even pretend to depict death as it really is, or danger, or law enforcement as it existed in that period.
That they are the worst-written books in American fiction is a given. There are no characters developed enough to interest a reader, nor can a reader fathom who the characters are or what they want. No plot is evolved that amounts to anything because all the nascent issues are resolved by killing another platoon of cowboys. Bullets trump story, eliminating courage and character and complexity and surprise.
Yet in spite of their obvious weaknesses, they sell enough to keep publishers pumping out new versions. They appeal to male readers who want to fantasize themselves in gun battles, engaging in a sort of personal war. There aren't many women who read junk like this.
These stories are dark fantasies that invite the reader to engage in multiple murders, although the gunfights aren't called murders and the fights are treated as knightly jousts. But that figleaf doesn't cover the reality, in that the author leads the reader through multiple, ritualized killings, where scores of anonymous gunmen die, none of them a developed character so their death evokes no sympathy or grief.
I wish the whole western gunman market would vanish, and its authors would start to write something worthy of being called literature. These high-body-count western novels are the worst junk being commercially published.
That they are the worst-written books in American fiction is a given. There are no characters developed enough to interest a reader, nor can a reader fathom who the characters are or what they want. No plot is evolved that amounts to anything because all the nascent issues are resolved by killing another platoon of cowboys. Bullets trump story, eliminating courage and character and complexity and surprise.
Yet in spite of their obvious weaknesses, they sell enough to keep publishers pumping out new versions. They appeal to male readers who want to fantasize themselves in gun battles, engaging in a sort of personal war. There aren't many women who read junk like this.
These stories are dark fantasies that invite the reader to engage in multiple murders, although the gunfights aren't called murders and the fights are treated as knightly jousts. But that figleaf doesn't cover the reality, in that the author leads the reader through multiple, ritualized killings, where scores of anonymous gunmen die, none of them a developed character so their death evokes no sympathy or grief.
I wish the whole western gunman market would vanish, and its authors would start to write something worthy of being called literature. These high-body-count western novels are the worst junk being commercially published.
July 28, 2012
The Power of Suggestion
I've given thought for some while to the question of whether violence depicted in media can lead unbalanced people to engage in real-life violence. I believe it can. I believe it was no coincidence that the Colorado youth set up shop in a movie theater during a showing of a particularly violent Batman film. I think all branches of media, film, TV, fiction, can trigger such conduct in a troubled person.
I turned down the chance to write such western gunman novels a year or two ago, even though the money was good. I'm not opposed to depicting violence, but if it is depicted, I want it to be fully consequential. The violence in a certain sort of gunman fiction is without consequence. Anonymous characters are gunned down; law and order avert their gaze.
We all live according to a social contract. On the one hand, we are safe and comfortable in our daily lives and homes because of that contract; on the other, the contract requires us to behave in a manner that protects the lives and property and safety of others. Most fiction expresses that contract. Mysteries, for example, are devoted to solving a crime and restoring safety and good order, and bringing the criminal to justice. But a certain sort of gunman western throws that social contract to the wind, and mocks it. You can spot a story like that because of the lack of consequence. Killers walk away. The dead are nonentities, without kin or history.
I oppose censorship in all forms, and bridle at the thought of government at any level telling storytellers, and others, what may be published or displayed. My own preference is simply to boycott literature that mocks the social contract. I won't buy, or promote, books in which violence is without consequence. That holds for movies and television, too. Don't go. Don't watch. Don't read.
I turned down the chance to write such western gunman novels a year or two ago, even though the money was good. I'm not opposed to depicting violence, but if it is depicted, I want it to be fully consequential. The violence in a certain sort of gunman fiction is without consequence. Anonymous characters are gunned down; law and order avert their gaze.
We all live according to a social contract. On the one hand, we are safe and comfortable in our daily lives and homes because of that contract; on the other, the contract requires us to behave in a manner that protects the lives and property and safety of others. Most fiction expresses that contract. Mysteries, for example, are devoted to solving a crime and restoring safety and good order, and bringing the criminal to justice. But a certain sort of gunman western throws that social contract to the wind, and mocks it. You can spot a story like that because of the lack of consequence. Killers walk away. The dead are nonentities, without kin or history.
I oppose censorship in all forms, and bridle at the thought of government at any level telling storytellers, and others, what may be published or displayed. My own preference is simply to boycott literature that mocks the social contract. I won't buy, or promote, books in which violence is without consequence. That holds for movies and television, too. Don't go. Don't watch. Don't read.
July 22, 2012
What About Violent Westerns?
I have wondered for a long time just what effect the violent, high-body-count westerns that fill the mass market racks these days have on readers. Maybe this deeply tragic and desolating mass murder in Colorado will throw some light on that grim subject.
There are occasional crime novels that have high body counts and trivialize death. But they don't compare with the western novels of recent vintage that not only trivialize violent death, but celebrate it. The winner, the hero, the victor, is the one who kills the most characters the fastest and with the least inhibition. Unlike mysteries, in which the whole thrust of the story is to stop a criminal and his lethal ways, the contemporary western story celebrates the killer and elevates him.
It is noteworthy that in such stories, the victims are little more than names, and go unmourned, and lack kinfolk or wives or children who might grieve them. Thirty or forty people die in such stories, but the dead are barely named and scarcely portrayed as mortals. I've read western after western in which the focus is on killing, and not stopping the slaughter.
I think there is probably a direct or indirect connection between this sort of literature and some of the recent mass-murderers. Any western story that trivializes violent death, or celebrates it, can certainly be regarded as an incitement to the real-life crimes committed by unbalanced people who kill for the glory of it.
Whether or not the authors of such stories are accessories is not the point. They are contributors to these death rampages. They have celebrated these very things on the pages of western novels. They have stirred the imagination of readers.
I have to some extent become ashamed of a genre I loved deeply. There was a time when westerns were about achieving peace and justice and safety and protection of the weak; a time when the western hero's greatest asset was his character. All that vanished when the genre grew violent. We may well be seeing the consequences in Colorado.
There are occasional crime novels that have high body counts and trivialize death. But they don't compare with the western novels of recent vintage that not only trivialize violent death, but celebrate it. The winner, the hero, the victor, is the one who kills the most characters the fastest and with the least inhibition. Unlike mysteries, in which the whole thrust of the story is to stop a criminal and his lethal ways, the contemporary western story celebrates the killer and elevates him.
It is noteworthy that in such stories, the victims are little more than names, and go unmourned, and lack kinfolk or wives or children who might grieve them. Thirty or forty people die in such stories, but the dead are barely named and scarcely portrayed as mortals. I've read western after western in which the focus is on killing, and not stopping the slaughter.
I think there is probably a direct or indirect connection between this sort of literature and some of the recent mass-murderers. Any western story that trivializes violent death, or celebrates it, can certainly be regarded as an incitement to the real-life crimes committed by unbalanced people who kill for the glory of it.
Whether or not the authors of such stories are accessories is not the point. They are contributors to these death rampages. They have celebrated these very things on the pages of western novels. They have stirred the imagination of readers.
I have to some extent become ashamed of a genre I loved deeply. There was a time when westerns were about achieving peace and justice and safety and protection of the weak; a time when the western hero's greatest asset was his character. All that vanished when the genre grew violent. We may well be seeing the consequences in Colorado.
July 8, 2012
How Does It Look Later?
I am proofreading the mass market version of my novel about the Copper Kings of Butte, The Richest Hill on Earth. The pocket edition will be out in November.
These later editions give me the chance to look at my work a year or two later, and assess the quality with a fresh perspective. When I finish a novel I am too close to it to judge its merit or its potential.
This one is holding up well. As I read it now, it seems fresh and absorbing. It got splendid reviews, including a starred Kirkus review, and it made the Kirkus list of best historical fiction for 2011.
The front sales page of the mass market edition is richly embroidered with good review quotes, and of course that heartens me. It is probably my last big novel, and I am grateful to end my writing career on a high note.
These later editions give me the chance to look at my work a year or two later, and assess the quality with a fresh perspective. When I finish a novel I am too close to it to judge its merit or its potential.
This one is holding up well. As I read it now, it seems fresh and absorbing. It got splendid reviews, including a starred Kirkus review, and it made the Kirkus list of best historical fiction for 2011.
The front sales page of the mass market edition is richly embroidered with good review quotes, and of course that heartens me. It is probably my last big novel, and I am grateful to end my writing career on a high note.
July 6, 2012
Brilliant Biography
I've completed a majestic biography of Dwight Eisenhower by Jean Edward Smith, of Columbia University. The book, Eisenhower in War and Peace, is a marvel that makes good sense of conduct of the supreme allied commander in Europe during the war as well as his eight-year presidency. Ike was nominally Republican, but meet weekly with Senate leader Lyndon Johnson and House Speaker Sam Rayburn, and between them they created the post-war world. Ike hated war, and kept us at peace for his entire presidency. He swiftly ended the Korean War upon taking office, and kept us out of war the rest of his two terms. He is the only post-war president to avoid war. In his Farewell Address in 1961, he warned against the undue influence of the military-industrial complex, and his warning was prophetic. Today you could call it the Perpetual War Machine, and it owns both candidates. At any rate, this is a magnificent, instructive biography, and an exemplar of the heights that can be reached in that discipline.
May 12, 2012
A Fine First Novel
An old friend and colleague, Jeff Gibson, retired editor of The Montana Standard, has written a coming of age novel. But it is more. It is also a coming of old age novel, and the two stories are intertwined.
It's about three 1950s youths in Riverside, Montana (actually, Livingston) who head into the high country each summer for adventure. But rivalry for a sweet girl tears them apart. Two of these, now old men, try to revive the tradition, and discover that old age imperils them in the mountains, and barely escape with their lives.
This is a novel rich in insight, honesty, accurate portrayal of the way things were back then, and are now, and a rueful understanding of what getting old is really like. I know, because I'm there.
It's called Last Rites of Passage, and it's available on Kindle, or Amazon's CreateSpace. I am proud to own a copy.
It's about three 1950s youths in Riverside, Montana (actually, Livingston) who head into the high country each summer for adventure. But rivalry for a sweet girl tears them apart. Two of these, now old men, try to revive the tradition, and discover that old age imperils them in the mountains, and barely escape with their lives.
This is a novel rich in insight, honesty, accurate portrayal of the way things were back then, and are now, and a rueful understanding of what getting old is really like. I know, because I'm there.
It's called Last Rites of Passage, and it's available on Kindle, or Amazon's CreateSpace. I am proud to own a copy.
May 3, 2012
How To Spot a Bad Western
A few quick peeks at a western novel can often tell you whether it's worth reading. If the plot is resolved by bullets, it's going to be bad. If no one grieves for the dead, it'll be bad. If the gunman hero (usually a lawman) never wrestles with himself about all the killing he's done, it's going to be bad.
Western fiction, once the richest and most diverse of the genres, has largely sunk into gunfighter stories, with high body counts. you can protect yourself from these with a bit of caution at the book racks.
Western fiction, once the richest and most diverse of the genres, has largely sunk into gunfighter stories, with high body counts. you can protect yourself from these with a bit of caution at the book racks.
April 19, 2012
The Missing Pulitzer
Writing in the Washington Post, Professor Maureen Corrigan, one of the three jurors who selected the Pulitzer finalists, lamented the lack of a prize this year. She feels the fault lies in the system, in which the Pulitzer board has the final say instead of the highly qualified judges. She believes the decision should be made by experts in the field, not the inexpert board of directors.
She also said that nothing disqualified the entries. Too short? The Old Man and the Sea was 90 pages, and The Great Gatsby not much longer.
I am uneasy with all this, perhaps because I am a literary democrat, feeling deeply that literature should be accessible to all. John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, and to a lesser extent F. Scott Fitzgerald, were all committed to the idea that American fiction should be accessible to Everyman, and not the province of elitists.
I love fiction that is transparent, swiftly grasped, and can be enjoyed by anyone, wrought from words and ideas that run deep in the social fabric. I believe that such fiction can be even more elegant and gracious than the sort of literary fiction much favored by academics, which is not accessible and requires a lot of schooling to appreciate.
I rejoice in a fiction that is open to all, and for that reason I am uneasy with Professor Corrigan's wish to leave it to the experts to decide what is good literature.
She also said that nothing disqualified the entries. Too short? The Old Man and the Sea was 90 pages, and The Great Gatsby not much longer.
I am uneasy with all this, perhaps because I am a literary democrat, feeling deeply that literature should be accessible to all. John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, and to a lesser extent F. Scott Fitzgerald, were all committed to the idea that American fiction should be accessible to Everyman, and not the province of elitists.
I love fiction that is transparent, swiftly grasped, and can be enjoyed by anyone, wrought from words and ideas that run deep in the social fabric. I believe that such fiction can be even more elegant and gracious than the sort of literary fiction much favored by academics, which is not accessible and requires a lot of schooling to appreciate.
I rejoice in a fiction that is open to all, and for that reason I am uneasy with Professor Corrigan's wish to leave it to the experts to decide what is good literature.
April 13, 2012
An Engaging Eve
Last evening I listened to the most engaging reading I've ever attended. Gatz Hjortsberg read from his new biography of Richard Brautigan to an overflow crowd at Livingston's Blue Slipper theater.
Brautigan lived here before he killed himself in 1984 at the peak of his literary fame. Hjortsberg's biography, a massive book titled Jubilee Hitchhiker, is rife with anecdote, some of it comic.
The biography, which got a starred review from Booklist, will surely become the standard work on the California poet and author.
I escorted an actress who remembered Brautigan well and told me that he was softer and gentler with women than he was with men, so that each gender has a different impression of him.
Brautigan lived here before he killed himself in 1984 at the peak of his literary fame. Hjortsberg's biography, a massive book titled Jubilee Hitchhiker, is rife with anecdote, some of it comic.
The biography, which got a starred review from Booklist, will surely become the standard work on the California poet and author.
I escorted an actress who remembered Brautigan well and told me that he was softer and gentler with women than he was with men, so that each gender has a different impression of him.
