M.J. Johnson's Blog, page 4

Little Tales

This week I’ve been reading Little Tales of Misogyny by Patricia Highsmith, a collection of vignettes, about the type of person it’s easy to dislike. These little fables, often very brief, take on a different character study e.g. The Victim, The Evangelist, The Mobile Bed-Object, The Prude, The Middle-Class Housewife etc. and each in turn is subjected to Highsmith’s unique, acerbic and archly wicked eye. A lot has been written about Highsmith’s misanthropic nature, even her friends seem to have found her difficult and spiky a lot of the time, but I couldn’t honestly comment on whether these tales in any way reflect her own (reputed) hatred of her own sex; personally, I think Highsmith is simply having a lot of fun with this collection. The tales almost invariably end badly, are often a little bit sneaky, unkind, unpleasant or downright nasty - they are also (at all times), hugely entertaining and great fun. I suspect Highsmith wrote these stories, as the title itself suggests to me, with her tongue very firmly fixed on the inside of her cheek. I read them, as I believe they were written - to be enjoyed. And so I did.

Next week, starting tomorrow, I am very pleased to say it’s Buddy Reading time again! It’s an untitled, non-exclusive club that is open to anyone. We read no more than two books a year together, which makes the exercise a pleasure rather than a pain. No genre is excluded, and so far the only plan appears to be taking on a book one of us suggests that hasn’t been read by anyone else. This time we are reading an Australian classic, The Harp in the South by Ruth Park. It’s the second book in a trilogy of the same title, however, it was the book she actually wrote first. Park completed the first part of the trilogy, Missus, almost forty years later. Some of us have taken the time to read Missus first and others, like myself, plan to read the books in the order they were written. I am really looking forward to discovering a writer (slightly ashamed to admit this) that I had previously never heard of; in fact, it’s my intention to rectify my woefully poor knowledge of Antipodean writers.

Pick up a copy of Harp in the South, send me a message and when you’ve completed the book leave any comments you have either on Amazon or Goodreads or on your blog (if you have one) and send us the link, or, better still, join us on Twitter - myself and the other Buddy Readers will very much enjoy hearing your views. Believe me, it’s a surprisingly painless way of finding good reading.

Careless Talk ...

As mentioned before (see How I came to Traditional English Folk via Abba) it can be a dangerous thing to voice a preference in my house. This Christmas I received a pile of Patricia Highsmith books - I read her Ripley stories last year as well as her classic first novel, the psychological thriller Strangers on a Train. All it  would have required from me were the words “I really like ...” and Judith would have ear-marked them for her pressie drawer. Fortunately for me, I probably completed the above sentence with words along the lines of “(I really like) and admire the way Patricia Highsmith writes,” rather than “(I really like) the artwork - it’s the best thing about her books!” So, lots of great reading for me to look forward to in 2016. I already own a (tragically small) cache of the Charles Portis titles I haven’t read yet - I eke my Portis out because he’s a favourite writer, and as a novelist he hasn’t been very prolific (although he may still surprise us, of course!) - maybe I’ll pick up one of the new ones and re-read an old favourite this year. Yippee!

A funny thing happened this Christmas - the first time in all the Christmasses Judith and I have spent together : we gave each other the same present. It was a DVD of The Seventh Cross (1944) starring Spencer Tracy. It’s a bit difficult to get a copy of it in the UK, and I’d always wanted to see it again having caught it only once on the TV as a boy in Wales. It’s set in pre World War Two Germany, with the Nazis in power, where an atmosphere of fear exists. It’s easy to understand why we thought to give each other this film, as we did a Christmas market trip in mid-December to Dortmund in Germany, where we visited a former Gestapo prison, now a museum which bears testimony to those who opposed the Nazis and their despicable ideology. The film tells this story too, and is perhaps an unusual example of a wartime propaganda movie because many of the Germans are portrayed sympathetically and not simply as stereotypical bad guys. For my money, Spencer Tracy is always worth watching. The museum in Dortmund was excellent and my wife Judith has written a very interesting piece about it on her own blog, take a look Winterreise to Dortmund .

So, here we are, the Christmas/New Year shenanigans are behind us once again and most of us have, I expect, settled back into daily life. I’m back writing, working on the last chapters (second draft) of the follow-on book to Niedermayer & Hart . One nice thing about writing a second draft, in contrast to a first, is the certainty that you actually do have a book.

Pip Pip!

Happy 2016!

I stopped making New Year resolutions many years ago.  I admit that I’ve had a number of bad habits in the past that were regularly marked down, destined to become ‘has beens’ in the forthcoming New Year - sometimes my iron resolve lasted days, weeks even, but generally I was lucky if I made it til midday on 1st Jan. So much for those determined declarations of intent!

On reflection, my most destructive habits (e.g. smoking) are now happily consigned to the past.  Even so, I still cautiously avoid getting physically too close while anyone’s actively smoking and even find myself holding my breath as I walk past them. I would hate to become ‘hooked’ again and know full well that it would only require me to listen to the delusion that ‘one little cigarette would do me no harm’ to be led astray. I always feel sad to see young people smoking, but understand that they wouldn’t appreciate me pointing out the dangers of smoking to them.

So, no specific New Year resolutions. However, I do have a number of wishes I’d love to see come to fruition:

I’d like to live in a more equal society where the gap between the richest and the poorest people in my own country and on this planet is dramatically reduced. I don’t think the answer to this is quite as simple as just taking all their money off the rich - a truly fair and just world requires all of us to play a part.

I’d like to see some genuine consensus between our leaders on environmental issues. So far we’ve only witnessed lip-service and a good deal of hot air - we live together on one planet, and it behoves us all to take more care of it. Our politicians are all too often vain, complacent and slippery and must be held to account, which demands more effort from individuals like you and me - politicians will only pay attention if we make them listen.

I’d like to live in a world where peace prevails and where differences are aired around a table. Most human conflict ultimately concludes in this way, so what a shame we find the inevitable solution so unthinkable at the beginning. The cost of intransigence is invariably great suffering and too often means the loss of many innocent lives. I’d dearly love to see the world’s arms dealers go out of business. Harry Patch (1898 - 2009), last surviving British soldier who fought in World War One, put it very powerfully when he asked: “Why did we fight? The peace was settled round a table, so why the hell couldn’t they do that at the start, without losing millions of men?”

Unless every human being on this planet has a profound change of heart, it’s hard to imagine these wishes coming true in 2016, in my lifetime, or even within the lifetime of my beautiful new grand-daughter - or even that of her own grand-daughter. Yet, these remain my wishes for this and for every New Year.

And I do truly believe that change begins with me.

In 1987 my wife and I moved out of London to a village in Sussex. I told the man who owned our little grocery store that the reason we didn’t buy his eggs was because they weren’t free-range. The following week he got some in for a try-out. Guess what? His egg sales actually increased. Thirty years on it’s hard to imagine a time when free-range eggs were not widely available. Likewise, when Mrs Thatcher refused to impose sanctions upon the South African Government and its loathsome apartheid system, thousands and thousands of people in Britain and Ireland boycotted South African products e.g. fruit. I believe this action on the part of many individuals made a real difference; justice finally prevailed, Nelson Mandela was released from prison and the rest is history. One young woman in Ireland and her union colleagues spent two and a half years on strike pay after refusing to sell Outspan grapefruit at her checkout.

Like I said, I believe change begins with me. The American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead put it like this: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Let’s all do our best to make it a healthy, peaceful and happy 2016 for all!

Links:
Irish anti-apartheid movement:
http://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/an-boks-amach-the-irish-anti-apartheid-movement/

Wrong Twice!

I listen to my wife’s advice on what to read for the following reasons:

1. Because after thirty odd years, she knows my taste.

2. She’s very well read herself (far better than I am - but don’t tell her I admitted it!).

However, advice and gentle suggestion are very different to being ‘told’ you have to read a certain title and are even issued with a timetable for completing the task. The ultimatum stated .... “Read it by 1 December or else I’ll start without you!”

Yes - not just bossy behaviour but behaviour that goes way beyond bossy!

I dug my heels in as you’d expect, and met her insistence and righteous fervour with sarcasm and the odd withering glance (mostly I withered when she wasn’t looking). But eventually, gentle reader, her eyebrow arched just one too many times, and my resistance collapsed.

Booohoohoo! (sound made by weeping man).

The book I was forced into reading, you’ll need to know?

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying: a simple, effective way to banish clutter forever by Marie Kondo

Did I enjoy reading this book?

Nooo!

Do I think the author is a nut?

Yes.

Was it worth reading?

(Grudgingly) Yes.

Booohoohoo! (same sound of man weeping again).

Yes, this book was definitely worth reading. We were deluged beneath an ocean of clutter that had been acquired over decades. The simple points Marie Kondo makes, and her practical tips about getting rid of accumulated clutter, were definitely a new and useful approach for tackling this very real problem of having too much stuff!

And I should know about too much stuff - having had the unenviable task of reducing my late mother’s belongings shortly before she went into sheltered accommodation and a greatly reduced living space. I counted over twenty car journeys I made to the municipal tip/recycling centre, and approximately the same number to local charity shops. Mam hadn’t been able to throw out anything over her whole lifetime - hanging in a wardrobe were all my father’s clothes, despite him having passed away seventeen years before. It filled me with great sadness, and there were real tears shed at times; I vowed I wouldn’t leave such a legacy for my own son to have to deal with.

If you seriously would like to get rid of the clutter that surrounds you and lighten-up your life - then read this book! Fortunately, the book’s title covers a considerable percentage of the entire reading matter if you’re tackling it on Kindle - so, mercifully, not too much more to go!

Would I recommend this book as a practical aid to de-cluttering?

Yes, definitely.

Would I recommend this book as good reading?

Sorry, I must’ve dropped off, what was the question again?

 
However, I did read something over the same period that satisfied all criteria. From First to Last by Damon Runyon is a truly fantastic read . This is a companion volume to On Broadway by Damon Runyon and between the two they contain (I understand) just about all his stories. They are truly delightful, literally from first to last! The language, dialogue and cast of quirky characters are richly comic and unique.

We have had these books on our shelves since the late 70s and Jude had encouraged me time and time again to read them. I resisted, mainly because I told myself I didn’t like short stories much.
I don’t think I had a closed mind. It must simply be because short-story writing has improved.

Okay, I was wrong again!

Catalogue of Dreams!

​As a boy, I remember a favourite pastime of mine was browsing the pages of toys in my mother’s mail-order catalogue. When I was a little older I may have sneaked a peek at the ladies lingerie section (undoubtedly at the behest of naughty, bigger boys who’d befriended me and wished to deflect me from my naturally saintly inclinations!).

I remember my son Tom had a great penchant for the Argos catalogue and remember him as a little lad sitting up in bed happily surveying all the stuff he would like to have possessed whilst listening to the Mozart Horn Concerto that he invariably had on the cassette player at bedtime. He would have been lucky if he ever acquired a tiny percentage of those things he fancied, as we were pretty broke when he was small. But I recall the wise words of Bertrand Russell who said, “To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”  Tom was always a happy contented child who easily accepted what he could or could not have, and let’s face it, sometimes a thing is far more enigmatic and satisfying in our imaginations than it is in reality. I recall getting a wonderful pedal car for Christmas when I was four - subsequently took a bend too sharply in Aberdare Park on its test drive, landed on my head - and never went near that car again! However, I played happily with the giant box it came in until it fell to bits and recall shedding a tear when it was put out for the rubbish men.

Finally, gentle reader, I come to the confession part of this post ! Brace yourselves!

On Saturday last, my wife caught me browsing the Tool Station catalogue before breakfast. It seems where I was once mesmerised by the Marineville Control Centre from Stingray, or ached to own a Thunderbird Two, I now find myself drooling over the Makita RP1801X Plunge Router or Milwaukee M12BDDXKIT - 202C 4-in-1 Drill Driver.

Maybe I should disguise this Aladdin’s cave of secret desires  in a brown paper wrapping, or better still, conceal it under another cover, perhaps one torn from a great work by Marcel Proust, or the collected poems of Ezra Pound, perhaps?
​
Happy browsing!

Halloween Again!

The clocks went back last weekend, so it’s light when we wake up and gets dark sooner in the evenings. The shops have been jam-packed with the paraphernalia of Halloween for weeks. This still seems quite an odd phenomenon to people of my generation, as it wasn’t a very celebrated festival when we were kids and the ‘trick or treat’ element, imported from the US, took at least a decade after my own childhood before establishing itself as a cultural event in Britain.
​
Judith and I just returned from a few days’ holiday in Wales. We had a grand time, visiting old friends and interesting places.  Last Sunday morning we could be found walking across the cliffs at Ogmore, where during my teenage years back in the early Seventies I spent many happy weeks at the school camp there.  I could find no trace of it and wonder if the site itself is no longer? A large amount of house-building has gone on there since I was a boy and although the coastline is unassailably spectacular it has lost something of its wildness due to this. Still beautiful though, and I was delighted to be introducing Judith to a section of coastline we’d somehow missed during our many dozens of return trips home.

The evening before, we’d visited Rest Bay in Porthcawl, just six or seven miles around the coast. We sat on the bench I always associate with my parents. It was their favourite spot and its not hard to see why! Judith and I sat in silence and thought of them for a while, all the happy ‘jaunts’ we’d been on with them to that very spot. Very soon it will be three years since Mam passed away and inevitably, as with the death of any loved one, I find my mind at this time of year filled with memories, some happy, some melancholic.

Appropriately for Halloween:

I recall visiting my parents back in the eighties. I think on this occasion I had come alone, and I remember HTV, the Welsh commercial television network, was showing the TV movie of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot over two consecutive evenings, late night. Dad was a man who liked to get to his bed before midnight, but Mam was a night-owl like me and loved a good drama. Because Salem’s Lot was made for television and consequently (1979) wouldn’t have been able to rely on gore and violence to tell its story, it concentrated on the building-up of suspense and atmosphere to communicate the tale’s horror. The excellent vampire make-up design for Mr Barlow, based on Count Orlok from the great silent classic Nosferatu, and completely going against the more urbane vision of evil that King gives us in the novel, works marvellously. Tobe Hooper, who directed the TV mini-series, keeps ratcheting up the tension and allows us only the briefest glimpse of Mr Barlow in the first episode. A great deal of the work of chilling the audience is handled with great aplomb by the superbly cast James Mason in the role of Mr B’s acolyte, Straker. Mason presents us with a truly unsettling vision of evil, allowing us to get just a whiff of the man’s viciousness and depravity masked beneath a wafer-thin veneer of sophistication. He was a fabulous actor, and Salem’s Lot is worth watching for his subtle but very scary performance alone. Yes, the series probably looks a little dated today, but no CGI here, just a good script, excellent direction and a competent cast. A horror classic in my view, and I’m sorry to have to admit (apologies to any die-hard Stepen King fans reading) considerably scarier than the novel!

Anyway, Mam and I stayed up late and watched both episodes. I’m immune to horror movies (I believe that this may be because as a teenager I was scratched by a radioactive reel of Hammer Horror film!) but I remember my mother saying to me over breakfast the following morning after we’d watched the even more unsettling second part, “I had to give myself a good talking-to after watching that film with you last night ... that Mr Barlow was horrible, wasn’t he? When I got into bed, Dad was asleep, it was windy outside, the curtains were blowing around ... my imagination got going. I had to tell myself, ‘Don’t be so soft, Mair, it was only a film’ ... it was really good though, wasn’t it Mart?”

Happy Halloween.

Buddy Reading 'Norwood' by Charles Portis

Me and some Twitter chums have been ‘buddy reading’ Norwood by Charles Portis. I am proud owner of all the Charles Portis books I am aware of - not that this amounts to a huge number. Norwood is the third of his titles that I’ve read, although it was the first book he actually wrote. His most famous book is almost certainly True Grit, which has spawned two films. Neither movie is half as good as the novel, although the John Wayne version captures the book’s spirit best, I think.

Now that I’ve read Norwood, and having previously devoured The Dog of the South and True Grit, by my reckoning I only have Gringos, Masters of Atlantis and Escape Velocity (a miscellany of Portis’ non-fiction, short stories and a drama - compiled and edited by Jay Jennings) left to go! Yikes! I am eking them out, because although each of his books is infinitely re-readable, there is nothing quite like discovering a gleaming new gem for the first time.

What can I say about Norwood? I simply adored it. Portis writes the most uncluttered prose imaginable and employs a deceptively simple style, yet he has the eye of a poet. The writing flows with such ease it can sometime deceive the reader into thinking that the author doesn’t seem to be working very hard at all. Simple stream of consciousness stuff you may think - think again! Portis’ use of language is masterly, the characterisations are wonderful and the dialogues his cast enter into, sublime. It strikes me as verging on the criminal that Norwood was actually out of print for a while. Hurumph!

I suspect that Charles Portis is underrated because his instinct as a writer is always to make us smile, and it seems to be the way that the literati only truly respect and value a writer if by the end of their novels the main characters are either dead, dying, or so utterly devastated by their experiences that we understand they’ll never manage to smile again. Portis is a dead loss when it comes to dishing-up pain and angst; he only ever seems to want to nudge his characters along with gentle nurturing. He can however paint a picture with a very few words: “Vernell was Norwood’s sister. She was a heavy, sleepy girl with bad posture.”

I’m not going to give a blow by blow account of what happens in Norwood, how it starts and ends in Ralph, Texas and all the humorous stuff that happens in between - it’s a slim read, find out for yourself. For my money this is a superbly-crafted book and deserves its place on my favourites shelf. I feel a lightening of the heart and a turning-up at the corners of my lips just thinking about Norwood Pratt. I will most certainly be re-reading this again very soon.

The blurb on the back of my copy tells the tale of a Portis fan who hesitated over proposing to the woman he loved and hoped to marry until she had read and pronounced her verdict on Norwood. I’m very pleased to say that Judith, who was ‘buddy reading’ it at the same time as me, was heard chuckling along most agreeably - divorce proceedings may not be imminent! 

Holiday Reading!

Where did you get that hat, where did you get that hat? There have been times in my life when I didn’t read very much, when our son was small for example, or when I was busy on some project that didn’t allow much room for books; however, there has never been a time when I wasn’t reading something, albeit at a snail’s pace. I’m omnivorous in my literary appetite and truly appreciate a varied diet; a heavy main course will generally find me opting for something lighter to follow, although I never partake of ‘fast food’.

We have just returned from two weeks’ walking in the Austrian Tyrol. Most days offered about an hour or two’s reading time before dinner plus however much could be squeezed in at the day’s end before the eyelids finally came down (I regularly wake up with a book open before me and my bedside light still on, and sometimes am urged to redress this state of affairs by stern words or a sharp prod in the ribs from ‘She who must be obeyed’).

I love holiday reading because there is generally far more time for this shared favourite pastime and the books are always chosen most carefully. This year I took with me Excursion to Tindari by Andrea Camilleri, The Wolf and the Buffalo by Elmer Kelton and The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (on Kindle). I did avail myself too of a couple of books from the hotel’s own bookshelves by writers who had great reviews and interesting blurb, but after giving them a try and finding myself up to my neck in ad(verb) nauseam, they were subsequently abandoned.

I read Andrea Camilleri’s Excursion to Tindari first and thoroughly enjoyed it. I discovered that it was actually the fifth in the Inspector Montalbano series, but to be honest, although I intend to read the books in order from now on, I don’t think it made a whole lot of difference to either my understanding or appreciation. Whilst ostensibly part of a police procedural series, it boasts a richly comic cast of regular characters. The writing is very witty and manages to conjure up before the reader the sights, smells, tastes and quirkiness of Sicilian life. The plot, obviously an essential part of any crime thriller, was satisfying too and wasn’t sacrificed for the sake of the book’s humorous tendencies. I chuckled a lot as I read this and if you’re in the market for a police thriller series, light but well-written, I can highly recommend it.

I came across The Wolf and the Buffalo by Elmer Kelton in The Giant Book of the Western which is an anthology of Western stories compiled by Jon E Lewis. In the collection it was renamed Desert Command and relates just one episode from the novel. It certainly whet my appetite, and I subsequently received a copy of The Wolf and the Buffalo for my birthday. I believe the book is out of print but Judith managed to find a secondhand copy from the US. The book is set in the years following the American Civil War and tells the story of ex-slave, Gideon Ledbetter, who together with his friend Jimbo, suddenly discovering themselves homeless and jobless, join the US Cavalry and are sent to serve in a black regiment (Buffalo Soldiers) at a frontier fort. As men born into slavery and who have known nothing other than obedience and servitude they find clear decision-making very hard indeed. Kelton manages to communicate this dilemma to the reader very well; he shows us too that ‘freedom’ didn’t mean equality or an end to racism.

The book also tells the story of Gray Horse, a Comanche warrior who is determined to drive the white settlers from the lands of his ancestors and believes that they will be destroyed and their wanton destruction of the seemingly limitless herds of buffalo will be restored once the spirits of his people are appeased. Kelton manages to portray the Comanche as they truly were without ever imposing upon them any kind of New Age soppiness. So much of their culture seems brutal to a modern reader, yet I was deeply touched by their loyalty and compassion to members of their tribe. Elmer Kelton is obviously very knowledgeable and skilfully gives us an insight into their thought processes. We know all too well the tragedies that befell the Plains Indians - the (probably) inevitable outcome when a stone-age culture is overwhelmed and all but swept away by the determination of post-Industrial Revolution settlers. This book makes good reading and I can highly recommend it.

I am still only about a quarter way through The Moonstone, so more about this later perhaps. I need to hurry up though, as on 1 September I’m ‘buddy reading’ Norwood by Charles Portis with some chums I’ve met through Twitter. Anyone is welcome to join us by the way - just pick up a copy and start reading on 1 September, then post a review somewhere and let me (us) know where to find it. It’s fun.

Finally, I’ve extended the offer on my own books until the end of August. This means that Niedermayer & Hart and Roadrage are still available at half price when you add the following coupon code at the Smashwords checkout.

Niedermayer & Hart - LZ65A

Roadrage - UE79V

Happy reading time!


P.S. if you want to read reviews for both books take a look on Goodreads

Guilt Ridden Angst!

Forbidden Fruit (testing lacto/gluten intolerance) I feel a touch guilty and need to make a confession ...

Oh-oh! What terrible crime or dreadful indiscretion has he committed, you’re probably asking yourself? Your imagination takes flight: you think of shoplifting, credit card theft, adultery ... murder ... steady on! Perhaps he’s about to confess to some minor but embarrassing compulsion - maybe he’s been posting pictures of himself on the internet dressed up as a nun or a Klingon perhaps?

Truthful confession: I haven’t written a new blog for several weeks!

“Flippin’ ’eck!” I hear you cry, “We were hoping for something a bit tasty!”

Sorry about that.

But you know, it’s a funny old business, this guilt thing. I seem to have always had it - felt a little bit guilty about one thing or another.

Anyone else feel like that?

Do you remember when you were at primary school and the headmaster was mad because someone had cracked a sink in the boys’ washroom, or written a bad word on a wall or left a poo in a teacher’s desk or something (I just made that one up!). His face was red and angry and he had a way of standing before you and making one eye bigger than the other and of eyeballing every single child in the hall - it was like having a spotlight shining in your face. When it was your turn to get the blast from ‘the eye of Sauron’ even though you were totally innocent, you felt almost compelled to confess - perhaps it really was you, you’d done it and forgotten - maybe it was done in a fit of temporary madness, a sugar-high perhaps after one too many Wagon-Wheels at break-time, or too much milk?

Pretty crazy huh? But I’ve always felt a bit like that. I can easily feel guilty about stuff I didn’t even do! I blame my Welsh Congregationalist upbringing - but then, my wife enjoyed a more secular upbringing in Kent and she’s pretty much the same. I bet we’re not alone either.

Anyway, I feel guilty about not having written a blog for a few weeks. I love my blog, I really do,  and I haven’t forsaken it; it is simply that I’m working flat out on my new book. Plus I generally take a bit of a break over the summer - a blog holiday if you will!

I have been busy in other ways though: both my books are now available once again at Smashwords. They can also be purchased via Barnes and Noble and i-tunes. I hope this will introduce the titles to a wider audience. You can see a selection of what people have said about the books on the review pages of this website or check out the reviews and ratings on Goodreads.

And to celebrate my return to Smashwords I thought I’d be very summerly (? is that a word?) and offer the titles with a fifty percent discount for the next two weeks for your holiday delight! All you need to do is choose either book, or both, go to the Smashwords checkout and put in the following codes:

Niedermayer & Hart - 50% discount code - LZ65A

Roadrage - 50% discount code - UE79V

Enjoy! Happy August reading!

Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Smashwords
Barnes and Noble
i-tunes
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Smashwords
Barnes and Noble
i-tunes

Great Westerns

I've always had eclectic tastes when it comes to what I'm reading; but as long as it's well written I'll probably read it. The only stuff I can't bring myself to endure is romance, erotica and badly written cr*p. I have, as discussed elsewhere on my blog, a fifty pages rule. However, I never rate or review a book unless I've read the whole thing (no skimming allowed!). I love prose that engages me and flows with a simplicity and elegance. Steinbeck's Cannery Row is a masterclass in this, I think; and I was ecstatic when I read The Dog of the South by Charles Portis last year - Portis is so good! His prose runs along in a stream-of consciousness style which makes him look like he's not doing very much, and you can easily overlook his consummate skill as a writer, probably the reason why he's so woefully underrated. I suppose, truth be told, I read slightly more contemporary American fiction writers than I do their British counterparts, although I remain a lifelong fan of our indigenous nineteenth-century and early twentieth- century authors.

The wife is, as I've often mentioned, a really good book finder. She passed on The Giant Book of The Western to me to read, and boy, did I enjoy it!  It's a collection of twenty-seven short stories written by many of the names I recall seeing as a boy in the cheap reading editions often seen on newspaper stands at railway stations and newsagent shops. These writers cut their teeth selling stories to the American pulp magazines that proliferated from the 1920s through to the 1960s. They only sold their stories if people bought the magazines, so they had to work fast and learn to do what they did well - if they wanted to make a living that is! A huge number of the most illustrious names in twentieth century American literature seem to have started their careers this way. It's a fact that if you want to improve at any craft the secret is doing (no secret).

It goes without saying that I liked some of the stories more than others. My wife had put a tick by her favourites and it was fun seeing where our tastes coincided. We weren't unanimous by any means in the stories each of us liked the best - although we were in agreement about fifty percent of the time. I particularly liked the way Jon E Lewis, who edited this anthology, introduces each story with a brief biography of its author. I sincerely hope to meet a great many of these again. Here is my personal list of favourites:

On the Divide by Willa Cather

All Gold Canyon by Jack London

The Last Thunder Song by John G Neihardt

Wine on the Desert by Max Brand

At the Sign of the Last Chance by Owen Wister

Great Medicine by Steve Frazee

The Tall T by Elmore Leonard

Blood on the Sun by Thomas Thompson

Soldier Blue by T V Olsen (an excerpt from his novel Arrow in the Sun)

Beecher Island by Wayne D Overholser

Desert Command by Elmer Kelton (an excerpt from his novel The Wolf and the Buffalo)

The Bandit by Loren D Estleman

I liked all the stories, the ones I've listed above in all probability simply appealed or spoke most at the time of reading to either my mood or taste. lf I had to pick one story out of the entire collection, I'd name On the Divide by Willa Cather. It stood out for me as one of the best short stories I think I've ever read. I shall definitely be looking out for her Western novels O Pioneers! (1913), My Antonia (1918), The Lost Lady (1925), and her collected short stories Obscure Destinies (1932).

This is a lovely collection and I can highly recommend it.