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The U. P. Trail
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First published April 23, 1918
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About the author
Zane Grey
2,104 books592 followersPearl Zane Grey was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the rugged Old West. As of June 2007, the Internet Movie Database credits Grey with 110 films, one TV episode, and a series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater based loosely on his novels and short stories.
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May 13, 2022
"U.P." in this title stands for "Union Pacific," i.e., the Union Pacific Railroad. At the beginning of the 1860s, railroad connections in the U.S. ran no farther west than Council Bluffs, Iowa, just across the Nebraska state line from Omaha. Between that point and the new state of California stretched a vast expanse of mostly unsettled, not very hospitable wilderness --largely treeless prairie, arid desert and extremely rugged mountains. Crossing it was dangerous and time-consuming (and going around it by sea not much less dangerous, and a lot more time-consuming). The Union Pacific Railroad, building westward from Omaha, was one of three companies (the others were the Western Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads, building eastward from the Pacific at Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco), working in a public-private partnership, that laid down a 1,911-mile-long stretch of railroad track finally spanning the continent, a major feat of engineering and a landmark in American history, completed in less than a decade. (Some work began as early as 1863, but it really started in earnest with the end of the Civil War in 1865 and was completed in 1869.) The route crossed the present states of Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_t... .)
British novelist and poet Rudyard Kipling traveled the length of this railroad in 1892, less than a quarter-century later. Greatly impressed by the recent history behind this experience, he would write, in part, "When I think how the railroad has been pushed through this unwatered wilderness and haunt of savage tribes ...it seems to me as if this railway were the one typical achievement of the age in which we live, as if it brought together into one plot all the ends of the world and all the degrees of social rank, and offered to some great writer the busiest, the most extended, and the most varied subject for an enduring literary work. If it be romance, if it be contrast, if it be heroism that we require, what was Troy to this?" That quote, which appears in its entirety as the epigraph of this novel, made a big impression on Zane Grey (1872-1939). While he didn't create what became the Western genre, he was one of its foremost literary lights in the early 1900s. In 1918, he took it on himself to accept Kipling's implied challenge. He had already written some 17 novels, one of which, Riders of the Purple Sage, is his best remembered today; but in his own estimation, as he wrote in the Dedication here, The U.P. Trail was the book "for which I have written all the others."
Set mainly in Wyoming, but with side trips to Nebraska and Utah (and even a short one to Washington, D.C.), this tale begins in the late spring of 1865, and continues into the summer of 1869. The first two chapters are simply physical description, and very short (three pages in total). With the third chapter, we meet our young heroine, Allie (b. 1850). She and her mother are fleeing from the Spanish-born gambler Durade (whom Allie believes is her father), traveling from California eastward in a small wagon train. When mountain man Al Slingerland warns the travelers that they're in the path of a Sioux war party, and promises to ride in search of help from the cavalry troopers escorting the railroad surveyors in the area, he offers to take the girl to safety with him, but she chooses to stay with her mother. We soon learn that Allie is actually the daughter of her mother's real husband, a wealthy Eastern man named Alison Lee. The marriage wasn't a happy one, and Allie's mom ran off with Durade. But the bloom has been off that lily for years, and Durade has been using his concubine's good looks to draw unwary marks into his gambling den to be fleeced for most of that time. She bolted when he wanted to do the same with Allie --and the older woman is pretty sure he's on their trail, with revenge on his mind. In the next chapter, we meet idealistic young engineer Warren Neale, who's captivated by the idea of the railroad and its promise of progress, and his best friend Larry "Red" King, Texas-born but recently run out of the Lone Star state because of his gunslinging proclivities. Where Grey takes these characters will form the warp and woof of our plot here.
I had an encounter with this book as a pre-teen kid, and listed it on my Goodreads shelves for years as "read" on that account. But in this first-ever actual cover-to-cover reading, I soon realized that back in the 60s, I'd only read bits and pieces of the book, skimming it (and had misunderstood and mis-remembered some significant parts of it!), and that my 12-year-old self didn't have enough maturity to fully appreciate it. Ironically, it was one of the books that convinced me as a child that I didn't like Westerns; and I still think a lot of cookie-cutter Westerns are churned out by genre hacks without delivering much quality. But I've come to realize that Louis L'Amour, Les Savage Jr. and some other writers aren't hacks or anything resembling it; and Zane Grey is their peer.
This book provides a strong, eventful storyline, with such plot elements as Indian warfare, gun fights, crooked gambling, buried treasure, physical challenges, and dishonest chicanery in high places. Events are not at all predictable (and the readers won't like a lot of the surprises!). Grey is serious in the way he develops his characters, and pays believable attention to their interior life, depicting psychological reactions which, though they're often to situations of exceptional inner and outer stress, come across to me as realistic and understandable. His basic style is Romantic; the appeal to the reader's emotions here is consistent, deliberate, and very effective. (That's very much up my alley.) The diction here is stately, reminiscent of 19th-century Romantic novels, highly descriptive and evocative of the physical surroundings (both beautiful and sordid), often lyrical, sometimes grandiloquent, and at the end elegiac. Unlike some Western authors, Grey doesn't glorify violence (while recognizing its necessity at times). He bases his depiction of the period on the actual first-hand accounts of his old friend and Western guide, Al Doyle.
At times, the tone of the book can come close to triumphalism, with the idea that the building of the railroad is a great act of Progress. Certainly, Grey views it as an adventure epic in scope. But he balances this with a recognition that it's built on land stolen from the Indians in cynical violation of treaties, that it was accompanied by graft on a monumental scale, that the towns that arose along the route were dens of vice for the exploitation of the toilers, and that it marks the beginning of the "gutting" of the West's natural beauty and resources to gratify the "greed" (the terminology is Grey's) of the encroaching white civilization. Not all readers will appreciate his prose; although she's a great fan of Westerns, my wife dislikes his work because he often writes the speech of characters in dialect, a feature he shares with regional Realist writers of his day. The book is marred in a few places by ethnic slurs, including the n-word. Neale is a flawed hero, though I considered that realistic, and could forgive the flaws. We also have here a romance between a male in his 20s and a teen female, which may be a deal-breaker for some readers. But the romance is chaste and honorable; and it's important to recognize that 19th-century teens were significantly more mature and marriage-ready than their early 21st-century counterparts generally are.
All in all, I found the book's strengths to greatly outweigh any of its weaknesses. While I began reading it with very low expectations, I finished it very pleasantly surprised!
British novelist and poet Rudyard Kipling traveled the length of this railroad in 1892, less than a quarter-century later. Greatly impressed by the recent history behind this experience, he would write, in part, "When I think how the railroad has been pushed through this unwatered wilderness and haunt of savage tribes ...it seems to me as if this railway were the one typical achievement of the age in which we live, as if it brought together into one plot all the ends of the world and all the degrees of social rank, and offered to some great writer the busiest, the most extended, and the most varied subject for an enduring literary work. If it be romance, if it be contrast, if it be heroism that we require, what was Troy to this?" That quote, which appears in its entirety as the epigraph of this novel, made a big impression on Zane Grey (1872-1939). While he didn't create what became the Western genre, he was one of its foremost literary lights in the early 1900s. In 1918, he took it on himself to accept Kipling's implied challenge. He had already written some 17 novels, one of which, Riders of the Purple Sage, is his best remembered today; but in his own estimation, as he wrote in the Dedication here, The U.P. Trail was the book "for which I have written all the others."
Set mainly in Wyoming, but with side trips to Nebraska and Utah (and even a short one to Washington, D.C.), this tale begins in the late spring of 1865, and continues into the summer of 1869. The first two chapters are simply physical description, and very short (three pages in total). With the third chapter, we meet our young heroine, Allie (b. 1850). She and her mother are fleeing from the Spanish-born gambler Durade (whom Allie believes is her father), traveling from California eastward in a small wagon train. When mountain man Al Slingerland warns the travelers that they're in the path of a Sioux war party, and promises to ride in search of help from the cavalry troopers escorting the railroad surveyors in the area, he offers to take the girl to safety with him, but she chooses to stay with her mother. We soon learn that Allie is actually the daughter of her mother's real husband, a wealthy Eastern man named Alison Lee. The marriage wasn't a happy one, and Allie's mom ran off with Durade. But the bloom has been off that lily for years, and Durade has been using his concubine's good looks to draw unwary marks into his gambling den to be fleeced for most of that time. She bolted when he wanted to do the same with Allie --and the older woman is pretty sure he's on their trail, with revenge on his mind. In the next chapter, we meet idealistic young engineer Warren Neale, who's captivated by the idea of the railroad and its promise of progress, and his best friend Larry "Red" King, Texas-born but recently run out of the Lone Star state because of his gunslinging proclivities. Where Grey takes these characters will form the warp and woof of our plot here.
I had an encounter with this book as a pre-teen kid, and listed it on my Goodreads shelves for years as "read" on that account. But in this first-ever actual cover-to-cover reading, I soon realized that back in the 60s, I'd only read bits and pieces of the book, skimming it (and had misunderstood and mis-remembered some significant parts of it!), and that my 12-year-old self didn't have enough maturity to fully appreciate it. Ironically, it was one of the books that convinced me as a child that I didn't like Westerns; and I still think a lot of cookie-cutter Westerns are churned out by genre hacks without delivering much quality. But I've come to realize that Louis L'Amour, Les Savage Jr. and some other writers aren't hacks or anything resembling it; and Zane Grey is their peer.
This book provides a strong, eventful storyline, with such plot elements as Indian warfare, gun fights, crooked gambling, buried treasure, physical challenges, and dishonest chicanery in high places. Events are not at all predictable (and the readers won't like a lot of the surprises!). Grey is serious in the way he develops his characters, and pays believable attention to their interior life, depicting psychological reactions which, though they're often to situations of exceptional inner and outer stress, come across to me as realistic and understandable. His basic style is Romantic; the appeal to the reader's emotions here is consistent, deliberate, and very effective. (That's very much up my alley.) The diction here is stately, reminiscent of 19th-century Romantic novels, highly descriptive and evocative of the physical surroundings (both beautiful and sordid), often lyrical, sometimes grandiloquent, and at the end elegiac. Unlike some Western authors, Grey doesn't glorify violence (while recognizing its necessity at times). He bases his depiction of the period on the actual first-hand accounts of his old friend and Western guide, Al Doyle.
At times, the tone of the book can come close to triumphalism, with the idea that the building of the railroad is a great act of Progress. Certainly, Grey views it as an adventure epic in scope. But he balances this with a recognition that it's built on land stolen from the Indians in cynical violation of treaties, that it was accompanied by graft on a monumental scale, that the towns that arose along the route were dens of vice for the exploitation of the toilers, and that it marks the beginning of the "gutting" of the West's natural beauty and resources to gratify the "greed" (the terminology is Grey's) of the encroaching white civilization. Not all readers will appreciate his prose; although she's a great fan of Westerns, my wife dislikes his work because he often writes the speech of characters in dialect, a feature he shares with regional Realist writers of his day. The book is marred in a few places by ethnic slurs, including the n-word. Neale is a flawed hero, though I considered that realistic, and could forgive the flaws. We also have here a romance between a male in his 20s and a teen female, which may be a deal-breaker for some readers. But the romance is chaste and honorable; and it's important to recognize that 19th-century teens were significantly more mature and marriage-ready than their early 21st-century counterparts generally are.
All in all, I found the book's strengths to greatly outweigh any of its weaknesses. While I began reading it with very low expectations, I finished it very pleasantly surprised!
December 18, 2016
This book was original published in 1918. It is considered a classic western. The book is in the public domain now. Gray was a dentist who quit to write primarily westerns. His first novel was published in 1904. He became one of the most popular western writer and many of his books were made into movies. I have read many of his books over the years but, somehow, I missed this one.
This book is considered one of his best. It also could be classified as a historical novel. The book is about the construction of the Union-Pacific Railroad. The story is driven by man’s ambition to expand the railroad to the pacific coast. Our protagonist is Warren Neale, a civil engineer on the railroad. His girlfriend, Allie Lee, seems to be always in need of recusing. One of the most interesting characters is Neale’s best friend Larry “Red” King, a rough gun toting Texan cowboy.
The book is well written; the style and language is of 1918. The book was meticulously researched. As far as I could determine the facts in the book are accurate. Gray places his fictional characters into the history of the building of the railroad. Gray does a great job writing about the railroad construction, but his weakness is attempting to write a love story. That is not his forte and he should have skipped that part of the story.
Jim Roberts does a good job narrating the book. Roberts is a prolific audiobook narrator.
This book is considered one of his best. It also could be classified as a historical novel. The book is about the construction of the Union-Pacific Railroad. The story is driven by man’s ambition to expand the railroad to the pacific coast. Our protagonist is Warren Neale, a civil engineer on the railroad. His girlfriend, Allie Lee, seems to be always in need of recusing. One of the most interesting characters is Neale’s best friend Larry “Red” King, a rough gun toting Texan cowboy.
The book is well written; the style and language is of 1918. The book was meticulously researched. As far as I could determine the facts in the book are accurate. Gray places his fictional characters into the history of the building of the railroad. Gray does a great job writing about the railroad construction, but his weakness is attempting to write a love story. That is not his forte and he should have skipped that part of the story.
Jim Roberts does a good job narrating the book. Roberts is a prolific audiobook narrator.
March 4, 2016
Meet Allie Lee, the Most Kidnapped Lass in the West, and the sweetheart of Warren Neale, an engineer building the Union Pacific Railway. When she isn't being kidnapped and getting people killed left and right in her rescue, and when he isn't working on the railway and moping about her being kidnapped, they love each other truly, deeply, and sweetheartedly.
I was surprised when the book ended. I thought Zane Grey had finally found the interminable plot.
I was surprised when the book ended. I thought Zane Grey had finally found the interminable plot.
August 4, 2018
I decided to read my first Zane Grey novel, The U. P. Trail, as a nod to my Father who loved and owned all of the Zane Grey books. This was an enjoyable, fast-moving tale filled with traditional Old West excitement. It kept my interest despite the fact that this is not even remotely my normally favored genre. And as I read this or that detail or plot twist, it was fun to wonder what my Father had thought about these things when he too read this book so very long ago. (My Father passed away in 1979).
November 7, 2016
OK this guy knows how to write an action scene, and he gets more that enough practice just in this one book. What he doesn't know how to write is characters with personality, plots that make sense, natural dialog, and pretty much everything else that makes a book fun to read. But hey, lots of people shoot each other in this book.
May 18, 2024
Not my favorite Grey novel; felt like he tried too hard to make it longer. I mean, Allie being kidnapped like 4? 5? 6? Times? I lost count, which means it was too many. Felt like a bad dream where you’re running too slow and can’t get away, but it was poor Allie. She also wasn’t as “strong” a female character as other women in Grey’s novels, and seems to faint rather frequently. Seemed like he was trying to paint a picture of her innocence a little too hard.
Just too much going on, and the fact that so many people were killed unnecessarily irked me. Plus, there were like four whole short chapters just describing the setting?? Definitely felt like filler, and I didn’t need MORE description of the godless conditions of Benton for heaven’s sake.
Best parts were the constancy that Allie and Neale showed, the unwavering friendship that Red and the trapper shared with Neale, and the redemptive arc that Red had.
I think I’ll read something from a different genre next.
Just too much going on, and the fact that so many people were killed unnecessarily irked me. Plus, there were like four whole short chapters just describing the setting?? Definitely felt like filler, and I didn’t need MORE description of the godless conditions of Benton for heaven’s sake.
Best parts were the constancy that Allie and Neale showed, the unwavering friendship that Red and the trapper shared with Neale, and the redemptive arc that Red had.
I think I’ll read something from a different genre next.
January 15, 2020
Zane Grey's personable telling of the building of the Union Pacific Railroad, particularly through Wyoming, is a remarkable narrative, if not somewhat dramatized, containing the brutality, the greed, the courage, the fear, the loyalty, and the dedication of the men and even some women involved in the success of laying the railroad across the American west. Although it may appear somewhat bigoted, Grey is most likely accurate in portraying those attitudes in the 1860's. As usual Grey's characters will be difficult to forget including the tall strong Warren Neale, the tragic Beauty Stanton, the loyal trapper Slingerland whose aid of his railroad friends would destroy his way of life, the faithful "waster of life" Larry "Red" King, the cool and heroic gambler Place Hough, the tough and determined Casey, the chivalrous Englishman Ancliffe, the fiendish and tormented Durade, and, finally, the girl that can't ever be found, Allie Lee.
Although the reader may feel a bit frustrated with Allie's continual predicament, some of the scenes in this novel are unforgettable, particularly some of the gunfight and gambling scenes in Benton, Wyoming, and the heroism of the men who fought to save the growing railroad. I believe, however, some of the most thoughtful passages in the book are those Grey includes to state how the railroad would not only be a positive influence on the country, but, concurrently, how it would be instrumental in ending the ways many people lived including the American Indian.
Considering the time that this novel was written, I found it to be exceptional in telling the story of the building of the railroad and how it would change America for good and bad.
Although the reader may feel a bit frustrated with Allie's continual predicament, some of the scenes in this novel are unforgettable, particularly some of the gunfight and gambling scenes in Benton, Wyoming, and the heroism of the men who fought to save the growing railroad. I believe, however, some of the most thoughtful passages in the book are those Grey includes to state how the railroad would not only be a positive influence on the country, but, concurrently, how it would be instrumental in ending the ways many people lived including the American Indian.
Considering the time that this novel was written, I found it to be exceptional in telling the story of the building of the railroad and how it would change America for good and bad.
May 5, 2013
I thoroughly enjoyed this book even with all the twists and turns that teetered on impossible, it seemed to fit and I went along for the ride. Zane Grey wrote so poetically throughout this book but especially in a few instances describing a particular scene or describing a character's feelings or circumstance. This is a book definitely to read, you will not be disappointed. The ending was superb.....not often do I approve of an ending and the way it was handled is an epic snyposis. It is a masterpiece on it's own in the western genre.
July 14, 2018
A young woman is rescued by a cowboy and a railroad man. Soon a rivalry develops between the two for the woman's affections. This is a typical romantic western in Zane Grey's distinctive style.
Currently reading
September 28, 2017I began reading this book because not only did I want an account of what life was like in the old west, I wanted to hear it from the mouth of someone not as far removed from those days. Zane Grey was the perfect author for that.
When they say they don't write books like this anymore, they mean it. The words used, the phrasing, even the sentence structure is unlike anything I'd ever read before. I read this book alongside a gentleman who goes by Bob R., who recorded himself reading it, and it's really added to the atmosphere of the book. If you are thinking of re-reading, or reading for the first time, I do reccomend having Bob R read it alongside with you. He brings the old western cowboy to life.
Now I will not sugarcoat anything, there are parts of this book that are incredibly offensive by today's standards. Racial slurs, disparaging stereotypes, a lack of awareness on how anyone but the hard working white man could possibly be a 'good guy'.
And yet, I find reading these things to be a true glimpse into America's History, a glimpse that we are seldom offered by today's writers of historical fiction. The man who says the N-word is almost guaranteed to be the villain, or at the very least will change their ways by the end of the story, right? Not in this book.
It just goes to show that back then, good people could have terrible perceptions without ever being made aware of it. Main characters say offensive things without the reader being guided to see them as horrible for it. Like I said, I'm not used to it. And of course, it's offensive to me. But offensive in a way that is necessary. A true look into the past and what it's attitudes were like without any sort of extra agenda being pushed. It's not pleasant, but it's important to acknowledge still the same. And to be grateful for how far we've come!
As far as the storyline, I found the first 10 chapters failed to pull me in. It was a detailed and interesting account on how people back then lived, with a lot of beautiful imagery painted in. It's clear that Grey loved nature by the way he will go out of his way to describe it. And I enjoy the way he describes his characters too. He has a good way of helping the reader really imagine the character's looks in full with just a few sentences or less.
And the budding romance between Warren and Allie, when they first met, was done in a very sweet and tender way that I wasn't expecting to see come from an old western novel. Little moments they spent fishing and wading in rivers together, times when he brushed her hair because
And the relationship between Warren and his friend Larry King is unique too. There is no insecure hypermasculinity causing them to hold back their feelings, yet they are both still very confidently masculine. They care for each other like brothers, and they'd do anything for one another. It's touching to see such unashamed male bonding between the main character and his best friend.
But to be honest, if it weren't because I was trying to research Old Western life, I probably would not have continued to read it. That being said, Chapter 10 was when I really started to get sucked in.
Our main character, Warren Neale, was separated due to work from his beloved Allie Lee.
I will continue with this review as I continue on in the book. :)
When they say they don't write books like this anymore, they mean it. The words used, the phrasing, even the sentence structure is unlike anything I'd ever read before. I read this book alongside a gentleman who goes by Bob R., who recorded himself reading it, and it's really added to the atmosphere of the book. If you are thinking of re-reading, or reading for the first time, I do reccomend having Bob R read it alongside with you. He brings the old western cowboy to life.
Now I will not sugarcoat anything, there are parts of this book that are incredibly offensive by today's standards. Racial slurs, disparaging stereotypes, a lack of awareness on how anyone but the hard working white man could possibly be a 'good guy'.
And yet, I find reading these things to be a true glimpse into America's History, a glimpse that we are seldom offered by today's writers of historical fiction. The man who says the N-word is almost guaranteed to be the villain, or at the very least will change their ways by the end of the story, right? Not in this book.
It just goes to show that back then, good people could have terrible perceptions without ever being made aware of it. Main characters say offensive things without the reader being guided to see them as horrible for it. Like I said, I'm not used to it. And of course, it's offensive to me. But offensive in a way that is necessary. A true look into the past and what it's attitudes were like without any sort of extra agenda being pushed. It's not pleasant, but it's important to acknowledge still the same. And to be grateful for how far we've come!
As far as the storyline, I found the first 10 chapters failed to pull me in. It was a detailed and interesting account on how people back then lived, with a lot of beautiful imagery painted in. It's clear that Grey loved nature by the way he will go out of his way to describe it. And I enjoy the way he describes his characters too. He has a good way of helping the reader really imagine the character's looks in full with just a few sentences or less.
And the budding romance between Warren and Allie, when they first met, was done in a very sweet and tender way that I wasn't expecting to see come from an old western novel. Little moments they spent fishing and wading in rivers together, times when he brushed her hair because
And the relationship between Warren and his friend Larry King is unique too. There is no insecure hypermasculinity causing them to hold back their feelings, yet they are both still very confidently masculine. They care for each other like brothers, and they'd do anything for one another. It's touching to see such unashamed male bonding between the main character and his best friend.
But to be honest, if it weren't because I was trying to research Old Western life, I probably would not have continued to read it. That being said, Chapter 10 was when I really started to get sucked in.
Our main character, Warren Neale, was separated due to work from his beloved Allie Lee.
I will continue with this review as I continue on in the book. :)
June 27, 2021
Quick story. My dad once pulled me along and forced me to come into the official Zane Grey Museum in Zanesville, Ohio. I'd never heard of this dude before, and I hate...I mean I HATE westerns. Now if you go to the museum, kids (at the time I was...13?) get a Zane Grey novel. Naturally, I was not thrilled to receive mine, and it was practically forced upon me.
Fast forward five years. I finally ran out of other things to read that were apart of my old book shelf. And my OCD hates it when there's books on my shelf that I haven't read. So I picked it up, expecting the worst but bent on finally getting through this obnoxious little bugger that's sat on this shelf this whole time.
What I learned from this book:
-All Indians are red-faced war-obsessed monsters
-The only thing that gives women a purpose in life is a husband
-Women always need men to help them
-The only thing that gives a woman an inkling of a personality is a husband
-White people are the naturally superior race to Indians, and they themselves recognize this
Okay but to be fair to Grey, he wrote this more than a century ago, apparently around the same time Woodrow Wilson was in office. So yeah. All in all this was pretty harmless if you approach it from a lens of: yeah this was the culture of a century ago. Honestly it's not too bad, but if you get easily offended and uncomfortable by reading stuff like that this book probably isn't for you. But for everybody else: this, to me, is a really good look at a bygone era that is really quite harmless. And actually kind of cool.
I liked Larry, I liked Beauty Stanton, and I like the whole dynamic between Allie's two dads and then her mom. Neale was a likable character. But really where this book shines is not its plot or even its characters. And don't get me wrong: those are fine. What I really love is the atmosphere and mood that Grey creates. I was not expecting such a detail-oriented, descriptive author. I thought it would be all gun battles and lust for gold and everything. But you really get to see this world through Grey's eyes, and it was a cool experience. I enjoyed this book, much to my proud 13 year old self's dismay. I like how Grey juxtaposes the building of the railroad with Neale and Allie's relationship, and how they're constantly separated from each other. And learning all about the railroad was pretty cool too.
I do, surprisingly, recommend this book, if only for an almost nostalgic look (on Grey's part) into a bygone world, and you get to see his love for it, and that is something I miss in a lot of authors: the love put into the setting he is portraying.
Fast forward five years. I finally ran out of other things to read that were apart of my old book shelf. And my OCD hates it when there's books on my shelf that I haven't read. So I picked it up, expecting the worst but bent on finally getting through this obnoxious little bugger that's sat on this shelf this whole time.
What I learned from this book:
-All Indians are red-faced war-obsessed monsters
-The only thing that gives women a purpose in life is a husband
-Women always need men to help them
-The only thing that gives a woman an inkling of a personality is a husband
-White people are the naturally superior race to Indians, and they themselves recognize this
Okay but to be fair to Grey, he wrote this more than a century ago, apparently around the same time Woodrow Wilson was in office. So yeah. All in all this was pretty harmless if you approach it from a lens of: yeah this was the culture of a century ago. Honestly it's not too bad, but if you get easily offended and uncomfortable by reading stuff like that this book probably isn't for you. But for everybody else: this, to me, is a really good look at a bygone era that is really quite harmless. And actually kind of cool.
I liked Larry, I liked Beauty Stanton, and I like the whole dynamic between Allie's two dads and then her mom. Neale was a likable character. But really where this book shines is not its plot or even its characters. And don't get me wrong: those are fine. What I really love is the atmosphere and mood that Grey creates. I was not expecting such a detail-oriented, descriptive author. I thought it would be all gun battles and lust for gold and everything. But you really get to see this world through Grey's eyes, and it was a cool experience. I enjoyed this book, much to my proud 13 year old self's dismay. I like how Grey juxtaposes the building of the railroad with Neale and Allie's relationship, and how they're constantly separated from each other. And learning all about the railroad was pretty cool too.
I do, surprisingly, recommend this book, if only for an almost nostalgic look (on Grey's part) into a bygone world, and you get to see his love for it, and that is something I miss in a lot of authors: the love put into the setting he is portraying.
September 13, 2023
3.5 stars rounded down.
I debated what I should rate this. It was hard to decide what was fair, and what I thought of the overall writing and story.
This book, in 1918, was listed as the biggest seller. It has all the elements of adventure, romance, and history. It is about the building of the Union Pacific Railway that crossed from the east to the west and was completed in 1869.
A man named Neale is a civil engineer on the railroad. When he hears of a Sioux massacre of a wagon caravan, he goes to the rescue. He finds a young 14 year old girl is the only survivor. He takes her to a secluded hunting lodge and leaves her in the care of a trusted trapper.
It takes years for Allie to regain her speech and desire to live. Neale visits her whenever he can take off from the railroad, and eventually they fall in love. While Neale is away, a gambler and his gang kidnap Allie, and the rest of the book goes on from there.
To be clear, there are multiple instances of racial slurs. They are random and I can only assume that it is totally the ignorance of the author. He does stick in some passages later on that try to correct that line of thinking. It made me wonder if it was done because the publisher told him to do it.
There is a lot of melodrama in the writing. It’s almost as if it were written by two different people, and I have my suspicions about that as it was well known that Mr. Grey’s wife was his editor, and a ton of his ‘work’ was published regularly after his death. This is one that was published while he was still alive.
The story is epic in its way, and I became attached to the characters, even though I felt some of them strayed from their portrayals and did weird things for the sake of plot.
Overall, I’m glad I read it.
I debated what I should rate this. It was hard to decide what was fair, and what I thought of the overall writing and story.
This book, in 1918, was listed as the biggest seller. It has all the elements of adventure, romance, and history. It is about the building of the Union Pacific Railway that crossed from the east to the west and was completed in 1869.
A man named Neale is a civil engineer on the railroad. When he hears of a Sioux massacre of a wagon caravan, he goes to the rescue. He finds a young 14 year old girl is the only survivor. He takes her to a secluded hunting lodge and leaves her in the care of a trusted trapper.
It takes years for Allie to regain her speech and desire to live. Neale visits her whenever he can take off from the railroad, and eventually they fall in love. While Neale is away, a gambler and his gang kidnap Allie, and the rest of the book goes on from there.
To be clear, there are multiple instances of racial slurs. They are random and I can only assume that it is totally the ignorance of the author. He does stick in some passages later on that try to correct that line of thinking. It made me wonder if it was done because the publisher told him to do it.
There is a lot of melodrama in the writing. It’s almost as if it were written by two different people, and I have my suspicions about that as it was well known that Mr. Grey’s wife was his editor, and a ton of his ‘work’ was published regularly after his death. This is one that was published while he was still alive.
The story is epic in its way, and I became attached to the characters, even though I felt some of them strayed from their portrayals and did weird things for the sake of plot.
Overall, I’m glad I read it.
January 1, 2019
“The U.P. Trail,” by Zane Grey, is a classic western set in and around the building of the Union Pacific Railroad in Wyoming. The main characters are Allie, a young woman who is the sole survivor of an Indian attack on a wagon train, and Neale, an ambitious young engineer with the U.P. who falls in love with Allie. The novel follows Neale from one crisis to the next – Allie’s kidnapping by her abusive father, mismanagement and corruption on the railroad, engineering challenges, and Indian raids. As the book is primarily set in and around towns and the railroad, it doesn’t have as much of the beautifully detailed descriptions of nature that make some of Grey’s other novels (e.g. “Riders of the Purple Sage” and “The Rainbow Trail”) stand out. Nonetheless, “The U.P. Trail” is a solidly entertaining western that will be of particular interest to readers who enjoyed watching AMC’s “Hell on Wheels.”
December 23, 2024
30+ years ago my grampa gave me a copy and suggested I read it. Through out the years I tried to read the book and just couldn't make it. Recently it occurred to me to find the audiobook and I located one by Librevox who reads public domain works.
Listening to it I realized why I could never "get into" it before. The writing is dense with description but cliche, overly descriptive. Very much telling you the story not showing the story.
Written over 100 years ago it has all the things you might expect. Racial slurs, many aspersions toward redheads, a story line entirely predicated on different men owning a woman. The woman's value entirely predicated on her virginity even when she had gold, she had no value.
There is a beautiful soliloquy to those noble savages, the Irish.
The last part of the book is a glorious description of the completion of the UP railroad.
The noble railman gets his virgin and they live happily ever after.
The singular literary horror this book presents is its repeated use of the word "ejaculated" no less than 22 horrific times.
“Wal, wal!” ejaculated the trapper, stroking his beard in thoughtful sorrow.
“Lord, no!” ejaculated Slingerland.
I suppose as a sample of the pulp western it does represent a decent example, but there's likely better.
Listening to it I realized why I could never "get into" it before. The writing is dense with description but cliche, overly descriptive. Very much telling you the story not showing the story.
Written over 100 years ago it has all the things you might expect. Racial slurs, many aspersions toward redheads, a story line entirely predicated on different men owning a woman. The woman's value entirely predicated on her virginity even when she had gold, she had no value.
There is a beautiful soliloquy to those noble savages, the Irish.
The last part of the book is a glorious description of the completion of the UP railroad.
The noble railman gets his virgin and they live happily ever after.
The singular literary horror this book presents is its repeated use of the word "ejaculated" no less than 22 horrific times.
“Wal, wal!” ejaculated the trapper, stroking his beard in thoughtful sorrow.
“Lord, no!” ejaculated Slingerland.
I suppose as a sample of the pulp western it does represent a decent example, but there's likely better.
November 15, 2022
This was not my favorite book by Zane Grey, but it could have been. The first part was a very compelling read.
It became way too wordy for me.
It also contained some things that happened that did not seem to make sense within the context…in terms of the actions of the characters…
Then, the book dragged.
This was about a very important historical event and despite the fact that so much was done well, the dragging out of the story only managed to keep us from grasping the true facts…
The love story was sometimes perfect and at other times, unreal…not believable.
The last few pages, where there were thoughts on the true meaning of the railroad connecting the coasts was good as was its thoughts on nature and what the impact would be…
It became way too wordy for me.
It also contained some things that happened that did not seem to make sense within the context…in terms of the actions of the characters…
Then, the book dragged.
This was about a very important historical event and despite the fact that so much was done well, the dragging out of the story only managed to keep us from grasping the true facts…
The love story was sometimes perfect and at other times, unreal…not believable.
The last few pages, where there were thoughts on the true meaning of the railroad connecting the coasts was good as was its thoughts on nature and what the impact would be…
December 22, 2017
I have never read a book in which so many of the main characters die a violent death - except possibly an Agatha Christie. Gunfights, train crashes, murders, knife fights, suicide, battles - one after another all the characters that you care about or dislike come to a sticky end until the storyline comes to an end - largely due to the fact that hardly anyone is left alive. That said, this is a well written book with some great characters and a good deal of plot twists and turns. My main criticism is that it does go on a bit. It could have done with being about 2/3 the length. Never mind. An undemanding holiday read.
April 15, 2024
An enjoyable Western for a semi serious palate cleanser between books. It kinda drags on a little bit in my opinion and man the Irish accents can be hard to read at times. For my first zane gray book I rather enjoyed it.
Want to read
May 26, 2024I found a first edition (1918) of this novel in my mother-in-law's basement after she passed. What a treasure! I currently have it on display in our home but look forward to reading it as well. No matter the age or condition, a book deserves to be held and read.
June 9, 2017
I liked it. It was the first Zane Grey book I've read. I like the older books. Good plot and reading how they worked on the railroad lines was interesting
February 11, 2018
Excellent read. The building of the first intercontinental railroad. This one primarily tells of the crossing of the continental divide in Wyoming during the mid to late 1860's.
November 2, 2018
I rarely leave a book unfinished but this one I barely started. It was so, so boring and slow....
I just couldn't keep listening. I don't know what people see in this author!
I just couldn't keep listening. I don't know what people see in this author!
April 12, 2019
That was a SLOG.
February 12, 2021
My first Zane Grey and I didn’t love it. How many times can a girl get kidnapped? There were moments of brilliance and chapters of dullness and pining. I did enjoy the historical railroad context.
June 16, 2021
A lot of fluff; describing feelings, scenes.
August 19, 2021
Interesting, my Grandpa, who had all the Zone Gray books, had a grandpa, Grandpa Hill, who painted "The Last Spike" painting that now hangs in the California Railroad Museum in Sacramento, Calif.
June 15, 2022
Kad uzmeš knjigu da je ponovno pročitaš nakon skoro 40 godina, i kad točno znaš što ćeš ponovno pročitati u svakom slijedećem poglavlju.
January 5, 2023
Unlike some of Zane Grey’s works, this one has not held up well over time. Overwrought romantic angst and sapp dialog, bigoted, and misogynistic. Even the men are cartoonish and implausible.
January 27, 2025
This is my first Western. An interesting story with History behind it and an interwoven love story full of characters who fill the story of an American Rail history success.
March 20, 2024
Excellent, but too long by 150 pages. The backdrop of Promontory Point in 1869 and the building of the eastern rail leg by the Union Pacific Railroad is superb. Yet the on-again, off-again love interest between Allie and Neale grows tiresome after the third kidnapping and the lackluster search to find her. Everything else, especially the why, how, when, and where of the public-private partnership to connect the young country from sea to sea, is first-rate.
This is my 21st Zane Grey publication.
This is my 21st Zane Grey publication.
March 14, 2012
They wrote ‘em differently in those days. Zane Grey’s The U. P. Trail presents such a collage of emotions that one would be pressed to find the author’s real feelings below the fictional veneer. Does the author lament the taming of the prairies and mountains like the mountain man known as Slingerland? Does the author resent the march of progress as represented in the immoral anomie of the boom towns that followed the rail building efforts? Does the author see the vision of progress in the protagonist engineer who is enamored with the steady hand of progress, as surely as Frederick Jackson Turner’s “frontier thesis?” Does our narrator have a muckraker’s eye in his profiling of the Credit Mobilier and the corrupt inspection scams of the government oversight committees? Do the author’s views on morality (drinking, gambling, and bordello-hopping) reflect the tone of the Hays Office’s guidelines toward movies or is it his real sense of virtue that merely the suggestion that a young man was seen going into an establishment where the three “sins” took place was so damaging to his reputation that a match with a decent woman would be thwarted?
The truth is, it was the ambiguity in The U. P. Trail that kept me hooked. It doesn’t feel like a typical western, though there are gunfights and chases between cowpokes and Native Americans (I can’t resist the politically correct appellation), as well as expected ambushes of trains. Yet, the author portrays gunplay as inevitably doomed and fist-fighting as the last refuge of the virtuous man. Then, just when I thought I was getting a sanitized Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, or Gene Autry version of the story, the author unloads enough tragedy and despair to let me know that the protagonist isn’t a cardboard standee of Hoppy, Gene, and “me” for a theater lobby in the ‘50s. The primary protagonist is human in an incredibly vulnerable way—not just subject to a tragic flaw in the sense of Greek tragedy. He has flaws, but they are both understandable and exacerbated by circumstances.
In one sense, The U. P. Trail is a triumph of the human spirit. There are examples of loyalty that almost defy credulity in terms of sacrifice and caring. Yet, we know of such sacrifices during this era. There are examples of restraint that defy human nature, but again reflect a more idealized virtue than our modern “enlightened” self-interest would suggest. There are examples of heroism and case studies in villainy alike in this epic tale. Indeed, there are times when the story of the Transcontinental Railroad takes a backseat to the very, very human in this story. In fact, the climax doesn’t take place with the nailing of the “golden spike,” though that event is, of course, a milestone in the book. And even when the loose ends of the story are resolved, it is “bittersweet” because what happiness there may be comes at a high price and too much (if not too many) is (are) lost in the finding of that happiness. I never thought I would rate a Zane Grey western so highly, but this was a mesmerizing book that I wouldn’t have really considered except for my interest in railroads and my 19th century U.S. unit in the university-level history course I teach.
The truth is, it was the ambiguity in The U. P. Trail that kept me hooked. It doesn’t feel like a typical western, though there are gunfights and chases between cowpokes and Native Americans (I can’t resist the politically correct appellation), as well as expected ambushes of trains. Yet, the author portrays gunplay as inevitably doomed and fist-fighting as the last refuge of the virtuous man. Then, just when I thought I was getting a sanitized Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, or Gene Autry version of the story, the author unloads enough tragedy and despair to let me know that the protagonist isn’t a cardboard standee of Hoppy, Gene, and “me” for a theater lobby in the ‘50s. The primary protagonist is human in an incredibly vulnerable way—not just subject to a tragic flaw in the sense of Greek tragedy. He has flaws, but they are both understandable and exacerbated by circumstances.
In one sense, The U. P. Trail is a triumph of the human spirit. There are examples of loyalty that almost defy credulity in terms of sacrifice and caring. Yet, we know of such sacrifices during this era. There are examples of restraint that defy human nature, but again reflect a more idealized virtue than our modern “enlightened” self-interest would suggest. There are examples of heroism and case studies in villainy alike in this epic tale. Indeed, there are times when the story of the Transcontinental Railroad takes a backseat to the very, very human in this story. In fact, the climax doesn’t take place with the nailing of the “golden spike,” though that event is, of course, a milestone in the book. And even when the loose ends of the story are resolved, it is “bittersweet” because what happiness there may be comes at a high price and too much (if not too many) is (are) lost in the finding of that happiness. I never thought I would rate a Zane Grey western so highly, but this was a mesmerizing book that I wouldn’t have really considered except for my interest in railroads and my 19th century U.S. unit in the university-level history course I teach.
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