Elmore Leonard, the Western & Everything In-between ...

Forgive me if this comes off like an advert, it's not meant to; but I've always liked a bit of Elmore Leonard.

Perhaps it was his name that first turned me on. Certainly I was aware of the moniker before I'd read a page of his writing and there is, I think, something great about the collection of letters and syllables that form his handle.

I mean -- Elmore Leonard -- just brilliant.

The man -- and I think it only fair to call him that due to his gender, age, status and brilliance -- can write. And, what's more, here's a man who cut his teeth in the Western genre before he went on to corner the market as the quality purveyor of the pulpy, lowlife crime caper with a moral and socially conscious heart.

So, with Elmore on my mind, I was wondering what views people had on our man as a writer (of any genre but especially the Western). Good, bad, ugly? Plain great or plain grating?

I was also interested in what people thought of his western novels, short stories and film adaptations of said writings.

Finally, I was thinking about how Elmore shows that the Western can be seen (like the blues can be seen as the source of modern music) as the source of much of American modern writing. I wonder whether people would agree with this and whether a discussion of it might bring some new writers into the fold in an exploration of thier roots.

That's a lot of thinking for one night -- I'm guessing it musta been the sarsaparilla that done it. Either way, I'm a looking forward to any and all responses.

CDaniel said:

A few years ago I was given a book,the complete collection of western short stories by Elmore Leonard. It is a good book that I have only managed to read half of thus far. The stories are focused primary on the New Mexico and Arizona Territories during the Apache Indian Wars of the late 19th century.

They are all good westerns and would recommend them to anyone.

There are a few other writers whose western works I have found good are Robert Parker, Elmore Kelton, and Charles Porter.

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I just got The Complete Western Stories myself, CD.

I've only dipped into it so far and not read anything in its entirety, but what I've read is good and interesting. It's definitely a useful collection for those interested in 1950's western literature (albeit mostly written for magazines, papers and comics) and also as a document (in concert with the Leonard western and subsequent crime novels) of the progression of Leonard's and American writing.

Thanks also for the recommendations. Will keep my eye out for them on my charity book shop travels.

thothguard51 said:

Not a fan of his pulp fiction work...

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Aha! You can't just give us an ellipsis there, TG.

Maybe you're suggesting that his westerns were great and then it was all downhill after that. Or perhaps you are suggesting you don't like him at all. It could even be you're saying what he writes isn't pulpy.

If it's any or none of the above, I would love to see you lose the three dots and expand a little more.

Dave Hardy said:

I have to admit I have not read anything by Leonard. you have got me thinking I need to remedy that!

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As your attorney, I advise you to beg steal or borrow a copy of Valdez is Coming. It's a big novel in a little book. So well written and with loads of depth. Oh, and exciting, too. You won't regret it.

Dave Hardy said:

In a general way stories work better with free-agent heroes, big changes, and dynamic settings. That's what Westerns have, but in a distinctly American way. It's the formula of an individualist, in a lawless but valuable land, who effects some change on society by his actions.

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I'm in agreement and I think the thing I was interested in with regard to Elmore Leonard (and most of American fiction from literature to film) is the move from the Western to the Crime genre.

After the American western internal expansionism (I'm not mentioning external American expansionism or things will get, well, expansive) ended and literature and film caught up and did it to death; the only things that remained were the ideals you mention -- but not the landscape.

Thus, I think, the Western gave way to the Crime genre in which individualism can still be played out in all its American glory. The interesting thing is that (with a few exceptions) both the landscape and the freedom of the actors in the crime genre has been much reduced. I'm thinking about a landscape contracted to cities blocks and characters that are free to pursue both the 'American Dream' and all the subverted facets of it, but are also -- and paradoxically -- trapped because they have no real and new place to either conquer or escape to.

The western did and, dare I say it, still can offer a place for the American ideal to play out and both reflect the loss of this freedom and, ultimately suggest a path to a 'better' way. Or maybe I'm wrong and the only place for the discussion of these things is in Sci-fi. I think I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong.

Either way -- and no doubt I'm preaching to the converted here -- I hope writers (and especially American writers) know that there is no better vehicle for the discussion of America and no better way of getting to the American heart than through writing in the Western genre.

Or perhaps I'm wrong about that, too. Perhaps the Crime genre is the new (and with its greater involvement of ethnic groups without the need for revisionist works it may well have a head start) vehicle for the discussion and propagation of these ideals. Still, even if this is the case, I've a feeling there are many riches to be found in tilling soil already over worked.

Farmers don't leave a field fallow for nothing. Even if crops don't grow, imagine the buried treasure underneath all that earth.

Dave Hardy said:

Slotkin's Regeneration Through Violence and the two succeeding volumes work from Mary Rowlandson & Benjamin Church forward to Star Trek. The idea is that Indian wars in colonial New England created an uber-myth that American's use to pattern everything from fiction to foreign policy. Slotkin rides his concept pretty hard. Pretty soon everyone is an Indian (Confederates+Indians, Outlaws+Indians, Big Business+Indians, Viet Cong+Indians, etc). Still it's an interesting idea if you can wade through it all.

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Excellent suggestion. Never heard of the fellow, but will keep him/her in mind when next I tax the local Uni's library.

I should add I that I have a few issues with Mary Rowlandson after taking her 'removes' to pieces with regard to the consistency and logic of its puritan religiosity -- so I can totally see how our man gets to Star Trek from her. All theatre, morals and hypothesis to order, ain't it.

Talking of hypothesis to order, I totally understand what you're saying about Slotkin riding his concept hard. Any hypothesis, especially a Leftist (which I presume Slotkin's is) hypothesis can be beautfully subtle at first, but the more far reaching it gets the broader its strokes become in trying to fit everything into it.

Thanks for the recommendation.

ElisabethF said:

I loved the touch of dry humor, especially at the end. Leonard seems to be one of those writers who can say a lot in a few straightforward words. There's a fine line between being able to do that and having it come off sounding too short and clipped.

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Yup, I'd agree with you here. He's got a great low key humour and is a master of saying a lot without saying much. I wish (and most people who listen to what I say or read what I write would agree) I had that talent.

ElisabethF said:

Incidentally, I recently took a look at the free sample of the Kindle edition for his complete Western stories, and was a little surprised to see there were only a handful in there that I hadn't already read. I'd been under the impression that there would be a lot more - maybe just because most other Western writers I read were so prolific.

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I believe Leonard wrote some 30 or so Western shorts and the great majority were written in the early stage of his writing. The same goes for his western novels, maybe six or seven books -- something like that anyway. Compared to the more prolific writers its not much, but then again, a few good ones are better than a lot of bad ones.

Dave Hardy said:

I started on Valdez, but it's been a crazy busy so I haven't had time to dig into it properly.

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That is good news, because it means you still got some greatness to come. I got my hands on The Maltese Falcon today and am looking forward to starting it in the morrow.

Dave Hardy said:

I think Chandler's essay is still spot on.

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I'm with you -- apart from what he says about readers. Whilst I think the essay is still applicable to the contemporary reader with regard to them wanting to enjoy a book and not to look too deeply at it, I think the modern reader is (much like the modern writer mentioned in Chandler's essay) much more sophisticated.

I think it harder for the modern reader to suspend their disbelief and swallow obvious contradictions in fiction than it was for their earlier counterparts. Though one could say the writer moves on as fast as the reader and therefore the gap is always the same.

Either way, nothing I’ve said can explain the popularity of some modern blockbusters -- so what do I know?

Dave Hardy said:

Red Harvest is one of my all-time favorite books. Funny thing is it's a Western in all but name. A Western city, beset by criminals, brought in by a greedy business baron, faced down by a lone man who relies on his wits & his gun. Note it got re-made as a Samurai film which got re-made as a Western ... You can find a lot of Westerns too that are basically detective stories set in the West. That's a great thing about the Western, you can do so much with it.

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I'll keep an eye out for Red Harvest. Sounds a little like Stephanie King ripped it off for his Dark Towers thing.

I think, if I read you right, you're correct in inferring that the western genre is more than just a pre-cursor to crime here.

Certainly the western, in any of its incarnations (American, Japanese etc), could be seen as what I would term as the original 'life on the edge of coming civilization' narrative. When viewed as such -- and when seen as malleable due to an arguably universal mythic status -- one can surely see a future in it.

The above statement may, of course, sound counter intuitive -- how can a moribund genre have a future?

I think an answer – though not the answer -- can be found in further discussion of the American western.

First, let us imagine the reason for the death of the American western in classic form is that it's 'life on the edge of coming civilization' narrative has been made redundant by Americas post 1980s perceived self-progress and civilization. This view would surely make the western dead, and yet -- it lives.

Look at the 1992 Clint Eastwood film Unforgiven – Revisionist, yes. Violent, yes. But at its heart still a western story of redemption, simpl[ish] morals and life on the edge of the corruptive house building civilization of Gene Hackman’s Little Bill Daggat.

Why did the America of the early 90s take to heart (and wallet) a western after so many years of avoiding it?

Perhaps because Clint Eastwood is a kick ass fella? Could be – but maybe, after the presidency of Bush Snr, Americans didn't feel too civilized and sought a return to a simpler way embodied in a mythic narrative that reflected it – just look at the end of that film for evidence of this.

If this is the case, one would also do well to ask why, on the cusp of a Reaganite era, Heaven’s Gate died a death at the box office, and then ask further questions of whether an Obama Whitehouse is conducive to a western or not.

Certainly – just by asking these questions and by thinking on them – one can see how the western narrative and genre can be seen as a living (or at least temporarily dormant until needed) thing in contemporary American culture rather than moribund.

So, if the western is intrinsically linked to the 'life on the edge of coming civilization' narrative that I have suggested, what other evidence shows the genre isn't moribund?

This begs the question, where are the new Westerns in the time of Bush Jnr and Obama?

They are there if you look for them. They just turn about the narrative (as i define it) a little bit and this turning is, I think, telling.

The truly modern westerns -- I'm not talking Unforgiven here, or even No Country for Old Men -- are The Road, The Book of Eli and the TV show The Walking Dead. Each work tweaks the same narrative I have defined, but instead of a coming civilization, they talk of one that has gone.

Where else but in an apocalyptic setting is the Western -- whose narrative I have defined as 'life on the edge of coming civilization' -- better played out on the television and cinema screens of a civilization that -- perhaps wrongly or prematurely or even in an awareness of its death throes -- considers itself already civilized?

You may give the Crime genre as an answer to this question. And it is, as I have already posited in previous posts and will no doubt discuss further in future posts if you aren’t all bored, definitely an option. But the above apocalyptic films, with their return to true or mythical frontier (or cyclic post-frontier) ethics and representations of the west, would certainly seem to be indicative of the modern western form.

What this says about modern America, and what hope or lack of hope it gives with regard to the (perhaps) moribund western genre, is palpable.

As I have said, here [America] is a civilized country looking at itself in the mirror in the only way it knows how. It’s a pragmatic country who discusses itself in the dreams of its fictions. But it’s a country in trouble. It can’t go back honestly. It can’t return itself to the open landscape of the frontiers because it has had to lie to itself about its urban (and urbane) civilization to become civilized.

It is a country grown up too quick and as such does not like to recall playing cowboy and Indian in the hot summer days of its youth. It can now only – save for the occasional Unforgiven -- look to the present (in the reductive crime genre) and the future (in the apocalyptic western and dystopian sci-fi genres). It is a place which has ignored its own mythic and constructed narrative for too long.

What does this mean for western writers? Does it mean a moribund genre is doing itself to death by rushing on into a future where it can only subsist on lies and projections of how a ‘culture’ wants to see itself?

I think not. I think America is a young and a lost nation that, in its tumble forward, needs its mythic past in both recognizing itself as it was and in recognizing itself as it wants (or at least wanted) to be – and, though there is both an epic heroism and tragedy in this, for writers of the western genre there is only a deep seam to mine.

Be it in the classic, the modern or the futurist form – the western is the perfect vehicle for America discussion of itself and a perfect reminder of how it – in both sides of its character – was and was wanting to be.

So, after far too many beers I’ll finally bring this rant to a close and say -- write on western writers. Your country – in fact, all countries need you.

Dave Hardy said:

My preference is for the gritty. I probably watch more Westerns than I read Westerns. I like John Ford, Sergio Leone, & Sam Peckinpah, the usual Western movie guys. Winchester '73 (Anthony Mann) is a brilliant example of a hard-boiled Western.

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Same here. In fact, I’ve read only a handful of western novels (trying to change that) but I think you can’t go wrong with a good western film.

I’m more a Peckinpah kind of a guy – not for the violence (after all, Peckinpah’s violence was more about showing the awfulness of violence than the thrill of it) but because its – and I hate to admit this – on the cusp of the modern.

I still like the older stuff, but – as stylistic as Peckinpah can be – when one watches an older film (pre 50s) the younger viewer really has to deal with an style all its own.

Whilst its true that older film has a beauty all its own, I think there is nothing so great as watching Pat Garret and Billy the Kid and not having to translate the acting style and mise en scene.

Sometimes it just great to say – okay 70s, and what the hell is Dylan doing? But still, what a marvellous all the way through.

I should add now that I am very, very drunk.

Dave Hardy said:

I guess there's one consolation of writing Westerns in the era of their eclipse. You have freedom since no one really cares what you do with abandoned property. Westerns will come back, it'll be the pioneers who re-worked those abandoned claims & found new paydirt.

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Right on. Right. Bloody. On.

Western writers of the world unite! After all, the world looks like it needs you.

CDaniel said:

Just a quick question. Am I the only one here who has read The Virginian by Owen Wister?

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Now, as a man who likes to smile when he says things – I do declare I haven't read said book, but will be perusing the library for it in the not too distant future. Any other classic western texts I should be looking out for?

Puma said:

I read / skimmed Harry's dialogue above.

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That is universally accepted as the favoured way to read anything I write, Puma.

Puma said:

I'm going to throw out a totally different idea on the demise of the American western - women's lib. Think about it - in the early days of television there were many westerns - it was a man's world. Women's lib came along and suddenly there was a glut of shows featuring the fairer sex in various roles. Don't discount the roles women's liberation and the equal rights movement have had on the shape and scope of literature and film. Puma

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Super interesting point.

I think you are, to a certain extent, spot on here. When you consider the western genre, -- certainly the film genre -- what great roles are there for women and, therefore, where does a western fit into a feminists film collection?

With regard to ‘great roles’, a fellow in possession of a penis such as myself might – in that terrible male way – say, Annie Oakley, maybe. The occasional and easily maligned The Quick and the Dead, perhaps? Mary Rowlandson and some other real actors, could be?

If my lack of examples shows anything more than my phallus, I would suggest that there is a dearth of possibility for the female actor – in all senses of the word -- in both the west and the western genre.

In response to this, the first questions we should, perhaps, ask are:

What, if any, are the great roles and types for women in the western genre? As well as, in the 'real' west, what in the hell were all the women doing, and why weren’t they noticed -- or were they?

(I am aware a more primary question would be – what makes a great female role and should such a role even be gendered? But I am trying to get to bed at some point tonight.)

Secondary questions follow and are, in this case, genre specific:

Do westerns limit female action? Are they reductive to the questionable Shakespearian concept of 'mother/wife/whore'? If this is the case, is it so because of the time period and geography of the classic western? Furthermore, do revisionist, modern, apocalyptic and interstitial westerns give greater scope for female ‘equality’?

A tertiary question would, in my booze addled mind, certainly involve the western genre in relation to a post-feminist society.

Is the western -- with all its stereotypical ‘where men are men’ genre tropes -- likely to face a resurgence because of the wilting (yes, a debatable topic) of the feminist ideal? Moreover, can the genre appeal to the pre-feminist, feminist and post feminist all at the same time?

Be interesting to hear some thoughts on this and I’ll be damned if a prompt doesn’t come out of it – women’s fic tie in, perhaps?

Dave Hardy said:

I am just about through with Valdez is Coming. I see what you mean Harry!

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Glad you liked it, DH.

I just finished The Maltese Falcon, myself. Was rather good, and so modern for the time period -- or should that read -- created the modern style and we’ve not moved on since?

I was fascinated by the opening descriptions of Spade. All those V’s were a bold tactic, it almost read super literary and I wondered what in the hell the publisher thought when they first saw it – and then .. and then! We are given the hero as Satan!

Sure, this worked well in the ‘what kind of a man and what kind of a world does this man inhabit’ vibe, and also perfectly in tweaking the reader (and those characters in the book) to wonder about the moral motivations of the man and also to question ourselves too ...

Deep breath ...

But still! -- no matter how tongue in cheek or well worked or hard boiled or important to the plot in a trickster type way or as a comment on the nature of the adult, knowing, cynical, human condition -- I repeat, but still we are given the hero as Satan on the very first page!

Well, goddamit, that is something and my hat is tipped to Mr Hammett.

With regards to Chandler's essay, the way the book took a new form in the face of the old styles of detective fiction was clear.

For me, The Falcon was all about the lies of the dishonest and, paradoxically, the honest. The book, as detective fiction, then became -- as Chandler infers -- less about the dropped clue and more about (like life) the importance of reading character (and trusting and distrusting in character when big things are at stake).

Whilst there is a search for clues, in the end the truth is brought out, again paradoxically, by deceit and judging (in Spades case the villains) and (in the case of the villains) misjudging or being fooled by character.

The reader does the self same thing. Unless we trust Spade, what happens to our perspective on the crime and the guilt and the players involved.

Do we support our man Spade, a devil from the first, all the way through? In fact, do we even trust him at the last? Is his honesty, that can be bent (just like ours) in favour of a higher purpose (and therefore any purpose), honest?

Is his love real? Is he really Satan or is he just a man with a moral code and all the facts? Is the level of perception and understanding and ability to act -- what we call the devil?

Great book.

Stop drunk typing now.

And P.s

Anyone get the feeling that Grahame Green based Brighton Rock's Pinky on Wilmer and that Muriel Spark read The Maltese Falcon before writing the excellent Ballad of Peckham Rye?