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typecasting and nostalgia
Jun. 4th, 2003 03:59 pmIt's a shame Louis L'amour is known only for his westerns, when really his written some good stories unrelated to Westerns, he was a talented storyteller. It quite surprised me, too, learning he wrote more than his usual cowboys and indians, he wrote poetry and short stories about boxers, hobos, sailors, soldiers, ordinary men and women, and yes, cowboys and indians.
However, the stories I most like were the stories that had nothing to do with the Westerns, but from stories he drew from experience. Louis L'amour led a full life, running away from home at the age of fifteen, and did a series of odd jobs, all manner of which he had written about. He traveled the world as a sailor, but kept on educating himself with books, people tend to look down on him based on his Westerns and his lack of education, but he could go book for book against a well-versed philosophy professor, if dared.
He was a remarkable man, and few could boast the credentials he had, the time for adventures had gone from our society, but then again it may not be. There maybe some adventurer riding the seas, out there, unknown.
It is hard to believe people like L'amour used to exist, good principled people, who lacked education but were intelligent and engaging nonetheless. People who travelled for the romance of it, and the adventure with only the clothes on their backs. I can't help but recall the men of Easy Company, especially their Commanding Officer, Richard Winters.
But, I digress.
Louis L'amour's Off the Mangrove Coast, is a neat collections of short stories. Lovely vignettes of what life was, and how people are. You can really feel the grit and the moonlight, or the sweat in a boxing ring.
Of all the stories, 'Off the Mangrove Coast' (the title of the book and the one of the stories,as well) I liked this one the most. If you can't help be pulled by the opening lines:
There were four of us there, at the back end of creation, four of the devil's own, and a hard lot by any man's count. We'd come together the way men will when on the beach, the idea cropping up out of idle conversation. We'd nothing better to do; all of us being fools or worse, so we borrowed a boat off the Nine Islands and headed out to sea.
Beautiful. It's like a beautifully drawn picture, it also feels noirish, though I'm sure it's not that, maybe. The conflict, the resolution, the evergrowing tension once the treasure was found and the sort-of camaraderie unraveling. Since most of L'amour's short stories are autobiographical we really wouldn't know if this happened or not but I do get a sense that it did happen and that makes it all the more chilling and poignant.
Each character is fleshed out, and their motivations, from the get-go was expressed as less than pure but one can't help rooting for the narrator, because like L'amour (or L'amour himself) he was only in it for the adventure and the treasure was only second to that.
[/edit]
L'amour's Westerns does not have the edge of danger his early short stories carried, partly because the scenarios he was describing did not happen, nor did he really live through it, although he was a ranch handler (not sure if this is the right term) at one point. L'amour did not quite live the life of a gunslinger, but he was certainly knowledgable of the lifestyle.
It's just that his earlier stories had the touch of reality and magic his Westerns lacked, none of the Westerns had an individual fate, his writing became formulaic. Certainly, in his Westerns one can't find a story similar to 'Cross and Candle', where a sailor is bent to avenge his dead girlfriend and his patient, watchful search for the killer leads to a satisfying conclusion. But, the fascinating thing in this is that it's real, it happened, or it may just be fiction but who knows. It's a gone-by era, long ago, when justice was handed out by the victims themselves.
Glancing through this, I just realized that his short stories did share the same formula, at least on the face of it.
I really am not articulate, let me explain it as thus: His short stories, especially 'Off the Mangrove Coast', and his poems hold a certain romance, magic and nostalgia.
Sometimes now, when there is rain upon the roof and when the fire crackles on the hearth, sometimes I will remember: the bow wash about the hull, the rustling of the nipa palms, the calm waters of a shallow lagoon. I will remember all that happened, the money I found, the men that died, and the friend I had...
It is the nostalgia of an era gone-by and the longing for the sea and adventure, I guess. We live now, sheltered, and L'amour's life and his writings bring back a certain something to us, of what he felt those days and it is wonderful.
-----
*sigh* I really am not good in this reviewing thing....
However, the stories I most like were the stories that had nothing to do with the Westerns, but from stories he drew from experience. Louis L'amour led a full life, running away from home at the age of fifteen, and did a series of odd jobs, all manner of which he had written about. He traveled the world as a sailor, but kept on educating himself with books, people tend to look down on him based on his Westerns and his lack of education, but he could go book for book against a well-versed philosophy professor, if dared.
He was a remarkable man, and few could boast the credentials he had, the time for adventures had gone from our society, but then again it may not be. There maybe some adventurer riding the seas, out there, unknown.
It is hard to believe people like L'amour used to exist, good principled people, who lacked education but were intelligent and engaging nonetheless. People who travelled for the romance of it, and the adventure with only the clothes on their backs. I can't help but recall the men of Easy Company, especially their Commanding Officer, Richard Winters.
But, I digress.
Louis L'amour's Off the Mangrove Coast, is a neat collections of short stories. Lovely vignettes of what life was, and how people are. You can really feel the grit and the moonlight, or the sweat in a boxing ring.
Of all the stories, 'Off the Mangrove Coast' (the title of the book and the one of the stories,as well) I liked this one the most. If you can't help be pulled by the opening lines:
There were four of us there, at the back end of creation, four of the devil's own, and a hard lot by any man's count. We'd come together the way men will when on the beach, the idea cropping up out of idle conversation. We'd nothing better to do; all of us being fools or worse, so we borrowed a boat off the Nine Islands and headed out to sea.
Beautiful. It's like a beautifully drawn picture, it also feels noirish, though I'm sure it's not that, maybe. The conflict, the resolution, the evergrowing tension once the treasure was found and the sort-of camaraderie unraveling. Since most of L'amour's short stories are autobiographical we really wouldn't know if this happened or not but I do get a sense that it did happen and that makes it all the more chilling and poignant.
Each character is fleshed out, and their motivations, from the get-go was expressed as less than pure but one can't help rooting for the narrator, because like L'amour (or L'amour himself) he was only in it for the adventure and the treasure was only second to that.
[/edit]
L'amour's Westerns does not have the edge of danger his early short stories carried, partly because the scenarios he was describing did not happen, nor did he really live through it, although he was a ranch handler (not sure if this is the right term) at one point. L'amour did not quite live the life of a gunslinger, but he was certainly knowledgable of the lifestyle.
It's just that his earlier stories had the touch of reality and magic his Westerns lacked, none of the Westerns had an individual fate, his writing became formulaic. Certainly, in his Westerns one can't find a story similar to 'Cross and Candle', where a sailor is bent to avenge his dead girlfriend and his patient, watchful search for the killer leads to a satisfying conclusion. But, the fascinating thing in this is that it's real, it happened, or it may just be fiction but who knows. It's a gone-by era, long ago, when justice was handed out by the victims themselves.
Glancing through this, I just realized that his short stories did share the same formula, at least on the face of it.
I really am not articulate, let me explain it as thus: His short stories, especially 'Off the Mangrove Coast', and his poems hold a certain romance, magic and nostalgia.
Sometimes now, when there is rain upon the roof and when the fire crackles on the hearth, sometimes I will remember: the bow wash about the hull, the rustling of the nipa palms, the calm waters of a shallow lagoon. I will remember all that happened, the money I found, the men that died, and the friend I had...
It is the nostalgia of an era gone-by and the longing for the sea and adventure, I guess. We live now, sheltered, and L'amour's life and his writings bring back a certain something to us, of what he felt those days and it is wonderful.
-----
*sigh* I really am not good in this reviewing thing....
