Louis Lamour Book Reviews

Fishing remains a popular sport in the United States today despite the declining need for the average man to go out and catch his supper.  Fishing is a past-time that, like golf or other games, requires only a certain amount of physical prowess in order to enjoy, but which rewards anyone willing to give it a try.

Like other hobbies, the amount of preparation and effort will likewise increase the pleasure derived.  But fishing is unique in that it truly does call to the very basic instincts and desires of man.  A man cannot survive without food.  For millenia we have hunted, gathered, and fished.

Fishing harkens to our basic desires and brings us closer to nature and the beauty of the planet we live on.  L’amour doesn’t generally write of the pleasure of fishing, but rather the necessity.  But today it is one way in which we can relive a piece of the past and put ourselves in the places our ancestors were.

Conn Dury is the arch-type cowboy.  He manages a rough outfit of hard riding men and manages them well.  He carries a gun and he knows how to use it.  He doesn’t just understand and know cattle, he loves what he does and he wouldn’t choose any other life.

He rides hard and works hard.  He has no interest in violence beyond surviving it long enough to be able to enjoy a life free from it.  He doesn’t seek to hurt but rather wants to build.  He wants to build towns by building commerce.

Conn Dury is so busy working and building that he doesn’t even recognize his own growth and change.  He doesn’t realize that he has fallen in love with Kate Lundy.  Not that he is ignorant, but he simply puts the needs of others before his own - to the point of ignoring himself at times.

All across the west, through Arizona, California, Utah, Oregon, Idaho, Montana the landscape is dotted with towns that used to be.  Most of the towns that were built by pioneers and adventurers simply didn’t make it.  People built in areas that had no resources or too few resources.

The landscape changed quickly, and with it the sources of income.  The stage line that ran through one year would be replaced by the railroad the next.  Suddenly the towns along the railroad prospered and the others disappeared.  Gold appeared one day and in a few months towns of several thousand sprouted to life.  A year or two later the same towns completely disappeared.

Today the landscape doesn’t change as quickly.  Offices that belong to one company can be replaced quickly by leasing them to another company.  Jobs change.  Products change.  Services change.  The expenses associated with building and rebuilding are often prohibitive, especially when much of the work can be done with email or tele-conferencing.

Towns in the old west were a bit different from the notion of towns common today.  In Kiowa Trail L’amour describes a town as “ten buildings long on the north side of the street, and seven long on the south.”

There are few towns these days that would meet that description.  Personally I’ve lived in only one town in my life time that comes even close to that description, and by today’s standards it would be considered nothing more than a rest stop along the highway.

Even the smallest of towns have more than seventeen buildings.  In the west a town could be defined as nothing more than a place a wagon stopped to sell whiskey or anywhere more than two or three people gathered regularly.  Often these towns lasted no more than few years, some only a few months.  Those that had resources and something to offer grew into the towns of today.

Have you ever noticed how candles and small lamps completely light up a room on old westerns? Someone lights an oil lamp and a dark room fills with light. In reality there is a reason beyond just keeping out the smoke that we have modern electrical lighting.

Modern lights do fill rooms entirely with very good light. Light that can be used to read and work by.

Candles and oil lamps, however, tend to barely emit enough light to read by even under strained conditions. My wife enjoys candle light because it is dim light and to her it is romantic and special. It is no great wonder that often L’amour mentions the use of spectacles, particularly for reading even among the very young. Lighting conditions in general were not bright inside. The sunlight was much better lighting than could be found under all but the very best of conditions.

Peter Griffin tries to kill King Mabry in the opening chapter of “Heller With A Gun.”  Later on he is hired again to kill King Mabry.  Pete is a careful man, but so is King Mabry.

In chapter four, L’amour makes an attempt to buy the reader’s sympathy by providing excuses for his continued degenerate behavior.  In the end he does accept the job and agrees to attempt to murder a man in cold blood for money.  But of all the characters in the book he is perhaps the most complex and interesting.

In the end I can’t decide if I hate him or not.  I can hardly blame the man for attempting to find a way of living.  His career was difficult, but was also bred of a need in the world that he lived in.  Men needed killing in order to make way for the dangerous enterprises they started.  Had he succeeded he would not be known in infamy, but would have merely been just another rough man of the west.  In any even the complexity of his character makes him interesting and adds depth to L’amour’s story.

Louis L’amour often explores the differences between lawmen and outlaws. The chances that make one man a hero and another a villain are often very small.

Pete Shoyer is a lawman, but L’amour describes him in a way that is very unlikeable. He wears a badge, but he wears it so that he can hunt men. Men who hunt other men are often referred to as serial killers, assassins, or murderers. But Pete Shoyer is a bounty hunter – looking to make a living.

At the end of the story Shoyer attempts to rob Adam Stark and his family. L’amour demonstrates that something as simple as money can be enough to move some men from one side of the law to another. When Shoyer dies at the end of the story he is still wearing a badge. He still has the right to hunt Swante Taggart. But by this time the reader has lost a great deal of respect for him and feels no remorse when he loses the draw.