Louis Lamour Book Reviews

In many of Louis L’amour’s novels, he talks about the process of building a home.  Jubal Sackett, Kiowa Trail, Kilkenny, and many others he describes the manner of the pioneer in raising a home from the earth.

Today the process has changed some.  Most of us don’t go out and fell logs with which to put together a cabin.  Certainly there are some out there who do.  We don’t typically find a place suitable for defense against attack, though there are definitely those out there who build their homes like fortresses.

Instead we hire contractors and architects and generally stop by now and again to see the progress.  Most of us just go out and find the house we want and buy it.  Building a home is now more of a metaphor for creating a structured family life than for the literal gathering and placing of materials.

For the adventurous soul, however, the opportunity to build a home does still exist.  It takes a differen kind of determination, courage, and risk than it did 150 years ago.  Now the risks are largely financial rather than physical.  But these risks are real and just as prohibitive.

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.

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.

Real estate these days has lost a lot of value. If you own a home, then odds are good that you have seen and been affected by market fluctuations. Like most things land is defined by what a person is willing to pay for it, and that is defined by the return on investment that a buyer can expect.

In the west the value of most pieces of property was defined by the number of cattle that could be grazed on the land without over-grazing. Cash and credit, however, were often difficult to come by. This means that the value of the land was really determined by the amount of effort and energy a person was willing to put into it and then by the price tag they were willing to put onto that effort and energy.

The primary currency of the Old West was not gold or coin, but sweat and desire. If a person wanted something badly enough they could find a way to get it without cash or they could find another piece of land of equal worth somewhere else without cash.

I’ve learned quite a bit about horses by reading Louis L’amour. I’m no horse expert. I’m not a cowboy, though I went to school with quite a few of them. One of the things that I’ve learned is that horses are defined by their colors.

A roan, a dun, a steeldust – all different horses but really just different colors.

I’m a dog person. I like breeds of dogs, and naturally I expected that these fancy words had something to do with the breed of the horses, but it turns out that most of the horses in the old west were all pretty much the same breeds. Which isn’t to say that there wasn’t variation, there certainly was, but for the most part L’amour skipped over it