Western Romance
Let’s start with a small confession: I read a Harlequin romance novel before I read my first Western. What it was doing in our little trailer in the early 1970’s I couldn’t say. I was a voracious reader and it was a book. Inside that paperback’s white cover, which also had an illustration of two people gazing deeply into each other’s eyes, was a story about a dashing man, a beautiful woman, and some kind of adventure. The end result was murmured adoration sealed by a kiss. Quite tame. This was before ‘bodice-rippers’ hit the mainstream. It was more like my children’s edition of Ivanhoe, one of the greatest romance novels of all time.
Fittingly, I ran into Westerns after our family moved from California to Wyoming in 1973. Mom took us over to Grandma’s one evening for a visit. Well, I was fourteen with no interest in whatever Mom and my adult relatives were talking about. I sat bored, until my eye fell on a paperback with a horse-mounted cowboy on the cover – a Louis L’Amour Western. I picked it up and started reading. Next thing I know, I’m over half-way through the book and Mom is telling me it is time to go home. Grandma let me borrow her book. Interesting parallel with the Harlequin romance: a man, a woman, an adventure, adoration sealed with a kiss at the end. Or maybe they were standing arm-in-arm on a hill overlooking a sweeping pasture full of steers, which I guess could be romantic to somebody. I read a lot of Louis L’Amour Westerns over the next few years. Dozens of them. I still have several, their pages now brittle and brown.
I have read other Western novels over the years, including two in the last eighteen months: True Grit and All The Pretty Horses. But till now, I had never read anything by Zane Grey, who was influential in the rise of Westerns as a genre and also one of my mother’s favorite authors when she was growing up. At the recommendation of a friend, I tried out Riders of the Purple Sage, Grey’s most famous work.
The story takes place in the 1870’s in Utah. A central plot point is the tension between the dominant Mormon community and the few ‘Gentiles’ (non-Mormons) who live in the same area. Published in 1912, Riders of the Purple Sage has many classic Western elements: gunfights, rustlers, cattle, chases on horseback, a melodramatic plot twist or two. It also has a fascinating view on the relationship between men and women.
In Zane Grey’s West, like the Louis L’Amour Westerns, men need place, purpose, and a partner. Oh, and good transportation helps a lot. Which is why both men and women are as emotional about their horses as they are about each other. Grey’s idea of romance also includes a strong affection for the land, often a feature of Westerns. In his unhurried, almost quaint style, he carefully describes the natural beauty that fills his characters with a deep sense of wonder. And he mentions purple sage a ‘few’ times.
How do men and women relate to each other in Riders of the Purple Sage? To be sure, there are stereotypical elements you might expect from a book written by a man over 100 years ago. Stereotypes exist because the are rooted in something real. One of those realities is that men and women of noble character in close proximity will be attracted to each other. That is not to say that a little ‘tall, dark, handsome’ and ‘sparkling eyes, full lips, flowing hair’ are not useful ingredients. On the other hand, Grey paints a stark contrast between men who see a woman’s proper role as subservient and men who value strength and independence in a woman. Grey’s men and women wrestle with ideas of truth, good and evil, religion, authority, and God in their conversations. It is hard to ignore the echoes of the ancient Garden of Eden story in his characters’ desire to return to a natural paradise together.
I live in a society where having a place of one’s own is a financial near-impossibility for my children's generation. There are no untamed frontiers to be claimed by two people simply mounting horses and riding into the sunset. In spite of modern obstacles, there are still men who have the courage to protect and the humility to accept a woman who is their equal. There are still women who are strong, intelligent, and capable who admire men with that kind of vision. Each wants a partner with whom they can accomplish together what neither could separately. Call me a hopeless romantic, but from the Old West to the New West, that is a life worth seeking.
Try Riders of the Purple Sage. You might find that Zane Grey is on to something.
Until next time…
