Tell Me A Story, Louis L’Amour
“A mistake constantly made by those who should know better is to judge people of the past by our standards rather than their own. The only way men or women can be judged is against the canvas of their own time.” –Louis L’Amour
I don’t know what exactly happened to good old-fashioned Westerns, or why over the past 20 years they have been seen as somehow less erudite than the other tales we tell. Maybe it’s because the stories are so familiar, even predictable. Maybe it’s because the answers they give are too easy, what with the white hats and the black hats. Maybe its because we don’t believe life could be as simple as all that.
But what if things were just that simple? What if we insist on complicating things that really aren’t that complicated? What if this life was something where a good horse, being able to tell right from wrong, knowledge of where a man could find fresh water and how to handle yourself in a fight were among the most important things you could know, and you took everything else as it came? Is there such a story to tell anymore?
How many stories are there to tell, really? Sure, I know the details change, as do the characters, places, customs and all. But in the end, are they really all that different from each other?
Louis L’Amour (1908-1988) wrote westerns–pure and simple westerns. And he knew what he was writing about. He grew up in rural North Dakota at the turn of the 20th century, a place and time where the wild west still held some claim in that part of the country. Over the span of his eighty plus years, he had been a farmhand, cowboy, miner, lumberjack, professional boxer, hobo, merchant seaman and soldier. If you are a boy, think about that list for a minute. Not bad.
Eventually L’Amour made his way to Los Angeles where he wrote over 100 short novels—most of which were tales of the old west. I have a friend who said he used to keep a list of the Louis L’Amour stories he’d read, but somewhere in the seventies, he stopped counting. The thing about Louis L’Amour is that he really only tells one story, more or less, but in a hundred different ways. It’s the story of the just confronting the unjust, the right taking on the wrong, the strong serving the weak.
As you spend time with L’Amour’s stories, you meet people—familiar people, simple people. Most of his characters are “types” of people, generally lacking in subtleties, but still rich with personality, charm, courage, wit and moral fiber (or the conspicuous lack of it). While his characters are “types,” L’Amour still manages to avoid type-casting the traditional cowboys and Indians routine. Sometimes the Indians are hostile, but often they are the only wise ones around, and thus the only hope of rescue.
His stories are straightforward. L’Amour believed, “A good beginning makes a good end.” Often, his heroes find themselves nose to nose with trouble, and have every reason and recourse to walk away, were it not for the pretty lady in distress or the young mother left alone in Indian country minding her farm with no one to help her but her eight-year-old son. And while the hero could go on his way, it wouldn’t be right. It’s just that simple. So he stays, come what may.
And do you know what always comes? Trouble.
And do you know what the hero does when trouble comes? Neither does he until he’s pinned against the canyon wall staring down the barrel of trouble’s gun.
L’Amour uses the trappings of the cowboy life to take us into another place and time where a man doesn’t simply ride a horse. He rides a strawberry roan. He drinks coffee out of a tin cup from a kettle of spring water brought to a boil over a mesquite fire. He knows the difference between his Colt and his Winchester. His knife is sharp and within reach. He knows where the water is, or how to find it, and how much he has left and how long it has to last him.
The landscape itself is another crucial piece of L’Amour’s stories, a character in itself. At the beginning of his novel Sackett, L’Amour writes:
It was getting close to sundown when I fetched through a keyhole pass into a high mountain valley without growth of any kind. Bleak and lonely under the sky, it was like a granite dish, streaked here and there with snow or ice that lay in the cracks.
Timberline was a thousand feet below me, and I was close under the night-coming sky, with a shivering wind, scarcely more than a breath for strength, blowing along the valley. All I could hear was the sound of my horse’s hoofs and the creak of my saddle. Off to the left lay a sheet of ghost water, a high cold lake fed by melting snow, scarcely stirred by that breath of wind. It lay flat and still.
Can you see it? I can.
In L’Amour’s world, winters are cold, deserts are hot, night skies are starlit and sunsets are colorful affairs. Values are clearly delineated and the good guys always win. The weak are served by the strong. Liars are found out, thieves are shown for what they are and murderers never get away with it. The problems of the moment don’t color or define the entire identities or the rest of the lives of those bearing up under them.
Call his writing escapist if you want. Say things aren’t that simple, that cut and dried. But what if they are? What if this is the promise of how the story we’re all in will turn out one day? When I get to the end of L’Amour’s collection, I suspect I’ll just start again from the beginning until my story ends. And I suspect it won’t be that different from Sackett’s, minus perhaps a little gunfire.
So I was having a bad day. I woke up, for no apparent reason, at 5:30 in the morning, and my brain was already two hours ahead of my body. It was the kind of day that usually lands me in front of the mirror with a mental baseball bat. But on this day, I did not have the wisdom to walk away in defense. Instead, I moved in closer for a beat down. My arms would not reach up to fight, but remained stubbornly, helplessly at my sides. My face, totally unprotected from the oncoming head blow, narrowly dodged clear at the very last second, and I closed my eyes in relief. A minute or two passed and I gained strength enough to push away from the glass and head for the safety of my computer. I put my head down and got to work, hoping to shake off the shadows, but an hour later I found myself crying through the proofread because I hated every single letter on the screen.
Here is a small excerpt from John Piper’s excellent book Don’t Waste Your Life (which you can read here for free, or buy here for a pittance) wherein he expresses thankfulness for Clive Staples Lewis and details some of the ways he has cleared a path for us all. I’ll only add that I vigorously concur, and that JP is among the very few men who rank with CSL for impact in my own life. -sam
Heaven knows why it has taken me so long to write a little something about this album, the newest EP from friend and soul sister, Julie Lee. Julie and I met several years ago at a friend’s house and found immediate ease in conversation and a unique connection; sparks of light and magic hung lightly in the air around our collision. It was one of those instances where you know for sure that the God of the Universe meant for you to meet this one particular human being out of the millions that He created. I know that sounds a little dramatic, but I like drama (the good kind only, please) and am grateful when I find it happening in my little life.
Browsing the shelves of wicked-cool used bookstore here in Nashville, McKay Books, I happened upon Kathleen Norris’s (The Cloister Walk, Dakota, Amazing Grace) latest, Acedia & Me. Though I had no idea she had a new book out, the cheap sticker price for a primo first edition (Note: you will recall from a previous post that I have a more than slight affinity for used bookstores and, especially, first editions) was an easy decision. The title itself was mildly intriguing since I was vaguely familiar with the word, “acedia”, but of which I knew very little. The subtitle, “A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer’s Life”, though hardly an enticing, round-em-up, gather-em-in slogan, is true to Ms. Norris’ midwestern style, neither flamboyant nor melodramatic.
I’ve been hearing about this children’s Bible called The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones for a year or so now, first from Ben Shive, then from a smattering of others whose opinions I respect on such matters. One night last week Jamie and I were putting our sweet Skye to bed (she’s 6 now), and we were talking to her about Christmas. I’d been gearing up to leave for tour and with the first Sunday of Advent fast approaching we wanted to find out what she thought. Jamie asked her who was born on Christmas morning, and Skye answered, “Um…Noah?”
Russ Bremeier at Christianity Today:
Is there a qualitative difference between learning a song from your Grandfather and downloading a song from iTunes, from getting a recipe online and pulling out the yellowing paper of an old, family recipe? Ken Myers answers in the affirmative, channeling C.S. Lewis when he discusses the need for thoughtful Christians to consider not only content in what we appreciate in art, but also how we receive it.
The other night my wife and I had the opportunity to see Charlie Peacock in concert. The Art*Music*Justice tour, featuring Sarah Groves, Derek Webb, Sandra McCracken, Brandon Heath and Charlie, had an off day in Kansas City. So Charlie set up a house show with just him and his piano in the upstairs art gallery of the world’s most perfect Christian bookstore, Signs of Life, in downtown Lawrence, Kansas. (No kidding. Not a Scripture mint to be found, but huge sections on art, history, classics and local writers. There’s one wall devoted to the puritans, and another to Walker Percy, Flannery O’Connor and the like. Dangerous.)
Mystery. Intrigue. Drugs, dark secrets, the decay of the will, and the transforming power of God’s love sown by a single man to a harvest of redemption.
My favorite book I’ve read this year was initially only a curiosity piece I perused while killing time in a Barnes & Noble. I had recently bought Unchristian – a book that offers an insightful look at how outsiders of the faith view the church – by David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyons, but decided I needed a mental break and started looking for something a little lighter. I’m not inclined to reach for humor books, but the cover of a book featuring a man dressed in Old Testament garb and looking earnestly heavenward with the ten commandments in one hand and a Starbucks cup in the other proved irresistible. I picked it up, thumbed through the pages and found myself laughing out loud in the aisle at Barnes & Noble – another uncharacteristic behavior for me.
The Yellow Leaves: A Miscellany, the new book from my favorite author, Frederick Buechner, was released on June 16th. I added it to my Amazon shopping cart when I first heard about it from the Proprietor and Eric Peters, after they heard Buechner read a couple excerpts during the grand opening of the Frederick Buechner Institute back in January (which also featured a concert by Michael Card, with AP opening for him).
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
The musical bumper sticker on my car during the ol’ college years would have definitely read “I’d Rather Be Listening To Acoustic Music.” Therein was my initial foray into the early careers of Square Peg artists like our own Proprietor. I found great enjoyment in the Texan college worship scene (early Crowder, Robbie Seay, Justin Barnard, anyone?). And the great unknown (acoustic) rock over which I stumbled came in the form of Jill Phillips.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Andy Gullahorn is funny, but he’s also one of the more serious lyricists I’ve come to enjoy in a while. Listening to Reinventing the Wheel, you come to understand that he is more than a good songwriter. He is a craftsman. He knows what he’s doing, where he’s going, and where he’s taking his hearers.But as I said, people say Andy Gullahorn is funny. They say that, I think, because he makes them laugh. But as for me, I’m calling it nervous laughter.
Crossfire Trail, Sackett and others are definitely my favorite re-reads. I would like to think there are apart of what Eldregde explains as “mythical”. Fictious stories that help us see reality better.
and what guy doesn’t like a good ‘ol western anyway?
Thank you for your thoughts on this. Westerns definitely have a stigma, which is unfortunate. I haven’t gone far beyond Lonesome Dove or Shane in terms of really getting into westerns, but this review reminded me of what drew me into those stories. The landscape is often one of the most fascinating parts. While this genre can lend itself to being heavily plot driven, even the most suspenseful stories seem to easily slip into a solitude and quite that is pretty foreign to America in 2009. Its the nature of the setting.
Walker Percy adressed that same breakdown of the division of good and evil in Lancelot. I think there is even a point in that novel that he starts longing for the days of a good old-fashioned western dual.
Your last thoughts reminded me of “High noon in the Valley of the Shadow / when the shadows were shot through with light.”
If you ever get a chance, read L’Amour’s “Education of a Wandering Man”, the autobiography of his learning journey. It will give you a new respect for his experience, writing and wisdom.
Peace,
Jamie
Cool Jamie. It’s fun to see L’Amour fans coming out of the woodwork. He is a fascinating man, for sure. I haven’t read the autobiography, but I will.
Also, if you go check out some of his books on CD from your public library, some of them include recorded snippets of him talking about his stories and his life. In one I listened to recently, he talked about how for a while in his life he was a “tracker” and learned how to track people and animals through open country.
He also explains things like why horse-thievery was a capital offense, because to take a man’s horse was to take away his ability to get to water which was taking away his ability to survive. So stealing a horse was seen as a form of murder.
So going back to the opening quote in the post, we might look at horse-stealing as something people were pretty uptight about back then, but it’s hard for the seven-eleven generation to see why this was often life or death.
I could listen to him talk about these people and places all day long. Fascinating stuff.
Go to my old bedroom at my parents house and you’ll find about forty or fifty paperback L’Amour novels on the shelf, passed down to me from my grandpa when I was just a kid. They helped me to love reading and gave me an enduring love for mythology. Thanks for reminding me how great he was.
I’ve never read a L’Amour book, but I agree with everything you said. My great-great-grandfather once said, “I never killed a man that didn’t need to die.” I guess there’s a reason Clint Eastwood is still giving villains the cold eye…
I isn’t much of no reader, so I don’t know nothing about no Louis L’Amour books. But I sure am intrigued. Are they like Hardy Boys books, all the same color and numbered and such? Or are they bound up in one giant volume? In other words, where do I find ‘em, and where should I start?
The first fiction book I’ve read in probably 15 years was So Brave Young And Handsome. It was one of the best things I’ve done recently. Period. I was reading another book at the time that I thought was ok, but when I started reading So Brave Young And Handsome I realized how much the other book super sucked. I’m looking for more good stories. Thanks for this entry, Russ.
Aaron, Borders has hundreds of paperbacks. These used to be in the category of “dime store westerns.” But this kind of literature is just as good listened to as it is read, and your public library will have tons of them on CD. Some are even dramatized, which is corny for a lot of fiction, but seems to work well for L’Amour. If you’ve got an iPod or something like that, dumping these books on CD on and saving them for workouts or a long car ride are a great way to go. He won’t change your life, but he will enlarge your world.
Probably because of the subject matter, Russ, I can’t help but hear in your voice a western drawl as I read this post. I’ve never met you or heard you speak so I don’t know how far off this is, of course. I just found it funny that my mind conjured up an appropriate voice for a post on Louis L’Amour.
In the middle years of his life — and certainly in the later years, after his wife had passed — my grandfather read and re-read every single book Louis L’Amour had written, I’m sure. I have fond memories of Grandpa turning pages as my brother and cousins and I played in the living room of their place. I remember seeing stacks of L’Amour paperbacks on the small table next to his recliner. And I’ve heard and told stories of how the librarians knew him by name, and knew exactly what he was looking for at the library.
In many ways I think I equate Grandpa to the cowboy way of life: simple, clear cut lines, men with great character, driven by ideals. Grandpa was a hero to me: a kind man who loved his family and served them until he passed.
He could have been a Louis L’Amour character.
Oh, so it’s just like the Prayer of Jabez?
(Thanks Russ. Great info. I look forward to checking out some books.)
Russ,
I love Westerns but have never read Louis L’Amour. I know I’ve seen some of his stories, but I guess its time to saddle up and get to readin’ ‘em. Thanks for the CD suggestion too. I like the “behind the story” aspect of that version of his stories. Jamie adding the autobiography certainly makes this an inviting trail to explore. So many books, so little time — this side of eternity that is.
You should check out my Louis L’Amour blog.
http://www.lamourproject.com
Thanks!
Wow Chris. What inspired this blog? That was mighty fun to peruse.
About six months into our relationship, my now-fiancé and I made a deal: I would read a Louis L’Amour novel of his choosing (he gave me Jubal Sackett) if he would watch the 5-hour A&E production of Pride & Prejudice with me (yes, I am one of “those” women who read the book on a yearly basis and consider Austen and her Elizabeth Bennett some of my foremost instructors on society, relationships, and knowing oneself).
I’ll admit that I can be a literature snob; as a bookstore employee, I generally view the one lowly shelf reserved for Westerns with a bit of disdain. I am also suspicious of prolific authors, certain they must sacrifice quality in the production of quantity.
Well, this article, assisted by a number of other recent influences, has finally put me in my place. After striking the deal and becoming acquainted with Jubal and his clan, and through him, the literary stylings of L’Amour, I was surprised to find references to L’Amour popping up everywhere, and particularly from sources I tend to respect for their reviews of art and craft. A scholarly friend I would have never taken for a reader of Westerns blogged about her deep appreciation for the author and her desire to return to a simpler time. And then this article in the Rabbit Room.
While I was reading the book, my fiancé checked in every once in a while to monitor my progress and gauge my reaction. I was surprised by how many significant conversations the story and characters sparked between us–discussions of men and their innate drive to provide and protect; musings on how we truly need so little to survive, and how our modern lives are so cluttered that we fail to be thankful for having what we need; affirmations of my fiancé’s desire to wander and explore (and hunt); laughter over the one chapter written from Itchakomi’s point of view and how Louis captured the language of feminine insecurities…
The results of our bargain? We jokingly refer to Jubal Sackett as our “relationship coach.” I feel more comfortable with the prospect of my fiancé’s collection of L’Amour paperbacks one day taking up residence on our shared bookshelves. I am curious enough about the rest of the Sackett saga that I might pick up another in the series some day, with enough confidence to read the book in public, and without issuing anyone who raises an eyebrow a disclaimer about my general tastes in literature. And my fiancé, for his part, has expressed a desire to read Pride & Prejudice. Everyone wins.
Sorry to be jumping in so late, but Russ, you’ve asked a great question: whither the Western? Great stories are very often about somebody coming to the edge of what is familiar and then stepping off (or being pushed off) into the strange and unfamiliar. That is to say, great stories are very often about frontiers, where civilization bumps up against wildness (whether it’s the wildness within or the wildness without), where very different people rub up against each other and fight or fall in love or figure out how to forgive or at least tolerate one another. Usually those frontiers are metaphorical, but the Western gives us physical, literal ones. I don’t understand how the Western could have ever fallen out of favor.
Suz,
What a great test. You guys will be very happy together and I must say your experience with L’Amour sounds a bit like an Elizabeth Bennett moment.
By the way, I love the father in Pride and Prejudice. The A&E production in particular brings to life the extremely dry whit of that character.
Russ,
I’m with you on the blog. That is really cool Chris. You guys are firing me up to read these books. Thanks!
I haven’t had the pleasure of reading L’Amour yet, but speaking of Westerns, one of my favorite films is Open Range, which was written and directed by Kevin Costner. As I read your blog Russ, the virtues of L’Amour’s writing that you described reminded me of that film–the simplicity of life and good and evil, the roles of men and women, justice. There is a plain thinking and plain spokeness about the characters in that film that also stirs in me a desire for simplicity. Oh for men who are straight talking and straight shooting!
“Oh for men who are straight talking and straight shooting!” And are underestimated by everyone except the old cowboy, who has been around long enough to know a tough man when he sees one. And who don’t ride their horses along the tops of hills like those namby pambies in Hollywood westerns, ’cause they know that if they break the skyline every bad guy for miles around will know right where they are.
My dad is an avid L’Amour fan. He has read every one at least once, and probably two, or three, or more times. Obviously, I’ve also read a few.
I think we like the stories precisely because they are simple. Good/bad - right/wrong.
And if we applied some of the ideals we would realize that our modern day lives can be just as simple. We make them overly complicated for no good reason. Did you do the right thing? Yes. Did it turn out wrong anyway? Yes. Well all you could do was the right thing, so move on.
The key to all of L’Amour’s efforts are that they are entertaining. I just posted a blog (a week ago?) about that very subject.
Dave
dmmcgowan.blogspot.com
Thanks for the post Russ.
I think that as I was growing up and reading as many Louis Lamour books as I possibly could, that they were more than books to me but rather touched some of the deepest longings that God had hardwired into me. I felt a kinship with every cowboy that had to see what was over the next horizon and I wanted to be the person to put his everything into a cause at the risk of losing it all, just because it was right and someone had to get it done.
It’s been a few years since I last read one of his books, but I have to say that facing the battles that life throws at us and standing strong in them has some of the same sweetness as stepping into the shoes of some weathered cowpoke and facing down the greedy cattle baron who’d rather run the small time ranchers out of the valley than reign in his insatiable appetite for more (reminds me of a certain shepherd in the Bible who thought his neighbors sheep looked tasty!).
Louis Lamours stories aren’t only about the west but about life in general. Despite their simplicity there is a depth there that reminds me of Jesus telling us, that the only way we’re going to get into heaven is with a certain “childlikeness”.
I think that at times we do cloud the simple truth. A child is very often much more eager to hear and accept Christ’s plan of salvation than an adult. A child can much more easily believe that God created the world from nothing and did it only in 6 days while we sometimes wonder if it was 6000 or even 6 million (which IS easier by the way?). This makes me wonder what life would be like if all of God’s people obeyed first and asked questions later. What if, like the good cowboy, we first and foremost did what was laid before us to do, no contingency plans, no searching for biblical loopholes, simply doing right because right is good and believing that good will prevail.
I guess Mr. Lamour knew a little about life, and thankfully for me, he spoke my language!
Kevin