THE VIRGINIAN

Is this 1902 story by Owen Wister the blueprint cowboy (the author designates them as cow-boys or cow-punchers) novel for thousands of novels and movies yet to come? Yes indeed! It opened the gates for the great Zane Grey (see my 5/13/2015 review of Riders of the Purple Sage) and later for the prolific western writer Louis L’Amour (Hondo:A Novel). This is the first full length western novel that wasn’t a pulp/dime novel. It features the good guy (the Virginian), the bad guy (Trampas), the lovely schoolmarm (Miss Molly Stark Wood), and the honest rancher (Judge Henry) of the Sunk Creek Ranch in Medicine Bow, Wyoming. And some of the great descriptive writing with the local colloquial dialect of the times. Want some example words? How about hawss (horse), seh (sir), hyeh (here), mawnin (morning), or oveh yondeh (over yonder). Wister’s novel opened the doors for many great writers besides the few that I mentioned above. We (the readers) wouldn’t have Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s 1940 novel,The Ox-Bow Incident (see my review of 11/26/2012), or Jack Schaefer’s 1949 novel, Shane, or in more modern times, Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy. What canned food were the cowboys eating on the trail? How about sardines, potted chicken, tomatoes and deviled ham (they are still favorites). I’m only bringing up this information because I thought that the secondary effect of reading this novel was a good ole history lesson. Okay, let me tell you a little bit of the story.

An unnamed man, who has traveled from the northeast, gets off the train in Medicine Bow, Wyoming. He has been hired by ranch owner, Judge Henry of The Sunk Creek Ranch (for what position is never known), but he does become the narrator of the story. A tall handsome cowboy meets him at the train tracks and tells the tenderfoot (that’s the most name our narrator will get) that it is 263 miles to the ranch; therefore, they will have to stay overnight in the crowded town before heading to the ranch in the morning. The tall handsome cowboy is ranch hand...the Virginian (no other name is ever given). After the Virginian finds shared beds for them, he sits down at a card dealer’s table and gambles with five or six others. One of the cowboys, Trampas, says to the Virginian as he sits down, “No place for amatures.” (that is how the author spelled it) The Virginian doesn’t say anything. Trampas raises the bet...another gambler raises the bet again...the next man threw his cards down... while the Virginian looked at his cards. Since the Virginian didn’t speak right away, Trampas spoke. “Your bet, you son-of-a---. The Virginian’s pistol came out, and his hand lay on the table, holding it unaimed. And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but drawling a very little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each word, he issued his orders to the man Trampas:- When you call me that, smile!” After a lot of quiet tension…Trampas had made his choice. “And that choice was not to draw his steel.” The descriptive writing throughout this novel is very colloquial with the spelling of the times. It was interesting but made you read some lines over and over again until you were sure you got the correct meaning.

The dislike between the Virginian and Trampas will continue throughout the novel culminating in a final showdown. Anyway, the Virginian and the tenderfoot start the long ride back to the ranch on the horses, Buck and Muggins. Along the way, they run into a Mr. Taylor who tells them that Bear Creek is building a schoolhouse and they hired a teacher from Vermont. He says that it’s a Miss Molly Stark Wood. Taylor doesn’t know if she is young or old. Molly will become the Virginian’s heartthrob. The Virginian and the tenderfoot finally get to the Judge’s ranch. “Judge Henry’s ranch was notable for several luxuries.” He had milk, butter, eggs and chickens. ”In those days his brother ranchmen had thousands of cattle very often, but not a drop of milk, save the condensed variety.” At the ranch, the reader is entertained with many tales from the cowboys with monikers such as: Honey Wiggin, Nebrasky, Dollar Bill and Chalkeye. Then there is the crazy hen, Em’ly, who will sit on anything that looks like an egg; for instance, potatoes, onions, soap, peaches and once on new born puppies! By the way, I’m only on page 68 of the novel. Whether the cowboys are in the bunkhouse, on the trail, or relaxing at a cook-out, the author comes up with captivating sidebar stories among the men in that western dialect. Somewhere in the novel the Virginian suspects that his friend Steve is rustling cattle. Will he get caught? How will the honest Virginian react? Will the Virginian get promoted to ranch foreman? Will the Virginian get his girl? There is so much to tell you about this exceptional novel of 389 pages that I must stop here before I reveal all the juicy action still to come. This was a remarkable and somewhat sad story. The novel also has a long introduction by John G. Cawelti, Endnotes by Stefanie Sobelle and pages of comments and questions.

Owen Wister dedicated this book to his friend, Theodore Roosevelt, President of The United States of America and fellow Harvard University student. To Wister, Roosevelt embodied the traits of both East and West-”socialite and cowboy.” “The novel is set in post-Civil War America and is essentially a novel of a friendship between North and South, symbolized by the nameless narrator and the nameless Virginian. Each must leave the old, fractured East and establish himself in the new, wild-yet optimistic-West: a place for moral regeneration.” I highly recommend this delightful forerunner of all the western/cowboy novels that have been written in the past and present.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: The first TV western of 90 minutes was The Virginian, starring James Drury as the Virginian (he still has no name) and Doug McClure as his top hand, Trampas. Have you noticed that Trampas is a friend on TV and an enemy in the novel. The other similarities are the TV show’s ranch owner Judge Garth (played by Lee J. Cobb) and Judge Henry in the novel. One of the horses from the novel, Buck, is Doug McClure’s horse in TV series. Otherwise the TV show is only in the vicinity of the novel (loosely connected). The show played for nine seasons (249 episodes) from 1962 to 1971 and is in third place for long running western TV shows. So, who is first and second? In first place is Gunsmoke, which ran for twenty years (635 episodes) and in second place is Bonanza, which ran for fourteen years (430 episodes). I remember watching those shows every Sunday when I was much younger. Cowboy shows were prominent during the 1950's through the 1970's (and later). They were so much better than the current lame sitcoms.

From the novel: