Cognitive dissonance. There's so much I liked about this book. Sure, the whole bank robber with an old grudge to be settled plot is pretty cliched and the characters aren't particularly well rounded, but the prose is masterfully written and so much of the ethos of manhood and outlaw is articulated more memorably here than anything else I've read. So many quotable lines about the choices outlaws make when they shake themselves loose from the rules of society and the heavy price they pay. High lonesome refers to a geographical location where the novel's climactic gunfight occurs but also to the solitary state of the man who has decided to live outside society. It's really pretty brilliant. Plus, the hardboiled nature of antihero Considine and his fellow outlaws rivals the gritty atmosphere of the best pulp crime novels. Who knew a popular fiction writer--my father's favorite writer nonetheless--could be so evocative and so readable?At the same time, it's hard to get past those flat, static characters. It could be argued that Considine evolves as he opens himself to the possibility of love throughout the novel, but this change seems to happen almost instantaneously and reflect his earlier unrequited love malaise. There's a bit of a love triangle that's not very well defined and a forbidden burgeoning love conflict that seems to resolve itself without much effort. Overall, plot-wise, the novel is fairly weak. The bigger issue is the misogyny. While L'Amour is superb at articulating what defines a man, he doesn't seem to have devoted much time to figuring out how women work. Here, women exist only to find and please a man. While that might seem more naive than misogynistic, at one point numerous references are made to women breaking and taming men, filing down their horns so to speak. These jokes don't always come from chauvinistic characters but sometimes from the book's omniscient narrator. At another point, a female character literally brews and fetches cups of coffee for the male characters during the aforementioned gunfight, something repeatedly referred to as women's work. Sure the setting and author are not contemporary and much of this can be explained by the outdated values of the era, but it's still tough to read.Overall, the merits won out over the flaws for me on this one. I enjoyed it enough that I'll give dime westerns a place in my library alongside pulp mysteries and early science fiction: pleasure reading when I need a break from weightier more literary texts.
“High Lonesome” is flecked with dread. There’s a ray of hope at the bitter end but there’s a lot of bitter before you get there. This is 90 percent straight-up action and still manages to pack in plenty of life-choice situations for this band of (mostly) bad guys. Or bad guys with a touch of heart here and there. “High Lonesome” is about last chances, big choices and dreams. Even bad guys have dreams and Considine’s hopes are clear. He even wants to rob the bank in Obaro with his way. “There must be no killing. He would like to rob the bank of Obaro to get the money and to taunt them, but he wanted no killing. Aside from the fact that he hated no one there, there was a practical side. Take their money and they might come after you; but kill a friend of theirs and they would follow you through hell.” Yes, there’s a woman and plenty of bullets and knives. Bad guys, more bad guys and some shades of gray. Dreams interrupted. “Whatever a man does leaves a trail behind, and to his passing he leaves indications of the manner of man he is, of his character, and even something of his plans. It requires only the observant and understanding eye to read what the trail can show.” That’s about as good a summary as any. A quick, energetic and still thoughtful read.
Do You like book High Lonesome (1962)?
This is the first Louis L'Amour book I've read. In recent years I've been reading more genre authors, mainly in sci fi and westerns. I like western stories, and it is good to not only read the serious authors like Cormac McCarthy.This book is a quick read with a concise, engaging plot. The characters are presented with minimal information and development, yet they are full-fleshed and interesting. The setting is convincingly evoked. Some genre authors are good at stories but not so good at the craft of writing -- the craft of actually putting together a series of well-written sentences. I didn't feel that way about L'Amour. His sentences and paragraphs are simple and straightforward, but there is art and craft in them.My favourite line in the book was this one: "for no man is free of the image his literature imposes upon him."
—Scott
July 14th finished High Lonesome by Louis L’Amour.L’amour’s heroes are always interesting, if nothing else. As primarily a western author, he has perfected the romanticized, rugged manhood of the cowboy. In High Lonesome, the hero is actually an outlaw, who is apparently redeemed by his sudden love for another “retired” outlaw’s daughter whom he meets on his way to rob a bank. I didn’t quite buy his sudden conversion to respectability, as I think L’amour tended to gloss over issues which would have added to the depth of the story, but perhaps something of that nature wouldn’t really fit into this tale of the West.
—Sarah
This book was my first "Western", chosen as a genre choice for my Adult Popular Literature class (hence the review, which I almost never write, but I need to remember this one for class later!). I chose L'Amour since he was such a prolific writer within the genre and I chose this particular book because the description promised a hint of romance (I thought that would make it go down easier). Although the novel was full of sterotypes--the outlaw, the Indian, the outlaw turned sheriff-- and even the plot itself was not very original, I was surprised by L'Amour's rather prosaic musings that punctuated the text. Sometimes he would go on about the beauty of the land, or the wonder of the Western lifestyle; at one point he even mentions the mistreatment of the Indian people. He tries to play these off as character thoughts, but you can clearly feel the author imposing his own ideas upon them. And L'Amour is clearly a man enamored with the old West.Set in 1881 in "the West" (I'm not sure if it is ever stated what state they are in) Considine and his band of outlaws make plans to rob the bank at Obaro. Problem is, Considine's ex-bff Paul Runyon has converted from the dark side and is now sheriff of the town. Oh, and he's also married to Considine's ex-lover, Mary. And on top of at that, the bank at Obaro has a reputation for being 'un-robbable'. Sound pretty juicy, right? Too bad L'Amour focuses less on this plot and those character relationships (I would have liked to have heard a lot more about the character dynamics between Paul and Considine. Why did they go their separate ways? Why did Paul stop his outlawing ways?) and adds a whole other sub-plot with and older outlaw and his daughter who are trying to get to California and run into some Indian trouble. By the end of the book, the sub-plot takes over and the more interesting story (I feel) is totally overshadowed. Also, the jumping around of point of view from character to character can get confusing.So, even though I didn't really like this book and I thought the writing was not that great, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The character of Considine was actually pretty well developed and there were a few passages of lyrical writing that were surprising. I'm sure fans of Westerns could read worse.
—Katie Bruce
