This isn't cassettes, but a downloadable audio book from Recorded Books via my library & listened to on my MP3 player. Ed Sala is the narrator & at first I didn't think I was going to like his voice. It's kind of scratchy, old & often drops too low, but it really fits the story, except for when he tries to do the female voices. Luckily, there are very few. Seriously, he's awful at them.I pretty much quit reading most formulaic westerns years ago. They were cliches run rampant with plots laid out in the first few paragraphs. Grey is the reason. He was one of the first authors to become a millionaire & molded many of the violent, romantic myths of the old west. His success launched a host of imitators, many of whom used his version of the west as their own. So, I wasn't expecting a fresh western from Grey. After all, he first published this novel in 1914. He's old school & the last time I tried reading one of his novels, I wasn't too thrilled.What really surprises & delights me about this story is just how well the cliched young, quick-draw, gone-down-the-wrong-road-but-good-at-heart-anyway kid is drawn. After looking at the back end of those cliches all these years, seeing it from the front end is surprisingly refreshing. How can that be? I don't really know, just that it is. I think part of that comes from the laconic, gravelly drawl of Sala, but no reader can make a poorly written story into a delight. There's an economy & down-home fun to Grey's prose that just makes it fun to listen to.The story started out well for the first 9 chapters when I wrote the above. Chapter 10 suddenly bogs down with a loooong description of our hero's mental state. It was incredibly verbose & boring, pounding the same ideas into me until I was ready to surrender. Then the pace picked up & was good again for next 4 chapters until we reach the end of book 1. Unfortunately, there was some time travel going on. We skipped ahead a few years & then looked back, completely out of keeping with the story to this point, which had all been in the present tense. I'll give it 3 stars.Chapter 15 is a new book & chapter in Buck's life & it breaks much of the previous mood. It starts out quite refreshingly, totally expected, but not terrible. I was glad to see the book get back on track & listened through chapter 16 with delight. Chapter 17 started out with a lot of promise & then suddenly the book becomes a complete train wreck. Stupid, gaping plot holes, horrible dialog, & so much less that it is not worth listening to, although I did. At the end, there is one slight, redeeming moment, (view spoiler)[ Buck doesn't beat a bad guy to the draw (hide spoiler)]
During a recent visit to the Texas State Cemetery I viewed thePrayer of the Texas Rangers and several of their graves, one ofwhich was of Captain John Hughes. A little investigation revealedthat Zane Grey based 'Lone Star Ranger' on Hughes, and indeed whenI picked up a copy, there is a dedication from Grey to Hughes andthe Rangers. No, I didn't expect an accurate historical biography. I didget a good ol' wild west shootem up, with purple prose passages describing the Texas country side, a true, though wronged hero,Buck Duane, a good horse, opponents in the most outlawy of outlaws,and a feel of how news, well rumors of news, and reputations traveledabout the West. As it was written in 1915, I knew movies based their cowboyheroes on books like this, but you could easily swear it wasthe other way around as it reads so much like the old westerns ofHollywood. In other words, yes corny at times, occasionalplot devices that come out of no where, but the action keeps coming,and you wonder just how is Buck going to get out of this fix? By time I was done reading, I found myself occasionallychecking my imaginary holster on my hip, what would be thefastest way to draw? Would I be quicker than the remorseless,steely eyed Poggin ? And thinking about watching thewestern movie 'Unforgiven' again.
Do You like book The Lone Star Ranger (2007)?
This was a action packed book, I enjoyed it up until the sappy (super-sappy) ending. There are 25 chapters and the drippy sappy ending only began around chapter 20, so there is quite a lot of great book before-hand. I have always thought of Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour as Western Harlequin Romance authors and steered clear of them. I kind of left them to mom and my uncles. But this book was surprisingly good. I hear tale that this book might have been the impetus for The Lone Ranger(Radio/TV) series. I can see the similarities.If you only read one western by Zane Grey this would be the one I recommend (but then again, I haven't read any of his other westerns). And if you only read one by Louis L'Amour then I would say it should be The Lonesome Gods. Both have strong honest hero's who lead proactive lives despite the situations they find themselves in.
—Kimbolimbo
Zane Grey, without a doubt, makes the western genre come to life. Regardless of his lack of realism in many cases (i.e. can anyone really shoot a six shooter that accurately and swiftly?, can a horse really take that much punishment?, etc), many of his scenes will be long remembered after the reader has finished the book. As an example, and without revealing too much of the book, the event of Buck hiding out in the willows, was one the reader won't soon forget. If nothing else, Mr. Grey's books are hard to put down, and every time they are picked up, it is a joy to read them and forget about the hectic pace of today for awhile. It is also refreshing to read about a character that is a true hero and not one of today's anti-heroes. I love reading the statement, "Duane had intelligence and keenness enough to see his peril - the danger threatening his character as a man, just as much as that which threatened his life. He cared vastly more, he discovered, for what he considered honor and integrity than he did for life." Oh take me back to the wild west of yesteryear, with a good horse and the open sky!
—John
This book is a true western romance. Wikipedia claims it served as the inspiration for the Lone Ranger, but I don't see that, except in the most general sense. There are no masks, Indian scouts, white horses or silver bullets. The only thing that might inspire a legend is a man who becomes a Texas Ranger and then operates as a vigilante, alone, outside the scope of the Ranger's mission. He bridges the story between what the Lone Ranger might have originally been and what he became.I enjoyed this book, one because it was extremely romantic, first in its naive depiction of the West and in its sexual tension, and two, for its early twentieth century depiction of class differences. At the end of the book, our hero, Duane Blake, resigns from the Texas Rangers so that he can operate outside official rules of justice. He becomes a vigilante. In so doing, he uses his own judgement to pardon the upper class father of the woman he loves. He feels no guilt in killing the lower class "outlaws" who have acted as the lieutenants of his future father-in-law; he also justifies finding a way to ferry the criminal boss off to Louisiana by saying "He grew into the leader because he was the strongest" (page 347). Ah, the superiority of Anglo-Saxon upper class! It illustrates so clearly Edwardian thinking about the superiority of class. One must read this book, if one wants to understand how deeply ingrained class perceptions were at the time.Also, Zane Gray, while his style of writing is extremely old-fashioned, can certainly string a sentence together. He captures the beauty of the West, its spirit and, unfortunately, all of its continuing biases. This book remains a classic of American ethnocentrism in all of its glory.
—Cathy Spude
