The Virginian: First Western

We had a great group at Barnes & Noble last Monday! If you were one of those lucky enough to be with us, you left with a fairly complete understanding of The Virginian, by Owen Wister, and its place in history. I opened the discussion with something one of you who couldn't be there at the meeting had told me: that this book was a basis or inspiration for Star Wars. This potentially fabulous concept fell flat. No one could do much with it, especially those who had read the book and seen the movies. Oh well. We moved on to discuss The Virginian as indeed the basis and model for most every Western novel written after it...the good ones, anyway. Perhaps it was because The Virginian was so well crafted; or maybe it was because not only was it well-crafted and good reading, but it also included every aspect of a real but fleeting lifestyle plus more. I thought it interesting that when we dissected the history, we found that the time of the stereotypical cowboy lasted only about 40 years. Considering how many books and knock-offs such as TV shows and movies center on the cowboy life, ie, life at the time of The Virginian, one would think the era had lasted 100 years! We had some disagreement as to whether the protagonist in the book was an outsider or an insider among his peers. Certainly, he was a leader! You know if Cary Grant played him, he was a leader! Most of us enjoyed The Virginian; there were a few who found the writing somewhat hard to get into. Several who don't generally seek out Westerns were surprised at how much they enjoyed the book, myself among them.