Rating: 
Summary: The best
Review: Monte Walsh is the classic western tale. Over the years I have read the book on average once every couple of years. It is the best western. Slash Y, Monte Walsh, and Chet Rollins almost seem real to me. It is too bad the movie versions badly distorted the story and butchered the characters.......someday, someone may make a good movie of the book. Tom Sellack's portrayal of Monte was not true to the charactor nor was Lee Marvin's early attempt
Rating:
Summary: Monte Walsh: the prototype for Lonesome Dove
Review: This novel sets out the panorama of the Old West as it very likely happened. The dust, the sweat, the harshness of life on the range. Schaefer chronicles the love that arises between compatible personalities sharing common dangers, hard work, love of animals and a philosophy of living. Only one who appreciated the difficulty of man's struggle on earth could so strikingly portray its physicalness: the rawhide hardness of the men, all gristle and bone and gritty determination and lack of self-pity.Schaefer acknowledges the 'ifness' of life in that epoch, its randomness and fragility, by titling the first chapter "A Beginning" and the last "An Ending." He tells a moving tale in a series of vignettes -- every one of which could have been very different. That it wasn't owes to the personalities he gave his main characters. Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins, in Army terminology, were buddies. They live out the rituals of the cowboy life, when fighting and rough living and carousing were considered part of being a real man. Uncomplaining acceptance of danger, a sense of honor, a refusal to whine about Fate, characterized the cowboy code. Don't talk; DO. Fun was its own reward, the capstone to grueling days and nights on the trail in dust and blizzard and driving rain. A man's word was his bond. Respect was hard-won, reflected in hard tests and the respect of other hard-bitten men. Schaefer's unusual word usage conveys the uniqueness of the brief era from the 1870s thru the coming of the automobile, when the term "cowboy" described a way of life. The odd employment of the reflexive "this" directs the reader's attention to details that would otherwise go unnoticed. Such devices draw the reader into the action as witness to a life of unremitting toil leavened only by the natural grace, humor and goodness of the men who lived it. Among the many excellences of this book, one comes to appreciate the immensity of the North American landmass, measured here by the yardstick of men on horseback. The dangers of the cowboy life appear as just part of the landscape. Schaefer shows how we unconsciously identify people by visual cues: The square-built man, the desk man, the slope-shouldered man. He captures the ache of hard-won skills becoming irrelevant as technology changes the human condition. People belong to the age in which they live. They couldn't fit into another age with the skills and insights gleaned from their own era. In this sense, the human drama is endlessly unique and interesting. In a foreword, Schaefer compares the significance of the lives of Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins, who went different ways as they aged. Schaefer avers that he and Chet respect more the success Monte achieved than that Chet achieved, hence the book rightly is named for Monte rather than Chet. For all his talent, Schaefer missed what matters here: At story's end you have real affection and respect for Chet Rollins, but you love Monte Walsh. He was a part of the Old West in a way Chet was not. Chet, manifesting the defining characteristic of mankind as a species, would change the world around him; Monte would only move in it, as cows and horses and wolves moved in it and storms raged across it. You love Monte the way you love cows and horses and wolves and the elements. This is one of a rare few books I wished would never end. Monte Walsh may be the only character of my reading experience whose life I wish I could have lived.
Rating:
Summary: Monte Walsh
Review: Years ago a good friend of ours gave us a copy of this book, since then it has been reread by the both of us so much that it is falling apart. Just ordered a new copy! This is a vivid tale of cowboy life written in short story form as though the writter was keeping a journal of events from this cowboys life. He has the ability to let you feel the action unfold as he writes, putting you right in the middle of stampedes, death, train wrecks, bar room fights, lost loves, and general cowboy onreyness. Please don't judge the book by the movie, it was a waste of film and Lee Marvin, having little to do with the book or the cowboy way of life and code of honor. This is a keeper you can enjoy over and over.
| 
