Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All

Shane is one of my re-readable books. I first found the novel as a child and immediately loved it. I just read it again a few days ago, and it still captures every bit of my imagination.

Like all Westerns, Shane is a story about ideas. The narrator was just an eight-year-old boy when Shane entered the lives of him and his family. He’s a mysterious gunslinger without a past and without a set future. We’ll follow this loner as he tries to meld into a growing frontier community in conflict. Their sedentary style of farming and ranching sits at odds with the wide-open ranges of the local herd boss.

Classically, it’s the meeting of the old and the new. It’s set at the dawn of the closing of the American West. But, the novel shows the heroism of both sides. I think the reader will dream about the romanticism and epic-ness of the dangerous gunfighter, but the reader will also understand the strength and rightness of his adopted pioneering family.

The novel is short. The story is told in quick, sparse elements. Unlike other classics like The Ox-Bow Incident, the big ideas in Shane are mainly left unspoken. The boy understands his love and admiration for Shane and his father, but he doesn’t see the grand scale of what is happening around him.

But we, the readers, do. We bring that meaning into this mythical world of the Western.

It’s a place where good fights evil—where the men are majestic and the women are just as tough. It’s a good place to play. And a good place to dream.

Tags: Books //