book report: “riders of the purple sage” by zane grey

over the holidays, t and i went on a fishing trip. i don’t fish (and i especially don’t fly fish; all i can think of is the movie “a river runs through it” with brad pitt), so instead i decided to read a book. the only problem was that i hadn’t brought a book with me. so i downloaded a free one (because i’m cheap like that) and i ended up with “riders of the purple sage” by zane grey. zane grey was a wildly popular author in the early 1900s who wrote about the old west; “riders of the purple sage” was his most popular book, first published in 1912. jackpot.

i can’t lie; when it comes to books, i’m as old-fashioned as it gets. i like the classics, and basically just older books in general. if i had to pick between jane austen and one of this week’s new york times best sellers, jane would (and does) win each time. i don’t know what it is about older books that attracts me; maybe i’m trying to escape the modern reality.

however, i’m still a modern girl reading an old book, and i can’t help but get my feathers ruffled when there’s some blatant sexism or belittling of women and no one bats an eyelash about it. it REALLY gets me when the male characters go on and on about how silly and petty the women are, and then the women characters embrace their “womanly wiles” and “feminine coquetry” like they don’t have any other options. i know that we’ve come a long way as a society since then, but it’s frustrating just to even be reminded of what it was like to be a woman 100 years ago.

(spoiler alert) the book itself is about the utah frontier. a woman, jane withersteen, has inherited a huge cattle ranch from her father and is very successful and wealthy. she is a mormon, and is resisting the pressure of her elders to marry. she is also friends with the non-mormons in the community, which makes a lot of people angry. she is the nicest, kindest, sweetest, most generous woman ever to live, etc. typical heroine with no flaws. cue: lassiter, gunman, outlaw, dark past, secret quest that only jane can solve. lassiter and jane band together when jane’s cattle start disappearing and ultimately redeem each other. there’s also a side love story that’s sweet and full of redemption (but possibly cradle-robbing).

all in all, i liked this book much more than i expected to like it. most of the time it didn’t seem like it was from 1912. there was also a lot of focus on jane’s character development, and her growth into an independent woman. her independence always seems to hinge a little too much on lassiter as the catalyst and sustenance, but overall it’s a well-written book that preserves a point of view and way of life that really doesn’t exist anymore.

GRADE: A-

(image via flickr)