Hombre | Elmore Leonard | An excellent novel by one of America's most gifted writers

Hombre | Elmore Leonard | HOMBRE - an absolute classic of the novel form

books:

Hombre

	Hombre Elmore Leonard HarperTorch, 2002 - 208 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

John Russell has been raised as an Apache. Now he's on his way to live as a white man. But when the stagecoach passengers learn who he is, they want nothing to do with him -- until outlaws ride down on them and they must rely on Russell's guns and his ability to lead them out of the desert. He can't ride with them, but they must walk with him or die.

An excellent novel by one of America's most gifted writers

Elmore Leonard is not nearly as well known for his Westerns as his hardboiled crime dramas, but in fact he is one of the finest writers in the genre of the past fifty years. This is partly because he is simply one of the finest American writers period. He is famous for writing some of the hardest hitting, purest prose during his lifetime. There is nothing flashy about his writing. My guess is that a glossary of all his words would tally less than 400 words in all. There probably aren't more than 20 words of more than two syllables in the entire book. Some paragraphs have few two syllable words. This apparent simplicity can mask what is in fact a stunning virtuosity. Leonard is known as a writers' writer and this will escape no reader who pays close attention to the deceptive sophistication of his style.

The story he tells here is a simple one. Leonard is hardly the first to depict a Western hero. Nor is he the first to depict a hero who possessed outsider status. John Russell, the "hombre" of the title (and "hombre" here really has a similar sense as "Mensch" in Yiddish), is a white man who was raised in his formative years as an Apache. He is the result of white, Apache, and Mexican cultures, yet doesn't completely fit in any of them, though he seems most comfortable as an Apache. Though treated with disdain by his fellow stage coach passengers (actually, they travel in a mud wagon), he becomes their only hope after bandits hold them up. Russell is striking for being treated as both heroic and extremely capable, but not impossibly skilled as many Western heroes are depicted. Though a good shot, he misses more than he hits his target. Though most of his decisions are good ones, he isn't infallible.

The novel is remarkable for how sympathetic Native Americans are depicted. Written in 1961, Leonard anticipates the far more positive treatment of Indian characters in the seventies and beyond. The central crime in the novel is one perpetuated against Indians, just as the protagonist is a product of Apache culture.

I highly recommend this novel. It is yet another example of Elmore Leonard's consummate ability as a writer, as well as being a first rate Western. It truly is Leonard at his very best.

for more information click here

HOMBRE - an absolute classic of the novel form

Elmore Leonard's HOMBRE is, irrespective of genre, an absolute classic of the novel form. In my opinion it's the best example since THE GREAT GATSBY of what I'd loosely term "self-effacing first person narrative", by which I mean narrative wherein the author so contrives things that the narrator - Carl Allen in HOMBRE - is not the main character or event in the story. Personally I think this tends to make for a greater semblance of objectivity since the person telling the story necessarily remains, like the reader, on the periphery of the central events.

I would unreservedly recommend Elmore Leonard's 's westerns to anybody interested in "a good read"- but especially to any reader who's completed his "modern" books. It's not that I'm a fan of the western genre in particular, but Elmore Leonard's output is infinitely superior to the norm. With great dialogue and memorable characters they make for a very tight read: more like Hemingway than Louis L'Amour.

There's a sort of underlying thematic quality to HOMBRE (to VALDEZ IS COMING, too) wherein the young United States is itself the hero - or heroine, as the case may be. For example, Gay Erin in VALDEZ shucks off her attachment to the small shopkeeper and the cattle baron in favour of the man of honour . . . and the man of honour (VALDEZ, HOMBRE), social outcast though he may temporarily be, is able to come into his own precisely because he was born in the Land of the Free.

You just know this ain't gonna happen in downtown Detroit or present day Dade County FLA.

Beats me why WHEN THE WOMEN COME OUT TO DANCE had to reprise so many stories out of THE TONTO WOMAN when there are so many uncollected Elmore Leonard western stories out there just waiting to be corraled.

PS If you like the narrative voice in HOMBRE, mosey on over to Arkansas and Missouri and check out TRUE GRIT by Charles Portis. It's another classic of the western genre with a quite differently stunning first person narrative voice. Meanwhile, here's a spoof reprise of that scene from the film where Richard Boone stomps into the stagecoach office and confronts Paul Newman . . .

`Frank Braden,' he said. His hands spread out along the counter.
I said, `Yessir? As if I still worked for the Sweetmary Library Service. Hell, I shouldn't have been behind the counter but I'd dropped off to sleep reading the latest John Grisham (hate the books; love the movies).
`Write it down for EL's EO.'
`I'm sorry.'
`I said: "Write it down for Elmore Leonard's entire opus.'
`That's a special batch.'
`I heard. That's why I'm having it.'
I looked down at the four orange library cards on the counter, lining them up evenly. `I'm afraid that one's taken. Four here and those two. That's all we could get a-hold of.'
`You can get another one,' he said. Telling me, not asking. `Sunny side up, easy on the adverbs, exclamation points and hooptedoodle.'
`Well, I don't see how.'
`On top of what you ordered.'
`We got half a dozen is all. That's a library service rule. I was just telling these boys here. Certain people can read . . .'
`You say they've got 'em?'
`Yessir. Both of them.'
He turned without another word and walked over to John Russell with that clumpy thumping sound as the Max Brands, Louis L'Amours and Zane Grays hit the library floor. He still had the Jack Schaefers slung low in his left hand: SHANE, THE KEAN LAND, THE COLLECTED SHORT STORIES. You can say what you want about Frank Braden but he was nobody's fool.
He said, "That boy at the counter said you got the Forty less One.'
`Uh?' said John Russell.
`Elmore Leonard's stuff.'
`John Russell opened his hand on his lap. `This?'
`That's it. And the others. You give them to me and grab a Stephen King.'
`I have to take them,' Russell said.
`No, you want is all. But it would be better if you waited. You can read Captain Corelli, get drunk. How does that sound?'
`I have to take these,' John Russell said. `I have to take these and I want to take them.'
`Leave him alone,' the ex-soldier said then. `We were first in line, you find your own batch of books.'
Frank Braden looked at him. `What did you say?'
`I said why don't you leave him alone.' His tone changed. All of a sudden it sounded friendlier, more reasonable. `He wants the Forty less One, let him take them,' the ex-soldier said.
You heard the clumpy thumping sound again as Frank Braden shifted to face the ex-soldier and Charles Portis' TRUE GRIT hit the ground. He scooped it up again, stacked it alongside the Schaefers, stared at him and said, `I guess I'll have your Forty less One instead.'
The ex-soldier hadn't moved, his big hands resting on his knees, his feet propped on the canvas bag that contained the thirty-nine books. `You just walk in,' he said, `and take somebody else's Forty less One?'
Braden's pointed hat brim moved up and down. `That's the way it is.'
`Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!' I said - exclaimed even - thinking I was still in the employ of the Sweetmary Library Service.

for more information click here

A Western with a moral.

I'm new to the Western genre. After a few L'Amours, a friend put me on to Leonard's Westerns. So I'm reading them; they are a world apart (and very much a better one) than the good but stolid L'Amour.
I read Hombre just after Valdez is Coming, and now I'm going through the Leonard western list; he's my definite favorite for the time being.
Hombre is a distinctly moral tale. The moral punch comes suddenly and unexpectedly at the end. The hero (not anti-hero, in my opinion; here I differ from an earlier reviewer)is so laconic that you don't get much foreshadowing of his actions until they happen. This is a style I very much like, instead of the author's own ruminations through the thoughts and bloviations of his protagonist-- a major L'Amour characteristic. (I suppose I shouldn't dwell on L'Amour, but he's my only other Western author so far; and he's a solid 3-star writer, a very respectable thing to be.)
Leonard is very spare in his writing and very suited to the Western, in my mind. I'll be getting the well-regard Paul Newman movie, which I've never seen.

for more information click here

A good, not so typical Western

'Hombre' is another entry in the western genre from Elmore Leonard. This novel tells the story of a man named John Russell that was raised as an Apache. He owns some property that he needs to sell and is about to take a stage coach ride with one Mr. Mendez to get where he is going. Quickly, several other passengers join the coach. When they discover Russell's background, they refuse to allow him to ride in the coach with him. It doesn't take too long for the coach to get into trouble when it becomes obvious that Mr. Russell is not the only one who isn't as he appears.

This is a good Western. The scenes are laid out well be Leonard and unfold nicley. For the most part, the characters are what you expect in a Western given their backgrounds. The various prejudices of the white man against the Apache's are obvious. In other words, the characters match the time period.

This novel has a moral that we've all heard before. Leonard simply repackages it. In addition to not judging a book by its cover, you need to walk a mile in its shoes. That is the lesson to be learned from this novel, which will become apparent by the time you get to the end.

As is usual, Leonard has created some wonderful characters. In addition to Russell, there is "the McLaren" girl who has her own ties to the Apaches. She had been kidnapped by them, and while she resents them, she has learned a few things from them. There is Dr. and Mrs. Favor. Dr. Favor isn't quite the good doctor, and his wife doesn't quite obey the rules of polite society. Mr. Mendez is the Mexican coach driver, and kind of a mentor to Russell. There are a few colorful bad guys that round out a diverse cast.

This isn't Leonard's best novel, but it is a very good one. Anyone that enjoys Leonard's work should like this. I'd also recommend it to fans of Westerns.

Grade: 4 stars.

for more information click here

Classic Western by a genre master

John Russell is in many ways an archetyypal hero of the Western movie and novel-tactiturn and laconic in demeanour,whipcord tough and a man of action -yet he is a man apart from most of those around him by virtue of having been raised by Apaches .He was captured by them as a boy and subsequently adopted by a white man, a supply wagon owner ,thus having experience of both the ways of the whites and the Apaches.
He is not the narrator of this tale however -a lot that falls on Carl allen ,a passenger on a stagecoach bound for Delgado where russell is going to see if he can fully embrace white customs and live as a white man .Allen is in awe of Russell but by no means uncritical of him or his manner .The journey is complicated by the presence on board the stage of an embezzling banker ,something which is known to a band of outlaws who lay siege to the coach and its passengers ,and are prepared to kill if need be to get their hands on the loot.

The result is grim chess match as standoffs and shootouts ensue but the emphasis is as much on the psychological and interpersonal tensions as it is on physical violence .The prose is lean ,mean and economical ,the action scenes punchy and direct and the characterisation way above normal for the genre .
Russell is a true ,if deeply flawed hero ,as he possess tha courage to do what he felt had to be done -others fall short of the mark.

Gripping and edgily compulsive reading -please dont miss it if you have any love for great storytelling

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2

products you might be interested in