Western

An absorbing story of a man being pursued unjustly by a posse. He discovers a miner and his family hiding from an Apache war party. A little of everything, fun read! ( )

No Country for Old Men was my first time reading anything that could be considered a Western, but Taggart is my first time digging into a pulp Western. Louis L'Amour has a better reputation than most, so when I came across a couple of his in a charity shop, I grabbed them.

Taggart isn't perhaps his most popular (at least not next to the likes of Hondo and the Sackett books), but it seems to have a reputation for being a solid entry in the L'Amour canon. It was also adapted to film in 1964.

This felt like a decent entry point. Taggart is 120 pages of no-nonsense genre entertainment. It doesn't sparkle with flair or deliver on any kind of subtext; it's more or less a romance novel set in the old West and injected with some action. There's the odd line here or there that has a nice cadence, but for the most part the prose is merely functional and inoffensive.

L'Amour does have a bad habit here of giving the reader exposition through narration, when it would be much more compelling to have it later revealed through dialogue. For something so short and simple, the story isn't marvelously paced either; I'd even go as far as to label it a "stretched" short story. But the characters here are just about developed well enough to encourage investment and, once we have our lengthy character introductions out of the way, it makes for an enjoyable read. Some of the action I found a bit tedious, but other moments were well conveyed. Action in general is a hard thing to write, I think, (or at least in a way that doesn't come across as clunky) so it's always refreshing to see it delivered with style and brevity.

I snickered at some character moments, more as a way of shielding against the cheese. In spite of the sentimentality, I thought the ending scene and closing line was a nice touch.

I've not been swept off my feet but I'm not against reading L'Amour again. I will at least read the other one I have on my shelf: Hondo. ( )

A reworking of an old short story called "Trap of Gold." L'Amour expands the simple tale of a man and his gold discovery into a fuller story complete with a wife that thinks she doesn't love him, a sister looking for a man good enough for her, and a crooked sheriff who wants the women and the gold. The only thing that stands in the way of evil is a drifter known as Taggart, and the courage and strength of Adam Stark himself. ( )

Another hero with a strong pioneer woman story.