Zane Grey (Desert of Wheat and Light of Western Stars)

Zane Grey (Desert of Wheat and The Light of Western Stars)

He’s one the greatest western writers ever, but over two years ago when I first tried reading his books, I didn’t get it. “This is junk,” I said, and I cast Zane Grey’s work aside. I loved westerns. I was well on my way in collecting the 50+ Louis L’Amour books I now own.  I’d even read the famous “Stage Coach” from which the 1939 John Wayne movie was based on.

Two years ago I found Zane Grey’s writing to be too detailed. Why was he describing the squirrels along the path? Why does it matter what the mountains looked like? I never finished that first Zane Grey, but there must have been something I liked, or at least something that got stuck in my head.

A month ago, wandering through the floors of the Dana Porter library at the University of Waterloo, I stopped in front of a shelf with a dozen or so Zane Grey novels on it. Term had nearly ended. I hadn’t read a book apart from my course work in months and I was starved for a good story.  I read them quickly, critiquing what I found to be the weaknesses in his writing. My main trouble was disbelief. Yeah right, I found myself saying a lot.

The plots are very romanticized. Take The Light of Western Stars, for example. A woman gets off a train at midnight in a western town. She’s a well known socialite from the east. She meets her brother and ends up using her wealth to buy land, run a ranch and improve the lives of the people she employs. Of course, like in all Zane Grey’s, there is romance. She falls in love.

In Desert of Wheat, a woman falls in love at first sight, but it’s not that simple. She must deal with a world war, and a labour union which tries to kill her father and burn everybody’s crops. She must bear everything that could possibly happen to a person, it seems. She relies heavily on what she refers to as “woman’s intuition.”

Despite the unbelievable plots, and overly detailed writing, something exists which keeps me glued to these books. Maybe it’s the way every character is in love with the land? Maybe it’s because of the absurdity of some of the plots? It could be the rambling writing style, or the skill Grey had of gathering the reader’s pathos. Maybe it’s because I now understand what Zane Grey was trying to do. He was trying to entertain by showcasing the lands and times he loved. Who cares if the plot is absurd? That absurdity is what makes them such a joy to read.