Western Splurge

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

I watched two John Wayne films in a row today, all in the name of research, of course. Like before I started my chess novel, I watched a few underdog films. Anyway, Fort Apache, the first Western I watched, is astounding, full of strong character development and with a great battle at the end. Henry Fonda is brilliant, and the minor characters are all well-drawn enough to make them believable and sympathetic.

The second film, El Dorado, co-starring Robert Mitchum and a young James Caan, is more generic, but still enjoyable. The two leads, John Wayne and Robert Mitchum’s characters, had weaknesses that put their ultimate victor in doubt, but the story felt like it was treading water. All the same, the scene where we first meet James Caan’s character should be familiar to all fans of David Gemmell’s Waylander. It was quite a thrill, hearing “Mississippi’s” back-story. I knew David Gemmell was a fan of Westerns - Jon Shannow aside, Waylander is similar to any of Clint Eastwood’s cowboys - but I wonder now if the idea for Waylander’s backstory quest somehow lodged into his subconscious after many hours spent watching similar style Westerns. After all, he once wrote that Legend was his attempt to put right the story of The Alamo.

I think this summer, I’ll watch a few more Westerns. The plot might be familiar at times, but that’s because there’s a pureness to the storytelling that’s hard to beat. Greedy landowner/cattle rustler/bandit picks on a little guy. In rides the tortured/weakened gunslinger to help out. That said, Fort Apache was something different. In a class of it’s own, really.

Anyway, this summer holdiday, if just a little of the magic of Howard Hawks or John Ford can rub off on me, like alot of it did on David Gemmell, I’ll be happy.

Tags: Westerns
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Reading Short Stories - For Queen and Country!

Sunday, August 1st, 2010

Ages ago, I bought “The Mammoth Book of Sword and Honour.” It took me a while to get round to reading it, as any book of short stories does. I always think I’ll dip in and out of the stories, but never do. Last week, I finally bit the bullet for Queen and Country, raised my bookmark high in the air and then planted it solidly in the first page. 

There’s always a satisfaction in reading short stories, often starting and finishing in the same session.The stories in Sword and Honour weren’t all to my liking. To my surprise, my least favourite tended to be the stories of campaigns in the latter quarter of the 19th Century, campaigns I’d often watched documentaries or films about. My favourite story was probably Joseph Conrad’s The Duel, about two Napoleonic officers who conduct a series of duels over two decades. Paul Finch’s Damned Ranker, about a common soldier who wants revenge on an officer, was also very good. A startlingly memorable one  was One Of The Missing by Ambrose Bierce, about a Confederate soldier trapped in a dark place.  

These kind of stories aren’t really my genre. I’ve never read Bernard Cornwell’s Sharp books, or any other books of that ilk. Some of the prose seemed stilted and slow-building by today’s standards - but the authors certainly dealt with weighty issues, by Jove!

I enjoyed reading short stories again. I can’t remember the last time I read a whole book of them (it was probably one of Stephen King’s collections). I found that in this anthology, the range of styles and variations in imagination were so enormous I couldn’t possibly like all the stories - but the ones I did will stay with me for some time. 

The last short story I wrote, incidentally, was a version of the Malaysian legend of Hang Tuah and Hang Jabat. And what a story that is!

Tags: Short Stories
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