The Wild West

[Paul Mackin]

Mindful of the strong hint that Against the Day will contain  
significant elements of Wild West "tradition," and also of Paul N's  
earlier posts   I thought this list of books would be of interest.  
They were the basis for an August 10, 2000, New York Review of Book's  
essay by Larry McMurtry bearing the title "Inventing the West."



A Newer World: Kit Carson, John C. Frémont, and the Claiming of the  
American West
by David Roberts
Simon and Schuster, 320 pp., $25.00

The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill
by Don Russell
University of Oklahoma Press, 514 pp., $22.95 (paper)

Buffalo Bill's Wild West: Celebrity, Memory, and Popular History
by Joy S. Kasson
Hill and Wang, 320 pp., $26.00

The Business of Being Buffalo Bill: Selected Letters of William F.  
Cody, 1879-1917
by Sarah J. Blackstone
Praeger, 320 pp., $26.00

The Real Wild West: The 101 Ranch and the Creation of the American West
by Michael Wallis
St. Martin's, 672 pp., $21.95 (paper)

The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley
by Glenda Riley
University of Oklahoma Press, 252 pp., $24.95

Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill's Wild West
by Isabelle S. Sayers
Dover, 89 pp., $8,95 (paper)

Will Rogers
by Ben Yagoda
University of Oklahoma Press, 409 pp., $18,95 (paper)

(Interestingly, before getting down to the American stuff, the essay  
quotes Eric Hobsbawm on the basic nature of this type of "tradition,"  
which was not confined to the American Wild West." (The Invention of  
Tradition).

"The object and characteristic of "traditions," including invented  
ones, is invariance. The past, real or invented, to which they refer  
imposes fixed, (normally formalized) practices, such as repetition."


McMurtry goes on to say, "It's a sad, but, to my mind, inescapable  
fact that most of the traditions which we associate with the American  
West were invented by pulp writers, poster artists, impresarios, and  
advertising men; excepting, mainly, those that were imported from  
Mexico, whose vaqueros had about a three-century jump on our cowboys  
when it came to handling cattle. I don't know at exactly what point a  
skill becomes a "tradition," or equipment and apparel (ropes, wide- 
brimmed hats) become "apparatus," but many of the skills associated  
with American cowboys were Mexican skills moved north and adapted to  
Anglo-Saxon capabilities and needs. Now, pulp fiction lacks much, but  
it doesn't lack what Professor Hobsbawm calls invariance. (The  
editors of Ranch Romances would just call it the formula.)")

Made me think of that GR passage about their being only one of   
everything.

One Westerman, one pard, etc etc.\






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