Jun 30, 2008 13:08
I am at the beginning of book 4, Wizard and Glass, of Stephen King's The Dark Tower, and I'm enjoying its mix of science fiction, fantasy, horror, chivalric romance, and western genres. (I'm listening to it on tape at work and on my commute.) But it did make me wonder, do generically pure westerns still get written?
I mean, the 70s and 80s may have given us the revisionist westerns of McCarthy and McMurtry (revising the Western, yet still clearly in touch with the generic tradition), but is anything happening with Western literature today that doesn't involve aliens or dimensional portals?
Or has the location of the Western changed? I've mentioned before how the American western probably traces its lineage to (or perhaps through) Cooper's Leatherstocking stories, which take place in the Eastern forests. (Although, those forests were certainly West for most of Cooper's readers.) Is there a new location for the Western?
reading,
discussion