Where did the Western go?

[samedietc]

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

Comments

[tragic_ohara]

Suburbia? Space? The Middle East? I don't know really. If there are any new locations, though, I doubt there's only one.

[samedietc]

that's interesting--with the breakdown of the manifest destiny that casey pointed to, the idea that "we belong here" both has no particular location to focus on and is itself somewhat troubled, leading to multiple possible spaces that require taming. (Although I can't off the top of my head think of a Suburban Western, whereas I can think of a few "asphalt jungle"-type stories--mostly films--that might qualify as Urban Westerns.)

[tragic_ohara]

I didn't have any examples in mind; the suburbs are just kind of a useful default way to modernize and satirize a genre in one go. (Imagine feeling the need to tame and survive in a place that has been tamed and rendered survivable to such a loathsome degree.) In fact I can't really imagine a non-satirical suburban Western, so that doesn't really speak to your question of generic purity after all.

[unsi_sempai]

No Homeowner's Association for Old Men

[elahadrun]

It would have been space, but Manifest Destiny is dead

[dr_smith]

Tying your ideas to Ben's reading material, the cowboy is very much a symbol of "the old ways", usually for better and worse all at once. It's a potent character type, if used with care.

[samedietc]

I had a whole post, but then I didn't like it, so I erased it and thought of a different post.

First, I'd like to point out that your examples were both film/tv, which is fine, but goes back to my original question about Western literature. (see my response to vin, which I haven't yet written, but I think will address this.)

Second, I'd like to add to/change your comment on subjugating land. I definitely think you're right that Westerns do usually have some conflict between man and nature, so space fits well there, since space is pretty hostile to human life. But I think the Western is also (and perhaps more importantly) about the conflict of cultures, and usually the conflict of cultures over that natural space--cowboys vs. indians, ranchers vs. farmers, cowboys vs. rustlers.

So I might say that Westerns focus on the conflict between people who want to "civilize" the land and people who want to keep it "uncivilized" (whatever those particular things mean to particular people--have you ever read Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple

[elahadrun]

Well, I have to admit that I haven't read any Westerns, unless you count the first Dark Tower book, because the genre has always turned me off. I thought about that for a while yesterday, but I couldn't think of anything from it that would contribute to this discussion. So I'm strictly unfamiliar with anything but the most common pop culture tropes re: Westerns

[uncleernie50]

You are about to read the best book in the series FYI

[dr_smith]

If you look in your local big box book store, you'll find a small section in the genre fiction area, maybe three or four shelves between scifi and romance, for westerns (possibly integrated with war novels that don't make the actual "literature" designation and come in the mass market format). They seem to be produced and followed with the same energy as low-end mystery-thrillers or mid-grade science fiction, though on a smaller scale. New ones trickle in slowly, but they are out there.

[samedietc]

I know that Vin--I wasn't arguing that no one is writing Westerns, only that written Westerns seem to have no cultural importance/relevancy (which does, as you point out, mean that they're relegated to an increasingly small area in the bookstore).

I mean, and this could be a tendentious bit of evidence for "cultural importance/relevancy" but look at all the most recent Western films, and let's see if any have been based on recent books/stories: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (book, 1983), Seraphim Falls (original), Brokeback Mountain (story, 1997), The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (original), The Proposition (original), 3:10 to Yuma (short story, 1950s), Ned Kelly (novel, 1991).

[dr_smith]

Just noting the actual state of the print industry for context.

[samedietc]

you're right--i thought i had said something about that, when I clearly didn't, so it's good to note that people are still writing westerns, and that there's still an institution for the marketing of Westerns as a genre (i.e., the Westerns shelf--there's also a Western Writers of America group).

[dr_smith]

Should I assume you to have read Brian Azarello's western comic Loveless? It's an interesting take, set in the post Civil War South. Being out of the comic-buying populous for a while, I've only read the first few issues, featuring Azarello's signature baffling storytelling style, but there's definitely a lot of in-group/out-group, and while there's no explicit man vs. nature in the agrarian South, the art creates a sense of constantly-encroaching wilderness.

[samedietc]

No, i haven't read that one. (although i did just read something about an early historian trying to make the connection between southern lynchings and western vigilante justice, claiming that the south was a sort of wild frontier, which might fit in with the man v. nature thing.)

unrelated to the west, what do you think of 100 Bullets?

[dr_smith]

Oddly enough, I haven't read 100 Bullets yet.