Shane

Wow. I see why this is a classic - there's a lot of story in this little book. The device of showing events through the boy's POV is clever - we see _what_ happens, and hear the adults talking about things, but Bob doesn't really understand what's going on which allows for elegant vagueness. The funny thing is that it reminded me of a King Arthur story, but with a better ending - at least, it ends badly for the protagonists (all three, or four, of them), but at least they don't destroy their world on the way down. They build it up instead - make things stronger, and better, for the price paid.

A mysterious stranger rides up to a lonely homestead. That's an archetypal Western figure, familiar in my reading of Westerns from a recommendation list, and certainly Shane is much better written and worth the reading than Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage or Louis L'Amour's Hondo or Max Brand's Destry Rides Again, even if I think this can't really match the classic 1953 film adaptation with Alan Ladd. The title character Shane is presented as a mythic figure, which is something of the book's strength and weakness.

This was in the Young Adult section of the bookstore, and is told first person by an adult Bob Starrett reminiscing about a time when he was a boy on a 1889 Wyoming homestead with his father and mother. That might be show more part of the problem. The way Bob describes Shane is tinged with a hero-worship appropriate for a young boy, but for me clashes with the sophisticated insights and language of the man narrating. Or maybe I'm just too old and cynical for a tale I would have loved at fifteen. This misses being a favorite, even if I did find it an enjoyable and very quick read. (It's a short novel, I think about 50,000 words.)

But I think it's the film that haunts this book. The film is superb--at quietly conveying Shane's heroic stature, and the slowly simmering sexual tension between him and Bob's mother Marian and the young boy's hero-worship. But I think the cries of "Shane" from that young boy in the film is going to haunt me far longer than any writing in the novel can.

(And I have to say, there's an almost sexual tension between Shane and Bob's father Joe. If this were a popular media hit, fanficers would be slashing them in a heartbeat. It might be one reason I couldn't be too impressed, because with all the long looks between them, my mouth kept twitching picturing the slashers having a field day.) show less

My father taught Shane in his junior high school English class for years and I picked up his browned and fragile paperback teaching copy to try it out for the first time some years after his death. It's appropriate that I came to this book through my father as the whole story is told through the eyes of a young boy.

The story, probably one of the earliest versions of the "man with no name" Western, follows Shane as he rides into town, running from a past that is only ever implied. He meets the Starett family and is immediately drawn in by their hospitality and their goodness. Over the course of several weeks, Shane becomes a member of the family, filling the role of surrogate brother to Joe Starett, rival father to the boy, and potential show more lover to Marian Starett. All the while, Shane is allowed to detach himself from what is clearly a violent and unhappy past life. Each of the family members bonds with him in different ways and, through them, he samples a life unlived.

Shane eventually defends the Staretts and the other farmers in the valley from an land baron intent on taking all of the farms. In his sacrificial act, Shane repays the Staretts for allowing him to glimpse redemption and a fulfilled normal life. Each of the family members is forever changed having known him and been touched by the goodness Shane cannot see in himself.

This is a wonderful book, well-written and a story well-told. It is good for a range of ages, and can offer a reader more and more as they return to it later in life. show less

Where was Shane? I hurried toward the barn. I was almost to it when I saw him out by the pasture. He was staring over it and the grazing steers at the great lonely mountains tipped with the gold of the sun now rushing down behind them. As I watched, he stretched his arms up, the fingers reaching to their utmost limits, grasping and grasping, it seemed, at the glory glowing in the sky.

You can’t get a more classic western story than this one.

Shane is the lone hero, an almost mythical figure. In the summer of 1889 he rides into the small Wyoming valley and befriends the Starret family in a time where their little homestead is threaten by an evil cattle-owner.

The tension slowly builds up to the inevitable gunfight. The story is told show more through the eyes of the young boy Bob Starret. The first half of the book is a character study of Shane and the Starret-family as their friendship and bond deepens. But there’s suspense under the surface. We know that they will not be left alone. Soon they will have to fight for their land and life. To the death. A great western, loved every page of it. show less

I truly enjoyed this one. I generally like lone-wolf stories and Shane is just that, story of a mysterious rider that comes to the small town and finds himself helping them against the oppression. It is clear that this western [and others with similar story lines that followed] were an inspiration to the writers of modern day knights errant like Jack Reacher.

Told from the perspective of a young boy, Bob Starrett, in opening chapter we witness the arrival of a lone rider who identifies himself only as Shane. Recognized by Bob's father, Joe, as someone who can help on the Starrett farm, Shane decides to accept the offer and help the Starrett's. It is obvious that Shane has troubled past but he does not let anything slip so he remains an show more enigma to the family. But even that does not stop Starrett's from almost adopting Shane and Shane completely warming up to this hard working family. For Joe's son Bob, Shane's mystery proves to be the absolute magnet - he follows him around trying to learn as much as he can from him, from handling the horse, gun to other works he is involved on the farm.

Of course problem/conflict come in in form of powerful rancher who wants farmers to leave what he considers to be his land (ever present conflict on the great plains of America). And this is where Shane decides to stand up and protect family he became part of.

What I liked here is that Starrett family is grounded, practical and they are true family. Joe immediately recognizes that Shane would be a great asset to his farm and when Shane decides to help, it becomes obvious that harmonious family life is something that Shane is missing dearly. Slowly, as days pass by in interaction with Starrett's Shane's starts to go back to what can be considered normal life [from whatever he was trying to escape from].

As confrontation between ranchers and farmers starts to escalate we can see how Shane acknowledges that violence, no matter how he tries to run away from it, has its place in defense of good people. He can be deadly [bot unarmed and armed] when needed but he shows that he does not endorse the violence on itself. At the end his decision to ride away is driven by the fact that he is back where he was at the beginning of the story and can never go back to farming life. Violence follows him, such is the nature of the world, and he does not want people he likes to get hurt because of it.

Excellent western, got me glued from the first pages to the very end.

Highly recommended. show less

Wonderful short novel. I think it is safe to call this literature and a classic, at least from my view. I am sure that my long held appreciation of the film influenced my enjoyment of this book. The actors from the film were immediately in my mind as I read this. The tension in this book starts on the first page. The story is told from the viewpoint of the boy in the story, young Bob Starrett, but he is telling us this story as an adult looking back on his childhood. He very believably shows the hero worship a young boy can have for the strong men in his life.

I've read Shane before but seemed to really appreciate it more this time. This is very well written. Scenes small and large were vivid to me and lingered long after reading. Close show more to a perfect book, this will be one of my few favorites for this year. The best "western" I ever read was Larry McMurtry's 'Lonesome Dove'. It is also one of the best novels I have ever read, and just possibly THE best. Shane is a small book and can't be fairly compared to an epic like Lonesome Dove, but it does show that great writing and a great story can be found in unexpected places. show less

I really enjoyed this one, and read it in one day (OK, it’s very short). It has tension, morality, interesting characters. Shane is a kind of anti-hero, reminding me of Ethan Edwards—he is necessary to the preservation of decent society, but the things which make him able to protect that society will also finally make him unfit to be a part of it. The tragedy is that the big bad world won’t let Shane simply relax, as he tries to do—he really settles in to life on the farm. Marian and Joe debate and feel guilt about what they have done to Shane, by pushing him back to violence. In doing so, however, they have also offered him a chance to make a lasting contribution to their world, which he helped to build as well as to protect.