West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns | 
 enlarge | Author: Jane Tompkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 612546
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.5
ISBN: 0195082680
Dewey Decimal Number: 305
EAN: 9780195082685
ASIN: 0195082680
Publication Date: April 29, 1993
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Product Description
A leading figure in the debate over the literary canon, Jane Tompkins was one of the first to point to the ongoing relevance of popular women's fiction in the 19th century, long overlooked or scorned by literary critics. Now, in West of Everything, Tompkins shows how popular novels and films of the American west have shaped the emotional lives of people in our time.
Into this world full of violence and manly courage, the world of John Wayne and Louis L'Amour, Tompkins takes her readers, letting them feel what the hero feels, endure what he endures. Writing with sympathy, insight, and respect, she probes the main elements of the Western--its preoccupation with death, its barren landscapes, galloping horses, hard-bitten men and marginalized women--revealing the view of reality and code of behavior these features contain. She considers the Western hero's attraction to pain, his fear of women and language, his desire to dominate the environment--and to merge with it. In fact, Tompkins argues, for better or worse Westerns have taught us all--men especially--how to behave.
It was as a reaction against popular women's novels and women's invasion of the public sphere that Westerns originated, Tompkins maintains. With Westerns, men were reclaiming cultural territory, countering the inwardness, spirituality, and domesticity of the sentimental writers, with a rough and tumble, secular, man-centered world. Tompkins brings these insights to bear in considering film classics such as Red River and Lonely Are the Brave, and novels such as Louis L'Amour's Last of the Breed and Owen Wister's The Virginian. In one of the most moving chapters (chosen for Best American Essays of 1991), Tompkins shows how the life of Buffalo Bill Cody, killer of Native Americans and charismatic star of the Wild West show, evokes the contradictory feelings which the Western typically elicits--horror and fascination with violence, but also love and respect for the romantic ideal of the cowboy.
Whether interpreting a photograph of John Wayne of meditating on the slaughter of cattle, Jane Tompkins writes with humor, compassion, and a provocative intellect. Her book will appeal to many Americans who read or watch Westerns, and to all those interested in a serious approach to popular culture.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Home On the Range June 4, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Tompkins is infuriatingly cutting-edge, but in the end she's just a gal who likes men in jeans serving up piping hot pork and beans. She writes an accessible prose, none of that academic trash prose. She's old school. There's lots of lefty, snotty condescension, but also a sound love for the great American genre. Tompkins treats the bread and butter pulp classics of the Western genre as literature with a capital L. Why not? She persuades us that there is gold in them thare hills.
 essential but NOT good -- see Cowboy Metaphysics instead March 30, 2004
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
Tompkins made her name as a professional literary critic, principally (but not only) for her book on Reader-response criticism, which somewhat counter-intuitively holds that texts' meanings are dependent on readers' values and assumptions, etc. I mention this because she brings her assumptions to bear on a genre (Westerns) that she fundamentally doesn't understand ... or want to understand. Tompkins' book will tell you plenty about what sophisticated literary theorists will do with texts (how to situate them in cultural traditions and how to discuss the relationship between cultural artifacts), but for a truly enlightening discussion of Westerns, you should turn to Peter A. French's magnificent treatment: Cowboy Metaphysics, Ethics and Death in Westerns. French's book has all the merits that Tompkins book should (also) have had. It is lucid, argumentative, illuminating and thoughfully respectful of the details of the Westerns he discusses. For a fascinating read turn to French instead. Where else can you get a discussion of Westerns that illuminates this genre by way of Aristotle, Nietzsche, Homer, Melville, Kant and Aeschylus?
wow! October 6, 2000
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is an amazing book. Jane Tompkins looks at the different symbols in westerns -- cattle, horses, food, work -- and discusses what they *mean*. She also discusses the evolution of the genre -- where it came from, and what it was a reaction to, and why the different symbols work together so well. And all the while, her writing style is engaging and interesting and pulls you along as you nod and say "Oh! Right!" You don't have to be a student of writing to enjoy this book. The information translates immediately to male-female communication, and to interactions you may have with colleagues. You'll find yourself gutting through some project and saying in a John Wayne accent "well, it's the cowboy way, ain't it?"Highly enjoyable. An amazing piece of work.
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