Reviews for Zane Grey: Romancing the West

The average rating for Zane Grey: Romancing the West based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-11-23 00:00:00 Fabian Paredes The major purpose of romance is to realize the desirable.....dreams come true, good triumphs over evil, tragedy is transcended, and an ordered world is illustrated by the central characters riding into a golden sunset. The initiation of the hero is essential, as is a quest, the hero's journey. ~~ Stephen J. May But real life so rarely fits this tidy little description, does it. And what does a person do if they are missing that feeling of romance in their lives? Write it themselves. At least that is what Zane Grey did. He wanted to be a writer from the time he was 15. And he tried. He had a boy's hideout, a cave in the woods near his Ohio home. He wrote his first ever short story there. But his father, an overly strict, extremely controlling man, found the scribbled pages and tore them up in front of young Zane. Then he proceeded to scold him verbally and beat him for daring to waste time on such foolishness. Add this to a lifetime of abusive behavior, and we can certainly understand why Zane suffered from severe depression and a monstrous lack of self-confidence his entire adult life. He became a dentist as expected of him, but he also dared to keep writing. And even though each rejection slip for his early efforts cut him as deeply as his father had, Zane kept writing. It was the only way he could deal with his emotional traumas. He had to escape, he hated real life. Writing gave him the control he desired over his world. May himself admits in the preface that his goal "was not to write a full-scale biography,but to focus on the key periods of Grey's life that shaped his major novels." This book was both sad and triumphant. I felt sorry for Grey, who wanted to be an author of the same caliber as his literary heroes such as Robert Louis Stevenson and James Fenimore Cooper, among others. But according to May, Grey never matured beyond that beaten 15 year old boy; therefore his novels never matured beyond the romance formula which soothed him. Even so, he became one of the early creators of The Myth Of The West. His books were wildly popular, although they were mostly panned by literary critics. He had financial success from his books and also from the movies that were made from those books. So in many ways the good in his life did indeed triumph over the evil, but could Grey see that? May does not think so: "Intensely driven, he buried his emotions in travel, writing, fishing, or some tantalizing daydream. Isolation aggravated his blue moods; loneliness gnawed at him constantly......Some carped that Grey's work was not realistic....There were other people, however, the majority, who claimed that if this wasn't how the Old West really was, it certainly was the way it should have been." I have read many Grey titles in years past. Now I understand both why I enjoyed them and why I grew tired of them. I would like to revisit a few of his titles, especially the ones May analyzes in this book, and see how I react to them now that I know Zane himself a bit better.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-06-14 00:00:00 Mark Flavin An interesting study on Zane Grey, focusing a lot on his relationships with his father and those around him. Offers some insight into his travels. Doesn't delve into the novels as much as some other works on Grey but is nonetheless a good resource for those working with Grey and his novels.