this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
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I've been getting into Westerns recently. I read Blood Meridian a little while ago and it's such a slog of a book. I wasn't into the genre much before but it feels so antithetical to all the regular tropes.
I just finished Be Cool by Elmore Leonard as well. It's not a Western but he's written a lot of them and you can see the style crossover. I thought I was reading the first Chili Palmer book, so I'll need to go back and read Get Shorty, as well as some of his Westerns.
I've also started reading the Vampire Hunter D collection I got as a result as well. It's interesting seeing the prose difference. Vampire Hunter D has such purple prose that's trying to read fancy and doesn't hit the mark at all. Be Cool had simple writing that allows it to flow. And Blood Meridian was almost too simple in that it felt plodding and hard to read because of how flat it was.
I'm also reading True Grit now because I watched the Cohen Brothers movie when it came out. They're very good at the gritty Western so I thought I'd check out the source material.
I feel like a Western is more than its American West aesthetics. There are themes of a frontier, colonialism, expansion, and areas of little to no rule of law. Westerns are very American, but a story can feel like a Western without being set in that specific time and place.
Have you tried Lonesome Dove - books and/or miniseries?
I kinda like that Blood Meridian is a damn slog, it almost highlights the foul acts committed in the books - especially that last part
It almost makes the bad stuff stand out more that it's delivered as flatly as everything else. And there's no interrogation into why these people were so cruel. It feels like he was more interested in outlining what happened as accurately as possible with no interest in the morals of what happened.
i luv westerns very much
imo, they can be set anytime, anyplace, any society, they just have two necessary themes
law is brought to a lawless place
the environment is a character
I think Blood Meridian was meant to be flat, written from the first person view of someone who has no empathy. McCarthy writes psychopaths very well.
And just like The Road was mostly written from the point of view of a someone who was NPD .
I think having a frontier and colonialist expansion are big parts of a western. That's why they translate to sci-fi so well. Some podcasts I listen to always highlight how capitalism requires a frontier to infinitely expand. and I feel like Westerns are about bit players in that expansion.
Like in Blood Meridian. They were getting paid for the scalps of natives, so they just scalped everyone. Because by the time they got back to who was paying, you couldn't tell what was a native scalp what was not. And they were getting paid to kill the people who lived there first just because they were a business inconvenience.
The distance from what happens and the way it's told is a big part of that book as well.
I think frontiers and by extension colonialism is about bringing law into a place that is offering resistance
either the environment is inhospitable, like a desert or forest or tundra,
or the people are inhospitable
or both
You've piqued my interest.
The vampire hunter D films are absolutely incredible if you can find a copy online. Pretty sure they're on YouTube.
I've watched them and they're quite good. The first movie is the first story from the novels and I think it cuts out a lot of unnecessary stuff to focus on the most interesting parts. I'm going to keep reading because it's easy enough to get through, but I wish the translator took some of Elmore Leonard's writing advice.
I got into westerns a few years back as well. I even wrote some western short stories set in Tasmania and have a couple more planned.
The 2010 remake of True Grit is fantastic. Hailey Steinfeld was amazing in it. High Noon is a movie you have to add to your list. It's my favourite western (and top 3 overall movie for me. Funnily enough, Out of Sight is top 3 for me too and that's a Elmore Leonard novel - add that to your Leonard novel reading list).
Anything Clint Eastwood western is going to be good. Justified TV show for a neo-western (also based on Elmore Leonard). They adapted Get Shorty into a TV series too which was pretty good.
Jackie Brown is based off Rum Punch.
The Tall T, 3:10 to Yuma are westerns based off a Leonard short stories too.
Honestly, you are spoiled for choice with Elmore Leonard and westerns/adaptions.