On Reading Between Hospital Visits....Including A Mormon Western

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Emergencies aside Sundays at a hospital are dull affairs. The consultants are not there to consult. The big doctors are not there to do big things. No mainly medication is given and wheels are just made running until Monday. It is also eerily quiet. And for the patients of course irritating. As their futures

And of course there are the hospital visits.

So I'm seeing my mother and there is a gap between the afternoon and evening visits. It is pointless to go back to the house during the break. So armed with a coke bottle it's time to read whilst the few people around me eat,drink and chat.

So it's time to chat.....

Victorian Short Stories:Stories Of Successful Marriages is not as I assumed just by Elizabeth Gaskell but others as well. Unfortunately the stories were just, well, unsuccessful. Next was The Advocate by Charles Haversage. A small comic novel....just not so comic.

But the most interesting book was Riders Of The Purple Sage by Zane Grey published in 1912. This apparently was the novel that set the tenplate was the Western genre. I get it. There is the young buck character. the main females being feisty but whimpering when faced with "a real man" and of course the mysterious stranger, treated with suspicion because he's "not from these parts".

However, as the title of the post indicates, what makes this book different is the setting, Utah and the involvement of Mormons. No native Americans or bad guys in black hats here.

The book is readable. You can see how he had a career in writing. But as I was going through it I couldn't really decide whether this book has specific Mormon as villain or is generally anti Mormon the religion. My view is the latter but you can make the case for the former. The thing is if I did explain how then it would spoil things should you read it

It occurred to me also that I haven't a read a Western novel in decades. When I was young the Western was a staple of popular culture. Now it's a novelty.

Until the next time.