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The Wind
Letty is a delicate girl who is forced to move from lush Virginia to desolate West Texas in the 1880s. The numbing blizzards, the howling sand storms, and the loneliness of the prairie all combine to undo her nerves. But it is the wind itself, a demon personified, that eventually drives her over the brink of madness.
This supernatural story was later made into a film starring Lillian Gish.
This supernatural story was later made into a film starring Lillian Gish.
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First published January 1, 1925
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About the author
Dorothy Scarborough
82 books12 followersEmily Dorothy Scarborough was an American writer who wrote about Texas, folk culture, cotton farming, ghost stories and women's life in the Southwest.
Scarborough was born in Mount Carmel, Texas. At the age of four she moved to Sweetwater, Texas for her mother's health, as her mother needed the drier climate. The family soon left Sweetwater in 1887, so that the Scarborough children could get a good education at Baylor College.
Even though Scarborough's writings are identified with Texas, she studied at University of Chicago and Oxford University and beginning in 1916 taught literature at Columbia University.
While receiving her PhD from Columbia, she wrote a dissertation, "The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction (1917)". Sylvia Ann Grider writes in a critical introduction [1] the dissertation "was so widely acclaimed by her professors and colleagues that it was published and it has become a basic reference work."
Dorothy Scarborough came in contact with many writers in New York, including Edna Ferber and Vachel Lindsay. She taught creative writing classes at Columbia. Among her creative writing students were Eric Walrond, and Carson McCullers, who took her first college writing class from Scarborough.[1]
Her most critically acclaimed book, The Wind (first published anonymously in 1925), was later made into a film of the same name starring Lillian Gish.
Scarborough was born in Mount Carmel, Texas. At the age of four she moved to Sweetwater, Texas for her mother's health, as her mother needed the drier climate. The family soon left Sweetwater in 1887, so that the Scarborough children could get a good education at Baylor College.
Even though Scarborough's writings are identified with Texas, she studied at University of Chicago and Oxford University and beginning in 1916 taught literature at Columbia University.
While receiving her PhD from Columbia, she wrote a dissertation, "The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction (1917)". Sylvia Ann Grider writes in a critical introduction [1] the dissertation "was so widely acclaimed by her professors and colleagues that it was published and it has become a basic reference work."
Dorothy Scarborough came in contact with many writers in New York, including Edna Ferber and Vachel Lindsay. She taught creative writing classes at Columbia. Among her creative writing students were Eric Walrond, and Carson McCullers, who took her first college writing class from Scarborough.[1]
Her most critically acclaimed book, The Wind (first published anonymously in 1925), was later made into a film of the same name starring Lillian Gish.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
July 17, 2018
I loved this story but it is more in line with Wharton's Ethan Frome, with its sadness & struggle of a young girl who after her mother's death travels from Virginia to Sweetwater Texas to live with her cousin's family, mid to late 1800. You get a taste of what the pioneers had to deal with regards to the wind, sand & draught. Engaging story & very insightful to the mental capacity for people to cope.
When I was looking over at Goodreads & the Kindle store, for books that were made into silent movies, I found this gem of a story. Dorothy Scarborough's The Wind was first published Anonymously in 1925. I had seen Lillian Gish's portrayal in the 1928 silent film "The Wind", which made quite an impression on me for the brutal winds & sands that seemed to be ever present. In case anyone wants to read or see the movie, I will not go into too much but the movie did have a more positive ending compared to the book. I was waiting to see how the book played out & I was shocked at the ending but the author made her point. I am sure I am not the only one but when I read a book that tells almost all the story but leaves out enough to make you wonder; at times like this I finish the story in my mind how it should turn out. The author who does this, lets the reader decide when there is some ambiguity & I thank them for this. When reading more about the author Dorothy Scarborough (1878-1935), she was classified as American Folklore & Supernatural. She had received a PhD from Columbia on a dissertation about the supernatural in English fiction. She also taught classes in literature. At first while looking up more of her books, I was wondering if there was another writer called Dorothy Scarborough because the PhD & supernatural books she has written but they are one in the same. During the 1920's, there was an increase in interest in the supernatural. I remember in Thomas Wolfe's book, You Can Go Home, the mentioning of this. I wish some of her other novels were available via the Kindle but at present that is not the case. Thinking about the story The Wind some more, I see the supernatural elements that Letty & others look at life through these glasses. There was a bit of an uproar in Texas with the reception of this book & life viewed so harshly by the author who was born in Texas & lived in Sweetwater with family for a time, which is the location of the book's setting & near 1880. The story is a young girl of 18, Letty whose mother dies & she needs to travel to Sweetwater, Texas where her cousin, Bev, and his family live. Letty leaves Virginia, with a heavy heart from all her friends & natural elements which has caused her do much pleasure growing up, in a pampered life. Her mother's illness which caused debts that left Letty, penniless & dependent on her only family in Texas. On her train ride to her new home, she is amazed by the changes in the surroundings which are basically barren & dead cattle injured by the impact of the trains. She learns all about the place she is going to by a stranger who paints a bleak picture & this frightens her. She must deal with her new life & all that comes her way. The infernal wind & sand! Is she strong enough to deal with this maddening life? A test of endurance? Excerpts-"The wind was the cause of it all. The sand, too, had a share in it, and human beings were involved, but the wind was the primal force, and but for it the whole series of events would not have happened. It took place in West Texas, years and years ago, before the great ranges had begun to be cut up into farms and ploughed and planted to crops, when there was nothing to break the sweep of the wind across the treeless prairies, when the sand blew in blinding fury across the plains, or lay in mocking waves that never broke on any howsoever- distant beach, or piles in mounds that fickle gusts removed almost as soon as they were erected- when for endless miles there seemed nothing but wind and sand and empty, far off sky." "And the sand was the weapon of the winds. It stung the face like bits of glass, it blinded the eyes; it seeped into the houses through closed windows and doors and through every crack and crevice, so that it might make the beds harsh to lie on, might make the food gritty to taste, the air stifling to breathe. It piled in drifts against any fence or obstruction, as deep as snow after a northern blizzard." "She must put away her hope of romance, as one lays away the garments of the dead. Dreams as yet unbodied must be given up."
When I was looking over at Goodreads & the Kindle store, for books that were made into silent movies, I found this gem of a story. Dorothy Scarborough's The Wind was first published Anonymously in 1925. I had seen Lillian Gish's portrayal in the 1928 silent film "The Wind", which made quite an impression on me for the brutal winds & sands that seemed to be ever present. In case anyone wants to read or see the movie, I will not go into too much but the movie did have a more positive ending compared to the book. I was waiting to see how the book played out & I was shocked at the ending but the author made her point. I am sure I am not the only one but when I read a book that tells almost all the story but leaves out enough to make you wonder; at times like this I finish the story in my mind how it should turn out. The author who does this, lets the reader decide when there is some ambiguity & I thank them for this. When reading more about the author Dorothy Scarborough (1878-1935), she was classified as American Folklore & Supernatural. She had received a PhD from Columbia on a dissertation about the supernatural in English fiction. She also taught classes in literature. At first while looking up more of her books, I was wondering if there was another writer called Dorothy Scarborough because the PhD & supernatural books she has written but they are one in the same. During the 1920's, there was an increase in interest in the supernatural. I remember in Thomas Wolfe's book, You Can Go Home, the mentioning of this. I wish some of her other novels were available via the Kindle but at present that is not the case. Thinking about the story The Wind some more, I see the supernatural elements that Letty & others look at life through these glasses. There was a bit of an uproar in Texas with the reception of this book & life viewed so harshly by the author who was born in Texas & lived in Sweetwater with family for a time, which is the location of the book's setting & near 1880. The story is a young girl of 18, Letty whose mother dies & she needs to travel to Sweetwater, Texas where her cousin, Bev, and his family live. Letty leaves Virginia, with a heavy heart from all her friends & natural elements which has caused her do much pleasure growing up, in a pampered life. Her mother's illness which caused debts that left Letty, penniless & dependent on her only family in Texas. On her train ride to her new home, she is amazed by the changes in the surroundings which are basically barren & dead cattle injured by the impact of the trains. She learns all about the place she is going to by a stranger who paints a bleak picture & this frightens her. She must deal with her new life & all that comes her way. The infernal wind & sand! Is she strong enough to deal with this maddening life? A test of endurance? Excerpts-"The wind was the cause of it all. The sand, too, had a share in it, and human beings were involved, but the wind was the primal force, and but for it the whole series of events would not have happened. It took place in West Texas, years and years ago, before the great ranges had begun to be cut up into farms and ploughed and planted to crops, when there was nothing to break the sweep of the wind across the treeless prairies, when the sand blew in blinding fury across the plains, or lay in mocking waves that never broke on any howsoever- distant beach, or piles in mounds that fickle gusts removed almost as soon as they were erected- when for endless miles there seemed nothing but wind and sand and empty, far off sky." "And the sand was the weapon of the winds. It stung the face like bits of glass, it blinded the eyes; it seeped into the houses through closed windows and doors and through every crack and crevice, so that it might make the beds harsh to lie on, might make the food gritty to taste, the air stifling to breathe. It piled in drifts against any fence or obstruction, as deep as snow after a northern blizzard." "She must put away her hope of romance, as one lays away the garments of the dead. Dreams as yet unbodied must be given up."
June 23, 2019
Me sorprende que la publicidad de la editorial venda esta novela como una especie de odisea protofeminista cuando realmente Letty es el personaje femenino más alejado de lo que pueda ser una mujer en lucha continua por cambiar el estado de las cosas y sobrevivir. Letty es pasiva y desde luego está más preocupada por ella misma y por rememorar sus años dorados en Virginia, que por poner los pies en la tierra y ponerse en acción. En ese aspecto si que me ha decepcionado por lo que digo, creia que ese protofeminismo del que hablaba la publicidad era tal cual, y en mi opinión brilla por su ausencia.
Por lo demás, Dorothy Scarborough escribe bien y sabe envolver de atmósferas ese entorno claustrofóbico en el que vive Letty. Y por otra parte me parece que está bien conseguida esa desintegración mental del personaje femenino. Y me gusta como la autora cierra la novela, un final que imagino que en aquella época no debía ser fácil de decidir y puedo entender el porqué tuviera que publicarlo con seudónimo o anónimamente, no recuerdo ahora. Asi y todo, recomiendo que se vea la adaptación al cine de 1928, con Lillian Gish, una pelicula que capturó a la perfección la atmósfera claustrofóbica de la novela, aunque no fuera del todo fiel al final de la novela.
May 11, 2011
This book was pretty damn phenomenal.
Letty, young woman of 18 years has lost her mother, and with no money or near relatives to live with in her native Virginia, goes to live with her cousin and his family at a ranch near Sweetwater, TX in the 1880s. She's lived a privileged white life, with her mammy taking care of her and she's never done any hard work/labor. She comes to a bleak land devoid of any water, dust is everywhere, and the wind never ceases. She has no skills, no training, and no hardiness to deal with the barren land, and is incredibly sensitive to the ever persistent wind. She has to live a life she never imagined nor wanted, with skills she's never had. She's young, and naive. She's a precious doll, and she is destroyed by the land and wind that takes life, light, and cheer as it will.
The wind is just as much of a character in this book as any living, breathing person. It reminds me of A Woman in the Dunes (a fantastic film, that I adore), where the relentless elements drive a person to insanity and there's no escape from the endless torment of nature.
The fact that this book was written by a woman is wonderfully evident, and the battle between Letty and her cousin's beautiful, stereotypically strong and stoic frontierswoman wife is beautifully played, instead of becoming a pathetic cat-fight. Letty is not only feeling trapped by her life and her sex, but at odds with the one woman who might have been able to guide her through her new life.
I loved it - the stark awful landscape blasting a sensitive woman to the bone, the desperation, the hopelessness... the fatal mistakes and the constant thoughts towards what her life should have been. And the wind taking what it wants, and refusing to bow down to any will of man or woman.
Letty, young woman of 18 years has lost her mother, and with no money or near relatives to live with in her native Virginia, goes to live with her cousin and his family at a ranch near Sweetwater, TX in the 1880s. She's lived a privileged white life, with her mammy taking care of her and she's never done any hard work/labor. She comes to a bleak land devoid of any water, dust is everywhere, and the wind never ceases. She has no skills, no training, and no hardiness to deal with the barren land, and is incredibly sensitive to the ever persistent wind. She has to live a life she never imagined nor wanted, with skills she's never had. She's young, and naive. She's a precious doll, and she is destroyed by the land and wind that takes life, light, and cheer as it will.
The wind is just as much of a character in this book as any living, breathing person. It reminds me of A Woman in the Dunes (a fantastic film, that I adore), where the relentless elements drive a person to insanity and there's no escape from the endless torment of nature.
The fact that this book was written by a woman is wonderfully evident, and the battle between Letty and her cousin's beautiful, stereotypically strong and stoic frontierswoman wife is beautifully played, instead of becoming a pathetic cat-fight. Letty is not only feeling trapped by her life and her sex, but at odds with the one woman who might have been able to guide her through her new life.
I loved it - the stark awful landscape blasting a sensitive woman to the bone, the desperation, the hopelessness... the fatal mistakes and the constant thoughts towards what her life should have been. And the wind taking what it wants, and refusing to bow down to any will of man or woman.
July 23, 2019
Interesante. Absorvente a ratos. También terrible. Vergonzoso que la editorial venda este libro como una novela feminista. De feminista no tiene nada. Vivimos en una sociedad de gilipollas y gilipollos.
April 16, 2012
This is a classic work of Texas fiction that is memorable for the storm of controversy it caused when it was published anonymously in 1925. Set in the 1880s, it tells the story of a fragile 18-year-old girl from Virginia, suddenly orphaned and left penniless, who goes to live with her cousin, a rancher somewhere west of Sweetwater, in West Texas. Dreamily romantic and totally unprepared for the rigors of life on the plains, she struggles unsuccessfully with deprivations of body, mind, and spirit that only the toughest frontier settlers are fit to confront.
It's her misfortune to arrive in the middle of a terrible drought that parches the treeless land and under the relentless wind turns it into a churning dustbowl. As for many who first settled on the plains, it is the constant wind that is her undoing. Under its maddening influence, her life takes one devastating turn after another, until the story ends in a melodramatic climax.
A reader today may find the melodrama somewhat over the top. A film was made of the story, starring Lillian Gish, and one can easily imagine the sorts of silent movie histrionics used to represent the critical scenes in the story. However, there are pleasures of another kind to be had in the novel, specifically the characters of two enjoyably drawn cowboys, Lige and Sourdough, who both fall in love with the young heroine. Their competition for her affection and their colorful use of the English language brighten these pages considerably.
The author grew up in West Texas, and there's a great deal of the authentic in her writing. The humor and the indomitable fortitude of her frontier characters seem based on observation of the real thing. She's clearly writing from firsthand experience when she describes the landscape, the weather, and the grinding demoralization of year after year of drought. And she captures in detail the impact of sun, sand and wind on the physical appearance of both men and women. It's an anti-romantic vision that Larry McMurtry revived 35 years later in his early novels of ranch life, "Leaving Cheyenne" and "Horseman, Pass By."
It's her misfortune to arrive in the middle of a terrible drought that parches the treeless land and under the relentless wind turns it into a churning dustbowl. As for many who first settled on the plains, it is the constant wind that is her undoing. Under its maddening influence, her life takes one devastating turn after another, until the story ends in a melodramatic climax.
A reader today may find the melodrama somewhat over the top. A film was made of the story, starring Lillian Gish, and one can easily imagine the sorts of silent movie histrionics used to represent the critical scenes in the story. However, there are pleasures of another kind to be had in the novel, specifically the characters of two enjoyably drawn cowboys, Lige and Sourdough, who both fall in love with the young heroine. Their competition for her affection and their colorful use of the English language brighten these pages considerably.
The author grew up in West Texas, and there's a great deal of the authentic in her writing. The humor and the indomitable fortitude of her frontier characters seem based on observation of the real thing. She's clearly writing from firsthand experience when she describes the landscape, the weather, and the grinding demoralization of year after year of drought. And she captures in detail the impact of sun, sand and wind on the physical appearance of both men and women. It's an anti-romantic vision that Larry McMurtry revived 35 years later in his early novels of ranch life, "Leaving Cheyenne" and "Horseman, Pass By."
April 28, 2016
A stark and unforgettable story of a naive orphan who has to relocate from Virginia to Texas after her mother's death. Published in 1925, the novel initially angered Texans who were upset by the descriptions of the harsh climate and its toll on the inhabitants, especially women. The author, born and bred in Texas herself, showed that not every woman who had to go west was cut out to be a pioneer's helpmate. Terrified at the prospect of having to live through tornadoes and hurricanes, the heroine starts going mad even before she has a chance to experience the full brutality of the climate. Forced into marriage with an honest and caring cowboy who doesn't look anything like the Prince Charming of her childhood fantasies, Letty can't adjust to her new life and is only too easily seduced by a richer man who could rescue her - at a price. The howling wind and sand storms of the desert are more than a backdrop for this story told in beautifully lyrical prose.
July 30, 2024
She began dimly to comprehend how women tried beyond endurance might sometimes go mad.The Wind was an obscure recommendation—so much so that the only public domain ebook I could find is on the Internet Archive—that took me completely by surprise. While not perfect, it’s an evocative bit of fiction that doesn’t deserve to be forgotten, an unrelenting psychological portrait of a woman in 1880s Texas forever changed by drought and wind.
At its core, The Wind is a Shirley Jackson-esque story of a young woman who has no other option than to try to survive (and perhaps find love) in a bleak and lonely place where she feels unwanted and out of place, and her resulting psychological unraveling. (Though, to be clear, there’s absolutely nothing supernatural in the novel; the back copy is a little misleading.) The horror comes from Letty being a woman in the nineteenth century, the victim of circumstance and rarely with any alternatives to the bad options presented. The windswept, barren, harsh landscape and constant feelings of dread immediately bring to mind a Texan Wuthering Heights , with a touch of O Pioneers! ; the claustrophobic sense of isolation and being trapped with resentful relatives echoes Ethan Frome ; the novel’s themes are reminiscent of The Yellow Wall-Paper and Vera .
Scarborough’s writing is beautiful. The opening preface is masterful—and what fantastic opening lines: The wind was the cause of it all. The sand, too, had a share in it, and human beings were involved, but the wind was the primal force, and but for it the whole series of events would not have happened…—and the descriptions are vivid and atmospheric. Letty is almost taunted by memories of her home state of Virginia and its lush vegetation, which starkly contrasts with the bleakness of the drought-stricken Texan prairie. While the novel is written in third person, it is told entirely from Letty’s limited (and perhaps sometimes unreliable) perspective. Stylistically, Scarborough does use a lot of ellipses, especially later on in the novel, and while this may annoy some readers I think it works.
My main criticism is that the descriptions of the prairie and of Letty’s psyche do start to feel a little repetitive, which is never boring but does feel like a missed opportunity. Someone like a Shirley Jackson would have been able to take the same story beats but draw the psychological and emotional responses a little more delicately, to really show them change and evolve and deteriorate with every new scene. In contrast, Scarborough is a bit one-note. I still think Scarborough’s characterization is remarkably good, but for this reason I can’t quite say it’s brilliant.
My secondary criticism is that some almost vitriolic racism pops up every now and then. While clearly Letty is a woman of her time, it’s unclear whether Scarborough is commenting on these attitudes or perpetuating them (unfortunately I suspect the latter). Either way, those passages felt out of place and came as a bit of a shock.
With a premise like this the ending is always going to be contentious, and could really only go one of two ways. I was immensely satisfied with the avenue that Scarborough picked, and I thought she did a lovely job setting up and foreshadowing the eventual outcome.
Sadly, it looks like Scarborough’s other novels are quite different, and do not seem to be readily available as public domain ebooks, so I’m not sure how much more there is to explore from her. But I’m so glad I read The Wind. While I’m only giving it 4 stars, somewhat paradoxically it’s a novel that not only is a standout of the year but that I expect to stick with me for quite some time…and one that I’ll definitely revisit in the future.
Some favorite passages:
The wind was the cause of it all. The sand, too, had a share in it, and human beings were involved, but the wind was the primal force, and but for it the whole series of events would not have happened. It took place in West Texas, years and years ago, before the great ranges had begun to be cut up into farms and ploughed and planted to crops, when there was nothing to break the sweep of the wind across the treeless prairies, when the sand blew in blinding fury across the plains, or lay in mocking waves that never broke on any howsoever-distant beach, or piled in mounds that fickle gusts removed almost as soon as they were erected—when for endless miles there seemed nothing but wind and sand and empty, far off sky.
Man has encroached on the domain of the winds, and gradually, very gradually, is conquering them. But long ago it was different. The winds were wild and free, and they were more powerful than human beings.
In the old days, the winds were the enemies of women.
The winds were cruel to women that came under their tyranny. They were at them ceaselessly, buffeting them with icy blasts in winter, burning them with hot breath in summer, parching their skins and roughening their hair, and trying to wear down their nerves by attrition, and drive them away. And the sand was the weapon of the winds. It stung the face like bits of glass, it blinded the eyes; it seeped into the houses through closed windows and doors and through every crack and crevice, so that it might make the beds harsh to lie on, might make the food gritty to taste, the air stifling to breathe. It piled in drifts against any fence or obstruction, as deep as snow after a northern blizzard. How could a frail, sensitive woman fight the wind? How oppose a wild, shouting voice that never let her know the peace of silence—a resistless force that was at her all the day, a naked, unbodied wind—like a ghost more terrible because invisible—that wailed to her across waste places in the night, calling to her like a demon lover?
Would there be a little river, perhaps, slipping like a silver shadow through the town, where a girl and a boy might row a boat on summer afternoons?—or a creek that showed rainbow minnows in its shallows and ferns along the banks? Or a lake, if only a tiny one, or a pond where water lilies bloomed with creamy petals and hearts of gold, and water hyacinths purple-blue? One thing she was sure of—there would be water, sweet and cool and pure, for wasn’t the place named Sweetwater?
She gave a look at her present in an impulse of panic to escape the sorrow of yesterdays and the terror of unknown tomorrows.
The little girl stared at her in puzzled fashion for a moment, and then she giggled, with laughter as light and spontaneous as soap-bubbles of mirth.
Folks say the West is good enough for a man or a dog, but no place for a woman or a cat.” “But why, why?” “The wind is the worst thing.” She drew a relieved sigh. “Oh, wind? That’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“It hurts to see things fade. Beautiful things should go out in a high glory.”
She was blown along like a leaf in a gale, in the power of a demon wind that mocked her desperation. She screamed, but the wind shrieked louder. She struggled—but of what avail is a leaf in a tempest, a feather whirled in a cyclone? When she felt that she must die or go mad of terror, she gave a strangling cry.
Everywhere sand, in wind-blown waves stretching out like a vast sea, the dead grass bent over in the wind like the curling foam of the waves.
Letty watched the prairies stretch out before her, vast reaches of sand, covered with bunch grass growing in clumps, and curly mesquite grass, with no trees, only occasional bushes of mesquite, and sometimes tall spikes covered with sword-like growths that looked as if they could inflict sharp wounds if one ran against them. Sometimes there were cactus growth like coral formations, covered with innumerable needles, and now and then a cactus, shaped like a round little cushion stuffed with pins.
No friendly woods, no quiet valleys of beauty, no healing comfort of still peace and loveliness such as one could find in any walk in the country in Virginia!… Outside, nothing but vast, desolate stretches of sand and dead grass, with a few stalks of bear grass with its spears frayed by the wind, stunted mesquite bushes, cactus, and prickly-pear!… and a demoniac wind lying in wait to torment its victims, a wind that was as knowing and as cruel as a devil or a maniac!…
And at night the coyotes slunk in packs about the place, uttering their querulous, quick yelps, and the wind wailed like all the horrors she had ever heard or read of, a banshee, a lost soul, a demon lover!…
As Letty thought over the matter, unwilling admiration for Cora seized her. Those capable hands, had nursed Bev back to health, had fed him, had slaved for him. That magnificent body had borne him four fine children. That driving energy and optimism had rescued him from hopelessness and compelled him back to health and a measure of success. And there was no question of her love for him. Cora loved her man with a fierce, protecting devotion that had something elemental in it, something divine. She might love to laugh and joke with her visitors, but no one who knew her could doubt for an instant that her whole heart was Bev’s. She was passionately, exultingly in love with him.
I love him like a cyclone. And I love him, too, the way the prairie feels when it’s still and calm at night, when the wind don’t blow an’ the spring flowers are in bloom and the stars shine soft.”
She was as naïvely transparent as a glass of water.
“They say some of these stallions weren’t just flesh and blood, weren’t living horses, but something that did not die,” he went on musingly. “Spirits, you might say they were; maybe devils. You’ll often hear of a pacing white stallion that couldn’t never be taken, that laughed at your lasso. They’ll tell you of a big black horse that no man living could come near to. You could see him racing over the prairies, when dusk began to come, going as fast as the wind. You could see his mane floating back like a black banner, you could hear him neighing. But no lariat was ever made that could capture him.”
“I’ll dream of cyclones and demon horses!”
The sky was blue, with a golden gauze of sand over it, and no clouds were anywhere to be seen—the heavens as empty as the prairies themselves, that stretched out to infinity, with no sign of human life on them.…
She saw the wind as a black stallion with mane a-stream, and hoofs of fire, speeding across the trackless plains, deathless, defiant!…
“The wind! The wind! Oh save me—don’t let the wind get me!”
She must put away her hope of romance, as one lays away the garments of the dead.
Fastidious, passionless, unwon, she felt desperately at times as if she must run away from the house, flee blindly across the prairies!
Sand streamed in through the cracks in the walls, and slit the newspapers into ribbons. It seeped in at the edges of doors and windows that were shut as tight as possible. It came down from the ceiling, it blew upward through cracks in the flooring. It hung like a yellow fog in the room.
The sun rode aloft in a pageantry of clouds, casting a yellow glow over a strange world. Whirling curtains of dust, veils that writhed and twisted, hung like cloth of gold from the heavens, as high as she could see. The wind was no longer naked and invisible. It had clothed itself with those swirling veils that revealed its obscene antics, its horrific gestures. It was a thing unbearable to see the wind!
In March in Virginia the hepaticas would be coming out. There would be anemones, too, and windflowers fair and frail, and trillium, small like a baby cyclamen, painted, and with its whorl of deep-green leaves. And the dog-tooth violets, and other flowers of the woods.… The trees would be misting with young green, and a green flush would have stolen over the grass and the meadows. The birds that had gone south for the winter would be winging their way back to the north.… Spring, in Virginia!…
She whispered to herself phrases that came into her thoughts, that might be runic rhymes that could bind the wind by a spell.
She could see the humming birds on wings as swift and as invisible as light, dart among the blossoms of the honeysuckles, their bodies poised for an instant over the cream or coral chalices, their wings whirring rapturously, as their needle-sharp beaks pierced into the cups to drink of the nectar spring had distilled for them. She could hear their sharp, almost inaudible cries of delight.
June passed into July, July into August, and still the drought continued. “Hot as a six-shooter,” Sourdough said. The sand was like hot ashes heated from the furnace that was the sky and the furnace that was the earth, while the wind was an oven blast, and the days were live coals dragged over the land.
At times she was acutely aware of all that went on about her, as if her consciousness were purely physical, a response to sense impressions, the sting of the sand, the hot breath of the wind, the acrid smell of dust, the rasping roughness of everything she touched, the taste of the unpalatable food in her mouth, the drone of the wind, the lowing of cattle, the sight of the barren desert. At such times she felt she had no mind, no soul, but was merely a bundle of senses that rendered a message of pain for each impression they received of their world. At other times she felt she was not there in the body at all, was unaware of anything physical, but conscious only of the psychical, of her loneliness, her longings, her despairs. She felt lifted beyond the physical into a realm of spirit that felt keener suffering, as if her body had been stripped from her to leave her soul naked to pain. At other times she felt a two-fold suffering, of sense and soul. She began dimly to comprehend how women tried beyond endurance might sometimes go mad.
She lived a dual life. She saw at once this sun-scorched plain, this waste of sand, whose heat rose in shimmering waves that dizzied her, those leafless mesquite bushes, the dead swords of the yucca, the bleaching bones of cattle, gaunt carcasses where coyotes skulked and buzzards perched as hideous as gargoyles.… And then she saw a far-off land, a gracious, smiling country, where pine trees were like great altar candles lifted toward the stars, where magnolias opened their waxen petals in lovely curves to show their golden hearts, where yellow jasmine climbed up into the trees to shake its laughing golden bells of perfume, where every dead stump, every post was softened and made beautiful by the grace of some wild vine.…
She could hear the purling of brooks over rocky beds, of little leaping waterfalls, of murmurous rivers running to the sea—rivers of living water!…
Hell was a place where the winds blew all the time, winds that tormented you, but would not let you die.… Winds that drove you almost crazy, but didn’t let you know the relief that complete insanity would bring.… Demon winds!…
And perhaps a cyclone would come, a vast whirlwind that spiralled to the sky, that would leave destruction everywhere it passed.
Nothing here but wind and sand, wind and sand, till it’s enough to drive me crazy!”
Tears ran down her cheeks, and her heart softened incredibly as the realization of the truth came to her. She loved him, Lige, her husband! Now, at last, she saw him for the man he was, and loved him as he deserved!… She clasped the thought to her soul, as a mother clasps a little new-born baby, so novel, so strange, so precious beyond words!…
She looked out through the window to the prairies freaked with their goblin patterns of sand, in windrows and hollows and little mounds.
There, the sand was in a long, smooth mound now—she had made it so that it looked like the work of the wind. Well, wasn’t it the work of the wind?
October 22, 2021
Lo que me ha pasado con ésta novela es que iba con las expectativas muy altas (ponía en el argumento que tenía ecos de Cumbres borrascosas) y al final me llevé una pequeña decepción.
No es que no me gustara, es una historia sencilla que se lee muy bien pero claro, te ponen ese gancho y cuando lo terminas te llevas un chasco.
Es el típico drama sobre una joven huérfana que vivía en la ciudad y que de repente se ve en medio del desértico oeste americano. La prota da lástima sí pero me ha parecido bastante egoísta y no he conseguido empatizar con ella.
No es que no me gustara, es una historia sencilla que se lee muy bien pero claro, te ponen ese gancho y cuando lo terminas te llevas un chasco.
Es el típico drama sobre una joven huérfana que vivía en la ciudad y que de repente se ve en medio del desértico oeste americano. La prota da lástima sí pero me ha parecido bastante egoísta y no he conseguido empatizar con ella.
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August 29, 2022It's a women's gothic novel...
which I kind of new going in, but Robert E. Howard expressed his like for it in a letter to H.P. Lovecraft and made it sound like there was a supernatural element. Not hardly. Bailing at page 268, for future reference.
which I kind of new going in, but Robert E. Howard expressed his like for it in a letter to H.P. Lovecraft and made it sound like there was a supernatural element. Not hardly. Bailing at page 268, for future reference.
July 10, 2024
Una novela "protofeminista" no necesariamente es aquella en la que la protagonista lucha con denuedo y conciencia crítica contra su destino. Puede ser, como en este caso, aquella en la que la autora pone sobre la mesa las trágicas consecuencias que tiene para las mujeres el hecho de no tener educación, formación profesional ni forma de ganarse la vida o labrarse una existencia digna fuera del matrimonio. Letty no tiene que ser una heroína de Marvel para ser feminista. Letty no existe, pero Dorothy Scarborough sí, y es lo que ella nos transmite a través de la trágica historia de Letty lo que hace de esta una novela, efectivamente, protofeminista.
Dicho esto, y al nivel más estrictamente narrativo, me parece una novela más que sólida. El ambiente, el paisaje y el viento son un personaje más en este descenso a la locura que vemos en Letty, una mujer sin formación, mimada e inocente que no tiene recurso alguno para enfrentarse a su destino (ahí está la denuncia, insisto). En lo personal, me he sentido atrapada en esa choza de madera movida por ciclones, acosada por los aullidos de los coyotes y conmovida por los rebaños de animales que van lentamente muriendo porque no hay agua. El libro es fantástico transmitiendo esa angustia derivada del simple escenario físico en que transcurre la historia.
Solo me hubiera gustado que no terminara tan in media res. Entiendo la intención de la autora, pero mi corazón superficial hubiera querido menos metáfora y más saber de verdad cómo acaba el relato.
Dicho esto, y al nivel más estrictamente narrativo, me parece una novela más que sólida. El ambiente, el paisaje y el viento son un personaje más en este descenso a la locura que vemos en Letty, una mujer sin formación, mimada e inocente que no tiene recurso alguno para enfrentarse a su destino (ahí está la denuncia, insisto). En lo personal, me he sentido atrapada en esa choza de madera movida por ciclones, acosada por los aullidos de los coyotes y conmovida por los rebaños de animales que van lentamente muriendo porque no hay agua. El libro es fantástico transmitiendo esa angustia derivada del simple escenario físico en que transcurre la historia.
Solo me hubiera gustado que no terminara tan in media res. Entiendo la intención de la autora, pero mi corazón superficial hubiera querido menos metáfora y más saber de verdad cómo acaba el relato.
August 17, 2018
Rebecca’s NoName DeWinter meets the woman in The Yellow Wallpaper with a side of Shirley Jackson thrown in. I don’t think I’ve ever read Gothic Texas and I LOVED IT!!!
I rolled my eyes numerous times when Letty couldn’t get it together. I felt some sympathy for her but she literally blamed her downward spiral on the wind without really being honest at all. As the story went on, I started seeing that Letty resembled a character out of Gone With the Wind — but one of the characters who folded after the war, not persevered. And while not everyone can be strong all the time, Letty never seemed to find any way to function or accept her fate.
The ending: YAS!
I think my favorite part of the entire novel was the foreword. Dorothy Scarborough was a woman WAY ahead of her time! I would love to know more about her/visit her grave in Waco, etc. I really liked how the foreword included Scarborough’s efforts to maintain authenticity (folklore research) and her attempts to demystify the West by illustrating the actual hardships.
This darling is out of print and I was lucky to get it at Half Price books. A few libraries in Texas have it. I’m hoping it’s copyright doesn’t renew so it can go in the public domain :)
I rolled my eyes numerous times when Letty couldn’t get it together. I felt some sympathy for her but she literally blamed her downward spiral on the wind without really being honest at all. As the story went on, I started seeing that Letty resembled a character out of Gone With the Wind — but one of the characters who folded after the war, not persevered. And while not everyone can be strong all the time, Letty never seemed to find any way to function or accept her fate.
The ending: YAS!
I think my favorite part of the entire novel was the foreword. Dorothy Scarborough was a woman WAY ahead of her time! I would love to know more about her/visit her grave in Waco, etc. I really liked how the foreword included Scarborough’s efforts to maintain authenticity (folklore research) and her attempts to demystify the West by illustrating the actual hardships.
This darling is out of print and I was lucky to get it at Half Price books. A few libraries in Texas have it. I’m hoping it’s copyright doesn’t renew so it can go in the public domain :)
November 30, 2020
Pues me ha gustado más de lo que pensaba. La narración es hermosa y angustiosa a la vez; las descripciones del lugar y sobre todo la personalidad que la autora imprime al viento son magistrales y te llevan exactamente por donde ella quiere. Acabas en la piel de Letty saboreando la arena y sintiéndote amenazada por el viento.
La parte mala es, quizás, que, por culpa de la sinopsis, esperas que sea una historia mucho más feminista de lo que resulta. El único punto que he encontrado que se puede considerar feminista es la denuncia que hace la autora de la difícil situación de la mujer en su época, con la falta de elección que las obligaba a vidas desgraciadas.
No obstante, es una lectura muy recomendable.
Y el final es muy bueno y muy acorde con el tono de la obra.
La parte mala es, quizás, que, por culpa de la sinopsis, esperas que sea una historia mucho más feminista de lo que resulta. El único punto que he encontrado que se puede considerar feminista es la denuncia que hace la autora de la difícil situación de la mujer en su época, con la falta de elección que las obligaba a vidas desgraciadas.
No obstante, es una lectura muy recomendable.
Y el final es muy bueno y muy acorde con el tono de la obra.
March 18, 2025
I love LOVE this book but my experience was very personal - I, disabled, a widow, read it while driving the travel trailer where I live across Texas through massive historic windstorms that found me in storm shelters twice (so far). I was so into the book that I was thrown into a moment of confusion upon viewing a field of fat and healthy cattle. No fat and healthy cattle in this book.
In the book everything about Texas in a drought is terrible for an orphaned young woman sent to live in a difficult home, most especially this wind that defines every experience whether inside a fragile home or outside.
The book is an unrelenting series of plausible horrors. It was published anonymously for good reason as it did not have a good reception among the movers and shakers of Texas who wanted a better image for a landscape, that, lets' face it, remains harsh here in 2025.
It is the fashion now, in 2025, to be without pity for people with misfortunes, so many would find reading this book a hard ask. Living in a pitiless time makes me love the book all the more.
In the book everything about Texas in a drought is terrible for an orphaned young woman sent to live in a difficult home, most especially this wind that defines every experience whether inside a fragile home or outside.
The book is an unrelenting series of plausible horrors. It was published anonymously for good reason as it did not have a good reception among the movers and shakers of Texas who wanted a better image for a landscape, that, lets' face it, remains harsh here in 2025.
It is the fashion now, in 2025, to be without pity for people with misfortunes, so many would find reading this book a hard ask. Living in a pitiless time makes me love the book all the more.
August 31, 2018
Classic Texas novel--don't know why it's not regularly read as a classic *American* feminist novel. It should have been in Madwoman in the Attic (Gilbert & Gubar). It is about a woman going mad, the underside of the Texas cowboy myth. Brilliant psychological drama.
November 24, 2020
It compares with stories featuring a stranding or starvation - long, tedious, rambling pages to demonstrate the desperate and hopeless feelings of the situation. And often, I've seen this done well, but somehow this one wore on me until I was apathetic. It may have to do with the era in which it is written - one when it is expected that the female must play a role of supporting housewife. Letty, meanwhile, our protagonist, is a miserable wretch, ruminating and self criticizing, terrified of anything different, scared of any little sound or saying - even scared of bugs, unable to do anything for herself, unwilling to learn and strengthen her character. I saw no change, no coming-of-age for her, because half the narrative is her reminiscing about Virginia and flowers. Her logic is hideous, her whining is grating; it's a wonder any of the men liked her. Her depressing self-pity goes on and on and on; it is the very definition of rumination with no let up. Some whole chapters would consist of only a few lines of dialogue and the rest her tiresome babble, wondering and wishing, and never doing anything!
I was going to set this book down after 100 pages and give it an "it was ok" rating, but then decided to read it to the end since I saw it had so many good reviews - I thought maybe I'd miss out on something worth while at the end. But no. One star.
I was going to set this book down after 100 pages and give it an "it was ok" rating, but then decided to read it to the end since I saw it had so many good reviews - I thought maybe I'd miss out on something worth while at the end. But no. One star.
April 23, 2019
Herein, we have a young gal, Letty, from Virginia headed by train to Sweetwater, Texas, to live with her cousin and his family. She is not at all ready for life on the plain. Definitely a fish-out-of-water! And the wind and the sand drive her mad! And she pines for her old life, and hates her new one. Pobrecita.
There's a lot to like in this book. The dialogue, especially the cowboys', is wonderful to read! And the desolation of Letty's situation is expertly described! I also got a kick out of seeing a little bit of the origin of a favorite song of mine, “Sinnerman” by Nina Simone, in the reminiscing brought about from an old negro spiritual Letty was familiar with. All-in-all, this is a pretty good western!
My negative feedback would be that I felt like I was hit over the head a bit too much with Letty's sadness of her situation. Soooo many paragraphs about life back in Virginia, contrasted with life in Texas. Too much for my taste. And I never liked Letty, so I never really felt that bad for her. For me, she was less a victim, and more a spoiled, privileged pain in the rear.
Still, I'm glad I read it, and I think any fan of the Western genre would be glad too!
There's a lot to like in this book. The dialogue, especially the cowboys', is wonderful to read! And the desolation of Letty's situation is expertly described! I also got a kick out of seeing a little bit of the origin of a favorite song of mine, “Sinnerman” by Nina Simone, in the reminiscing brought about from an old negro spiritual Letty was familiar with. All-in-all, this is a pretty good western!
My negative feedback would be that I felt like I was hit over the head a bit too much with Letty's sadness of her situation. Soooo many paragraphs about life back in Virginia, contrasted with life in Texas. Too much for my taste. And I never liked Letty, so I never really felt that bad for her. For me, she was less a victim, and more a spoiled, privileged pain in the rear.
Still, I'm glad I read it, and I think any fan of the Western genre would be glad too!
March 20, 2018
After having read "The Wind" I can see why the west Texas chamber of commerce was in arms. This does not incite mass movement to Sweetwater Texas. The wind was ceaseless, constant, continual, unabating, interminable, endless, everlasting, eternal, perpetual, continuous, nonstop, uninterrupted, unbroken, unremitting, persistent, relentless, and unrelieved. Which is important that you be aware of this, as it plays a major role in how our protagonist, Letty, adapted(?) to her new life. The wind was not the only component. There were moral conflicts too, as in any good story. The ending was perfect, right out of the old west.
I was particularly affected by the repercussions to the animal life.
I was particularly affected by the repercussions to the animal life.
May 16, 2020
He devorado este libro (lo empecé ayer) y me ha encantado.
La protagonista me parece insufrible, insoportable, egoísta y un largo etcétera, pero ganan para mi las descripciones del paisaje y del constante, agobiante y diabólico viento, protagonista absoluto del libro. Destaco la capacidad que tiene la escritora de hacerte sentir la soledad aplastante y la angustia de los personajes. Sentir esa agonía por una gota de agua que nunca parece llegar y esa llanura interminable que me ha sacado por completo de las cuatro paredes que me rodean desde hace dos meses ha sido un regalo. Incluso estando acompañada por Letty, probablemente uno de los personajes que más antipatía me ha despertado en mi vida.
La protagonista me parece insufrible, insoportable, egoísta y un largo etcétera, pero ganan para mi las descripciones del paisaje y del constante, agobiante y diabólico viento, protagonista absoluto del libro. Destaco la capacidad que tiene la escritora de hacerte sentir la soledad aplastante y la angustia de los personajes. Sentir esa agonía por una gota de agua que nunca parece llegar y esa llanura interminable que me ha sacado por completo de las cuatro paredes que me rodean desde hace dos meses ha sido un regalo. Incluso estando acompañada por Letty, probablemente uno de los personajes que más antipatía me ha despertado en mi vida.
June 6, 2023
While some may find the story a bit over the top, I felt it captured the way some women were driven mad by the loneliness, isolation, and severe weather of the plains of West Texas. This is a classic perhaps not read as much today, but still a well-written story. The wind itself functions as a character in the novel, serving as one factor driving the heroine, the frail Letty, to madness and murder. Yet, she is also responsible to a great deal for her fate by letting her imagination and unwillingness to face reality. The silent movie made from this book is considered the last great silent film made. Worthy of a read, though it may offend some West Texas as too unflattering (as it did when first published).
June 8, 2020
Pure Texicana, capturing my imagination of West Texas and panhandle frontiersfolk. It's no wonder the region leads the world in wind power, but before we learned to harness and celebrate the power of The Wind, it surly was dastardly, something of horror to embrace. Released in 1925, it's such an early take on the myth of the west, I'm not sure how it has escaped academia.
Perhaps the most cinematic book I've ever read. As someone with a love of film, I was imagining story boards the entire read. I plan to watch the silent film (1928), and there appears to be a loose connection in a modern (2018) movie of the same name. With some more research, you may be seeing a screenplay released by R.R. Houston in 2021.
Perhaps the most cinematic book I've ever read. As someone with a love of film, I was imagining story boards the entire read. I plan to watch the silent film (1928), and there appears to be a loose connection in a modern (2018) movie of the same name. With some more research, you may be seeing a screenplay released by R.R. Houston in 2021.
June 7, 2024
I read this as a Carson McCullers fan to see her roots and was very pleased to have done so. Despite missing text and syntax errors in my copy (I'll be damned if I can find a complete copy), the book reads excellently, if a few too many rhetorical questions.
Very character focused, the writing shows an excellent depiction of a woman thrown into misery, with her misfortune and slowly unwinding (lol) sanity being the focus of the book. The descriptions of the main character experiencing dissociation are ahead of their time. The other characters are all excellently written also, I feel for each of them. The wind itself seems to be a living character with its own motivations by the end of the book, but that's merely from Letty's crazed point-of-view.
It also works as a strongly feminist piece of literature, showing how Letty had no real power in her own life, being unable to work and having to rely on men.
The book is passively racist, but given the setting and it being a point-of-view, that's to be expected. Letty is uneducated in many ways, and certainly wouldn't know her racism, whatever her opinions on the matter might be. I don't know much about the author's views, that isn't the aim of this review anyway, but given that Carson's quite anti-racist novels came from this, I'm not upset myself (albeit with no skin in the game as a white person).
Very character focused, the writing shows an excellent depiction of a woman thrown into misery, with her misfortune and slowly unwinding (lol) sanity being the focus of the book. The descriptions of the main character experiencing dissociation are ahead of their time. The other characters are all excellently written also, I feel for each of them. The wind itself seems to be a living character with its own motivations by the end of the book, but that's merely from Letty's crazed point-of-view.
It also works as a strongly feminist piece of literature, showing how Letty had no real power in her own life, being unable to work and having to rely on men.
The book is passively racist, but given the setting and it being a point-of-view, that's to be expected. Letty is uneducated in many ways, and certainly wouldn't know her racism, whatever her opinions on the matter might be. I don't know much about the author's views, that isn't the aim of this review anyway, but given that Carson's quite anti-racist novels came from this, I'm not upset myself (albeit with no skin in the game as a white person).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 4, 2025
I read this book as a part of a research paper I'm doing for a course. As a result, I struggled to see it as anything beyond an academic text, which is a shame as I really wanted to feel as invested in this book as I was expecting myself to be. Regardless, I enjoyed the story a lot as a subversion of traditional Western narratives, especially with its heroine Letty. It was also my first introduction to a proper 'American-Gothic' novel, which is definitely a genre I want to explore more. :)
November 4, 2021
A very dark book but very much worth reading (or listening to in my case). Other reviewers have described the plot, all I want to add is that I listened to the free LibriVox version of this book, read by Availle, who (as always) did a very fine job. Availle's reading enhances the tension and psychological drama of the story.
April 1, 2024
La historia hiba tan bien, era relajado y un poco triste pero interesante y envolvente pero que final tan horrible no se que paso en los últimos capitulos todo se fue por el caño, me gustaba pero ese final a sido el más desepcinante y frustrante que he leído, al inicio sentía lastima y empatia por la protagonista pero terminó estresando y desepcionando
July 12, 2022
Short, brutal and haunting. A frontier story of deprivation and mental torment. A young, fresh Virginian girl is transplanted to drought stricken Texas with no other home to turn to. What can follow except madness?
October 21, 2021
Hauntingly beautiful and terrible.
April 13, 2023
The Wind
Boring and depressing! This book left me flat. It was short, but it took me several days to read because it was so boring.
Boring and depressing! This book left me flat. It was short, but it took me several days to read because it was so boring.
January 3, 2024
So, how many people are here because of Miss Lillian?
October 23, 2011
Imagine yourself to be a sheltered and pampered 18-year-old girl living in Virginia in a snug house surrounded by orchards, flowers, and streams. And then a family death and overwhelming debts force you to travel to live with a relative in an unpainted wood-frame shack on a ranch, where the area is suffering its worst-ever drought--no trees, no greenery, no water. And the wind blows all the time. How would you fare?
The year is 1887 and the ranch location is outside Sweetwater, Texas. Letty Mason is not at all prepared for her new environment, particularly not for the weather. Circumstances go from bad to worse as her relative's wife begins to resent Letty's intrusion, and she finds herself almost forced into making a loveless marriage. She begins to think of the constant wind as a demon, and "began dimly to comprehend how women tried beyond endurance might sometimes go mad."
Later in the novel, she personifies the ever-present winds in her mind and believes they are trying to destroy her. She thinks, "Hell was a place where the winds blew all the time, winds that tormented you, but would not let you die....Demon winds!...."
This novel is somewhat melodramatic, although historical accounts tell of pioneering women who, indeed, went mad. Descriptions of the sights and sounds of the landscape are amazingly evocative, and the dialogue of the West Texas cowboys sounds just right. A reader who has never lived "where the wind comes sweeping down the plain" may dismiss the heroine's obsession with the wind as overdrawn, but for anyone who has ever lived in West Texas (as I have), it will seem entirely plausible.
'The Wind' was written in 1925 and caused a great furor at the time from Chambers of Commerce in the area, but today it is acknowledged by many critics to be a classic of Texas literature.
The year is 1887 and the ranch location is outside Sweetwater, Texas. Letty Mason is not at all prepared for her new environment, particularly not for the weather. Circumstances go from bad to worse as her relative's wife begins to resent Letty's intrusion, and she finds herself almost forced into making a loveless marriage. She begins to think of the constant wind as a demon, and "began dimly to comprehend how women tried beyond endurance might sometimes go mad."
Later in the novel, she personifies the ever-present winds in her mind and believes they are trying to destroy her. She thinks, "Hell was a place where the winds blew all the time, winds that tormented you, but would not let you die....Demon winds!...."
This novel is somewhat melodramatic, although historical accounts tell of pioneering women who, indeed, went mad. Descriptions of the sights and sounds of the landscape are amazingly evocative, and the dialogue of the West Texas cowboys sounds just right. A reader who has never lived "where the wind comes sweeping down the plain" may dismiss the heroine's obsession with the wind as overdrawn, but for anyone who has ever lived in West Texas (as I have), it will seem entirely plausible.
'The Wind' was written in 1925 and caused a great furor at the time from Chambers of Commerce in the area, but today it is acknowledged by many critics to be a classic of Texas literature.
October 8, 2014
Poor Letty! Just eighteen years young she has lost her mother, her only left parent, and must leave her beloved home Virginia. She leaves behind the green country, with its trees, colourful flowers and chirping birds to move to her cousin Beverly's family in Texas. What a tremendous change to her! The country is dry, the wind steady blows and people live separated from eachother for dozens of miles. Although Bev is glad to see Letty she feels that she is unwanted by his wife. So scared to death by the wind she gets married to cowpuncher Lige whom she doesn't love. She gets trapped by solitude, hopelessness and despair...
It's difficult to rate this book because I already knew the story as I have seen the silent movie directed by Victor Sjöström in 1928 uncounted times. Although the Hollywood-end was a different one - it must have had as we learned by Lillian Gish alias Letty when she told about the filming process in an interview - I do know now that Sjöström kept very close to the plot of the novel and that he wanted film the actual end exactly as in the book. I really appreciate that and I am grateful for his great movie and the beautifully acting Lillian Gish and Lars Hanson. So reading the novel turned to be a fine completion to me.
I like the way Dorothy Scarborough describes the despair of Letty's, her longing, her desire to go back to Virginia, the beautiful green country without wind, the country of her happy past and childhood. But for a woman in her social situation there aren't any possibilities to make it happen. It's a sad little story and surely not as fictionally as someone may think.
It's difficult to rate this book because I already knew the story as I have seen the silent movie directed by Victor Sjöström in 1928 uncounted times. Although the Hollywood-end was a different one - it must have had as we learned by Lillian Gish alias Letty when she told about the filming process in an interview - I do know now that Sjöström kept very close to the plot of the novel and that he wanted film the actual end exactly as in the book. I really appreciate that and I am grateful for his great movie and the beautifully acting Lillian Gish and Lars Hanson. So reading the novel turned to be a fine completion to me.
I like the way Dorothy Scarborough describes the despair of Letty's, her longing, her desire to go back to Virginia, the beautiful green country without wind, the country of her happy past and childhood. But for a woman in her social situation there aren't any possibilities to make it happen. It's a sad little story and surely not as fictionally as someone may think.
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