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Over The Border
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A magic land it is, made out of shattered rainbows, girded with crimson-and-gold mountains that wear around their high foreheads cooling bandages of snow; a land of deathless calms, cyclonic storms, torrential rains, peopled only by the vultures that wheel against the sky and the little golden dust-whorls which dance together over its heated face. ...That night the Three put up at the cantina in the little adobe town of Las Bocas, where, by reason of occasional largesses to the leader of the revolutionary faction that happened to be on top, a welcome was always certain. ...If the small traders and artisans who constituted the bulk of the population had been addicted to such flights of imagination, they might have pictured the jefatura's yawning gates as a huge gullet through which, in normal times, their substance drained in taxes, fines, and imposts to Mexico City, the nation's stomach, there to be consumed by a hungry tribe of official hookworms.
A magic land it is, made out of shattered rainbows, girded with crimson-and-gold mountains that wear around their high foreheads cooling bandages of snow; a land of deathless calms, cyclonic storms, torrential rains, peopled only by the vultures that wheel against the sky and the little golden dust-whorls which dance together over its heated face. ...That night the Three put up at the cantina in the little adobe town of Las Bocas, where, by reason of occasional largesses to the leader of the revolutionary faction that happened to be on top, a welcome was always certain. ...If the small traders and artisans who constituted the bulk of the population had been addicted to such flights of imagination, they might have pictured the jefatura's yawning gates as a huge gullet through which, in normal times, their substance drained in taxes, fines, and imposts to Mexico City, the nation's stomach, there to be consumed by a hungry tribe of official hookworms.
896 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1916
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September 9, 2018
Sept 6 ~~ Review tomorrow, have to think about this one a bit.
Sept 9 ~~ I discovered this author when I read The Spinners' Book Of Fiction. His contribution to the anthology was The Tewana, an intense story set in Mexico. At that time I was impressed with the respect for the country and the people reflected in the story. While reading that collection, I made a list of the authors involved, and later I picked one work per author to create a new personal challenge list. This book, Over The Border, was my choice for Herman Whitaker. It was written in 1917, and was also set in Mexico. (And it was eventually adapted for a 1926 silent movie called Three Bad Men, directed by John Ford.)
I have been trying to decide on what to say about this book since I finished it a couple of days ago. the story itself was compelling: Bull, Jake, and Sliver are three men with no scruples. Horse thieves, cattle rustlers, cold-blooded murderers living mainly in Mexico to protect themselves from the law in the USA. They slip across the line one day to try and steal a herd of horses to drive south, but the theft does not go as planned. In order to stay in the good graces of the current boss of the area, they are sent to steal the required horses from an American rancher on the Mexican side of the border.
So off our men go, intending to rob and murder, and they witness the ranch owner trying to keep those very horses from being stolen by soldiers of a group of one of the many factions fighting in Mexico at that time. Our men see the owner shot down, and a young boy riding to try and help. They suddenly realize the young boy is actually a young woman, and in order to save her from a fate worse than death (the soldiers have also realized that the 'boy' is not what he seemed) our men quickly become participants rather than mere witnesses. And from that point their lives change. What will they do about their plans? How can they leave this girl alone on this huge hacienda in the middle of a revolution? They never tell the girl about their pasts, but they do accept the jobs she offers, and swear to themselves that they will protect her as long as possible. Are they able to do so? How many close calls will they have between this point and the end of the story? Who else will become involved in the girl's life and what consequences will there be afterwards?
The basic story was exciting. But also there were disturbing attitudes portrayed, even though I could see that the author was simply portraying the thinking of those times. It still rankled, and I had to tell myself that in just another few weeks I will be living once again in a country where many people and the so-called commander in chief still have these ridiculous ideas about Mexico. I have to learn how to deal with such stupidity without losing my temper. So I kept reading, and I had many discussions with my Mexican husband about the topics the story brought up.
He said the author was portraying the thoughts of the day in that way in order to create a dialogue for change. I wondered why certain things never seem to change. What is wrong with human beings that we have to think one color is better than another, that we have to stomp around and tell everyone else how to live and condemn them if they disagree or dare to live by their own beliefs? Am I foolish to believe the world was meant to be much different than it has turned out to be? I still can't decide, and this book will stay with me a long time, keeping the question in my mind.
Sept 9 ~~ I discovered this author when I read The Spinners' Book Of Fiction. His contribution to the anthology was The Tewana, an intense story set in Mexico. At that time I was impressed with the respect for the country and the people reflected in the story. While reading that collection, I made a list of the authors involved, and later I picked one work per author to create a new personal challenge list. This book, Over The Border, was my choice for Herman Whitaker. It was written in 1917, and was also set in Mexico. (And it was eventually adapted for a 1926 silent movie called Three Bad Men, directed by John Ford.)
I have been trying to decide on what to say about this book since I finished it a couple of days ago. the story itself was compelling: Bull, Jake, and Sliver are three men with no scruples. Horse thieves, cattle rustlers, cold-blooded murderers living mainly in Mexico to protect themselves from the law in the USA. They slip across the line one day to try and steal a herd of horses to drive south, but the theft does not go as planned. In order to stay in the good graces of the current boss of the area, they are sent to steal the required horses from an American rancher on the Mexican side of the border.
So off our men go, intending to rob and murder, and they witness the ranch owner trying to keep those very horses from being stolen by soldiers of a group of one of the many factions fighting in Mexico at that time. Our men see the owner shot down, and a young boy riding to try and help. They suddenly realize the young boy is actually a young woman, and in order to save her from a fate worse than death (the soldiers have also realized that the 'boy' is not what he seemed) our men quickly become participants rather than mere witnesses. And from that point their lives change. What will they do about their plans? How can they leave this girl alone on this huge hacienda in the middle of a revolution? They never tell the girl about their pasts, but they do accept the jobs she offers, and swear to themselves that they will protect her as long as possible. Are they able to do so? How many close calls will they have between this point and the end of the story? Who else will become involved in the girl's life and what consequences will there be afterwards?
The basic story was exciting. But also there were disturbing attitudes portrayed, even though I could see that the author was simply portraying the thinking of those times. It still rankled, and I had to tell myself that in just another few weeks I will be living once again in a country where many people and the so-called commander in chief still have these ridiculous ideas about Mexico. I have to learn how to deal with such stupidity without losing my temper. So I kept reading, and I had many discussions with my Mexican husband about the topics the story brought up.
He said the author was portraying the thoughts of the day in that way in order to create a dialogue for change. I wondered why certain things never seem to change. What is wrong with human beings that we have to think one color is better than another, that we have to stomp around and tell everyone else how to live and condemn them if they disagree or dare to live by their own beliefs? Am I foolish to believe the world was meant to be much different than it has turned out to be? I still can't decide, and this book will stay with me a long time, keeping the question in my mind.
April 18, 2015
'Bull' Perrin is the leader of the trio of rustlers who try to go straight after falling in with Miss Carleton, 'a girl clean of mind, clear-eyed, wholesome as a breath of wind off the sage' and left alone to run the Los Angelos ranch after her father dies defending it during the Mexican Revolution.
The three rustlers figure that Miss Carleton needs a young husband to support her, so fearing that she may be compelled into the arms of a Mexican childhood friend, Ramon, they hunt out a suitable prospect from over the border, a college graduate handy with his fists, Gordan Nevil.
A romance Western with a contemporary message of disgust with the American policy of non-intervention as its citizens over the border lost their property and sometimes their lives during the chaos of the revolution, there is much to admire here in the storytelling, which ends in an impressive climax.
However, the racial contempt exhibited by pretty much all of the white characters for the native Mexicans is truly awful, even if it were representative of the times. I can't help but believe that the writer felt the same too, or how else explain this passage?:
'Their low, sloping foreheads, unbalanced heads with all the weight below; their loose mouths, brute jaws, dark skin, nature’s infallible stigma of inferiority, pronounced them half a million years behind her, the last-bloom of a higher race.'
Definitive, right? It can only be, and yet ... the heroine, raised in Mexico, is decidedly without racism; there are hints that Ramon, the childhood friend who abducts her, is treated with some sympathy; and even the minor Mexican characters are afforded extended speeches where they express themselves in their own vernacular, which is duly respected.
Whether he had any real respect for the Mexicans or not, Whitaker certainly loved the countries desert landscape just inside the border, along with its vivid sunsets. These he beautifully brought to life, without prejudice.
The three rustlers figure that Miss Carleton needs a young husband to support her, so fearing that she may be compelled into the arms of a Mexican childhood friend, Ramon, they hunt out a suitable prospect from over the border, a college graduate handy with his fists, Gordan Nevil.
A romance Western with a contemporary message of disgust with the American policy of non-intervention as its citizens over the border lost their property and sometimes their lives during the chaos of the revolution, there is much to admire here in the storytelling, which ends in an impressive climax.
However, the racial contempt exhibited by pretty much all of the white characters for the native Mexicans is truly awful, even if it were representative of the times. I can't help but believe that the writer felt the same too, or how else explain this passage?:
'Their low, sloping foreheads, unbalanced heads with all the weight below; their loose mouths, brute jaws, dark skin, nature’s infallible stigma of inferiority, pronounced them half a million years behind her, the last-bloom of a higher race.'
Definitive, right? It can only be, and yet ... the heroine, raised in Mexico, is decidedly without racism; there are hints that Ramon, the childhood friend who abducts her, is treated with some sympathy; and even the minor Mexican characters are afforded extended speeches where they express themselves in their own vernacular, which is duly respected.
Whether he had any real respect for the Mexicans or not, Whitaker certainly loved the countries desert landscape just inside the border, along with its vivid sunsets. These he beautifully brought to life, without prejudice.
October 3, 2014
Recently I reviewed the movie based on this novel, 3 Bad Men (1926), and I was curious how one had been adapted into the other. Surprisingly, the underlying plots of both are recognizably similar. Three rustlers give up their lives of thievery when they decide to come to the aid of a young woman whose father has been killed.
Realizing that she would benefit from marriage to a better man than any of them, they go out and find one for her. Circumstances then arrange themselves in such a way that all three former thieves, now fully reformed, give up their lives to protect the young couple as they are all pursued by murderous villains.
More at my blog.
Realizing that she would benefit from marriage to a better man than any of them, they go out and find one for her. Circumstances then arrange themselves in such a way that all three former thieves, now fully reformed, give up their lives to protect the young couple as they are all pursued by murderous villains.
More at my blog.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews