Literary Extensions of the Formula Western

W I L L I A M B L O O D W O R T H East Carolina University Literary Extensions of the Formula Western This paper proposes to define the relationship between the so-called Formula or Popular Western and a still-emerging tradition of American writing which draws upon the Formula Western for setting and characters but which does not sit easily under the rubric of popular culture. The non-popular (that is, not popular in the way that Zane Grey, Luke Short, or Louis L’Amour have been popular) tradition may have had its earliest expression in Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s The Ox-Bow Incident in 1940. However, it did not really begin to flourish until the late fifties and early sixties, during the heyday of popular western enter­ tainment on television and at the movies. Berger’s Little Big Man (1964) has considerable claim to being the most widely respected novel within the tradition. Other examples would most certainly include E. L. Doctorow ’s Welcome to Hard Times (1960), Robert Flynn’s North to Yes­ terday (1967), John Seelye’s The Kid (1972), and novels by R. G. Vliet and David Wagoner — all of which incorporate aspects of the classic Popular Western in fiction which, in its purposes and results, seems to go considerably beyond its popular origins. Two other kinds of novels belong in this discussion. One is the western with a contemporary setting like Edward Abbey’s The Brave Cowboy (1956), Max Evans’ The Rounders (1960), or Larry McMurtry ’s Horseman, Pass By (1961). The other is the western that at first seems almost identical to the popular story but which turns out to be a horse opera of a slightly different color, as is the case with Frederick Manfred’s Riders of Judgment (1957) and, I think, with Charles Portis’ True Grit (1968). 288 Western American Literature Somewhere within the tradition I am trying to describe there may even be a place for such idiosyncratic works as Richard Brautigan’s The Hawkline Monster (1972) — subtitled “A Gothic Western” — or Tom Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976), provided that they are accompanied by several question marks. A good term to identify this motley and variform category of Ameri­ can fiction is hard to come by. C. L. Sonnichsen a few years ago pro­ posed the term “New Style Westerns” to describe fiction by McMurtry, Evans and others.1 Leslie Fiedler’s “New Westerns,” as used in The Vanishing American, is also a possibility. “Anti-Westerns” seems to apply in some cases. “Off-Trail Westerns” is somehow the most appealing term by virtue of its implied reference to a departure from the crowded trail of popular culture. “Literary Westerns” may be the most useful term, how­ ever, by drawing attention to the conscious (or self-conscious) literary intentions behind all of the novels that I have mentioned and a good many others that, I am sure, could be brought into this discussion. Perhaps it will be best to talk of off-trail qualities in Literary Westerns, reserving the usual upper case letters for the latter term. An obvious off-trail — and, by extension, “literary” — quality of the Literary Western can be seen in the comments of an unnamed “Western Writer” quoted by Russell Nye in The Unembarrassed Muse. According to this writer, when a character in a story is shown to have missed in his attempt to solve problems, “the academic pinheads call it art, a complex human document full of ambiguities.” But, he goes on to say, “Mine don’t miss because I make a living at it.”2The point here is obvious. Ambiguity is held to a minimum in Popular Westerns. Literary Westerns, on the other hand, involve a liberal infusion of attitudes distilled from modern literature. This point is so obvious, in fact, that having made it, I don’t really care to emphasize it. Instead, I want to draw attention to the similarities between Popular and Literary Westerns, to their common ground, and to the ultimate thematic reliance of the latter on the former. My general argument runs something like this: although many critics and scholars have drawn...