Hondo (Frontera #6)

Lyn

Rating: really liked it
Hondo was author Louis L’Amour’s 1953 publication, and shares with Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey the distinction of actually being a novelization of a successful film. The 1953 film starring John Wayne and Geraldine Page was actually based upon a short story by L’Amour entitled “The Gift of Cochise”.

The narrative follows loner western icon Hondo Lane in his dealings with General Crook’s command, the local Apache tribes and a romantic contact with Mrs. Angie Lowe. Set in the 1870s or 1880s in the inhospitable southwest, L’Amour describes the events in his lean, but vivid style. Told with surprising warmth and emotional sensitivity (for a western) some of the more memorable scenes are not fighting but Hondo’s interactions with and his dynamic relationship with Lowe and her young son Johnny. L’Amour also does a better than average job at portraying the Apaches as more than marauding savages and this objective empathy adds depth to his story.

I tend to be a literary omnivore, enjoying writing in various and sundry genres and Hondo was described by none other than John Wayne as being the finest western he’d ever read. Strong praise from a notable source. This is a fine western and also a very enjoyable book for any genre.

Henry Avila

Rating: really liked it
Hondo Lane, a tough chain smoker , a man, (don't condemn him this is the 19th Century when it was considered good for you) without any deep roots . He is living day to day in the harsh southwest U.S. Hondo loses his horse, during an Indian ambush he is lucky though keeping his precious hair. This the long ago time of the 1870's in Apache territory, Arizona before becoming a state, not a good day for sight seeing the scorching desert will kill you as well as the natives.The loner walks carrying his saddle and with the faithful mongrel dog, Sam, the only possessions he cherishes. Sam he loves his only friend along seeking help, good fortune occurs finding a lonely ranch hidden below in a basin. Meeting the surprising gentle lady in this unforgiving territory Angie Lowe a sad woman the long suffering
abandoned wife, not bad looking either and her son, who Sam quickly bites. Strangely attracted to this woman makes Hondo uneasy, yes a romantic western the main reason for the book's continued popularity. Ed, Mrs. Lowe 's crooked, no good husband would rather steal than work hard in his little modest ranch, profits are scarce . And with fierce Vittoro the Apache leader on the warpath, Lane wants to take her and the boy to safety she declines insisting the Indians are friendly. The two main characters attraction to each other gives this narrative the drive nothing else matters. The plot breaks down to three men, Hondo, Ed and Vittorio wanting the same female, a proper term is lusting, with a little fighting to make interesting the story . Naturally somebody has to be eliminated for a happy ending, make that two okay. This classic book made Louis L'Amour's fame, and wealth came with a distinguished career, hundreds of millions of novels sold will do that. Writers can entertain, even enlighten but few can do both not a darling of the critics however they are not infallible disliking Moby Dick among others, only time is the ultimate judge of worth. Western fans will enjoy this book after seeing the better known film with John Wayne, the breathtaking cinematography especially on the big screen is worth the price of the ticket.The colors are so vivid the audience will be taken from the dark room to the arid deserts of the southwest U.S. The red-sands of Monument Valley are so exotic the eyes believe this is Mars.

Jason Koivu

Rating: really liked it
I'd just finished a terrible western and needed to get the taste out of my mouth. Louis L'Amour to the rescue!

Hondo Lane is a man's man. He's a half-breed drifter. He's a loner who's never alone, because he is at one with the hardscrabble land of the old west.

Is an abandoned and soon-to-be-widowed woman and her young son just the sort of temptation to lure Hondo into a tied-to-the-homestead existence? And what of the restless Apache's in the area? Hondo is nominally attached to the white man's military scouting party, who is suddenly at odds with the indians once again. Can Hondo be the peacemaker or will he just end up another piece in the U.S.'s westward push?

All of these questions and more are answered, some satisfactorily and some are left intentionally vague, gray areas under the impossibly blue skies of the mid-1800s southwest.

Great descriptions, good action and colorful characters abound in Hondo, one of L'Amour's most famous works. There are times when you the reader feel as if you're right there in the middle of the parched landscape, hunkered down between two boulders expecting attack at any moment. At other times, the boredom and languor of such an isolated life takes ahold of you for better or worse.

Not everything between the covers of this book is well-written. Some of it is a bit pulpy. Some of it is a bit misogynistic. Most heinous of all, some of it is just dull. L'Amour could set a western scene with the best of them, but sometimes that didn't translate to good reading. Descriptions of the desert or prairie could go on too long.

Despite its failings, Hondo is a classic tough-guy western that will probably be enjoyed by anyone still reading this review.


Rating: This falls somewhere in the 3.5 to 4 range for me. Figured I'd give it the benefit of the fourth star since the reading experience was mostly enjoyable.

Side Note: My first guitar was made by Hondo, a guitar company named after the John Wayne movie based on this book. My guitar was as big and cantankerous as Wayne, but I was 15, in love with playing the guitar and the unwieldy thing was mine, so of course I loved it!

Gary Sundell

Rating: really liked it
The first novel written by Louis L'Amour. What a story. John Wayne called this the best Western ever written. Maybe the statement is a bit over the top. The descriptions of the Arizona desert verge on the poetic. At its heart the book is the story of Hondo Lane, cavalary scout and dispatch rider and a woman and her son living in Apache territory. There is no stereotyping of the Apache here. Some are decent some are not. Same is true of the white men.

There is a reason L'Amour was and is still years after his death one of the best selling authors of all time.

Vince

Rating: really liked it
She had the feeling that he was a man that lived in continual expectation of trouble, never reaching for it, yet always and forever prepared. Her eyes dropped to the worn holster and the polished butt of the Colt. Both had seen service, and the service of wear and use, not merely of years.

Hondo Lane walks down the heat shimmering desert in Apache run territory. A shadow follows Hondo Lane in the shape of a dog, which he doesn't own, but the dog has taken a liking to the lone stranger nonetheless and Hondo let's him be his travelling companion. He names the dog, Sam. They make their way amid yucca and cottonwood trees and across the occasional butte and mesa where eventually they find a ranch out by its lonesome where a young mother and her six year old child make their homestead. That's just the start of the story in Louis L'Amour's first full length novel. Up until now I've read only his short stories and was mighty curious on how Mr. L'Amour would pull this off.

The same year it was published, Warner Brothers Movie Studios turned the novel into an feature length motion picture of the same name starring John Wayne which turned out to be a moderate box office success at the time but later came to be regarded as a bonafide Western Classic. How does the novel hold up? Pretty darn well, if you ask me. It's one of those rare instances where I don't prefer either the movie or the novel over the other. I love them both just the same and while not exactly similar at certain narrative points, they both possess immense merit in both mediums.

The characters were all written exceptionally well and never cross over the line of becoming cliches or caricatures. Some characters if you don't look out, might actually pull on your heart strings. Louis L'Amour's writing style remains impeccable as ever with quick, crisp sentences that moves the story and furthermore leaves one to ask just how is it possible to have sentences so poetic and full of depth in such short sentences where it would take another author five hundred pages to convey the same thing? Your guess is as good as mine but I do know he had something special. L'Amour was more than just a great storyteller. To me, he was an artist who knew his medium and I was astounded at how much fun I had reading this.

Normally I'd recommend L'Amour's short stories to newcomers but after finishing the novel, it behooves me to rather recommend this book instead. It's all quality storytelling and a quick read. What could be better?

Charles van Buren

Rating: really liked it
A classic story of violence, loneliness and romance

Hondo is widely considered to be one of Louis L'Amour best novels and the classic movie based upon the original short story to be one of John Wayne's best roles. I concur with both assessments. Apparently John Wayne was instrumental in encouraging L'Amour to expand the story and movie script into a novel.

The action is set in the desert southwest in the midst of the Apache wars. Apache chief Vittoro is determined that no whites will be left in Apache territory. The whites, of course, are determined to survive and prevail. War is inevitable.

Hondo Lane, with a reputation as a gunman, is a courier and scout for the army. Escaping from a band of Apaches, he comes across a lonely ranch deep inside Indian territory. The only residents a young woman and her child abandoned by her husband. The scene is set for romance, war, violence and struggles for survival. Both Apache and white.

L'Amour writes of the Indian as a brutal enemy but with sympathy. His descriptions of the desert are well done. A small sample:
"It was hot. A few lost, cotton-ball bunches of cloud drifted in a brassy sky, leaving rare islands of shadow upon the desert’s face. Nothing moved. It was a far, lost land, a land of beige-gray silences and distance where the eye reached out farther and farther to lose itself finally against the sky, and where the only movement was the lazy swing of a remote buzzard."

Hana

Rating: really liked it
"What do we have here? The story of a lonely man hiding his loneliness behind a cloak of independence, a man as bleak as the land over which he rode, yet beneath the harshness and the necessary violence, a kind man, a just man, a man who had come to terms with the land in which he lived."



Hondo Lane is a gunman, a survivor, riding dispatch for General George Crook commander of the Army's forces in the Southwest. Crook valued men like Hondo--men of mixed blood, who knew the ways of the Apache. In the late 1870's Arizona's Chiricahua Mountains were a hard land, a land that could feed and shelter those who understood it, but a land that could kill the unwary or the weak. The price of survival was constant vigilance.

"He smelled the stale sweat of his body, the smells of tobacco, horse and greasewood smoke that lived with him. A fly lighted on the back of his hand, he heard the sound of water running over stones. Around him were the grey bones of a long dead tree. His shoulder cramped. There was no movement; only a small bird started to land in a clump of brush, then veered away...and Hondo took a chance..."

There is a visceral realism to L'Amour's descriptions. You feel every moment of tense expectation.



For lovers of action adventure stories Hondo packs a punch--and the villain is such low-life scum that I was cheering every blow.



L'Amour's descriptions of the land make me want to head West: "The sun was down but it was still light, and the air was turning cool with the desert night. Long streaks of red remained in the sky, and on the western edge of a cloud there was a blush of old rose. Pale yellow light lingered on the topmost leaves of the cottonwoods and their leaves whispered in the dry way they have."

There is also a very believable and satisfying romance with an admirable heroine. Angie Lowe, like Hondo, is a fighter, a woman raising a young son alone on a ranch her father built. Her husband has disappeared leaving her to fend for herself in Apache country. Hondo sees the care with which the stone house was built, but also the neglect of the hardest jobs that only a man could do. "He read more into the place than she would have believed. There had been a lot of work done here, good solid work that a man could be proud of...but that had been a long time ago. Since then the place had been had been slowly running into the ground, and here and there were the fixings of a man who was shiftless, a rawhider if ever he saw one."



Angie is drawn to the stranger. "She liked listening to his voice. It was slow, somehow restful, and underlying his words there was understanding, compassion. There was none of this you-get-along-on-your-own-or-die feeling. She had seen too much of that. The more people had, the more they felt that way. But this man had known loneliness and hardship."

Hondo, carrying dispatches about a likely Apache uprising tries to convince Angie to leave her farm. "We've always got along splendidly with the Apaches," Angie argues. But Hondo counters that was before "We broke that treaty....There's no word in the Apache language for 'lie', and they've been lied to. If they rise there won't be a live white in the territory."

The Apache wars are the backdrop for Hondo and Angie's story and the book is filled with accurate details about the military campaigns....



And fierce fighting that left few survivors.



There are good and bad men on both sides, men of weakness and men of high courage. Vittoro, the Apache chief who plays a major part in the story, is based on the war chief dubbed Victorio by white settlers. Like Hondo, Vittoro is a man of honor, a man of his word who respects courage and sacrifice.



I won't give away more of the story because it's a splendid one. Four and a half stars rounded up because it was pure escapist pleasure and because it is such fun to rediscover a genre that I'd long abandoned. This is my first Louis L'Amour and I've already ordered two more.

Content PG: Killing, fighting, scalping, racial language, but no sex except for a great kiss and a fade to desert starlight love scene.

Mike (the Paladin)

Rating: really liked it
Library book...moves to the head of the line, top of the list...read it first (or, err, listen to it) and take it back!


I had forgotten just how good (er, proficient) a writer Louis L'Amour was. I think that sometimes "we readers" those of us who read general fiction, other genres or read somewhat more eclectically may tend to look down on westerns a bit. Not a good thing to do. We miss some excellent reads. While there are things here that don't thrill me as such there is also a good story and at times some actually inspired prose.

(I don't believe what follows is a spoiler as it refers to a minor character but if you don't want to chance it skip the rest of the paragraph) There is a character who suddenly realizes that he's met his death as he turns and looks down the barrel of an Apache's rifle. His regret at the waste he's made of his life, his sense of loss, it's all palpable here. The description of what he sees and his emotions and his thoughts are done exceptionally and it struck me how beautifully it was actually written.

This will be a familiar story to many as if you've seen the John Wayne movie this is one of those rare cases where the movie follows the book almost scene by scene and actually does a good job. The story follows Hondo as he meets Mrs. Lowe and her son after he barely escapes an Apache ambush. The tale of these three and all the other characters is told here in a way that holds interest with neither the adventure nor the romance overwhelming the other. Good book. I enjoyed it and recommend it.

Jim

Rating: really liked it
This was a novelization of the 1953 film starring John Wayne and Geraldine Page which was based on Louis L'Amour's short story "The Gift of Cochise". The story revolves around 4 people ... Hondo Lane, Angie Lowe and her son Johnny, and the Apache chief Vittoro.

Hondo Lane is an army scout and dispatch rider who loses his horse in an encounter with a couple of Apaches. He makes his way to an isolated ranch where he encounters Angie Lowe and her son Johnny who were left alone when Angie's husband, Ed, disappeared. Some of the most engaging parts of this story are the interactions between Hondo and Angie, Hondo and Johnny. Also, the author does an admirable job portraying Vittoro and the Apaches as something other than savages. There is no class distinction here. Some of the cowboys are good and some are bad. Some of the Apaches are good and some are bad. You can't judge by ethnicity.

Life in Arizona in the 1800's was not easy. Louis L'Amour may not be a Nobel Prize winning author but he was a great storyteller. One of the things I enjoy when I read one of his books was his ability to describe a scene in such a way that you feel as though you are there. You can picture the desert, hear the coyote, feel the fear when situations became tense.

Colleen Fauchelle

Rating: really liked it
This was the book club choice. We were sick of war stories. So the next person on the list chose this one. It was an easy to read story, with some action and their was a bit of insta love.
I liked Hondo as a character he know a lot about the land and he was a hard worker and dedicated to job in the army and his friends. The wild west was a tough place to live.
The fun thing about being part of a book club you get to read all sorts of books you may never have picked up.

Henry

Rating: really liked it
I read this book (L'Amour's first novel) based on the recommendation of a Goodreads friend. All I can say is WOW!. What a fantastic, entertaining read.

Nate

Rating: really liked it
One of the better L’Amour westerns I’ve read. Automatically gets a point for being set in my home state of Arizona. It seems like L’Amour was truly writing from a place of hunger and passion at certain times in this novel--while his later stuff is never bad, it can be formulaic and kind of factory-built feeling. This one’s about a cavalry scout named Hondo Lane who gets wrapped up with a woman and her son who’ve been abandoned by their husband/father in the middle of the long war between the Apaches and the US Government. Horses are ridden, guns are fired, punches are thrown, desert landscapes are grimly surveilled, and kisses are...smooched? This one would be a good introduction to L’Amour by those who are interested in trying his stuff but are kind of leery due to his huge bibliography.

Paul O’Neill

Rating: really liked it
Maybe I'll stick to his short stories...

Gregory Baird

Rating: really liked it
Louis L'Amour's writing is great but the concept, plot, and characters of this book are hopelessly dated and tiresomely problematic. It hits on every worn-out cliche of the western genre and amplifies an underlying toxic masculinity I did not enjoy reading at all. L'Amour really thinks about the interior life of his characters, but in such a manner as to be oblivious to the more problematic parts of his novel.

Shorel

Rating: really liked it
One of Mr.L'amour's earlier novels, it quite easy to see why his works are considered the epitome of western fiction. I truly enjoyed reading Hondo, which was rich in its descriptions of the southwest and particularly the Apache people groups. If you've never read any westerns, this would be a great one to start with.