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Charles van Buren's Reviews > Hondo
Hondo
by
by
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."
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."
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