Friday, February 12, 2016

Shane Read-Along: Chapter 12

Up until this chapter, I think Marian's been kind of viewing this the way Bob has:  Joe says everything will be fine, so of course it will be.  But then Shane says, "Give him time and he'll be mayor (p. 94), and even though he didn't quite mean it that way, suddenly Marian understands that... Joe might not have time.  Everything might not be fine in the end.  She could lose her husband.  

And right there is where I know that no matter how fond she is of Shane, it's Joe that Marian truly loves. 

The rest of this chapter is weirdly satisfying to me.  I love that Stark Wilson and Shane get a chance to look each other over.  I love that Shane saves Joe by confronting Wilson in the boldest, baldest way.  I love that Joe was going to shoot Wilson over his insinuation that Marian might belong to another man some day.  Do you think that people have been gossiping about Marian and Shane, and Wilson's heard that and used it to fuel that remark?  Or was it just him making the obvious play, threatening a man's wife to get under his skin?  Do you think Joe and Shane wondered if he was implying there was something going on between Shane and Marian?  I'm so undecided!  That can be our Possible Discussion Questions for the day.

Favorite Lines:

"But Marian," father objected mildly, coming to her.  "What better reason could a man have?"

"Yes," said Shane gently.  "What better reason?"  He was not looking just at mother.  He was looking at the two of them.

12 comments:

  1. This was a great chapter! Then again, I like confrontatiosn in westerns, so of course I was going to enjoy it.

    Mmmm, I'm guessing that there probably were rumors circulating about Marian and Shane, especially since it's something that Fletcher could use to his advantage. Men have a tendency to be hot-headed when defending their women and so a villain will utilize that whenever possible, which makes both Fletcher and Wilson good villains in that we hate the false insinuation so much.

    It's interesting getting so close to the end. I'm halfway tempted to read the rest of the book in a hurry, but I don't really want to do that!

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    1. A western without a confrontation does seem a bit lacking, doesn't it?

      I'm thinking I'll up the pace a bit here, as the last few chapters are soooo short. Post one every-other-day instead of every three days? Because yes, I'm getting impatient too. I'd do a post every day if I thought I had time...

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    2. Yeah - men folk do get possessive about their women folk -even when the women folk know the worries are absurd. Wilson is definitely going on an all out burn,knowing he can take down Joe, & likely having a better than even chance that Shane might go down too in the double play.See the up picture above with Shane & Joe. Look at their foot positions: Shane uphill by several inches while Joe is downhill, giving a few inches in their size. I read some where (gotta start making notes) that this was an actual directorial effect with Ladd, because he was petite.

      Our page #s vary by editions.... how may chapters do your editions have?














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    3. Kelda, Van Heflin was just shy of 6 feet, while Alan Ladd was 5'6. Which is part of why they physically fit the roles so well, since Shane is repeatedly described as slight and small. But he was the big name in the film, playing the main character, so yes, they naturally shot thing so he didn't seem QUITE so much smaller than Van Heflin in many scenes.

      My copy has 16 chapters. I mostly add page numbers to my posts so I can find things in my own copies later on if I want/need to.

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  2. (Sorry for being so behind in the read-along. Our internet went out for over a day and there's a cold bug going around the family that I caught yesterday. Ugh.)

    I think there was definitely some gossip - not saying how much; it just might have been whispers - that Shane might have designs on Marian. I think you said something to this effect in your post on an earlier chapter, but I'll just say it anyway: the fact that Joe *doesn't* worry about Shane taking Marian away from him speaks volumes about both his and Shane's characters. <3

    These 'favorite lines' are killing me.

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    1. Eva, not a problem! Don't feel like you have to "keep up." We all are in various stages of a cold here too.

      I want to just go read this whole book over again. I settled for watching the movie over the weekend, which is more different from the book than I'd remembered, but still utterly delicious. Ohhhhhh, I want to hug it.

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    2. I really enjoyed the movie, though I did think some of the casting was wrong and some of the changes from the book irked me (ESPECIALLY the change from 'Bob' to 'Joey' - what?). I thought Alan Ladd was spot-on as Shane, though, and I'm glad I haven't seen him in anything else so that I could view his take on the role with fresh eyes. :)

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    3. Eva, I just posted about the movie, but I'm really intrigued -- what casting did you think was off?

      Yeah, why did they change Bob to Joey? And why change Fletcher to Ryker? Neither makes any sense.

      Alan Ladd could not be more perfect as Shane, could he? This is the first thing I saw him in too.

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    4. I'll work on commenting more on your review about what I did/didn't like, but some quick thoughts on the casting are as follows: Most of what I disliked with the casting was based on the actors not matching my mental image of the characters with one exception (and it's a big one): the boy who played Joey (on a side note about name changes, I also noticed that they changed Wilson's first name from Stark to Jack). He didn't look like the Bob in my head but his general presence in the movie annoyed me. :P And I thought the actor playing Chris was much too old for the part. Everyone else was great, except for the fact that I don't like Jean Arthur's voice (and I *have* seen her in other films). She looked enough like how I imagined Marian to satisfy me, but her voice did irritate me a little.

      Still, I think the casting is more accurate, overall, than most book-to-film adaptions. :)

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    5. Heh heh, Brandon De Wilde is a stumbling block for a lot of people -- very few people are indifferent to him like me. It seems most either love or hate him. He's in an ep of Combat!, you know -- "A Silent Terror." And yes, Ben Johnson is 35 there (my age!), so a bit old for Chris, but oh well. The point in the film isn't that he's young and impressionable, but that he's a bully who reforms.

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  3. I didn't know he was in that C! episode. Huh. (Elisabeth and I agree that "A Silent Terror" is one of the worst episodes ever.)

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    1. It might actually be THE worst episode. It's at the bottom of just about everyone's lists, including mine.

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