"To Tame a Land" by Louis L'Amour

So.  Um.  Hmm.

The thing is, I really quite liked this book until the last chapter ruined everything.  You've got a coming of age story where a guy called Rye starts out as a boy, and life is really hard because he loses both his parents young and in miserable ways, but he gets through that with the help of a nice guy named Logan who mentors him and kind of semi-adopts him until he's old enough to go out and be his own man.

And Rye does, he goes out and lives a full life on the frontier and does what he needs to survive, and he falls in love with a girl.  And he eventually gets a pretty steady job as a lawman and wants to go back and find that girl and see if she'll marry him.

All well and good.  I was 100% on board.  Good stuff.  Lovely character development.  Nice story arc.  Very episodic, but I like episodic.  Kind of ramble-y, especially for a L'Amour, but I like ramble-y.

And then, that last chapter.  

SPOILER ALERT: I am discussing the ending here and I am not going to pull punches and I am going to be crabby about it.

Yeah.  That last chapter.  When it turns out that -- surprise! -- the big crime boss that our hero has to go up against, the one that's been leading all the baddest of bad criminals in the area for a few years, and who has now kidnapped the woman Rye loves... is his old mentor, Logan.  Which, you know, that's a thing -- boy grows up and has to face the fact that the guy who raised him is not as heroic and wonderful as he remembered.  It's not a trope I generally like unless it's done just right, but it's a thing.  Oedipus and all that.  Whatever. 

Except it didn't make any sense.  Like, at all.  This mentor he had?  Logan?  Was a nice guy?  Yeah, he had to leave home back east fast after a duel, but he was clearly a good guy?  And got married to a really nice lady, and settled down, and was all set to continue being a good guy.  Only, unbeknownst to anyone until Logan tells Rye this at the end, his wife died a few years ago, in childbirth, and then, obviously, he turned to evil and became an outlaw kingpin because that completely makes sense.  Very logical.  Much natural reactionness occurring here.

WHAT THE HECKITY HECK HECK HECK?  

I mean, if his wife had died in a train wreck, and so he started robbing trains because he thought the train company had been at fault, that would make sense.  Or if his wife died during a bank robbery and the bankers cared more about the stolen money than her life, so he started robbing banks, yeah, okay.

She died in childbirth, y'all.  It happens.  Still today.  It is not a reason to go become a crime boss.

Sigh.

Yeah.  You can just see that L'Amour had this really great idea for a plot twist and he couldn't resist using it, and he tossed in the girl being wooed by both Rye and Logan to hammer the whole Oedipal thing home even harder, and... and I hate seeing the author working.  I should not be able to do that.  I should not, in the course of a book, see what the author is doing.  They must be invisible.  If I see them, they're doing it wrong.  And L'Amour is too doggone good for this kind of thing to just get shrugged off as, "Well, you know, the idea was good..."

Nope.  I'm not having it.  Sorry, folks.  I don't believe the character arc, I see the author tiptoeing around, and I am all kinds of disappointed.

The thing is, I realized after I'd finished the book that L'Amour had totally set up a different plot twist, and it would've been totally cool.  Logan had left the east after killing a guy in a duel over this rich girl Logan loved, but her family didn't want her to marry him.  And Rye's mom was a rich girl who married Rye's dad against her family's will and left them to be with him.  So... what if that was the same girl?  What if losing Logan made her determined not to let her family make her decisions for her anymore, and when she fell in love with another guy and her parents pulled that same stunt again, she just left?  And what if Rye looked enough like his mom that Logan was reminded of her, and so on?  I mean, Rye carries his mom's picture around with him forever, and Logan could even have seen it and known this was the son he almost had, and that's why he takes him in and everything, but he doesn't want to tell him until he's older, whatever.

But noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

(Happily, I read another L'Amour book right away and liked it heaps, so don't worry, I'm not going to quit reading him just because of one unsatisfactory ending.)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for western violence and peril to women and stuff like that.  And some low-level cussing.

This is my 37th book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.

Winners of the Tolkien Blog Party Giveaway 2020

The Rafflecopter widget has spoken!  I had it select 10 winners, then matched them up with prizes, and here are the results:

Prize 1: Two 4-oz candles from Midnight Flame -- Allison T.

Prize 2: Four bookmarks from Mirkwood Scribes -- Ivy Miranda

Prize 3: Two 2-oz candles from Plot Twist Wicks and Flick the Wick -- Stephanie

Prize 4: All three soundtracks for the Lord of the Rings trilogy -- Kendra

Prize 5: Three stickers of the Three Hunters -- Evelyn K.

Prize 6: Four stickers of the four hobbits from LOTR -- Briar Rose

Prize 7: One wooden bookmark from Sweet Sequels -- Maya Joelle

Prize 8: One 4-oz candle from Salty and Lit -- Rachel A.

Prize 9: "I'm Going on an Adventure" journal -- Samantha

Prize 10: the winner's choice of any one Tolkien-related ceramic mug from A Fine Quotation -- Marian H.

Congratulations to all the winners, and to everyone else, better luck next year!

Winners, please check the email address you provided to the Rafflecopter widget for an email from me asking where to mail your prize!

Answers to the Tolkien Middle-earth Relatives Quiz

Here are the answers to the Middle-earth Relatives Quiz, and your scores :-)  Even though this was one of the toughest quizzes I've ever made, so many of you did really well!

1. Eowyn is Eomer's sister.

2. Prince Imrahil is Boromir's uncle.  (Imrahil's sister Finduilas was Boromir and Faramir's mother.)

3. Legolas is Thranduil's son.

4. Frodo is Bilbo's cousin (and heir). (Frodo is Bilbo's first cousin once removed on Frodo's mother's side and his second cousin once removed on his father's side. Bilbo does refer to Frodo as his nephew, but in "A Long-Expected Party" it says Frodo is a younger cousin.  I accepted "cousin" and "heir" both for this, but not nephew.)

5. Celeborn is Galadriel's husband.

6. Gimli is Oin's nephew.

7. Prince Imrahil is Eomer's father-in-law. (Eomer's marriage to his daughter Lotheriel is mentioned in the Appendices.)

8. Bergil is Beregond's son.

9. Bard is Bain's father.

10. Galadriel is Arwen's grandmother. (Galadriel and Celeborn's daughter Celebrian was Elrond's wife and mother of Arwen, Elrohir, and Elladin.)

SCORES

Mary Kate -- 10

Fawnabelle Baggins -- 9

Heidi -- 9

Briar Rose -- 8

George -- 8

Kendra -- 8

Bethi -- 7

Olivia -- 7

rachel -- 7

Sarah Steele -- 6

Marian H -- 5

Samantha -- 5

Gabby A -- 4

MovieCritic -- 3

Answers to Hobbit Family Name Unscramble

Alas, the party is coming to an end.  But hasn't this been a fun week?  I know I've enjoyed it -- and am still enjoying it!

Here are the answers to the unscramble game!  And the scores :-)  You were all extraordinarily good at this!!!

1. froopdout = Proudfoot
2. okto = Took
3. gotmag = Maggot
4. sibgang = Baggins
5. browhelnor = Hornblower
6. tontoc = Cotton
7. drynuckbab = Brandybuck
8. brubg = Grubb
9. glober = Bolger
10. snydanma = Sandyman
11. greedclarib = Bracegirdle
12. maggee = Gamgee

Scores

Briar Rose -- 12

Fawnabelle Baggins -- 12

Heidi P. -- 12

Kendra -- 12

Olivia --12

rachel -- 12

Sarah Seele -- 12

Gabby A -- 11

MovieCritic -- 11

Samantha -- 11

Bethi -- 10

Ivy Miranda -- 10

Mary Kate -- 10

"Roverandom" by J.R.R. Tolkien

I hadn't even heard of this charming little book until earlier this year.  So if you hadn't heard of it before either, don't fret!  It was first published in 1998, though Tolkien had actually hoped to publish it after The Hobbit.  But his publishers didn't want more funny and whimsical fantasy stories for kids in general, they wanted more of The Hobbit in particular.  So Tolkien shelved Roverandom even though he had revised it repeatedly and made lovely illustrations for it, and wrote The Lord of the Rings instead.

This story began, like The Hobbit, as something Tolkien made up for his children.  His second son, Michael, lost a little toy dog that he loved dearly while they were at the beach, and Tolkien made up a whole series of adventures for the dog to help his son process the loss.  His sons all enjoyed them so very much, he told them over and over, and expanded on them, and eventually wrote them down.

I learned all of that in the extensive introduction in the hardcover volume I have, as pictured here.  The introduction and end notes make up about half of the book, as Roverandom only has 5 chapters.  In it, a real dog falls afoul of a wizard, gets turned into a toy dog, is bought for a little boy who then loses him on the beach, is rescued by another enchanter and sent to the moon to have adventures, then has more adventures under the sea before everything winding up very happily.

A lot of this book reminded me of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.  That same exuberant make-believe feel about fantastical realms coexisting with our own, you know?  But it lacks the melancholy of The Little Prince, which suits me just fine.  I like dog books that end happily, and I'm very glad this one did.

(From my Instagram)

Particularly Good Bits:

"You never know what will happen next, when once you get mixed up with wizards and their friends" (p. 67).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Nothing potentially objectionable here whatsoever.

This is my third book read and reviewed for my third Classics Club list and my 36th for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.  And it is also a contribution to this year's Tolkien Blog Party :-)

Tolkien Middle-earth Relatives Quiz

Time for our second game for this year's Tolkien Blog Party!  I did something similar a few years ago, but I'll try to make it different enough that it will still be challenging AND so no one can go hunting back through old party posts and cheat off that one.  Mwahaha!

Note: some of these are related by blood, others by marriage.

Submit your answers in the comments, and I'll post the answers and everyone's scores at the end of the week.


1. Eowyn is Eomer's ___________.

2. Prince Imrahil is Boromir's ___________.

3. Legolas is Thranduil's ______________.

4. Frodo is Bilbo's ____________.

5. Celeborn is Galadriel's _________________.

6. Gimli is Oin's _____________.

7. Prince Imrahil is Eomer's ___________________.

8. Bergil is Beregond's ____________________.

9. Bard is Bain's __________________.

10. Galadriel is Arwen's ________________.

Hobbit Family Name Unscramble

Our first game this year is an unscramble.  Try to figure out what Hobbit family names (surnames) these are!  Put your guesses in the comments, which I've put on full moderation until the end of the party, and I'll reveal the answers and everyone's scores on Saturday.

Most of these do get mentioned in the movies too, not just the books.

1. froopdout
2. okto
3. gotmag
4. sibgang
5. browhelnor
6. tontoc
7. drynuckbab
8. brubg
9. glober
10. snydanma
11. greedclarib
12. maggee

Good luck!