Book Review: LEAVING CHEYENNE

I’ve recently reread Larry McMurtry’s Leaving Cheyenne–for the third or fourth time. As I closed the book, I stopped and wondered, “What is it about this book that I find so appealing?” The action is slow, the setting is not exotic, the characters don’t do anything exceptional. I was raised in Dallas, as were my parents, so that explains why I opened a book set in Texas in the first place. (Leaving Cheyenne is not about a city in Wyoming.) But the story takes place in cattle country, and I’m a city girl. I finally decided—it’s got to be the characters.

Leaving Cheyenne is the story of best friends Gideon Fry, Johnny McCloud, and Molly Taylor and their lifelong love triangle. Part One, told in Gid’s point of view, begins in about 1920 when he’s 18 or 19 years old. Gid’s widowed dad owns a ranch and raises cattle, and he tries to teach his son to be a serious, hardworking rancher too. For example, when Gid buys a saddle for Johnny in return for a favor, his dad says, “You’re giving a hundred-and-fifty-dollar saddle to a thirty-dollar-a-month cowboy. That wouldn’t make sense to a crazy man. And it sure don’t to me.”

Part Two is told in Molly’s viewpoint and takes place about twenty years later during World War II. Throughout the book, Gid and Johnny vie for Molly’s affections, but she won’t marry either one. Instead, she marries Eddie, a ne’er do well. But she has a son and Gid is the father. Later she has a second son, fathered by Johnny. Referring to Johnny, Molly narrates: I was the only woman Johnny has ever been able to count on, and I usually tried to give him what he needed—it wouldn’t have been very loving of me not to. Molly is widowed when her husband Eddie is killed in an oilfield accident.

In Part Three, Johnny narrates. Another twenty years have passed by then, and he and Gid are still friends, now in their early sixties. Gid is a successful rancher; Johnny is still his hired hand. Gid has become even more serious than he was as a young man (he has turned into his father), while Johnny is still easy-going and enjoys life. Both still love Molly, and she still loves both of them yet she refuses to marry either one, saying, Eddie was enough husband for me.

Throughout the book, the three friends take care of each other, their friendship strong. When Gid is ill, Molly nurses him back to health. Both men help Molly through the rough patches in her life. Altogether, the poignant story of the lifelong relationship between these three strong people spans more than forty years.

In spite of their human foibles, these fictional folks share a vast supply of a rare commodity—common sense. Yes, they make stupid mistakes. But their errors are understandable and spring from a kind of logic. In addition to Larry McMurtry’s beautiful writing, maybe that’s what makes the characters seem so real and appealing, and why I read Leaving Cheyenne one more time.

Notes:

You’ll need to know the definition of one word if you decide to read McMurtry’s books. Tank. In this context it’s not a war vehicle, nor is it a large receptacle for holding liquid (like a gas tank in your car). It’s a manmade pond, created to provide water for cattle.

There is at least one politically incorrect passage in this book. However, it reflects the attitudes of the time and place of the book’s setting.

Larry McMurtry is the author of more than three dozen books, including Lonesome Dove (Pulitzer Prize winner), Terms of Endearment, as well as the screenplay for the movie “Brokeback Mountain.” Leaving Cheyenne was written in 1962.

Book Review: Ask and It Is Given

Every spiritual or personal growth book I’ve read contains one or more concepts that I don’t fully agree with.  Ask and It Is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks is no different.  This book is advertised as the “Teachings of Abraham,” which is the name used by a “family of Non-Physical Beings” who are communicating with us through Esther Hicks.  I have difficulty wholeheartedly embracing the idea of channeling, but I don’t completely reject the possibility either.  So my reservations about that particular aspect can be temporarily set aside, allowing me to consider the other information in the book with an open mind.

Another troublesome assertion, which I think other people will also have a problem accepting, is that each person has absolute creative control of their lives.   Doubts about this claim are harder to ignore because there seems to be so much “proof” that we can’t control everything that happens to us.  And wishing it was true is not the same as believing it.  Perhaps the best one can achieve is to agree that we have creative control over part of our lives, and it’s probably more than we realize.  If you can accept that, then I think you will find information of value in this book.

As implied by the title, Ask and It Is Given is about the “Law of Attraction.”  If you’re interested in the topic, there are many good books about it, so it’s probably just a matter of finding the one that you can best relate to.  What I like about this particular book is the clarity of the writing and depth of the explanation about how the Law of Attraction (or LOA) works.  It’s one those concepts that’s incredibly simple on the surface, yet has many challenging subtleties when you try to apply it.  So generally, the  better you understand the process, the more effectively you can use it.

Most books about the LOA will essentially tell you the same thing about how it works.  It has three simple steps to it.  1)  You ask.  2)  The answer is given.  3)  This answer must be received.  Variations book-to-book are a result of what parts they focus on most and how they suggest you implement it.  This book focuses on the first and third steps—that is, the process of asking and the process of receiving, because the second step is the action taken by the Non-Physical Universe.

There were many important points covered in the book, but for me, the most valuable information was the comprehensive explanations about the role emotions play in relation to the LOA and exactly how to use them as a guidance system.  Emotions help you clarify what you want, and then, if you can hold your focus on the positive feeling of having what you want (rather than the negative feeling of lacking what you want), you create the “vibrational match” to what you want, which allows you to receive it.  Emotions also help you identify any resistant thoughts or beliefs you have to receiving what you want.

A particularly valuable insight was that our thoughts create most of our emotions.  I sort of knew this, but I didn’t really know it.  Not deep down where it counts.  And if we become more aware of the specific thoughts that are creating negative emotions, we have new options.  We may not be able to control our emotions directly, but we can choose better feeling thoughts—thoughts that provide a small measure of relief from any unhappiness we’re feeling, thoughts that move us in the direction of feeling happier.  And by continuing this process of choosing thoughts that make us feel just a little bit better than before, we can slowly work our way out of even the darkest of places.

The first 40% of the book explained the LOA and how it works, and the last 60% presented 22 processes you can use to help you apply it.  There’s no particular order that they have to be done in, nor do you need to do them all.  You pick ones that appeal to you or that relate to something you would like to work on.  And there’s enough variety for everyone, whether you’re into list-making or meditation, whether you want to work on money issues or simply feeling happier.

There were several of these processes that I was immediately attracted to.  I especially liked “Wouldn’t It Be Nice If…?” because I’ve always enjoyed daydreaming.  The “Place Mat Process” also appealed to me.  With this one you make a couple of “to-do” lists—one for yourself and one for the Universe.  Naturally, I gave all the hard jobs to the Universe.  And how could I resist “Scripting” where you pretend you’re a writer and everything happens exactly as you write it.  I’m already pretending to be a writer, so all I have to do is jot down some of my daydreams to master that one.  Of course, the one that I really should do before any of the others is “The Process of Clearing Clutter for Clarity.”

Overall, Ask and It Is Given did an excellent job of explaining the Law of Attraction and how it works in a way that made sense to me.  I’m the sort of person who has to understand something in order to effectively apply it.  A book that says, “It’ll work even if you don’t understand it, so just do it.” does not work for me.  I need one that explains things in depth, clearly and logically.  Then maybe, just maybe, I can use the information.  Although it’s too soon to evaluate the true impact or usefulness of the material (partly because I still have some questions and reservations about the LOA), this book was well worth reading.

Esther and Jerry Hicks have also written The Law of Attraction, which might be a good alternate choice for some people.  It focuses exclusively on explaining the LOA without including the 22 implementation processes that are in Ask and It Is Given.  I haven’t read that one yet, but I do plan on doing so to see if it adds anything to my understanding of the concept.

10 Classic Novels To Read Before 2013

One of my summer projects has been to put together a list of ten classic novels that I have always wanted to read (or reread in some cases) and read them before the end of the year. I looked at a lot of lists already compiled on the internet – the Top 100 Classic Novels You Must Read If You Want To Be Considered At Least Halfway Well-Read – you’ve no doubt seen them. These lists are all very different, depending on who is putting them together.  Three of these very good lists can be found here and here and here.

My list was taken partially from the lists I saw, and partly from the book, Write Like the Masters by William Cane, which instructs that there is a lot to be learned (and imitated) by examining authors such as Hemingway, Margaret Mitchell, George Orwell, etc.

My list doesn’t include a Hemingway novel, alas, but ten was the limit I set for myself, so ten it will be. We can’t include everyone. The value of the Ten Classic Novels List is entirely arbitrary. It’s a list of classics which I felt readers of this blog and readers of mostly women’s fiction would appreciate.

Nearly every list contains a few works that I know I should read, but don’t. Ulysses for example, Don Quixote, Catch-22 and Lolita, for some reason don’t hold much appeal for me. I could be wrong about these works though, that has been known to happen.

Drumroll!!

Image courtesy of Photobucket

The Ten Classic Novels List:

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I’m reading this now, 150 pages into it. Hooked! I know I’m hooked when I steal a few moments to read a page or two while the corn is steaming. First published in 1957, Rand’s fourth and last novel, it was her longest and the one she considered to be the best of all her fiction works. Her “baby”. It contains elements of mystery and science fiction and Rand’s stand on Objectivism.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Every list needs at least one Russian novel. The moral dilemma and subsequent mental anguish of Taskolnikov, who kills an unscrupulous pawnbroker for cash and tells himself that with the money he will perform good deeds to counterbalance the crime. He believes he is capable of murder, that he has a right to do it, and that he should do it but eventually he becomes more unsure and is consumed by guilt and longs to confess.

1984 by George Orwell. Orwell, provoked by the totalitarian system, wrote about it in the story of Winston Smith, trapped in a political nightmare and in a desperate struggle to free himself from a controlling, evil state. Everyone surrounding Smith has been brainwashed by The Party, whose objective is to control people. He rebels against The Party and trusts no one. The concept of “doublespeak” was documented here, euphemisms and watered-down phrases which consoled the citizens.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Published in 1939, this novel takes place during the Great Depression. It is the story of the Joads, who are a family of tenant farmers driven from their home in Oklahoma by economic hardship due to changes in financial and agricultural industries, and drought. Because of their hopeless situation, they sought jobs, land, dignity and a future, and set out on the road to California, only to finally realize that it may not be the windfall for which they had hoped.

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Of course, everyone knows what this book is about. But did you know that Mitchell was considered a master of internal monologue and that what is so captivating about the novel is the heroine’s voice? I read this many years ago (more than I care to say) and now I would like to reread it with the eye or a writer, because for sure, Ms. Mitchell was doing something very right when she created one of the best-selling books in the world.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Jay Gatsby wants one thing, to be reunited with Daisy Buchannan, who is the love he lost five years earlier. His quest for Daisy leads him from poverty to wealth, and eventually wins her back. Unfortunately Daisy is married to someone else. It is a tragic novel, and is noted for the unique way Fitzgerald captured the privileged cross-section of society, during the Roaring Twenties.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Published in 1960, this novel was successful immediately and won the Pulitzer Prize. It deals with serious issues of rape and racial inequality. Atticus Finch, who is appointed by the court to defend Tom Robinson, an African-American man accused of raping a white woman, is considered a “racial hero.” The novel deals with the issues of class and gender roles in the American deep south.

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. This is one I’m not too sure about but it’s been so widely read and highly touted that I figured it must be one of those books that you don’t expect to like, but do. It seems like it will be somewhat grim, from the description, but is the story of the cycle of success and failure in one family. It gives the reader a very good idea of what life in China was like at that time and deals with themes such as women’s rights, class conflict, moral values, and the importance of family.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Published in 1847, this novel was a little ahead of its time, described as an “influential feminist text” because of the strong female character. Told in the first person, the novel gives the reader a true and complete exploration of Jane’s inner feelings and conflicts. Told in five stages, from a difficult childhood through her eventual marriage to the love of her life, Mr. Rochester.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. This is Jane Austen’s first work published under the pseudonym “A Lady,” It was published in 1811 and, next to P & P, is probably the most widely-read of her novels. This is the story of the life and times of the Dashwood sisters, who are left in reduced circumstances after their father dies and the estate passes to their half-brother, John. They are forced to take up residence in a meager cottage where they experience romance and heartbreak.

One addition: Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) was one of the best novels I’ve ever read. I didn’t include it though, because I read it recently and this is a “to-read” list. Read the Oprah pick version, it has the best translators.

If you decide to read any of these, happy classic novel reading!