The most important datum about Western fiction is that it is at the absolute bottom of the literary heap, somewhere below pornography. English professors would cavil at calling Westerns literature; they prefer to categorize Westerns as subliterature, or entertainment. Few, if any, educated people read Westerns. The higher the cultural and academic attainments of the...
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August 1, 1991April 29, 2022Web
Writing Offbeat Westerns
The Western novel has always been hedged about with more conventions than any other category, with the possible exception of women’s romances. I’ve often puzzled about why that is so, and even after years of thinking about it, I don’t have any good answers. I know that some of it has to do with the...