Butcher's Crossing: Now a Major Film (Vintage classics)

Shamefully John Williams is new to me, but not for long as I will now read all of his work because of the pleasure I got from Butcher's Crossing. It is a western, but not a gun slinging, Indian fighting type of western. It is much more than that.Andrews a young man from a privileged Boston background sets out to find himself and his purpose on the edge of civilisation's still Wild West. Starting in Kansas he finances a buffalo hunt into the mountains of Colorado. There are four main characters: Miller the stoic hunt leader, his alcoholic side kick and wagon master Charlie Hoge, the skinner Fred Schnider and young Andrews himself .The journey to the "hidden valley" in itself makes for a fine gripping yarn as they battle against the terrain with an unwieldy wagon and for a time a desperate lack of water. The slaughter of the beasts is unrelenting as Miller driven by blood lust or dollar greed determines to kill every one of the several thousand buffalo who have peacefully summered in this valley for centuries. Andrews learns under the tutelage of Schnider how to skin and stretch the hides and how to butcher the carcasses for sustenance. Gradually the youthful slack body becomes that of a hard man. Charlie like a true alcoholic quietly goes about the business of running the camp sustained by whiskey laced coffee. Never drunk , but never entirely sober and never far from his Bible.There is constant conflict between Miller and Schnider as to a limit to the killing and when to leave the valley before being trapped by winter snow. Andrews tries to be the voice of reason ,but is out of his depth in this situation while Charlie blindly and faithfully sides with Miller. There is a dubious possibly homosexual relationship between these two.Apart from the four main players there are other cameo appearances at Butchers crossing of the shrewd , hides dealer McDonald and the whore with a soft side , Francine who falls for Andrews .The descriptions of the journeys, the hunt, life on the edge and the weapons and tools are fascinating and based I am sure on much research. As is the precarious economics of a buffalo hunt. Such detailed descriptions add immensely to the reality of the story.This book pre dates the best of Cormac McCarthy's work and McMurtry's Lonesome Dove and in many ways excels both. From me this is high praise. Some scholars see it as an allegory for the Vietnam War. I don't know about that, but I know that for me it is an impressive piece of writing to be enjoyed on several levels.Yes it is that good; and a must read for anyone interested in this time and place in history or anyone with an interest in well researched , clean, absorbing writing.

After reading John Williams's " Stoner: A Novel (Vintage Classics) " earlier this year I was desperate to read the rest of his work to see if it was as good. Although I've never really been a fan of westerns I looked forward to reading "Butcher's Crossing", if only for the writing.Will Andrews wants to see what life is like in the open and arrives at the town of Butcher's Crossing in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in the 1870s. After spending a night in a hotel he meets a hunter who tells of huge herds of buffalo in a remote valley, and soon Andrews joins the man and his colleagues on a hunting trip to find the buffalo. They trek for a long, long time and eventually find the buffalo, and soon the hunt begins, but gripped by blood lust their leader decides that they cannot head back until all of the buffalo have been killed and skinned, and soon the winter rolls in...It's a simple story where if I'm honest not an awful lot happens - they go on the hunt, they kill buffalo, they head back - but the tale is really about the men and their surroundings, not really what happens to them. Indians are glimpsed living peacefully by a river, but that's all - it's a western, not cowboys and indians. The writing is exquisite from start to finish, and it's another masterclass in style from Williams. All in all it's a decent story, albeit not the most exciting tale, but the writing is fantastic.

If some authors might admit they they have never been to a certain location, let alone experienced the activities of the protagonists in their novels, this was certainly not the case with John Williams in his novel “Butcher's Crossing”. In his book we are taught – in six easy movements – how to skin a buffalo – how to survive in sub-zero temperatures (you stitch up one of the hides and stay in it until the blizzards have passed), and how to take stock slowly and deliberately of situations which are life threatening. The principal protagonist in the novel is Will Andrews, Harvard educated, but with a desire, not so much for adventure, but to seek situations in which he seeks to discover who he really is, he arrives in Butcher's Crossing, a small town in Kansas where he hopes to join up with a buffalo hunter. He is told to contact a certain Miller, who has been waiting for years for someone to come along and finance an expedition to a place where he knows that there are buffalo in their thousands. Agreeing to pay for the expedition, he sets off with Miller and two other men as they leave Butcher's Crossing en route for a remote valley in Colorado where a large number of buffalo still remain, contrary to what is happening on the open plains where they have all but been eliminated We can feel his pleasure as he eagerly throws himself into a cool stream after having trekked through the waterless plains for days, and share with him the loneliness of men with whom he has nothing in common, We experience his fear of being lost in a blinding white wilderness in the middle of the rocky mountains or his delight in seeing the colours of the changing seasons in the mountains and in the pine forests, but we also share his thoughts and how he strives to discover his true self, even if, at the end of the novel he still seems to be on a quest which will never be totally fulfilled. If the story has a slow start, it picks up along the way until we become totally absorbed in this thrilling and dangerous venture.John Williams was born in 1922 - died in 1994, and although he might have received some fame, if not necessarily fortune, in the writing of his second book – Stoner - this book, written in 1960 received less acclaim, but has now, happily, been rediscovered. A great read – a great book.

Williams reaches effortlessly into all our souls and illuminates unvoiced inner tensions and sublimities

Great book. Charles Bukowski describes hes life with a tune of sadness and glory. Like putting on slippers in the morning

Finito ieri pomeriggio e sono ancora nel Far West. Descrizioni magistrali utilizzando un vocabolario vastissimo e potente. Ho letto il libro in inglese, ma a questo punto mi è venuta la curiosità di vedere come il traduttore ha reso il tutto in italiano.... compito non facile di sicuro. Impariamo dalla natura finchè siamo in tempo, come hanno dovuto fare i protagonisti, consapevolmente o no.

This is a western in a unexpected light : one never thought about the unbearable soreness of riding a horse for days on end. This is naturalistic writing, no effects, true in a most naked hopeless way. Butchers Crossing is a compact masterpiece were there are no redundant words, or feelings.

"To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches." - Ralph Waldo EmersonDuring his lifetime, John Williams wrote three novels: “Butcher’s Crossing” (1960), “Stoner” (1965), and “Augustus” (1972). Nearly forty years after it was first published, “Stoner” went on to become a publishing phenomenon having been rediscovered through word-of-mouth publicity. I read it last year and it turned out to be amongst the best that I had read in recent times. Now, it has a cult following that Vintage has tapped by publishing the other two books also. Therefore, I was agog with anticipation when I took up “Butcher’s Crossing” that, for the most part, is as good as “Stoner”, and in some aspects, even superior to it.Will Andrews is a twenty-three year old Harvard drop-out who is stifled by the “droning voices in the chapel and classrooms”. He often escapes from the confines of Cambridge to the fields and woods where he feels more comfortable. Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s lecture on nature that he heard, he imagines that his true self lies in the “wilderness” where he feels “…a part and parcel of God, free and uncontained.” [p 48]In a spirit of self-discovery, he sets out to seek this “wilderness” and washes up in Butcher’s Crossing, Kansas – a shanty little town that is no more than a few wooden houses with a handful of people, a nondescript hotel, a rundown bar, and a few women engaged in the world’s oldest profession. It is 1873, and the buffalo trade is at its peak. The town is strategically located as a transit point. For years, the hunters in the region have been killing the mighty buffaloes in thousands for their hides to feed the fashion industry. However, relentless trade and mindless culling of the animal, has depleted the stock. Now, the more desirable thick winter hides are accessible only in the higher mountains.Before long, Andrews is persuaded into financing a hunting expedition into the Colorado Rockies by Miller, an experienced hunter. Miller had come across a massive herd of buffalo a few years back in a hidden valley high up in the mountains and has been on the lookout for partners for an expedition that promises immense riches. Miller assembles a team comprising Charles Hoge, an alcoholic who is to be the wagon driver; the practical Fred Schneider, who is going to skin the animals; and Andrews who is going on the ride to seek his “true self”. He is to be the apprentice skinner and the odd job man in the team.The expedition progresses perilously through extremely harsh terrain and inhospitable land. Miller, in order to save journey time, takes them through a waterless, arid region where the team of men and animals nearly perish due to thirst. After weeks of travel they finally arrive in the high valley and find a giant herd of buffalo just as Miller had promised. Then starts the mindless hunting, killing, and skinning of the buffalos described by Williams in graphic detail that is not for the faint hearted. As I read about the carnage unleashed by Miller, my heart went out to the dumb but great beasts, untouched by human race until now, who are unable to react. They just look away vacantly as they are picked up one by one by Miller’s gun.Miller’s relentless and mechanical hunt continues while Schneider and Williams struggle to keep pace with skinning of animals before they freeze and rigor mortis sets in. Slowly, Andrews’s conscience starts troubling him at the wanton murder of the buffalos and he starts sensing the true nature of Miller’s butchery. “During the last hour…he came to see Miller as a mechanism, an automaton, moved by the moving herd; and he came to see Miller’s destruction of the buffalo, not as a lust for blood or a lust for the hides or a lust for what the hides would bring, or even at last the blind lust of fury that toiled darkly within him - he came to see the destruction as a cold, mindless response to the life in which Miller had immersed himself.” [p 159]In the midst of the hunt and his increasing disgust with it, he tries to reason out in his mind his reaction to what is happening around him:“It came to him that he had turned away from the buffalo not because of a womanish nausea at blood and stench and spilling gut; it came to him that he had sickened and turned away because of his shock at seeing the buffalo, a few moments before proud and noble and full of the dignity of life, now stark and helpless, a length of inert meat, divested of itself, or his notion of its self, swinging grotesquely, mockingly, before him. It was not itself; or it was not that self that he had imagined it to be. That self was murdered; and in that murder he had felt the destruction of something within him, and he had not been able to face it. So he had turned away.” [p 176]Now that they have shot enough buffalos, Schneider recommends winding up their hunt. But Miller decides to continue forcing the team to overstay in the valley. Suddenly the weather is upon them and they get snowed in compelling them to spend several harsh months in the valley. But they survive, and after the snow melts, they depart with a huge pile of hides leaving behind an even bigger stock that they plan to pick up a few months later. Unfortunately, their return journey to Butcher’s Crossing is disastrous, even fatal. When they arrive back in the town, the fur market has collapsed in the meantime, and both Miller and Charles Hoge appear to lose their minds. The entire expedition and the hardships that they endured seem pointless. At the close of the novel we see Andrews resume his search for answers to his identity, but this time on his own.In so far as genres go, “Butcher’s Crossing” is a literary western but quite unlike other popular, commercial, and formulaic novels in this genre. I found the book to be quite disruptive, the disruption being achieved by the preponderance of an overarching philosophical theme of “existentialism” running across the plot. Our protagonist, the young William Andrews, is coming of age, is looking for meaning to his life, and is willing to risk his life to validate his identity. He believes this validation lies in “nature”, and that is what he seeks by going on this hazardous expedition.The above existentialism that swathes the book, turns “Butcher’s Crossing” into a treatise on nature, its immense beauty, and on its punishing ferocity. Nature appears almost as a character with a subtle magnetism that drew me in first gradually, then increasingly, and finally insistently so much so that I read with rapt attention, sometimes more than once, Williams’ exquisite description of the landscape, topography, and the general environs. Here is one of his lyrical paeans to nature:“Andrews felt that the mountains drew them onward, and drew them with increasing intensity as they came nearer, as if they were a giant lodestone whose influence increased to the degree that it was more nearly approached. As they came nearer he had again the feeling that he was being absorbed, included in something with which he had had no relation before; but unlike the feeling of absorption he had experienced on the anonymous prairie, this feeling was one which promised, however vaguely, a richness and a fulfilment for which he had not name.” [p 121]When the expedition travels through a water scarce zone, the description of men and animals suffering from thirst is so vivid and stark that I could almost feel my mouth dry up while reading. In a rather riveting passage, Williams describes how Miller uses few dregs of water that is left with the team to moisten the swollen tongues of animals so that they can last for a few more miles before they hit water.The book is also a sharp indictment on man’s rapacious behaviour towards nature’s bounty to satisfy his greed and commercial interests. The industrial scale hunting of buffalos in pursuance of Americas’ expeditious expansion into the West led to the near extinction of the species, glut in the fur market, and the eventual collapse of the industry. Poetic justice, I would say. “You’re no better than the things you kill” says Mr. McDonald, the middleman in Butcher’s Crossing whose business is in ruins after the fur market collapse. He may have been easily talking about the modern man.John Williams’s brilliant prose is marked by a syntactical rigor that is visible in his sentence-level precision. And, it is with this precision that he elevates this book into a new level of consciousness. To me, the book is utterly compelling and convincing, and to read it was an exhilarating experience.I will go with 5 stars.