The Last Cowboy by Jane Kramer

Abstract

292 Western American Literature The Last Cowboy. By Jane Kramer. (New York: Harper & Row, 1977. 148 pages, $8.95.) This is one of the rare times that the contents of a book more than live up to the description appearing on the jacket. Jane Kramer’s The Last Cowboy is indeed an “unforgettable portrayal” of an actually existing cowboy, who not so much “ends an era,” as makes us realize that an era has ended despite our willful ignoring of the fact. The work’s two biggest assets are the unfolding narration of how Henry Blanton, a real life cowboy, struggles to keep his cowboy integrity surrounded by the industrial world of agribusiness, and the fact that Jane Kramer has with such a talented touch brought this man to life on the pages of this book. Henry Blanton is not the kind of cardboard figure rendered totally synthesized and comprehensible, as is often the case with biographical portraits. He becomes fictionally alive. After her introduction, Kramer fades from the scene and lets her characters interact and speak for themselves. She has a good ear for dialog, which seems so natural we do not wonder at the absence of the regional dialect in Blanton’s speech until the book is finished. She also knows how to choose her scenes that on the surface appear so simple and unpresumptuous as to seem totally natural and unportentous. Yet these descriptions, obser­ vations, and conversations hold a wealth of facts, inferences, and insights about the significance of this man’s life. Moreover, Kramer does not overtly impose her own set of values on the reader. Is it preferable to be moral, even prudish, in one’s sexual life and talk or to be willing to accept and live up to one’s word of honor, notwithstanding the drawbacks of being hopelessly behind times, provincial, and a sucker with such outmoded behavior? On the other hand we have the successful Lester Hill, the modem man whose mouth and life are filled with vulgarity, who knows how to cheat his foreman, manipulate honest workmen for his profit, and break his word of honor. He is the prototype of today’s successful hero, the winner in the world of agribusiness. Thus Henry’s tragedy is not only that of a lone cowboy who doesn’t know when to get off a horse, but inadvertently his life is an allegory of the battle of two value systems. Since the philosophical themes are embedded unobtrusively, the book makes for enjoyable and informative light reading as well. It even has a section on the workings of the agribusiness with all its speculations and manipulations. Henry’s wife Betsy is a warm and three-dimensional sec­ ondary character who, along with other minor characters, rounds out the picture of Henry’s life and gives it an added complexity. As Diane Johnson has noted in The New York Review of Books (March 23, 1978), there is only one nagging question that remains at the end. How come such a confirmed male chauvinist as Henry Blanton revealed so much of himself to a woman reporter? Nevertheless, it’s a good thing Reviews 293 he did, for he, and his kind, may become America’s Don Quixote—more admirable in his misplaced “cowboyishness” than his utilitarian detractors who try to force him into “reality.” OLENA H. SACIUK Inter American University of Puerto Rico San Germán In Time and Place. By Floyd C. Watkins. (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1977. 250 pages, $10.50). Floyd C. Watkins’ In Time and Place is a study of eight novels selected —neither absolutely nor arbitrarily—to represent different cultures. The purpose is to examine the relation between authenticity and aesthetics. Specifically, does an accurate representation of culture seem to be a part of good art? Does a failure to get the facts right lead to a failure of art? Watkins concludes that artists must know the intimate details of the time and place they write about in order to write successful art, readers must know the cultural territory of a novel in order to read well, and critics should know the cultural details of a novel or...