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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Abbey's free-spirited, fugitive, and very mythic cowboy. . ., August 8, 2004
It was one of Edward Abbey's regrets that he was appreciated more for his nature writing ("Desert Solitaire") than his fiction. And it was another regret that he was mostly forgotten as the author of the story on which the movie "Lonely are the Brave" was based. However, after reading "The Brave Cowboy," I'd have to vote with those who find his nonfiction far more inspiring and satisfying. It's a novel that still rewards the reading, but almost 50 years after its publication in 1956, it seems somewhat dated, while "Desert Solitaire" remains as fresh and relevant as if it were written yesterday.
Abbey was still in his twenties when he wrote this novel, and its point of view is that of a young man full contradictory passions and attitudes. The brave cowboy of the title, a prototypical figure on horseback, is the central character in maybe half the pages of the novel. A younger college friend, imprisoned for refusing to register for the draft, is another character. The local sheriff gets a large section to himself. The novel also follows the progress of a long-haul truck driver across the country. The lives of these four characters intersect in the narrative, while each of them also represents a different perspective. And they don't all quite converge in a single point of view. But that was Abbey, an outspoken man who wasn't afraid to contradict himself.
To its credit, the novel can be read on more than one level. It uses the cowboy to represent free-spirited, libertarian ideas set in conflict with brute ignorance and repression. It decries urbanization and celebrates the limitless, stark beauty of the mountains and desert (the novel is set in northern New Mexico). It's also a prison drama, and it tells a satirical yet gripping story of heavily armed but mostly inept law officers in pursuit of a fugitive. A reader interested in a 1950s view of the West and its people in post-war transition will find much to enjoy in Abbey's youthful book about a mythic cowboy's adventure and the lives it disrupts.
As a companion volume, I'd also recommend James Galvin's "Fencing the Sky," which tells a similar story about a cowboy pursued across a Western landscape by the law.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Born in the wrong time, June 9, 2004
When Jack Burns encounters a barbed-wire fence as he comes across the West Mesa (Albuquerque)on horseback he scans in both directions for a gate before he clips the wire to ride through. He wouldn't have cut it if it wasn't in his way, or if there'd been a gate nearby. Thus begins the book with a scene that tells much about the main character. Burns is a man who doesn't merely cling to ideals of loyalty, privacy and individual freedom. His internal machinery accepts no alternative at any level. Jack Burns is a man who won't cut a fence unless it stands in the way of where he wants to go. He recognizes the existence of the creeping encroachments and compromises to his choices and ignores them. The modern acquiescence by the rest of society is foreign to him. Burns descends the mesa into Albuquerque, encounters modern city life and is battered by it without 'losing' in the usual sense of the word, and leaves on the run from the legal instruments intended to keep us all on the straight and narrow. The end is inevitable. Readers who know Albuquerque will enjoy the ride across the 'Volcans', the places in the Rio Grande Valley still recognizable despite the years since Abbey wrote the book, the harrowing climb up the Sandias pursued by the military and law enforcement community. Those who don't know Albuquerque or New Mexico will appreciate the type of individual Burns portrays: a man born too late, unable to compromise. I haven't seen the movie mentioned by other reviewers. I also didn't see the shortcomings of the book mentioned by several. I saw only a writer who created a character much as Abbey saw himself, as many people today see themselves, and a plot that carried those traits through to the end. No one, I imagine Abbey would say, can dodge the steamroller.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of Abbey's best!, October 23, 2001
By A Customer
Edward Abbey's first published novel is a modern-day western set in New Mexico. Its hero, Jack Burns, is a man unable to come to terms with an increasingly civilized west, who becomes a fugitive from the law after he attempts to help his friend break out of jail. Hunted by the authorities, he complicates his escape by refusing to leave his skittish horse behind. Despite the awful title, it is a well-written, entertaining novel that explores the tension between personal freedom and modern civilization against a backdrop of stark natural beauty. Made into an even better film under the title Lonely Are the Brave. Coincidentally, I read this book after finishing Rand Johnson's excellent new novel "Arcadia Falls", which tho set in the suburban east, is thematically very similar.
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