Customer Reviews

The Call of the Canyon (MP3 CD)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First let me say I am am avid western book reader and author myself. I regard Zane Grey's Call of the Canyon as one of the most powerful romance books ever written. I know many people who regard this and Rider's of the Purple Sage, to be Zane Grey's best books, and amoung the best adventure fiction books ever. Each year visitors by the thousands do their best to retrace the footsteps of these eastern lovers who had Gone West. It is a tale that never seems to go out of fashion, and indeed seems to fulfill some great need in each reader lucky enough to hear the Call of the Canyon.

Never read a Zane Grey novel so when it was offered on my Kindle for free I decided to give it a try. I was surprised that such a "vintage" book would be so relevant to current day. It is full of beautiful description and passion for the West and its scenery. I enjoyed the well written story and was surprised by the woman's journey into a life with purpose. Will read more of this series of books.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Call of the Canyon. I've download a lot of free titles to my Kindle, assuming that most are going to be terrible. This was a pleasant surprise! Not knowing much about the author or the period in which this book was written, I eventually determined that it was likely to be written around the same time period of the story. The biggest give-away to me was the at-times lengthy social commentary, which I could have done with less of. Not that I agree nor disagree with the sentiments shared by the author, the way it was handled felt a little out of place.

I will also add that I found myself skimming the lengthy descriptions of Arizona, mostly because I've never been and some of the imagery was a little hard for me to visualize. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I definitely feel like that applies here.

Overall, it was a great love story (which I admit I am a sucker for) that was hard for me to put down, and at the end, I wished it would continue. Because of that, I've already downloaded a handful of other works by Zane Grey to read.

The story set in the 1920s New York and Arizona is a wonderful romance. The descriptions of the canyons and desert make me want to pack up the car and head out for an extended vacation in Arizona right away. The descriptions are indeed moving.
The downside of the novel for me is just a little bit too much "philosophy" out of the post WW1 era. Grey harps a little to much on his ideal American Woman, American Family, the contrast between the idle rich in New York and the working folks out on the range in The West. There is way too much writing on the plight of W.W.I vets when they returned to America. But in spite of a lot of pages devoted to teaching Grey's message there is a wonderful romantic story to be enjoyed.

I am 73 years old and always loved to read. I read all of Zane Grey books when I was in the 7th grade. It was nice to find them on Kindle and start reading them
again. Thank you Kindle.The Call of the Canyon

If one understands the time between WWI and WWII and the excesses of the 1920's this book is excellent! Remember this book was written in 1934 at the height of the great depression! Yet it reflects on the era of the 1920's. While some of the values that Grey espouses in the book seem out of date and old fashioned, I think his themes are timeless.
The book also provides beautiful descriptions of the Arizona desert and rural life in the western U.S. The story line is quite good and Grey deals effectively with love, conflict, jealousy, and what makes our struggles worthwhile. Enjoy this classic!

I just love this book, so far I've only read it 3 times, but it is certainly one of my very favorites. Zane Gray describes with exacting detail the wondrous beauty of the west, with the the struggles of a romantic relationship between a wounded returning WW1 veteran and his girl friend, who just happens to be a headstrong New Yorker used to having things her way.The story is timeless and exciting and I highly recommend it if you enjoy the west, love and a turn of the century American adventure.

This is my first Zane Grey book I've ever read. I was expecting an old-fashioned Western with cowboys, six shooters, "purty" school marms and villians in black hats. This book isn't about that at all.
What it is is part condemnation of America's shoddy treatment of its returning soldiers after World War I, and part condemnation of the modern women of the times.
Zane Grey, using the voices of his fictional characters, rants against "modern feminine unrest" (AKA feminism), the immoral dress of the flapper (Heavens, her ankles are showing!) and says the women are, and I quote, "idle, luxrious, selfish, pleasure-craving, lazy, useless, work-and-children shirking, absolutely no good."
In one memorable scene, Grey has his heroine Carly preaching about the evils of such things as motion pictures, automobiles, jazz, birth control and plucking eyebrows. Oddly, Grey seems to be obsessed with a low birth rate in the nation and refers several times in the book to the fact that women aren't having babies like they should. It makes me curious as to what exactly was going on in the early 1920's.
So while this book wasn't what I was expecting it to be, it turned out to be an interesting take on what post-World War I America appeared to be to one man.

It is 1919 and Carley Burch is a young orphaned woman who lives a socialite's life of ease and pleasure in her New York City family home with her aunt Mary. Her fiancé Glenn Kilbourne has come home an injured, sick, and broken man after fighting in France during World War I, so he has gone West to Arizona, near Flagstaff, that he might recover his health. However, Glenn's letters to Carley are becoming increasingly puzzling, so she makes a surprise visit to see him. While there she stays in the lodge run by his neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Hutter and their daughter Flo, who seems to be sweet on Glenn, and meets their hired men, Charley and Lee, the latter of whom had been Flo's boyfriend. She also meets the rude, crude Raze Huff, a sheep dipper who has eyes for her.
Glenn has become a hog farmer and realizes that he can never return to his former shallow life. Carley, while she loves the West, thinks that she can never be the wife of a simple hog farmer, so she breaks their engagement and returns to New York. However, even though she throws herself back into her socialite's life, she finds it empty and unsatisfying. Finally, she decides that she must return to Arizona and marry Glenn. When she arrives, Glenn and the Hutters are away to buy hogs. She even purchases land near Glenn's farm which he had earlier expressed a desire to obtain so that he might expand his operations, and has a house built on it. So what will she do when she hears a rumor that during her absence Glenn has married Flo? Zane Grey was one of the favorite authors of my father, who enjoyed Westerns. Not all of Grey's books were bang-bang, shoot-`em-up cowboy stories of the Old West, like his most famous one, Riders of the Purple Sage (1912).
The Call of the Canyon is a more contemporary, romantic tale, yet it still is characterized by a love of the West that shines through in his so many of Grey[s other novels. It is filled with beautiful, lengthy descriptions of the Arizona countryside and a passion for the West and its scenery. I found it an enjoyable book. Carley's ultimate conclusions about the emptiness of her life in response to her friends' pleas are just as relevant today as they were in her time. This excellent story opposes drinking, smoking, immodesty and strongly opposes idleness, selfishness, and living for high society, and it strongly advocates man as bread winner and woman as homemaker, wife, and mother. But it is marred by a few profanities. There are also several references to dancing and one reference to the Grand Canyon's existence for "millions of years," but many instances of gratitude to God for blessings and beauty are found. I recommend it for teens and adults.

This is primarily Grey's diatribe and condemnation of the lack of support of returning WWI combat veterans. A historical note: Those vets received no benefits and more than 200,000 U.S. soldiers suffered physical or mental injuries during The Great War, but in 1919 only 217 had completed rehabilitation programs. That sad chapter has similarities with the Walter Reed Hospital scandal over substandard treatment of U.S. troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bless Grey for taking up the cause back in the day, it must not have been very popular to do so at the time, but it got weary hearing one of the primary characters wax on and on about that issue. In addition, I had a real problem with the ending...suffice to say it would not have played out that way. He wrote better books.