Hondo (Thorndike Press Large Print Paperback Series) [Paperback]

Louis L'Amour (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: G K Hall & Co; Lrg edition (March 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816157960
• ISBN-13: 978-0816157969
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,817,130 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"I think of myself in the oral tradition--as a troubadour, a village tale-teller, the man in the shadows of a campfire. That's the way I'd like to be remembered--as a storyteller. A good storyteller."

It is doubtful that any author could be as at home in the world re-created in his novels as Louis Dearborn L'Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally "walked the land my characters walk." His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L'Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.

Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L'Amour could trace his own in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, "always on the frontier." As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he absorbed all he could about his family's frontier heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.

Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr. L'Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs, including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, and miner, and was an officer in the transportation corps during World War II. During his "yondering" days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.

Mr. L'Amour "wanted to write almost from the time I could talk." After developing a widespread following for his many frontiers and adventure stories written for fiction magazines, Mr. L'Amour published his first full length novel, Hondo, in the United States in 1953. Every one of his more than 120 books is in print; there are more than 300 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the bestselling authors in modern literary history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.

The recipient of many great honor and awards, in 1983 Mr. L'Amour became the first novelist to ever to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress in honor of his life's work. In 1984 he was also awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.

Louis L'Amour died on June 10, 1988. His wife, Kathy, and their two children, Beau and Angelique, carry the L'Amour publishing tradition forward with new books written by the author during his lifetime to be published by Bantam.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hondo is the ultimate western man - great read, December 27, 2005

By 

A. Woodley "Patroness, Janeites, the Austen list" (New Zealand) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hondo (L Amour, Louis) (Hardcover)

I've really got a thing for these Louis L'amour books at the moment. They hardly take a moment to read, but they are well-crafted and excellent reads. Hondo seems to be the ultimate Western man - he has lived at least part of his life with Apache, is a scout for the Army, and comes up against the Apache both as friend and foe.

Hondo comes across a farm run by a woman and her son, she lies to him and tells her that her husband is away in the hills rounding cattle - Hondo knows that isn't true as there are no tracks leaving the place. He tries to convince her to come with him to the safety of the fort but she refuses. She has always been friends with the Apache and wants to remain on the property even though her husband has gone and is probably dead.

Returning to the fort Hondo realises that things are bad and the woman and boy out there alone will probably die so he returns against orders, but not without the tacit consent of the fort's commander.

He is tracked from the fort by two men intent on killing him - one of them is Ed Lowe, the woman's husband. Unfortunately for them group of Apache track them to the springs and the two men die trying to ambush Hondo - Hondo manages to kill two of the indians along with Ed Lowe. HOwever one indian has escaped to raise the alarm - and now Hondo is in danger, tracked by one of the vicious roaming Apache bands.

This is very much the story of a man who knows his own code of justice and righteousness and is prepared to live and die by that code. His dog, Sam, is like him. A loner, but one who is loyal and trustworthy.

What I really liked about this book is that most of the characters in it were shades of black and white rather than all good or all bad - for instance Vittoro, the Apache cheif - he was not all bad - as was Hondo. Both respected one another because theirs was a code of fairness rather than hatred. The characters who simply hated got their come-uppance.

It moves along at a cracking pace, and although I like some of the later more humourous heros, I still really enjoyed this book - a great read.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm not about to argue with the Duke, December 18, 2000

By 

Orrin C. Judd "brothersjudddotcom" (Hanover, NH USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hondo (Mass Market Paperback)

The best Western novel I have ever read. -John Wayne

Hey look, I'm not about to argue with the Duke. Louis L'Amour is probably the best-selling Western writer of all time and Hondo his first big, and perhaps his best, novel. It is reminiscent of Shane (see Orrin's review) and Riders of the Purple Sage (see Orrin's review), but with Apaches on the warpath taking the place of hostile cattle ranchers or intolerant Mormons. Hondo Lane is the gun fighter, Army dispatch rider, hero who, along with his feral but loyal dog Sam, meets Angie Lowe and her young son Johnny who are homesteading in Apache territory in late 1800's Arizona. Angie has been abandoned by her low down snake of a husband, but refuses to leave her land. Hondo must ride back to the Fort to warn the Cavalry that the Apache chief Vittoro is on the move, but then returns to help defend woman and child.

If the story does not quite reach the lofty literary heights of Shane--perhaps because the focus is so much on what Hondo needs from Angie and Johnny, as opposed to the way in which Shane was the object of the Starrett family's affection--it is still quite enjoyable. Three elements that really stand out and offer a contrast to the easy caricature of the genre are the respectful portrayal of the Apaches, the centrality of the romance angle to the story and the blithe depiction of the difficulty and brutality of frontier life. Even in so formulaic a tale as this one, the American Western demonstrates a level of maturity and nuance that critics seem bent on denying.

With the possible exception of the romance novel, there is perhaps no other genre of fiction which the critics and academia take less seriously than the Western. But consider the fact that by the time of his death L'Amour had sold over 200 million books and among his avid legion of readers were two of the most decent men ever to become U.S. Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. It seems to me that the failure of the intelligentsia to reckon with Western reflects poorly on themselves, rather than on the literature. L'Amour says at one point:

No man knows the hour of his ending, nor can he choose the place or the manner of his going. To each it is given to die proudly, to die well, and this is, indeed, the final measure of the man.

It is easy, too easy, to dismiss the ethos of the Western as a kind of macho posturing. But those lines and the general "code of the West", however much it may be a fictional construct, reflect a concern with reputation which, when observed, has had a salutary effect on men. In an excellent essay on "The Greatness of George Washington" (Virginia Quarterly Review, Volume 68, Number 2) historian Gordon S. Wood traces Washington's greatness and his stature among his peers to what our generation would perceive as an overweening concern for his own reputation. But this same zealous regard for his own name and place in history motivated Washington to lead a life of exemplary moral rectitude and he created in himself the ideal man to lead a nascent and fragile democracy, a man capable of resisting the temptations of power because reputation was more important to him. It is no surprise then to find that two of the only other presidents we've had who can even approach him in stature immersed themselves in this idealistic and rigidly moralistic fiction. God knows what Bill Clinton reads (actually one book we know he enjoyed is Vox by Nicholson Baker, see Orrin's review), but rest assured, it ain't Louis L'Amour

GRADE: A-

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fifty years on, still riding strong, March 15, 2003

By 

Peter Reeve (Thousand Oaks, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hondo (Mass Market Paperback)

The events of this very solid and compelling story are clearly based on, or at least loosely inspired by, real events in Arizona in 1861. There are many parallels with the Boscom affair and the kidnapping of Mickey Free, events that led to the Apache Wars and the campaigns of Cochise. It's L'Amour's comprehensive knowledge of the history and landscape of Arizona that helps to make this book special. The writing is consistently good, occasionally sublime; "...the tips of the cottonwoods turned gold, like the sun-tipped lances of a moving army." L'Amour is particularly good with dialogue, a skill which is sadly lacking among most Western writers, making Zane Grey for example, almost unreadable. The only thing preventing "Hondo" from being great literature is the paper-thin characterization. Hondo Lane is an idealized, 'Hollywooden' hero and the villains lack any redeeming features that would make them credible. The depiction of the Apache is sympathetic, even to the extent that they too are often idealized ("No Apache ever hit his child"). The author's attempts to describe the developing feelings of the hero and heroine for each other are particularly gauche. L'Amour, it seems, cannot write l'amour. But, so what? If we want profound insights into human nature, we read Jane Austen. If we want the romance and drama of the Old West, we read Louis L'Amour.