"Appaloosa" by Robert B Parker,
A Book Report-dlb
The sun never sets on the "Cowboy Code of Ethics" a composite of sense of duty, honor & friendship. That has never been more true than in the book "Appaloosa" by Parker. Even more amazing is Parker's ability, despite his usual New England setting for most of his other monstrous number of books, to understand the simplicity of the heroes of the West & its codes. While not to be a Pollyanna type of a western story, the stark realism of the ills that men and women represent shines clearly, whilst begging to be changed, if possible; even so recognizing that some issues in any society will never change.
What a shame that too many of today's Field Trial cowboy doesn't "get" or utilize cowboy principles & appropriate heroism in their sport life-style of choice.
In Parker's "Appaloosa he spins a simple story with succinct dialog to an unforeseen & surprising, although logical conclusion. This writer's only criticism is how short the book was & the introduction of a female character who did not duplicate a desireable mate for such a man. She clearly does not understand the Cowboy Code of Ethics, but instead chooses to manipulate as a life-style until all, particularly women risk being muddied beyond redemption.
Perhaps at a later date, this book report will explore further into the vagaries of the female role in the settling of the West. As the West was a man's world being written about by a man, it is possible that female characters were more true to form than male individuals. This writer realizes the danger of admiring cowboys, perhaps more than they deserve. Cowboys are people too, with the full range of mistakes & missteps in judgment or the possibility, whether ethics were involved or not. Dead is dead. There is no changing that fact & that history gets told by the last cowboy/cowgirl standing with no accounting to ethics for those left behind.
All that said, "Appaloosa" is a rip-roaring enchanting story of times long gone.
For me & my daydreams "Appaloosa" adds mystique to the potential story & my FT Report of 2010 VCA Field Nationals in Fort Robinson, Nebraska this coming October. Fort Robinson played a pivotal role in the Indian Wars, housed the Buffalo Soldiers & lays the carpet for the VCA Field Trial cowboy warriors of today's clime. We shall see....what we see.
I "listened" to this book & did not read it. I highly recommend the audio format in this epistle. The narrator Titus Welliver is tops in his genre.
A side-point of interest involving "Vizsla" with Robert B Parker is that in his novel STONE COLD, he wrote about a Vizsla being owned by a murder victim & the heroe's role in re-homing the dog with another crime victim who needed a Vizsla type of personality to survive & thrive. dlb
