Name: Shane
Rating: 3.571428571428572 (7 reviews)
ISBN: 9780803241459

Jack Schaefer

The Critical Edition

Shane

Frank Green

Edwin Lang

Shane strikes me as a book that can be read in many different ways. First perhaps as a story of the American West in the 1840’s; then, as a romance, as a coming of age, of good versus evil and even as a drama. I am generally drawn in by heroics but in Shane there was something in it that, as I read slowly over the Summer, threw me off. Perhaps there was a depth that I had had trouble getting at because of obstacles Shaeffer put in the way. I think horses scare me, always have and perhaps always will, and, guns too, and perhaps this is the Canadian in me. I initially felt quite bad for not liking the book too much and worse when I read review after review in which readers both loved the story and characters and gave it high ratings. I was buoyed by reviews such as Natalie Lydia’s 2010 one: “The first four chapters are about the boy’s father and Shane cutting a dead tree. SERIOUSLY!!! you got to be kidding me, was my thought when I read the beginning”. I think she had been Grade 8 but I loved her honesty, the kind one sees often in young people. Then again, “Ms YingLing”, the librarian at Blendon Middle School in Ohio is right: Shane is a classic tale of good versus evil, reflects the way things worked in the wild west, reflects also the mores of the 1840’s when the story takes place and of the 1950’s when Shaeffer wrote the book. But it seemed more. Shane descends on this little nuclear family of farmers, in the summer of 1849 sometime after the conclusion of the American – Mexican war, and states like Wyoming are in flux, still undefined until about 1868. I was surprised that the Starrett’s had only one child, a son, at a time when families were large. Although the characters are clean and honest and human, one senses the strong feelings Marion Starrett, Joe’s wife and young Bob’s mother, almost immediately develops for Shane, and it seems to be strongly reciprocated. One reviewer, Suzanne Brockman who is herself an author of romance novels, loved the book and assures us that the relationship had been platonic, and one wonders. It is something a boy would unlikely notice, and if he did probably deny. I would have, for example, cast Henry Fonda as Shane, and his eyes, and ultimately his smile, would have carried the story. I would also have cast Joe Starrett as Rock Hudson, a principled man and an inherently good man, broad shouldered and while hard working and something of a leader, also something of an underachiever and not the intellectual that Shane emerges as. Then again I liked the 2016 review by another student who seemed to catch my angst: “I am currently being forced to read the book Shane. So far it has been absolutely horrible. If you like this book, I feel very sorry for you. Clearly, you were dropped on your head as a baby and never fully recovered. Although it is an awful book, it did solve one of my problems. Normally, it takes me forever to fall asleep but once I pick up the book Shane I fall asleep as soon as I lay my eyes on the paper. Overall Shane was a huge waste of my summer.” I think this is what makes dealing with young people such a (occasional?) joy for teachers: they get things right, and they get things wrong, but they are inherently idealistic and wonderfully opinionated; but, they are a work in progress, kind of innocent and frequently too caught up in the drama of their existence to see the truth of things. The 1800’s were a dark time for anyone on the North American continent. Countries (emergent USA, Mexico, Spain, France and England) were warring with one another, and genocide and lawlessness ruled supreme. Perhaps for example the Americans had robber-barons and the likes of Fletcher to deal with along with their hired gunslingers but even we in Canada had equally rapacious fiends to deal with too. I was reading a newspaper account explaining the historical basis for the tension in Canada between the East most central region (comprising for example Ontario and Quebec) and the West, and the case of the Metis rebel leader, Louis Riel, who complained to the East that they shouldn’t be stealing their land. So they hung him. We are really, really sorry about this bad behavior of ours today of course but the land remains effectively stolen and the ancestors of the people who enriched themselves off the theft remain and not quite as sorry as the rest of us. There is a short scene where Shane knocks, albeit gently, Joe Starrett out to prevent him from endangering himself and then later Shane himself is injured. And in the process Shane realizes that he is who he is, that he can not change that nor should he try. It is an honest assessment, and for Bob who dearly wants him to remain a heart-breaking confession. And it seemed abrupt and happens too fast – perhaps like an automobile accident that changes everything - and gave something of an insight – not a lie per se – to the close relationships that had developed among the Starretts and Shane. It was like the heroic character of Gilliat in Hugo’s Toilers of the Sea, he was undoubtedly a hero – something that even Shaeffer alluded to this his 1950’s novel, a superman – but at the end of the day he had to abandon those he loved as he was essentially a loner. He was who he was. There is a sense finally that while the key conflict is resolved through Shane’s presence and action everything has nonetheless changed, and that things will not go back to the comfortable way things had been before. It is like it was not just the boy who had come of age but Joe Starrett too, and Marion as well, and that the family was going to be OK in ways they had not expected nor envisioned. Edwin

In the summer of 1889, a mysterious and charismatic man rides into a small Wyoming valley, where he joins homesteaders who take a stand against a bullying cattle rancher, and where he changes the lives of a young boy and his parents.

Nick Perronteau

3/5
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“He’s all around us and IN us!” You bet he was- they were ALL banging each other!

Shane The Critical Edition

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