Review: Shane

Shane by Jack Schaefer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I attended business school more than 3 decades ago, and my most vivid memory of our many classroom interactive lectures was from Economics, where the professor repeatedly referenced the movie “Shane”, using it as an illustration of the “cow punchers versus the sod busters”, or that people can have competing goals while consuming the same resources. I can still recall a classmate, quoting the movie, bawled up his face and wailed “Come back, Shane, come back”. He most remembered the kid. I didn’t see the movie until much later, but my memory of it was the cinematography. It really showed the Western sky and land to great effect. When I read the book, I was hoping that I would get that same kind of impression, where the land is as much of a character as the characters, like many other Westerns I’ve read. But in this case, I found the book’s focus was the characters and the values they represented. The most cinematic descriptions were of Shane’s fight, and of the removal of the stump. To me these were the most memorable parts of the book. The stump story was an unexpected way to show what would now be called the bromance between Shane and Mr. Starrett. Here, you’d call it bonding through mutual respect and shared work. The other unexpected part was Shane’s fights, where he is described as a “Superman”, moving faster than others and withstanding harm. I wasn’t expecting superhero level descriptions but given when this was written, I can understand the usage, and given the story I understand the point the author was making. In all, as with many Westerns (as with many allegories), there are plenty of things to think about. While not as well written as some of the masters, I found it entertaining, and combined with the movie it will be long remembered.

View all my reviews