Louis L'Amour, Hondo

 Introduction

Opening Passage:

He rolled the cigarette in his lips, liking the taste of the tobacco, squinting his eyes against the sun glare. His buckskin shirt, seasoned by sun, rain, and sweat, smelled stale and old. His jeans had long since faded to a neutral color that lost itself against the desert.

He was a big man, wide-shouldered, with the lean, hard-boned face of the desert rider. There was no softness in him. His toughness was ingrained and deep, without cruelty, yet quick, hard, and dangerous. Whatever wells of gentleness might lie within him were guarded and deep. (p. 5)

Summary: Hondo Lane is a dispatch rider for the army, and is making his way across Apache-dominated territory. Technically, the Apache and the United States are under a peace regulated by a treaty, but the Apache are becoming increasingly aggressive because they think the United States is deliberately ignoring the treaty. (The book makes clear that the Apache are in fact right about this.) In trying to evade Apache who are hunting him, and having lost his horse, Hondo comes across a homestead, where he meets Angie Lowe and her son Johnny. Angie says that her husband, Ed Lowe, is up in the hills that day working some cattle, but she gives him water and food, and agrees to sell him a horse. In return, he helps her out with a few chores. Hondo very quickly figures out that Angie is in fact alone; there's a lot of work to do on a homestead, and it is clear that the chores that would usually have been done by a man have either not been done, or been done in very limited and sporadic ways, for a long time; he figures that Ed Lowe was probably killed by Apaches. Angie has difficulty believing this, since the Apaches have always gotten along well with them, and there is a treaty, but, of course, as Hondo points out, this stays true only up to the time that it stops being true. Hondo heads out.

In the meantime in the hills, Company C under Lieutenant Cretyon C. Davis are engaged in a difficult game of cat-and-mouse (with the cat and the mouse roles continually shifting) with the Apaches under the war leader Vittoro. The Apaches have massacred several homesteads, brutally scalping men and women alike; the Apaches are especially brutal to women, we are told, although they are remarkably kind toward and protective of children. In response, Lieutenant Davis hatches a plan to ambush Vittoro. Davis's plan is very clever and succeeds extraordinarily well -- they catch Vittoro's band by surprise and do significant damage to it. What Davis did not account for was that Vittoro had been even more clever, and had managed to hide an entire reserve of allied Apache; they allies attack Company C from the rear, and, hopelessly outnumbered, the entire company is massacred. Hondo comes upon the remains of the battlefield and brings the guidon of the company to the cavalry unit of which they were a part. While there, he meets a mouthy, obnoxious gambler, who likes to pick fights, especially with Hondo; it turns out that he is named Ed Lowe.

Not long after Hondo left, Vittoro and his Apache stop by Angie's homestead. They are inclined to kill her and burn her home, but she is saved by Johnny, who tries to protect his mother by shooting the Apache (named Silva) who is threatening her. He only wings Silva, but the Apache, recall, are quite generous toward children, and a boy willing to fight singlehandedly an entire band of Apache warriors both amuses them and impresses them. Vittoro adopts Johnny into his Apache lodge, putting Angie and Johnny under his protection. But Silva has a grudge, and if Vittoro ever dies, Silva will be back with a vengeance.

I often consider adaptations of books into movies and the like. But this, of course, is an unusual case; there is a movie, Hondo, starring John Wayne, but it is not an adaptation of this novel. Rather, the novel is an adaptation of the movie's screenplay. As is common with novelizations of screenplays, they are very similar, dialogue-wise; L'Amour tightens it a bit, but we get the same lines, more or less. L'Amour, however, takes full advantage of both his primary advantage over a screenplay (the capacity for detailed description) and his primary advantage over a movie (the capacity to follow the thoughts of characters); he does so deliberately enough that it seems clear that he was trying to write a novel better than the movie, coming out at the same time, could be. And while the novel will never be the classic the movies is, he does very well. One of the trademark features of Louis L'Amour's later work, that the landscape is itself a character in the book, is clearly in view here. The Southwestern desert is not a backdrop, it is a player on the stage, and while L'Amour hasn't refined this as much as he later will, it is already done quite well here. Following the thoughts of the characters is, I think, somewhat less successful -- the story is from a screenplay, so everything you really need to know about what the characters are thinking and feeling is already in view. But I think that, apart from the fact that it occasionally comes across as telegraphing what was already obvious, L'Amour does very well in using it to make the characters plausible on the page.

I also read "The Gift of Cochise", L'Amour's short story on which the screenplay had been based. The essentials of the story are there, although structured very differently and with slightly different characters. In the short story, Angie already at the beginning comes under Cochise's protection, for the reason that Angie comes under Vittoro's protection in the movie and novel. Ches in his dispatch duties comes to the cavalry unit, where he meets Ed Lowe; they get along badly here as well, and it leads to Ches killing Ed. Learning that Ed had a wife and two children (Johnny and Jane), he feels guilty about being the reason a woman is left alone in Apache company, becomes obsessed with finding her so that she knows what happened. He gets caught and tortured by the Apaches, but he has Ed Lowe's tintype of Angie, and Cochise recognizes it and brings Ches to Angie (Ches is the gift of Cochise). It works very well as a short story, but I think it has improved greatly on expansion.

Favorite Passage:

For an hour of lonely riding there had been no life upon the desert. The sun was high, and sweat trickled down Hondo's neck, and the body fo the lineback became dark with stain. And before them stretched the vast and rolling plain of sand, rock, and cactus that is the desert of the Southwest.

Here there was no moment of security. Somewhere out there the escaped Apache had joined his friends, and somewhere those hard and tireless desert fighters were moving out, beginning their search for him.

Desert...but a desert strangely alive. Not a dead land, but a land where all life is born with a fire, a thorn, a sting. Yet a strong land, a rich land for the man who knows it. One cannot fight the desert and live. One lives with it, or one dies. One learns its way and its life, and moves with care, and never ceases to be wary, for the desert has traps and tricks for the careless. (p. 102)

Recommendation: Recommended.

****

Louis L'Amour, Hondo, Fawcett Gold Medal Books (New York: 1953).

Chuck Norris (1940-2026)

 Chuck Norris died yesterday, having just passed his 86th birthday on March 10. He was born Carlos Ray Norris; he was a shy child who did not do particularly well in either athletics or academics. This would begin to change when he joined the Air Force, when he began learning martial arts in earnest. After he was honorably discharged, he opened a martial arts studio and began competing in tournaments. Being something of a martial arts jack-of-all-trades, it took him a while to start doing so, but once he hit his stride, he began dominating in karate tournaments. This led him to become friends with Bruce Lee, which in turn resulted in his first movie role with Lee, The Way of the Dragon. His significant break began in 1978, with Good Guys Wear Black, a low-budget movie (it cost $1 million) that made relatively good profit and created a demand for Norris as the first major non-Bruce-Lee martial arts actor in America. Then followed a bunch of action movies, most of which did quite well. One of the successes was Lone Wolf McQuaid, in 1983, in which he played a Texas Ranger; this is likely the first glimmering seed of his hit television show, begun in 1993, Walker, Texas Ranger, which throughout its eight seasons was one of the most popular shows on television.

Most people too young to remember any of this mostly know Chuck Norris from 'Chuck Norris Facts':

Chuck Norris was pulled over by a cop once; he let the cop go with a warning.

The one time Chuck Norris was wrong was when he thought he made a mistake.

Ghosts tell stories about Chuck Norris to scare each other.

There is no survival of the fittest, only creatures Chuck Norris allows to live.

Legends live forever, which is almost as long as Chuck Norris.

But, in the context, perhaps the best one is the one Norris himself alluded to a few days before his death:

Chuck Norris doesn't age; he just levels up. 

Habitude XXIX

To the fourth one proceeds thus. It seems that moral virtue is able to be without the intellectual. For moral virtue, as Tully says, is habitude in the way of nature, agreeing [consentaneus] with reason. But even if nature agrees with some superior moving reason, it is not needful for that reason to be united with nature in the same thing, as is obvious in natural things lacking cognition. Therefore there is able to be in the human being moral virtue in the way of nature, inclining to agreement with reason, although that human being's reason is not completed through intellectual virtue.

Further, through intellectual virtue a human being achieves complete use of reason. But it sometimes happens that those in whom the use of reason is not vigorous are virtuous and accepted by God. Therefore it seems that moral virtue can be without intellectual virtue.

Further, moral virtue makes an inclination to working well. But some have a natural inclination to working well, even without the judgment of reason. Therefore moral virtues can be without intellectual virtues.

But contrariwise is what Gregory says, in Moral. XXII, that other virtues, unless they act prudently in that for which they strive, are not able to be virtues. But prudence is an intellectual virtue, as was said above. Therefore moral virtues are not able to be without the intellectual.

I reply that it must be said that moral virtue is able to be without certain intellectual virtues, like wisdom, knowledge, and craft, but it cannot be without intellection and prudence. Moral virtue is not able to be without prudence because moral virtue is choosing habitude, that is, one making good choice. But for choice to be good, two things are required. First, that there be due intending of the end, and this is done through moral virtue, which inclines the striving impulse to good appropriate to reason, which is the due end. Second, that the human being rightly receive those things that are endward, and this cannot be done save by reason rightly deliberating [consiliantem], judging, and prescribing, which pertains to prudence and to virtues annexed to it, as was said above. Therefore moral virtue is not able to be without prudence. And consequently neither without intellection. For by intellection naturally cognized principles are recognized, both in reflective and in working matters. Thus just as right reason in reflective matters, inasmuch as it proceeds from naturally cognized principles, presupposes intellection of principles, so also prudence, which is right reason for enactables.

To the first it must be said that natural inclination in things lacking reason is without choice, and therefore such inclination does not necessarily require reason. But inclination of moral virtue is with choice, and thus for its completion it needs that reason be completed through intellectual virtue.

To the second it must be said that in the virtuous the use of reason does not need to be vigorous with respect to everything but only with respect to those things that are done according to virtue. And thus use of reason is vigorous in all the virtuous. Thus those who seem to be simple, as lacking worldly wisdom [mundana astutia], are able to be prudent; according to Matth. X, Be prudent as serpents and simple as doves.

To the third it must be said that natural inclination to the good of virtue is a sort of incipience [inchoatio] of virtue, but is not completed virtue. For this kind of inclination is insofar as it is stronger is able to be more dangerous, unless right reason is adjoined to it, through which is made right choice of those things appropriate to due end, just as a running horse, if blind, more forcefully stumbles and is injured the more forcefully it runs. And therefore even if moral virtue is not right reason as Socrates said, yet it is not only according to right reason inasmuch as it inclines to that which is according to right reason, as the Platonists held, but it must be with right reason, as Aristotle says in Ethic. VI.

[Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.58.4, my translation. The Latin is here, the Dominican Fathers translation is here.

Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus

 Today is the feast of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Doctor of the Church. From his Catechetical Lecture 15):

We preach not one advent only of Christ, but a second also, far more glorious than the former. For the former gave a view of His patience; but the latter brings with it the crown of a divine kingdom. For all things, for the most part, are twofold in our Lord Jesus Christ: a twofold generation; one, of God, before the ages; and one, of a Virgin, at the close of the ages: His descents twofold; one, the unobserved, like rain on a fleece ; and a second His open coming, which is to be. In His former advent, He was wrapped in swaddling clothes in the manger; in His second, He covers Himself with light as with a garment. In His first coming, He endured the Cross, despising shame; in His second, He comes attended by a host of Angels, receiving glory. We rest not then upon His first advent only, but look also for His second. And as at His first coming we said, Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord , so will we repeat the same at His second coming; that when with Angels we meet our Master, we may worship Him and say, Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord. The Saviour comes, not to be judged again, but to judge them who judged Him; He who before held His peace when judged , shall remind the transgressors who did those daring deeds at the Cross, and shall say, These things have you done, and I kept silence. Then, He came because of a divine dispensation, teaching men with persuasion; but this time they will of necessity have Him for their King, even though they wish it not.

In the Brightness of the Sun

From the Confession of St. Patrick (sect. 59-60):

And if at any time I managed anything of good for the sake of my God whom I love, I beg of him that he grant it to me to shed my blood for his name with proselytes and captives, even should I be left unburied, or even were my wretched body to be torn limb from limb by dogs or savage beasts, or were it to be devoured by the birds of the air, I think, most surely, were this to have happened to me, I had saved both my soul and my body. For beyond any doubt on that day we shall rise again in the brightness of the sun, that is, in the glory of Christ Jesus our Redeemer, as children of the living God and co-heirs of Christ, made in his image; for we shall reign through him and for him and in him. 

 For the sun we see rises each day for us at [his] command, but it will never reign, neither will its splendour last, but all who worship it will come wretchedly to punishment. We, on the other hand, shall not die, who believe in and worship the true sun, Christ, who will never die, no more shall he die who has done Christ’s will, but will abide for ever just as Christ abides for ever, who reigns with God the Father Almighty and with the Holy Spirit before the beginning of time and now and for ever and ever. Amen.

Links of Note

 * Bryan Pickel & Brian Rabern, A Compositional Semantics for Venn Diagrams (PDF)

* Curry Kennedy, A Special Regard for Life, on rhetoric and the moral life, at "Wisdom Speaking"

* Ruth Boeker, Mary Astell on Self-Improvement, Friendship, and Religion (PDF)

* David Oks, Why ATMs didn't kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

* Eric Snyder, Stewart Shapiro, & Richard Samuels, A strengthened argument to realism about numbers (PDF)

* Mark Windsor, Collingwood's Everday Aesthetics (PDF)

* Hollis Robbins, The Great Syllabus Stagnation, at "Anecdotal Value" and Timothy Burke, How Do Syllabi Align?, at "Eight by Seven"

* Cristina L. Wilkins, Cathrynne Henshall, Amy D. Lykins, et al., The teleonome: a framework for understanding animal welfare integrating adaptive capabilities, affective regulation, agency, and environmental affordances

* Paul Lodge, Leibniz's Justification of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (Mainly) in the Correspondence with Clarke (PDF)

* Esther Berry, A Vague Feeling of Unease Will Be the Last Thing You Remember, on trusting your gut, at "The Literate Woman"

* Robin Jean Harris, Baptism as Dramatization, and Baptism as Seal and Spiritual Birth, on St. Cyril of Jerusalem's metaphors for baptism

* Lukas J. Meier, Can Thought Experiments Solve Problems of Personal Identity (PDF)

* Ronald W. Dworkin, Savage care, on the sharp limitations of bioethics for actual medical practitioners, at "Aeon"

Incense Under Trees

 There was no truth, nor sympathy, mercy and love for neighbor, nor knowledge of God in the land. All three are connected with each other and follow one another, with the last as the beginning. Wherever we have the greatest confluence of people, these three sources of happiness are in many ways buried more quickly. In 4:12 it is said: "My people seek advice from a piece of wood and their staff gives them revelations"; it is their prophet, for the spirit of prostitution, of apostasy from God, leads them into these errors. They offer incense under trees, because their shade is good. In gratitude to the shade of the tree, they show it divine honor and forget the living God, his judgments, his name, his prophets.

[Johann Georg Hamann, The Complete London Writings, Kleinig, tr., Lexham Academic (Bellingham: 2025) p. 238. This is a comment on Hosea 4:1, although it actually covers most of this chapter. The reading here is interesting; Hamann seems (more or less plausibly) to interpret the trees comment in 4:13 as giving a general template for how apostasy develops -- finding the protection of something to be good and pleasant, people begin out of gratitude to show it honor that should be reserved to God, and then slowly stop giving such honor to God.]