My Goodreads comments on "Hombre"

Hombre by Elmore Leonard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I knew what to expect of this for two reasons: One it's by Elmore Leonard who is one of the world's best known writers of thrillers and perhaps to a slightly lesser extent and earlier, of westerns. Many of his books have gone on to be films and he has a huge amount of experience in film and tv writing although he allegedly has a tendency to dislike the adaptations of his work. The second reason I knew what to expect is that, in this case, I've seen the film. In fact the book was for once to my mind an exact reflection of what appeared on the screen. I'm bound to be wrong about this as my memory isn't great but perhaps the perception is more important here anyway. It seemed the same and I read the book seeing Paul Newman's blue eyes where John Russel's similarly described eyes where mentioned.

To anyone who likes well written "classic" westerns, like myself, I would recommend this AND the film. It has all the excitement, action, jeopardy that you could want and is thought provoking to boot. Not perhaps as controversial as its anti-discrimination message might have made it at one time. For me the enigmatic "Hombre", raised by whites and Apaches is one of the classic western heroes perhaps fit to rank alongside Shane, Will Kane, Lyn McAdam and the man with no name. I once enjoyed several of Jack "Shane" Schaeffer's books and if I was aware of more westerns of this calibre I wouldn't certainly be happy to return to the genre.

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