Butcher's Crossing by John Williams - Review
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- A review of Butcher's Crossing by John Williams.
In his National Book Award-winning novel Augustus, John Williams uncovered the secrets of ancient Rome. With Butcher’s Crossing, his fiercely intelligent, beautifully written western, Williams dismantles the myths of modern America.
It is the 1870s, and Will Andrews, fired up by Emerson to seek “an original relation to nature,” drops out of Harvard and heads west. He washes up in Butcher’s Crossing, a small Kansas town on the outskirts of nowhere. Butcher’s Crossing is full of restless men looking for ways to make money and ways to waste it. Before long Andrews strikes up a friendship with one of them, a man who regales Andrews with tales of immense herds of buffalo, ready for the taking, hidden away in a beautiful valley deep in the Colorado Rockies. He convinces Andrews to join in an expedition to track the animals down. The journey out is grueling, but at the end is a place of paradisal richness. Once there, however, the three men abandon themselves to an orgy of slaughter, so caught up in killing buffalo that they lose all sense of time. Winter soon overtakes them: they are snowed in. Next spring, half-insane with cabin fever, cold, and hunger, they stagger back to Butcher’s Crossing to find a world as irremediably changed as they have been.
William’s adventure to me is like Stoner live a life in a parallel universe. As if asking the questions: What if he doesn’t live in a banal, frustrating academic life? Would his life be more satisfactory? I think this novel along with Stoner comforts me and supports me every time when I want to quit my career within academia. It keeps reminding me how brutal outside world could be, when I feel I cannot bear the hypocrisy, pretentiousness or usefulness here, similar to how William in the beginning feels about his campus life.
Watched the Nicolas Cage movie Butchers Crossing based on the novel, but have yet to read it.
I've been wanting to read Stoner but haven't gotten around to it. I just got copies of 3 novels based on your reviews Whale and Notes on an Execution and just finished The Rabbit Hutch. I'd like to offer a recommendation to read: Greenwood by Michael Christie.
Excellent review of an excellent book.
Looking forward to your review on Augustus😊To me, it’s my least favourite maybe perhaps I don’t care about the Roman Empire but I still find the prose beautiful and story quite engaging. 😊
I also don’t care about the Roman Empire at all. However, if there was ever an author who could make me care, it would be William’s.
Read it. Loved it. 😊
For such a short novel Butchers Crossing felt like an epic story. The hunting scenes were brutal and the irony of the ending was kind of sad really. I loved the book though. I have read quite a few non fiction novels of the lives of the Mountain men of the West and this novel is an accurate account of the times. As wonderful as John Williams writing is I did not get on with his novel Augustus. Well done on this video. Enjoyed it.
Loved Stoner and Augustus, but couldn't get through Butcher's. Too monotonous for me.
The more I read, the more singular Williams proves himself to be. So precise and considered in every word and another book about Higher Education. More subtle than Stoner, but does explore the value and effect a life of academia can have on your relationship nature and humanity, especially the more brutal aspects. Academia tends to abstract it, this book seems committed to a more grounded and “realistic” perspective.
Almost done with The Deluge by Stephen Markley a harrowing beast of a book that still manages to read like a thriller. A book with some issues tied to its ambition, but a singular reading experience.
Great review.
Thanks for insights! I started the deluge but just couldn’t get in with it. Wasn’t in the right frame of mind I think.
@@rororeads For me, The Deluge is about its scale and scope. It has me thinking about the future more than ever, which is not a mentally healthy activity to do for very long.
I think he tries to mitigate that with a propulsive writing style, but (for now) the characters, and specifically the character dynamics, are taking a hit. Still, have not seen a more convincing or comprehensive look at the next 12 years for humanity. Tough recommend for sure.
Quick question, in a previous video you mentioned you used to read horror a lot, was that before this channel? Do you still read it? Any specific sub-genre you enjoy(ed)?
Excellent review. To me, Stoner is an A and Butcher’s Crossing is an A+. Love this novel.
I haven’t read Butcher’s Crossing, so I may be way off, but the description you gave reminded me of Lauren Groff’s The Vaster Wilds. Like Butcher’s Crossing, it has been compared to Blood Meridian. It’s beautifully written and all the things you mentioned: raw, harsh, brutal and visceral (so, so visceral). It might be something you’d enjoy when your book buying ban comes to an end!
Ooo! Thank you. I’ll add it to the list.