Whilst I wouldn’t go so far as to call Riders of the Purple Sage the best Western novel of all time, Zane Grey’s first bestseller, set against the backdrop of Mormon and non-Mormon conflict in the 1870s, is definitely a curious and engaging read.
Grey’s command of prose is perhaps the biggest benefit to the novel’s story. His loading of description and imagery, as well as the flow of language, is what affords the novel its deep-rooted setting, and allows the reader to become fully immersed in the never-ending canyons and rugged sages along the southern Utah border. This immeasurable landscape lends itself well as a backdrop for the action that takes place against it, providing a labyrinthine environment where the characters can either lose themselves or find protection from their enemies. Indeed, Venters finds peace with the woman he loves in Surprise Valley, and this is also later where Jane attempts, alongside Lassiter, to seek freedom from the inescapable tyranny of her Mormon churchmen; in the end of the novel, it is again the landscape (specifically Balancing Rock) which determines the outcome of the action taking place between the characters.
Grey’s writing style does, however, do the novel the odd disservice on occasion. His extensive description is most effective when depicting the striking setting, or the fast-paced rustling, riding, and gun-slinging that takes place in the novel. Unfortunately, it fails to have the same effect in the more mundane chapters, in the sense that it’s very easy for Grey’s passages to drag and become stagnant during paragraph after paragraph of a character’s inner-monologue, especially when peppered with dialogue that is generally relatively limited. In a similar vein, most of the novel’s uneventful chapters are taken up with Jane’s internal agonization over her struggle with the Mormon faith and her inborn dedication to her church and its churchmen, which grows quite tiresome surprisingly quickly, yet remains consistent till the end.
Interestingly, each of the main characters in the novel represents a moral position, and the plot is an argument among those positions. Jane, as a Mormon woman, believes violence is immoral and makes it her mission to be good and forgiving; her male equivalent is the gun-slinging rider, Jim Lassiter, a man with no religion and a hatred of Mormons. Tull, the novel’s main antagonist, is a religious tyrant who uses his faith to justify the atrocities he commits, which are ironically violations of Mormon law in their own right: coveting Jane, her property, and her riches, as well as conducting unmotivated attacks on Gentiles. It’s been speculated that Grey took inspiration for his Mormon villains from the Danites, a Mormon defense organisation formed in response to violent acts against Mormons in Missouri, who were later disbanded by the church’s founder after he heard of their activities. Regardless of his inspiration, it is clear through Grey’s portrayal of characters like Elder Tull and Bishop Dyer that he had an intense dislike for fanaticism and tyrannical practises in any religion, which he appears to vehemently reject in the novel.
All in all, Riders of the Purple Sage is a thrilling novel, complete with all the gun-slinging and horse-riding that a good Western should have, but it is perhaps the delicate balance between excitement and shrewd social commentary that affords the novel its reputation as a greatly admired Western bestseller.
Abbie Roberts 