Butchers Crossing

John Williams' well constructed western novel is minimal in sentiment and takes an even handed approach to the struggles between man and nature. Nature is not evil in Williams' world, like Hemingway he portrays nature as a neutral non-caring force that supports humanity as well as destroys humanity. In this regard, the novel could be compared to the more mythic Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Williams is careful to show that mankind may master many skills when dealing with nature but that a slip or mistake can have fatal non-forgiving consequences. This is an American novel, it speaks of the American national experience in realistic non-romantic passages that take the reader deep into the heart of the North American continent's heart. Williams' writing style is highly organized, there are no tangents or extra flourishes or unnecessary descriptions. Like William James and Nabokov, the story is as tight as a well constructed brick wall, facts and descriptions and experiences all are the precise building blocks for a novel with not a word out of place. I can imagine this novel would be appropriate for a college course on creative writing as an example of a novel that gets to the point, tells the tale, does not digress, makes its points and moves on. The novel is written in three sections and each section is further divided into short chapters. This structure gives the impression that the basic armature and direction of the entire novel was outlined with precision before the first paragraph was written. This is not a criticism; it is an observation that this novel's structure is strong but evident. The great exploration and exploitation of the American west in the 1800s is certainly part of the American myth. The beauty of this novel is that it explores the many themes of exploration and ruthless exploitation of the natural resources in a purely descriptive neutral voice. The great white whale in this novel is the vast power of snow storms in the Rocky Mountains and the untamed roaring rivers and the dry forbidding deserts. Those that hunt the whales in Moby Dick may encounter the great white whale. In Williams' world, those that hunt the buffalo may encounter the consequences of the natural world, the winter in the Rockies. The novel is written from the perspective of a neutral all-seeing narrator but the experiences of young Andrews, a Harvard drop-out, form the journey on which the novel is constructed. Andrews encounters the sage in the person of McDonald, a man who deals with buffalo hide blankets for the European market. Andrews becomes a party to a hunting expedition, which he finances through a small inheritance, with a fascinating charter, Miller, who exemplifies competency and survival instinct in the wild. They are joined by Charley Hoge, a one-armed, camp-cook, wagon driver who seeks protection for a Bible that he can not understand. They are also joined by a wild buffalo skinner, Schneider, a man uncomfortable in the wild and just as uncomfortable among his fellow man. The character of Miller is central to the novel. He is a skilled hunter and very knowledgeable of the wild and survival. He is careful and a leader. He manages and distributes resources, is fair, and controls controversy. The novel however puts Miller to the test for it is Miller's temptation for excess and his pride that put the entire expedition into peril. We witness the fall of the hero here for Williams gradually, chapter after chapter, reveals to us Miller's considerable strengths and abilities, and then as the novel comes to a peak, we now see how the fatal flaws of the hero result in the conditions that bring him down. When the hero is a leader of a tribe, the fatal flaws may bring down the entire tribe. Miller is not the enigmatic Captain Ahab. He is far more present as a fleshy muscular problem-solving pack leader that Ahab. He is more akin to a realistically drawn Ulysses, constantly called upon to offer the solutions that insure survival of the hunting pack. Miller exemplifies the limitations of human cunning and willpower. Some may think that nature seeks revenge against Miller for his excessive slaughter of the buffalo. But Williams' novel presents this peril not as the revenge of a personalized nature but as the simple consequences of excessive human obsession and pride. Williams carefully and beautifully describes the grandeur of nature but he never romanticizes and he never personifies nature. A careful reader will appreciate the considerable control William displays throughout the novel but especially in his resistance to describing nature in any other than natural, realistic, neutral prose. William Andrews, who drops out of Harvard after his third year, seeks the challenge of the west. It is to Williams' credit that Andrews is not a brainless romantic and that he is a fast learning in a world where fast learning is necessary for survival. There is a young pretty prostitute, Francine, and William Andrew's encounters with her before the hunt and after the hunt are testimony to the changes that have been wrought in his personality due to the experiences he had in the winter storms. The character of Charley Hoge is more than a side-kick, for Charley has been touched by nature when he hand froze in a previous expedition and had to be amputated by Miller in the wild. Charley now carries an old Bible which he reads often but understands less. For Charley, the Bible is a talisman against the consequences of nature. Comparisons may be made with Cormac McCarthy's novels but there is an essential distinction. McCarthy sees the evil human being as being more akin to the unfeeling force of nature than to his fellowman. Thus in McCarthy's novels there is often violence of man against man in epic battles not unlike Williams' description of the battle with winder in Butcher's Crossing. This book is exceptional and deserves a wide readership. It is the type of Western novel that is exemplary American literature.

If you're considering reading "Butcher's Crossing", chances are you might have already read and enjoyed "Stoner" and/or "Augustus" by the same author, John Williams. Such was the case for me. It was the awesome writing in those two books that recommended Williams' story of 1870s western America, though "...Crossing" could have been written by a completely different author for all the literary and historic distance from First Century BC Rome and mid 20th Century America. What they all have in common is the author's remarkable eye for character, background and, above all, the perfect use of language to evoke place and mood. "Butcher's Crossing" is, on one level, the pursuit of "the meaning of life" by a young man (Will Andrews) from a comfortable if repressed East Coast background. Andrews, like many an American of the period, is drawn to the idea of finding a more interesting reality and future on the Western frontier. His adventure begins with arrival in the Kansas outback village of Butcher's Crossing. The small tent settlement lives off the hunting of buffalo on the near by plains. Andrews falls in with an experienced hunter who takes him and two companions to a mountainous area of the Colorado Territory where there are still large herds of "unharvested" buffalo and where he believes that a great fortune is to be made through a mass slaughter of the animals. The bulk of the story is about what the four men encounter on the hunt and in its aftermath. This is ultimately a saga of tragedy and disappointment for three of the men, but a major shift in life path for the fourth. The narrative in this book is amazing and will not leave any reader unmoved. Author Williams' language brings the reality of each vignette into sharp relief and forces a reaction to it. The methodical killing of the buffalo described in naturalistic, graphic language is perhaps the most affecting part of the story for 21st Century sensibilities, but every conversation between characters, every step along the trail, every description of living through a mountain winter puts the reader in the moment. Wonderful book. A 4+ on the Amazon scale.

If such a thing as the Great American Novel can be said to exist, it would very likely encompass the country's 19th Century westward expansion. After all, it was this irresistible land grab - with its ruthless expulsion and genocide of native Americans, its hunting to exinction of buffalo, and its struggles against Nature in search of the better life - that defined America's cultural personality and self-image for the following 150 - 200 years. The rootless but ever-hopeful individualist, the lonely conqueror of Nature, the rugged Marlboro Man begat the robber barons and industrialists, the real estate, oil, and hedge fund tycoons, the Internet entrepreneurs, and even the self-righteous, Iraq-invading neoconservatives. Amazingly, John Williams's utterly brilliant BUTCHER'S CROSSING - perhaps, indeed, THE Great American Novel - appears to have gone largely unnoticed among the general reading public. Published in 1960, five years before the author's equally impressive STONER and 25 years before Cormac McCarthy's deservedly renowned BLOOD MERIDIAN, BUTCHER'S CROSSING encapsulates many of the American West's mythologies. Yet Williams is hardly a romantic in his interpretation. He presents the opening West as harsh and brutal, populated by socially challenged obsessives who view the land and everything in it as their private domains, seized by choice and held by force of will and gun. Williams's ostensible hero is William Andrews, fresh from three years at Harvard and seeking an adventure in the West with a childlike enthusiasm and understanding. His mind filled by a romantic, Emerson-inspired view of Nature and his pockets filled with an inheritance from his uncle, Andrews heads for the decidedly uninspired, six-building town of Butcher's Crossing, Kansas. Within a matter of days, greenhorn Will has met the local buffalo hide trader McDonald and a long-time buffalo hunter named Miller. The traditional hunting grounds in Kansas have already been depleted to the point where only small herds of a few hundred animals can be found. However, Miller had discovered a hidden mountain valley in Colorado nine years earlier teeming with buffalo and has been waiting for enough money to finance the expedition. In return for accompanying the party as an apprentice hide skinner, Andrews underwrites the hunt. Miller recruits his neurotic sidekick, the Bible-beating Charley Hoge as the wagon man and a taciturn German named Schneider as their skinner. While Miller is away purchasing the necessary supplies, Will meets a prostitute named Francine. She falls for his soft hands and not yet hardened heart, but the immature Will is frightened off by her aggressive sexuality. The bulk of BUTCHER'S CROSSING concerns the journey to find the buffalo, Miller's rediscovery of his Shangri-la valley, the hunt itself, the life-threatening storms the group endures, and finally, the difficult return trip to Butcher's Crossing to sell their hides. Along the way, Williams's book becomes a classic coming of age story, a discourse on ecology and species survival, and the story of an irrational, Ahab-like obsession that nearly ends in the men's destruction. In the end, Williams levies his own ironic form of judgment against Miller and McDonald for their repeated violations of Nature. Despite reconciling his feelings for Francine on his return to town, Andrews's future in the West is left deliberately uncertain. Perhaps he has finally learned to live with and respect Nature and will eventually find his rightful place. Or perhaps he, too, will be punished for his sins, forever banished to wandering the wilds alone, scarred by the real-life education he so enthusiastically sought from Miller. Throughout the book, Williams's writing is sparse and direct, unsparing in its treatment of the men's deprivations and the bloodiness of the hunt. His characters are distinctive and memorable; although we never see deeply inside them, we know them for the archetypes they are. Dialog is limited and short, as these are men of few words. The overall effect of the writing remarkably prefigures that of Cormac McCarthy without the density and compound, run-on sentences, resulting in a highly readable and deeply engaging page turner. Fans of McCarthy will certainly appreciate Williams's accomplishment here, but I believe BUTCHER'S CROSSING merits a much wider audience. This is a magnificent but regrettably under-recognized work of literature that feels timeless in its writing style and enduring in its themes.

While Butcher’s Crossing is often praised as a literary Western classic, I found it slower and less engaging than expected. The writing is undeniably strong, and the descriptions of the frontier are vivid, but the pacing drags for long stretches — especially during the buffalo hunt. The characters felt distant, making it hard to connect emotionally with their struggles. The bleak tone, while intentional, can feel repetitive and heavy. It’s a thoughtful novel with clear thematic depth, but it didn’t fully hold my attention. Worth reading for its prose, but not a favorite for me.

"Mr. McDonald," Andrews said quietly, "I appreciate what you're trying to do for me. But I want to try to explain something to you. I came out here -- " He paused and let his gaze go past McDonald, away from the town, beyond the ridge of earth that he imagined was the river bank, to the flat yellowish green land that faded into the horizon westward. He tried to shape in his mind what he had to say to McDonald. It was a feeling; it was an urge that he had to speak. But whatever he spoke he knew would be but another name for the wildness that he sought. It was a freedom and goodness, a hope and a vigor that he perceived to underlie all the familiar things of his life, which were not free or good or hopeful or vigorous. What he sought was the source and preserver of his world, a world which seemed to turn ever in fear away from its source, rather than search it out, as the prairie grass around him sent down its fibered roots into the rich dark dampness, the Wildness, and thereby renewed itself, year after year." In Miller, Andrews sees this chance to seek the "source and preserver of his world"...the good, truth and beauty found only in nature...his calling for this 'Emersonian Transcendentalism'. Miller is over-confident in his plan for this kill and the riches it will surely reap. Miller's hubris is reminiscent of a Greek Tragedy... in that the greed motivating the plot is also the greed which consumes the men...and ultimately and a bit ironically leads to the plot's dissolution. This novel affected me and moved me by the way it inched forward into a monomania of disregard for the very truth and beauty in nature that it purported to seek. The killing moved into a numbing process where Will's transformation was disturbing...like the automaton of which he speaks. "The stench of the buffalo, the feel of the warm meat on his hands, and the sight of clotted blood came to have less and less impact upon his senses. Shortly he came to the task of skinning almost like an automaton, hardly aware of what he did as he sucked the hide from an inert beast and pegged it to the ground. He was able to ride through a mass of skinned buffalo covered black with feeding insects, and hardly be aware of the stench that rose in the heat from the rotting flesh." I'm still digesting the layers and the rich evocative writing...it is 'as if' the lushness of the valley slowly dissipates in the frenzied slaughter of these gentle beasts.... along with minds and senses of the crazed men. Early Revisionist Western? How the West was won?...you decide! But if you grew up on Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, John Wayne, and the Hollywood Westerns, this book will open a fresh, wider, truer, and much bloodier valley!

Two of my interests crossed paths and led me to read John Williams' novel, "Butcher's Crossing" (1960). First, I have become interested in literary American westerns, such as those written by A.B. Guthrie including "The Big Sky". Second, I became interested in Williams (1922 -- 1994) through reading his novel "Stoner". These interests in westerns and in Williams coalesced in "Butcher's Crossing". "Butcher's Crossing" is a dark, thoughtful work framed by quotations from Emerson and Melville. The quotations offer competing views of nature and of optimism. The book is set in Butcher's Crossing, a small crossroads in Kansas in the early 1870s. The primary character, Will Andrews, 23, is the son of a well-to-do teacher and Unitarian minister. He has dropped out of Harvard and come west in search of what he perceives as "a freedom and a goodness, a hope and a vigor that he perceived to underlie all the familiar things of his life, which were not free or good or hopeful or vigorous." The other primary character is Miller, whom Andrews meets early in his stay. Miller is a tough, hardened buffalo hunter who in the novel is the Ahab to Andrews' Ishmael. Andrews agrees to finance and participate in a buffalo hunt in the wilds of Colorado where Miller has observed large, pristine herds. Two other men participate in the hunt, Miller's friend, Charley Hoge, who has lost a hand, reads the Bible, and is alcoholic and Schneider, profane and cantankerous, but a hunter and expert skinner of buffalo. Two other important characters remain in Butcher's Crossing: Francine, a prostitute, and McDonald, a dealer in hides who had briefly known Andrews' father in Boston and participated in his Unitarian meetings. The story is about the buffalo hunt and its impact, primarily on Andrews. Williams describes the long, dangerous journey to the mountains to find a large, unexploited herd. The center of the book describes in great detail the hunt of the buffalo and the wanton killing led by Miller. Virtually the entire herd is decimated with their bones and carcasses left to rot. The description is raw, harsh, and unforgettable. Williams describes how the four men get caught in a blizzard through their greed and killing and how, under Miller's leadership, they survive a furious winter. Then, the men return to a changed and near-deserted Butcher's Crossing with their labor, risk, and killing going for naught. The callow Andrews has been changed and has a brief, intense relationship with Francine, whom he had spurned before the hunt. The other men meet harsh fates as well through the hunt and the bitter winter and aftermath. This is a darkly pessimistic novel about nature, about greed and lust, and about the dream and danger of searching to find oneself. Andrews comes to see the despair underlying his own life and the lives of those whom he meets in Butcher's Crossing. Near the end of the book, he reflects on his own decision to go west and on his short relationship with Francine: "He could hardly recall, now, the passion that had drawn him to this room and this flesh, as if by a subtle magnetism; nor could he recall the force of that other passion which had impelled him halfway across a continent into a wilderness where he had dreamed he could find, as in a vision, his unalterable self. Almost without regret, he could admit now the vanity from which those passions had sprung." Williams' writing is taut, descriptive, and largely understated. His novel takes some mostly formulaic western scenes and characters and transforms them through his writing and his insight. I don't find a tone of satire or mockery of the standard, formulaic western. Rather, Williams shows how this sometimes hackneyed form can have life and vision. With its questioning of what it sees as the superficial vision of the traditional type of western story, the book works to restate the power of the genre when used creatively. This book is multi-layered, dense, beautiful, and troubling. It rewarded the crossing of my interests in Williams and in the American western and made me want to think more about both. Robin Friedman

"Butcher's Crossing" is Louis L'Amour on literary steroids. It's an epic, hearty, thick-skinned Western in some ways. It's a coming-of-age character portrait in others. The challenges get rough and they get rougher. The weather is tough and then it gets tougher. Hope is dashed, dreams are illusory. Who should you trust? Is man in charge--or nature? I'm not giving anything away. The foreboding in "Butcher's Crossing" is palpable. The themes are telegraphed and it's not hard to discern the bad apples from the good true souls. My sole caution to would-be readers is that this was written in 1960. The style is mid-century "classic," full-sentence description. There are comparisons out there to Cormac McCarthy but it's only for the rugged Western setting, not style of prose. Williams' full-sentence descriptions, as young Will Andrews makes his way West, and then deeper into the Colorado mountains after buffalo, don't resemble McCarthy's edgy, dream-like style--at all. With Williams, every moment is clarified butter. There is no confusion about what's happening and every scene is rich. It practically wafts in on the breeze as you read. Deep in the mountains: "Andrews's sense of direction had become numbed by the swirling white vortex of snow. The faint gray-green of the pine trees had blanketed the opposing mountainsides, which had earlier guided them in the general direction of the valley's mouth, had long been shrouded from the views of all of them; beyond the horses and the figures huddled upon them, Andrews could not see any mark that showed him where they went. The same whiteness met his eyes wherever he looked; he had the sensation that, dizzily, they were circling around and around in a circle that gradually decreased, until they were spinning furiously upon a single point." There is plenty of action, yet the pace is slow. The journey from Kansas to Colorado and back is grueling, the trek up the foothills is harrowing, the buffalo slaughter is arduous (and goes on for a long chunk of the middle section of this books), and the return is told at almost the same pace. In this sense, "Butcher's Crossing" probably more accurately captures the brutal challenge of pushing horses, oxen and carts across the prairie (and up the mountains) than some Western fiction. "Butcher's Crossing" is memorable, but it's no page turner. This is the kind of novel where events accumulate to weigh on a main character and re-cast his soul. The characters are etched from the soil and fit many recognizable "types." There's the stoic and ever-optimistic Miller, who heads the buffalo hunting party. There's the sourpuss buffalo skinner Schneider, who just can't get along and feuds with Miller over directions, tactics and everything in the game plan. There's God-fearing Charlie Hoge, who drives the wagon and loves a little whiskey with his coffee. And there's heart-of-gold prostitute Francine, who takes a liking to young Will Andrews and who is there to see the new man when he returns from the grueling months away in Colorado. I read this book based on a fine profile of John Williams in the Denver weekly, Westword. The author of that article, Alan Prendergast, said it well: "Every aspect of Andrews's ordeal, from the tedium and agony of riding horseback for days across empty prairie to the mindless killing and skinning of thousands of buffalo to the struggle to survive for months in the high country, is presented in vivid, stunning detail. Yet the prose is austere and almost unbearably dispassionate, the tale told crisply and clear-eyed even as it descends into brute slaughter."

This is a gritty, grimy, get-in-your-face story that is a realistic depiction of life on the 1870s western prairie. Will Andrews is a Harvard dropout that has decided that he must find himself. On a buffalo hunt that leaves from obscure Butcher’s Crossing he enlists 3 salty western types. Miller is the man with the plan. He knows where the buffalo are still in large numbers. Schneider is the sulking skinner and Charley Hoge, the one-handed chuck wagon driver. Together they will take Will into the mountains to kill buffalo in great numbers. In the process he hopes to find himself and make a bundle of money to boot by selling hides. My main complaint about this book is my love-hate relationship with all the description. The author expertly sets the scenes. While reading about the long dry trek across the desert I was thirsty. I was chilled during the snowstorm. The problem is that Williams gets carried away with description. He just doesn’t stop. Same with Andrews’ and Miller’s inner broodings. It goes on and on. For me, the dialog was terrific. I wish there had been more. At times I also found myself wishing that something would happen. In time, I realized that lots of stuff did happen, I was just wishing for the descriptions to stop. I fought the urge to skim pages because Williams would unexpectedly thrust the reader into a worthwhile scenario. I didn’t want to miss any of that. I liked the gritty realism that the story offered very much. There was no big shoot-em-out western-ish climax. But better, a realistic action scene that makes the reader cringe finishes this very satisfying book.

kırış buruş geldi

de la littérature de l'Ouest américain et de la littérature tout court. Je suis tombée par hasard sur ce roman car je ne connaissais pas cet auteur. Si on parle avec insistance de certains auteurs américains pour le Prix Nobel comme Philip Roth ou Don DeLilo, John Williams l'aurait mérité amplement, mais, lui, est mort d'emphysème en 1994. Will Andrews, jeune homme de bonne famille de Boston quitte Harvard (Harvard College à l'époque) et débarque à Butcher's Crossing, bourgade du Kansas à la limite des immenses territoires de l'Ouest où le bison est encore (mais pour combien de temps?) roi. Il investit son argent dans une expédition vers une vallée luxuriante quasi mythique dans les montagnes du Colorado où un certain Miller, chasseur de bisons, a vu un troupeau d'au moins cinq mille têtes. Will se compare à ces explorateurs du 15ème siècle qui partent vers l'inconnu, vers leurs rêves les plus fous. Tel un chevalier des épopées du Moyen Age Will "traverse" épreuve sur épreuve avant d'atteindre son but, avec comme apothéose une "boucherie" ! L'auteur développe les grands thèmes de la littérature -- l'Homme face à la Nature, l'Homme face à son destin, le voyage initiatique, la découverte de soi, la fin de l'innocence . . . Ce que j'ai surtout aimé dans ce roman, c'est le rythme des phrases; parfois des paragraphes se déroulent devant nous en vagues successives comme l'herbe des prairies du Kansas, parfois en poésie pure comme devant le spectacle primitif et paradisiaque d'une vallée perdue et inviolée. En lisant ce roman vous aurez peut-être comme moi, le souffle coupé.

Williams reaches effortlessly into all our souls and illuminates unvoiced inner tensions and sublimities

An interesting book, I recommend it

Great book. Charles Bukowski describes hes life with a tune of sadness and glory. Like putting on slippers in the morning