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Editorial Review Product Description
THIS EDITION IS INTENDED FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. The murder of a cowboy sends a vigilante group on a frenzied hunt to track down the killer. ... Read more Customer Reviews (52) 
Loved Book.But I Hate Modern Library
I loved this book.However Modern Library manages to fully spoil the plot in the second sentence of a four sentence synopsis on the back cover.If you don't want to know aspects of the resolution that Walter Van Tilburg Clark leaves unrevealed until page 210 of a 241 page book, buy another edition - or at least avoid the cover.From now on, I will do my best to avoid anything with the Modern Library logo.
Great, Classic American Novel
I recently reread The Ox-Bow Incident after a hiatus of 30 years and was astounded by how good I found it.At the granular level of English prose, this novel is sparely, tightly, yet eloquently written.70 years after publication and I didn't find a single word that I would blue-pencil or a false emotional note that makes me wince.This book could and should be studied by readers of almost all ages (let's say 15-95) for its economy and expressiveness.
It is a gripping story, simple in narrative line yet rich and complex in moral viewpoints.The concepts of justice and action, group dynamics and individual conscience, appearance and reality, that are explored in this novel are eternal and, in this sturdy and robust version, well-preserved. The incidents develop in natural yet surprising ways and, even after finishing, you are compelled to start reading again, to see how the author accomplished his effects.The book is simultaneously highly realistic as a portrayal of how people act under the stress of uncertainty and urgency yet clear and basic, like a fable.Its strength reminds me of Antigone.
If the measure of a classic is how well it stands up to time, then this book deserves to join the ranks of the great novels in the English language.
A Thinking Man's Western
This book is definitely not in the same mold as the adventures of Louis L'Amour or Max Brand. Rather than being bombarded with lots of gun-play action, the reader is drawn into the very real drama of the machinations of mob rule and it's outcome. The author also shows how easy it is for vigilantes to draw in people by appealing to their sense of justice or their desire for excitement.
Art Croft is not, in anyway, concerned with the report of murdering rustlers but joins the posse of vigilantes simply because he has nothing better to do. Evidently, that is reason enough to join a pack of enraged fools hunt down and murder three innocent men, all the while having doubts about the justification of the act and not having the guts to say anything against it.
Other reviews, I've read, focus on the mob and it's ebb and flow of emotion. For me, I focused on Croft's inability to speak out against what was happening, although he had clearly realised the injustice of what was happening. Since the book was written in the 1940s, during World War Two, the author is stressing that the enemy of the world is not the German, but a German political party. Croft symbolises the German people's apathy towards the actions of the Nazis. Rather than speak out and, probably, end up joining the three innocent men, Croft stays silent and "looks the other way".
This book is a true classic.
I didn't appreciate it years ago
Nearly twenty-five years ago, this book was on my "required summer reading list" when I was a student transitioning from ninth grade into tenth.I vividly remember loathing the experience of slowly plowing through this book.Even the old version of the cover, with the yellow background and dangling noose, brought back the memories of spending nearly an entire summer loathing this novel.Ever since then the title held a place in my memory as the single most boring, painful reading experience of my life.
Fast forward twenty-five years, and the other day I found myself with a few spare minutes in the local library, looking over authors like Dickens, Steinbeck, and Melville, and my mind wandered back to required reading lists.I had remembered the title THE OX-BOW INCIDENT, but not the author, but after a quick search "Walter Van Tilburg Clark" flashed across the screen, and I again cringed at the recollection of that name.I went to the shelf out of morbid curiosity, and the paperback was jutting out.I picked it up, read the first page and thought, "I'm going to give this another try.There must be some reason it was on my reading list."
I read it in three days, staying up until 1:30 in the morning last night to get to the end.How can a book can go from being one of the worst reading experience of one's life to being one of the most enjoyable?I am convinced more than ever that some books should never be on required reading lists, but should rather be discovered and enjoyed when you're at a place in life where you can appreciate them.Enjoying this once-hated book so much all these years later has made me want to go back to the other books from those days and give some of them another chance.(Maybe THE JUNGLE won't be so dull now that my primary focus isn't trying to impress girls.Maybe THE GREAT GATSBY is worth another look.Will BILLY BUDD hold my interest, I wonder?)
This review says more about me than about the book, but if there is anyone out there who, like me, was forced to read classic literature before they were ready for it, don't be afraid to go back to even your most hated high school reading experience and give it one more try.THE OX-BOW INCIDENT is a great novel.There's a sentence I could never have imagined writing even one week ago.
An American classic and a classic Western
THE OX-BOW INCIDENT is a classic tale.It also is a classic Western, and because the Western is so central to American culture, THE OX-BOW INCIDENT surely is more important -- more "classic", if you will -- for Americans than for others.To be sure, at times the writing is somewhat dated, but that "flaw" is negligible.The cast of characters (at least 20) is very finely drawn, with only one (the uncouth town drunk Monty Smith) tending overly towards a stock portrayal.By and large, the psychology underlying the characters is astute.And there is some very fine writing of scenes, especially the one a quarter into the novel of the weather changing and the storm coming on.But the reason to read the novel, even if you have seen the movie, is for the story.It was powerfully presented in the movie, but is even more powerfully presented in the book.
My one and only complaint or reservation has to do with the last chapter.It is superfluous.I suppose that the two additional deaths contained in that chapter and Davies' "confession" tend to make the book more of a Greek tragedy, but that's not really necessary:this is a quintessential American tragedy, and it doesn't need any retribution or retrospective moralizing.
An aside on the subject of lynching, which is at the dramatic center of the book.Like the Western, lynching is a peculiarly American phenomenon.It is a blot on our history, but one we should remember, not repress.The best book documenting the horrors of lynching in America -- a book that should be much more widely known and circulated -- is "Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America."
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