Hey, its been a couple years since I read Hombre so I might be wrong here, but did anybody else notice what seemed to be the Christ-symbolism? At one point in the book, Hombre is called Tres Hombres. Three men. The trinity? And, spoiler warning, in the end he gives his life to save people who despise him.
  Also, remember the scenes in Valdez Is Coming when Bob Valdez is tied to the crossed poles and sent out to wander the wilderness. From wikipedia:

The Bible

The scapegoat was a goat that was designated “for Azazel” and driven off into the wilderness as part of the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement, that began during the Exodus with the original Tabernacle and continued through the times of the temples in Jerusalem. The rite is described in Leviticus 16.

Since this goat, carrying the sins of the people placed on it, is sent away to perish [6], the word “scapegoat” has come to mean a person, often innocent, who is blamed and punished for the sins, crimes, or sufferings of others, generally as a way of distracting attention from the real causes.

In Christian theology, the story of the scapegoat in Leviticus is interpreted as a symbolic prefiguration of the self-sacrifice of Jesus, who takes the sins of humanity on his own head, having been driven into the ‘wilderness’ outside the city by order of the high priests. (Also see John 1:29 and Hebrews Chps. 9-10)

Anybody?

wouldn’t put it past him; he is a devout christian after all.
thanks for sharing. jump into the other discussions. making one post a year, that’s some self-control.
;-D

check this one out
http://www.elmoreleonard.com/index.php?/forums/viewthread/166/#2865
follow the link there in
good catch on symbolisms in valdez
having to carry the cross in the wilderness occurs in another novel
can you find it?

Hey sorry I took so long to get back. Thanks for the replies and the link. Interesting stuff. Son Slater, I give up, you’ll have to tell me which other novel uses the cross in the wildness. Thanks.

I can think of the logical choice, has to be it. Won’t say just yet, but am also thinking of a short story in which man carries the burden a the cross and if it’s legit or not. May not necessarily be the main character.

Did The Moonshine War have a justice of the peace?
I don’t remember.

Well I haven’t read the Moonshine War yet. I’ve read the western short stories, but none of from When the Women Come out To Dance…

The symbolism of having no greater love than laying down one’s life for friends is surely there. But the violence of John Russell in the Hombre movie in the scene in the bar, when Paul Newman as John Russell (James Russell?-Djibouti) hits David Canary in the face with the butt of his rifle, and at the stgagecoach stop when he finishes off Canary and Cameron Mitchell with his rifle, and at the end when he tells Cicero Grimes (Richard Boone) he brought his dirty laundry by mistake and then the final gunbattle ensues after Grimes says, “Well now, what d’ya suppose hell is gonna look like?” and Russell says, “We all die. It’s just a question of when,” is not exactly Christlike, Christ being the guy who wasn’t anxious to be nailed to a cross, but had to give us the example of never harming anyone, even those who torture and kill him. If Christ had been a violent revolutionary, he might have hung out with Barabbas.
But the rest of the Christ symbolism in the movie came when Diane Cilento and the rest want Russell to show them the way home, and he agrees, and shoots the Mexican bandit, and Cilento asks, “Would you tell us why we keep trottin along after you?” and Russell says, “Because I can cut it, lady,” shows he is taking their burden because they asked him to, so it has an active participation role by them. And that point is made again when Russell challenges all of them to take the money down and free Mrs. Faver (Barbara Rush), and Cilento steps up and says she will do it, though Russell has warned the bandits will kill her, and she says, “All I want from you is your knife,” and he replies, “You want a lot more than that from me,” and holds out his hand and she gives him the money back, it is unclear whether he is doing it just for her, because of their mutual attraction, or because as their leader he figures he had the best chance of taking on the bad guys than the rest of them because he is a good hand with a gun. But that gun battle is also an archetype of Jesus being the Saviour and taking on the devil, in person. Jesus may appear to be the loser at the cross, but he is the winner later at the tomb when he rises, showing the victory over not only the cross but death itself. In that sense Russell, though he was killed, didn’t lose. But he didn’t perfectly live up to Christ’s methods—who among us does? (Other than Mary, the mother of Jesus).
I considered myself a pacifist for 40 years, but I have to tell you I’ve wavered in that, big time, after 9/11. These cowardly sneak-attack murderers, with no political or economic agenda, who kill old people, women and children just because they are Americans or live here, and hide behind religion to do it, are the lowest of the low, and if I could get bin Laden in my cross hairs, he would be done.

forget paul newman
forget jesus mary god almighty
forget nietzsche & the ubermench
look to the spirit of true authority in the world
knowing something about something and minding your own business
there is a real effort here to deal with reality the way things are without rationalization
friends are to be supported, defended protected while enemies ignored or resisted as needed
for a truer barometer of leonardian morality read anything by ivan illich where the deconstruction of human endeavour
deals with all things relative to evolution growth and survival, obvious in many ways yet elusive counterproductive & frustrating
john russel is the genius of the american west faced with its own demise being true to itself
look at kirby fry’s adventure in law at randado or valdez’s for a more christlike figuration

Well you surely can forget Jesus, Mary, God or whoever you want to, and can worship knowledge and detatchment. Pluralist America has room for you.
But Paul Newman as John Russell is hardly the archetype of the American West; he was a white boy raised for a time by Indians who was “rescued” by a white man and educated white, but left white society to return to the White Mountain Apache and become a member of its police on a reservation. At heart this is cops and robbers, which Elmore updated in his later novels. Russell couldn’t stand bullies and injustice and didn’t trust whites, and you see that in his behavior throughout. What isn’t clear is why he left the Indians, though you can assume it was economic since the Indians were being virtually starved to death on the reservation by the poor treatment by the federal government and the corruption-squared by Dr. Faver, who was the Indian agent and a thief. Anyhow, it was Russell’s interaction with white society once again, as he went to claim what his adopted white father had left him at his death, and its wild West bandits that did him in. The point is he fought oppression and injustice rather than acquiescing to it, thus the moniker Hombre, as he would rather die standing up for himself and others as a man than dying as someone’s slave or puppet. What is so impressive about him was his directness, honesty, toughness, courage, decisiveness, fearlessness and smarts, and it would have been so if this story were set in the wild West, Timbuktu or New Zealand—the story is universal. When Diane Cilento says it wouldn’t bother her if he had to walk all the way to Bisby, Russell replied, “It wouldn’t bother me either, lady,” and you just know he meant it.
If it bothers you that others see parallels between his behavior and Christian morality about laying down one’s life for his friends, you can ignore it.

son slater - 04 December 2010 02:34 PM

john russel is the genius of the american west
faced with its own demise being true to itself
look at kirby fry’s adventure in law at randado
or valdez’s for a more christlike figuration

Paul Newman as John Russell is hardly
the archetype of the American West [quoth you]

I struggle with the personification of character
It is not I who forgets jesus mother and god
not about worship at all, Paul Newman, ok
this is not history but morality, first
he could have said something
in the stage office
but he didn’t
just not his
bidness,
pluralist is right, god boy, lots of room
yet somehow it is too cheaply bought
too formulaic even to consider
political rhetoric as justice
thus preventing focus
what it’s all about
what needs do
how it’s done
chapter &
verse
merry christmas
peace love

Happy New Year, Son. Some style you got—sort of cryptic meets poetic meets e e cummings.
Russell in the stage office said, “If it’s OK with you, lady, I didn’t feel like bleeding for him. And even if it isn’t OK with you.”
The guy he didn’t help was a soldier, and guys like him had executed the orders of the white racist government that had so savaged his
White Mountain Apaches and were still doing it. Russell later said white men call themselves Christians but he knows them and doesn’t trust them.
Anyway, science boy, find as many astrophysicists as you can, all of whom can tell you measurements, quantities, time, etc. of the Big Bang, which occurred about 13.5 billion years ago, and ask them just what touched off the Big Bang, why and how. Their scientific pronouncements on that will produce a silence beyond deafening.
Point is science needs philosophy/theology/religion/ethics/morals as much as all of those need science. But each man, woman on earth has to find his, her own way to the truth and appropriate behavior. Good luck on your journey.
Peace and love, indeed.

back to the heart of all questions asked and answered
what you hear as deafening silence is the result
eons practice refined harmonies of thought
you should know by heart now the song
sing it with pleasure giving over pain
all the whining drowned in sighs
jama russell and john russell
beyond race and politics
philosophic lessons
a heart’s desire
most carefully
chosen

I have my crack team of lilnguistic analysis experts working feverishly to translate that from “son slater speech” to English. I’ll get back to you ...

you can blame my inability to explain clearly on me
you don’t have to hire those guys to translate
for you acceptance is primal don’t argue
for you to actually get what you want
don’t trust what anyone else says
you know what you know dot
will you let it be enough?
good to know, right?
eh! listen johnOB
time has come
look back
wave
!

How’d you like to be able to write like this with such brilliance yet conciseness, son:

All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.
—James Thurber

Anyway, you may be talking about the deification of self-expression and self-sufficiency. Not sure.
Maybe in our post-Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas world, our post-Hegelian phenomenological, existential, godisdead world, the question “What is true?” is indeed passe.
But not for me (old school?). And so, billions seem to think the questions they feel must have answers: Who am I? Why am I here? Why is here here? What or who put it here? Where are we going? Do we have a future beyond the grave? And like that.
If the universe is benevolent, why would we have all those questions begging for answers? What is the truth? It stands to reason if the whole shooting match is benevolent, there would be a way to get answers to all those questions—why would a benevolent universe or God, dare I invoke that name, plant all that in us and stonewall us as to the answers?
Unless He is there, and He didn’t stiff us.
Now, a lot of people say Jesus of Nazareth was a holy man, a teacher, a preacher, a prophet, a moral and spiritual leader, a role model, but he was not God. What do I say, son?
I say either he is the guy/God with the answers, or he is full of crap, a liar of immense proportion which does not make Him a holy moral teacher, but the all-time champ charlatan.
Because he said he was God. Then he laid it all out, who we are, where we are going, what to do, the broad strokes being love God with your whole heart, mind, soul, strength; love your neighbor as yourself (to love is to serve); and he even made that easier, combining the two: Whatever you do to even the least of my brothers, you do to me.
But he knows we need payoff. He knows us. Asked how to pray, he gave them the Our Father. In the first 24 words of that “perfect prayer” alone, he mentions heaven three times. He knows what we are thinking: Am I going to be all right—not just today but in perpetuity? And he assures we are.
Is He God and all that true? You tell me.
You don’t have to rely on just yourself, son. After all, you always got me.

ps—Deborah Kara Unger is a good actress. You thinking Dara?

more conciseness
concisely
bright
here it is
humans speak of the deity
confusing themselves
normal questions
properly asked
answered
easily
live long happy
ask the question listen to the answer
keep asking open to answer
if it makes you feel better
to be like as god
responsible
each
in a forum such as this
dutch has to rule
I look to sister
lucy leper
the good news
the word
a gun
all for fun
technology
transcendence
peace