Thursday, April 28, 2011

Aftermath

Did it surprise you how Bob Ford's life turned out after he killed Jesse? I suppose the stage re-enactments and dime store photos were that era's version of talk shows and TV movies.

It struck me that the descriptions of Bob after he went to Creede and opened his saloon sounded a little like Jesse. He was hot-headed and jumpy and good with a gun, a local leader and good businessman. But his arrogance and swagger was unpleasant, not charming. People loved Jesse; they hated Bob. It seemed like Bob's dream was always to be Jesse, and he could never quite get there.
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4 comments:

kc said...

I was surprised because I did not know that history at all. It's utterly fascinating, though, a great tragedy. How compelling that Bob was forced to relive that moment of the killing (the cowardice) over and over and over again — and that the bright fame he sought turned out to be such sour infamy. It's a remarkable story.

And the writing was superb, I thought.

9:13 PM, April 29, 2011
Erin said...

I agree, the writing was riveting. According to interviews with the author, he did not deviate from the historic facts, even if it might have been more convenient for the story-telling. I think he did a great job, then, of creating a page-turner out of historical records. His long description of Jesse in the first chapter had me enthralled from the beginning.

9:29 AM, May 01, 2011
kc said...

I loved that first chapter, too. I think he was great at not just giving you a sense of physical place but also at portraying the psychological atmosphere.

That loyalty to history is a really remarkable feat. It was fun to read a description of a photograph, for example, and then to look it up and see how it matched.

3:28 PM, May 03, 2011
Erin said...

I agree. Makes me interested in visiting the James sites in the KC area, although I think they have been altered quite a bit from their original state. (All that looting and whatnot.)

11:41 AM, May 05, 2011

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