I think what dragged this story down for me was the horrible narrator. He was so over the top and mellow dramatic, especially when the women were speaking, I kept expecting the organ music from the early silent films to crop up in the background. The story itself was good and I'll read the next one. But I'll read it this time and not listen to the audio version. ( )

A big classic of western literature (western as in Old West, not as in Western civilization).

I have some mixed feelings on this book. The story is very good, a suitably dramatic and epic western, with a man who has been looking for his kidnapped younger sister for many years, a Mormon woman oppressed by her brethren, rustlers, gunfights, romance, horse chases...

However, the writing didn't always work for me. It's just too wordy. The author never says something in ten words if he can say it in one hundred. The longish descriptions of the sage plains will be evocative for some readers, but they tired me out, and I would skip whole paragraphs. Same with the characters' feelings, which are described sometimes in a too exuberant manner.

However, I'm glad I persevered, because the book is not that long and in the last part the action speeds up to a very interesting conclusion. ( )

Riders of the Purple Sage is a book I might have enjoyed when I was a less mature reader, both in years and in taste. Living up to the jacket blurb claiming that "Zane Grey epitomized the mythical West that should have been", it is filled with cliched characters and a standard plot of good against evil, with good triumphant. A virtuous woman torn between the requirements of her Mormon faith and her goodwill towards her unwashed fellow man. A rich man determined to bring her to heel by putting her where a woman of the 1800s belongs. A ranch hand hounded by the townspeople because he dares to befriend the woman despite not being a member of their faith. A hardened gunfighter seeking revenge for the death of the woman he loved. A mysterious outlaw, the Masked Rider, who terrorizes all who interfere with his cattle rustling. All crossing paths in a small town in Utah where law comes from the barrel of a smoking gun.

Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey's best known novel, is an easy, predictable read that provides a satisfying story if read strictly as entertainment. ( )

Just a little too melodramatic for me. But I can see why it's a classic. DNF

I have never read Zane Grey and didn't know what to expect from Riders of the Purple Sage. I was surprised when the villains were the Mormon elders who are working to "break" a woman who refuses to marry again and give her up ranch. She is saved by an unlikely hero. I enjoyed Grey's sprawling story and descriptions of the Utah/Arizona border. ( )