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Critical Reception Section

The reception of Butcher's Crossing, though somewhat mixed, is predominantly positive.

Positive Reception

Author and Pulitzer Prize nominee Oakley Hall called Butcher's Crossing "the finest western ever written." Adam Foulds, a writer for The Spectator magazine, agrees, writing, "The novel culminates beautifully in action and stingingly in thought." A writer for The Guardian, Nicholas Lezard, found himself especially intrigued by Williams' ability to focus on events that drive the story. He writes:

"Williams, in reducing the elements of his story to nothing more than close attention to events, has produced something timeless and great. And in its pitiless depiction of men reduced to the most basic and extreme of situations--thirst, cold, heat, exhaustion, isolation, not to mention the undesirability of each other's company--this book very nicely fits into the contemporary vogue for survival-manual entertainment."

Mixed Reception

Waggish calls Butcher's Crossing "the most flawed, the most peculiar, and the most exuberant of Williams' three mature novels." It also comments on Williams' writing in Butcher's Crossing as compared to his two other novels, saying, "Williams' writing is a little too lush and artful in Butcher's Crossing, lacking the architectural precision of the later two novels. He is still a wonderful writer, but one is more conscious of him making an effort." Archie Bland, a writer for Independent magazine agrees with this, saying that parts of Butcher's Crossing, specifically the ending, don't quite hold up to his later novel Stoner.

Additional Reviews

• Mookse and Gripes Review: compares the novel and the character Miller to Moby Dick and Captain Ahab
• Express Review: calls Butcher's Crossing "a masterpiece"
• Word Riot Review: describes the important messages in Butcher's Crossing about humankind and nature

***NOTE: I went through these in the order they are listed here and only added things that were new and hadn't already been discussed in a previous article, which is why the first is the longest and the last three are shorter. This way, it is easier to keep track of which sources we are pulling information from.

Butcher's Crossing

Intro to Butcher's Crossing

Plot

After hearing a lecture by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Will Andrews, a third year student at Harvard College, leaves his studies and his father's home in Boston behind to venture west and discover himself in nature. He reaches Butcher's Crossing, Kansas and meets Miller, an experienced hunter and mountain man, who convinces Andrews to fund a buffalo hunting expedition in the Rocky Mountains. Andrews, who longs to become one with God and to have some kind of self-discovery on this trip, goes along with Miller, Miller's sidekick Charley Hoge, and a skinner named Fred Schneider. The four men are hardened by the weather, and eventually they kill numerous buffalo, which seems to cause Andrews to lose his ability to count. Later, during the winter, the men are trapped by heavy snowfalls, and they use the buffalo skins as shelter and extra blankets. When the four emerge in the spring, they seem to have lost their ability to speak as well.

Characters

• William Andrews: a third year college student who leaves behind his studies to go on a journey of self-discovery in the west
• Miller: an experienced hunter and mountain man who convinces Andrews to go on a buffalo hunting expedition
• Charley Hoge: Miller's alcoholic sidekick who often spouts Bible passages and only has one hand
• Fred Schneider: a professional buffalo skinner
• J.D. McDonald: a "hide man" in Butcher's Crossing who is an acquaintance of Andrews' father

Themes

A main theme of Butcher's Crossing is the idea of self-discovery in nature and the unexplored west, an idea which John Williams critiques.

"Andrews wants to go where no man has gone before, and though he is leaving the house in which he was born and raised, he is not yet born, nor is he yet grown. It is a story you have heard before, an ur-story, one of self-discovery, a dream sought, and a setting-out fearlessly and confidently to achieve this realization, a young man going west...and therein begins what perhaps the reader has not encountered before: John Williams' intense scrutiny of this romantic tale, this unquestioned glass of the manic energies underlying westward expansion, manifest destiny, the 'American spirit' and its projection of an individualism which could only be sought and found in the wild open spaced of the American Frontier." pg. x

John Williams also explores the nature of men in his story. He suggests that there may be something dark at the center of man's nature.

"John Williams' unflinching attention in Butcher's Crossing to the mechanical madness of human behavior suggests man at one with nature--man's nature--to be a horrifying prospect." pg. xv

Style

John Williams relies heavily on irony in his story.

"Irony in Butcher's Crossing is pervasive, but it is of the stinging variety, and not so very funny." pg. x

Background

Butcher's Crossing was written during the very beginning of America's involvement with Vietnam. Michelle Latiolais (the author of this piece) finds this to be of note because, like the massive buffalo hunt that takes place in the story, the Vietnam War led to an extreme amount of bloodshed that, according to Latiolais, was caused by Americans.

Publication History

The novel belongs to the western genre, and it was originally published in 1960. In 2007 it was published by New York Review Books Classics with an introduction by Michelle Latiolais.

Reception

Author and Pulitzer Prize nominee Oakley Hall called Butcher's Crossing "the finest western ever written" (pg. xv).

Waggish

Plot

At some point before heading out on the journey with Miller and the others, Andrews has a brief fling with a prostitute named Francine.

In addition to the snow almost killing them during the winter, the men also almost die of thirst before the buffalo massacre begins.

When it comes to killing the buffalo, at one point Andrews is so sickened that he has to turn away.

Characters

• Francine: described as a "whore-with-a-heart-of-gold" (pg. 1)

Themes

One "fundamental stoicism in Williams' work," according to the review, is that "the hell comes from without, not from within. Events, not ennui, shape character" (pg. 4). Most of the miseries that the four men experience on their journey are caused by nature and being in the wilderness, not by something inside of themselves.

The "heart of the book," according to the review, is that Andrews changes from the beginning to the end, although not in the way he intended to change. It is also mentioned that the buffalo hunt drove Miller to nihilism, which could be another possible theme (pg. 5).

Style

The review briefly mentions the overall writing style of John Williams in the novel, stating that moments of introspection are relatively rare, while "extensive and careful description is more common" (pg. 3). Williams also "resists any broad judgments of character" (pg. 3).

Publication History

This review describes Butcher's Crossing as a Bildungsroman, or a coming of age story (pg. 1)

Reception

This review calls Butcher's Crossing "the most flawed, the most peculiar, and the most exuberant of Williams' three mature novels" (pg. 1).

It also comments on Williams' writing in Butcher's Crossing as compared to his two other novels.

"Williams' writing is a little too lush and artful in Butcher's Crossing, lacking the architectural precision of the later two novels. He is still a wonderful writer, but one is more conscious of him making an effort." pg. 5

The Spectator Review

Plot

Will Andrews wants to become one with nature, but "he pursues this impulse on a buffalo hunt in the Colorado Rockies, where experiences of hardship and violence are so prolonged and extreme as to make all such thoughts seem vaporous." pg. 1

Background

Williams prefaced Butcher's Crossing with two epigraphs, one from Emerson's "Nature" and one from Melville's The Confidence Man in order to set the novel "firmly in American tradition." pg. 1

Publication History

Vintage republished the novel in 2014.

Reception

Adam Foulds, a writer for The Spectator magazine, writes, "The novel culminates beautifully in action and stingingly in thought with the expression of the only philosophical consolation it has to offer: a kind of grand stoicism in the face of an uncaring universe." pg. 2

The Guardian Review

Plot

The novel is set in Kansas and Colorado during the early 1870s.

Publication History

The novel is 326 pages long (pg. 1).

Reception

Nicholas Lezard, a writer for The Guardian, writes,

"Williams, in reducing the elements of his story to nothing more than close attention to events, has produced something timeless and great. And in its pitiless depiction of men reduced to the most basic and extreme of situations--thirst, cold, heat, exhaustion, isolation, not to mention the undesirability of each other's company--this book very nicely fits into the contemporary vogue for survival-manual entertainment." pg. 2