First of all, I want to thank PJ for putting Shane on the list for the first book; it was a great read. I have never been big into Western novels, but as PJ stated before, this is much more than a tale of the old West.
What I got out of the book was this message: Everyone has the potental in their lives to improve and/or redeem themselves. This was shown evident clearest in Shane himself. Though everyone in the family looked up to Shane for the qualities he posessed that they wished they could have, Shane himself, tried to redeem his shady past, and though he failed at his redeemption by "playing farmer" as he put it, he eventually did redeem himself by being the one to take out the villian.
Shane was not the only one to find an epiphaniy, so to speak; Joe, the farmer realized how to be a better man/leader/. Bob knew enough to "grow up straight" after having watched Shane. And even Chris, knew that even though he was a lesser man, had a chance to do the right thing, and offer himself to Joe after Shane left. There are other examples, but these are the ones that stuck with me the most.
again, this was a great (and surprisingly quick) read, that touched on the topics of triumph and redeemption. This is what I took away from the book.
Just my 1/50th of a dollar...
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One other note. Although Alan Ladd did a good job portraying Shane, I thought the PERFECT Shane would have been another actor in the same movie---Ben Johnson. To me, he is more like the Shane character in the book. In the movie he portrayed Chris.