Tonight is my monthly meeting with my genre study group, and it should be an interesting meeting. I don't remember how the decision was made (I'll blame Ang), but we somehow agreed to read a Western for our November meeting. After weeks of procrastination I finally forced myself to sit down yesterday and read The First Fast Draw by Louis L'Amour. Better late than never, right?

My overall experience with this book was not a positive one. Initially I thought that the setting, the storyline, or the characters would be unappealing to me. Turns out I was wrong. My stumbling block with this book (and I would suspect with any other traditional Western I would try to read) was the language. I like to think of myself as a reasonably intelligent person, but Louis L'Amour is beyond me. It wasn't like the language he was using was difficult. I just couldn't understand what he was saying. The way he strung words together in a sentence was completely foreign to me. The number of times I had to go back a reread a sentence (sometimes more than once per sentence) was pathetic.

I feel incredibly embarrassed having to say this, but I don't think I'm smart enough to read a Western. Is there a genre out there that you don't feel adequate enough to read?

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