Butcher's Crossing by John Williams
Jun. 22nd, 2025 07:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
m_oonmoonI have not stopped thinking about this book ever since I finished this about a week ago. John Williams is more famous for Stoner but I think I like Butcher's Crossing more. I immediately felt the need to read Williams' other book, Augustus and in the introduction to this book, Mendelsohn says that,
In Butcher's Crossing, the protagonist, Will Andrews, leaves Harvard to get to know the country. He travels to Butcher's Crossing and was introduced to Miller . At the time the book is set, Andrews is a little late to the hunt. There are very few buffalo left, their population drastically reduced by thoughtless hunting. However, Miller claims that he knows of a place which he believes is untouched by other hunters and he can take Andrews there if he agrees to finance the hunt and let Miller call the shots. Andrews agrees and the story takes us with their crew of four people as they embark on a seemingly futile journey.
It's incomprehensible how these men can stomach what they do. The slaughter seems borne out of machismo rather than any actual need for the buffalo hide. What does Andrews hope to gain from this experience? Was anything like he ever expected? There is a pervading sense of emptiness in the novel, from the characters who seek fulfillment but cannot attain it, and from the whole situation which feels hopeless and meaningless. As a reader, you are torn between awaiting for something bad to happen and wanting to see their journey through.
By the end of the novel, Andrews remain just as much a stranger to us as when he started. He does not know himself and his experience has not wiped away his emptiness. Even Andrews himself does not recognize who he is because despite going out of his way to understand the country, he didn't really attempt to get to know it, much less the creatures that roam it.
Butcher's Crossing gives one with so much to think about. Williams' writing cuts out anything superfluous and it feels like every line bears weight. I am excited to read Augustus next.
All of Williams' work is preoccupied by the way in which, whatever our characters may be, the lives we end up with are the often unexpected products of the friction between us and the world itself. [...]
[...] the friction between "force of person" and "accident of fate" becomes, more often than not, erosion: a process that can blur the image we had of who we are, revealing in its place a stranger."
In Butcher's Crossing, the protagonist, Will Andrews, leaves Harvard to get to know the country. He travels to Butcher's Crossing and was introduced to Miller . At the time the book is set, Andrews is a little late to the hunt. There are very few buffalo left, their population drastically reduced by thoughtless hunting. However, Miller claims that he knows of a place which he believes is untouched by other hunters and he can take Andrews there if he agrees to finance the hunt and let Miller call the shots. Andrews agrees and the story takes us with their crew of four people as they embark on a seemingly futile journey.
It's incomprehensible how these men can stomach what they do. The slaughter seems borne out of machismo rather than any actual need for the buffalo hide. What does Andrews hope to gain from this experience? Was anything like he ever expected? There is a pervading sense of emptiness in the novel, from the characters who seek fulfillment but cannot attain it, and from the whole situation which feels hopeless and meaningless. As a reader, you are torn between awaiting for something bad to happen and wanting to see their journey through.
By the end of the novel, Andrews remain just as much a stranger to us as when he started. He does not know himself and his experience has not wiped away his emptiness. Even Andrews himself does not recognize who he is because despite going out of his way to understand the country, he didn't really attempt to get to know it, much less the creatures that roam it.
It seemed to him that he had not really thought of the buffalo before. He had skinned them by the hundreds, he had killed a few; he had eaten of their flesh, he had smelled their stench, he had been immersed in their blood, but he had not thought of them before as he was thinking of them now.
Butcher's Crossing gives one with so much to think about. Williams' writing cuts out anything superfluous and it feels like every line bears weight. I am excited to read Augustus next.