The Man of the Desert

This book was fascinating. A man leaves his home to go out west to minister to the lawless men and Indians of the West. A rich girl and her father and brother are out horseback riding. The girl's horse runs away with her, and she is utterly lost. The man of the dessert does everything in his power to find her, and finally does. During the long ride back to her father's car, they get to know each other well. She feels unworthy of him, even though she has fallen in love with him, because he has such a pure relationship with his Savior. She goes back home and strives to know Christ better. It is a beautiful story and one I highly enjoyed.

Grace Livingston Hill is my guilty pleasure...This is one of my favorites!

This is not great literature. You cannot think about it at all without everything falling apart. The hero is impossibly perfect. The plot is driven by coincidence on top of coincidence. The heroine's character flaws are entirely due to her upbringing, she overcomes them all by the end of the book, and even the hero's horse thinks she's unbelievably wonderful. It's preachy. It is not free of GLH's social snobbery -- while on the one hand Hill clearly sees all human beings as equal before God, OTOH she isn't above calling various Indian tribes primitive, or people of the servant class simple. One of her Indian characters is clearly a strong and reliable thinking man, but she makes him talk like Tonto.<br /><br />But as a child, Tonto was my hero, and I didn't mind that both he and the Lone Ranger were impossibly perfect human beings (barring Tonto's language skills). Maybe I wasn't a child, the first time I read this, but I wasn't much more than a teenager, and I loved it. Still love it. It's short enough that GLH doesn't lose sight of her original vision; it's got a lot of Hill's domestic touches; and some of the descriptive passages are just magic. And I don't even like the kind of scenery she's describing. Still works for me.

My favorite of the Grace Livingston Hill books, Oh for a man with that strength of character and faith in God.

A bit different from the others, it's almost a western. Loved it.

<strong>Loved it!</strong><br /><br />It is a bit different from others by her that I've read but good nonetheless. I enjoyed it very much.

This book was somewhere between a three and a four for me. There were many delightful scenes, but there were some other scenes that were "cringy" or "cringe-worthy," as my teens would say. I was tempted to rate it a 4 anyway, but nope, those cringy scenes are important enough not to.<br /><br />My first impression of this book was that it reminded me of Zane Grey's "The Man of the Forest" - falling in love in the wild vastness of nature, a mostly-solitary man, a woman who has no idea what she's doing in the wilderness. "The Man of the Forest" was more of a fun romp through the wilderness, but "The Man of the Desert" had better theology - excepting the cringy parts.<br /><br />I liked how thoroughly Christianity changed the characters' dispositions, that even with the bitter, painful things of life, they became sweet-natured and trusting in God. It's both a challenge to me - and I can't help but think cynically of my mom saying that Grace Livingston Hill's characters are all either too good or too bad. (My mom, however, has a very sweet nature. She's one of the ones whom faith and hardship have made sweeter.) It just seems that, in my life presently, there are so many older believers who have not gotten sweeter with time, but are bitter, cynical, prickly, gullible, disappointed, disillusioned, frustrated, even hard-hearted, especially in the realm of politics, but not limited to that. That is to say, they are hurting.<br /><br />I probably shouldn't say that. I do know plenty of sweet older folks, too, even if we have to look for them. It's just an era in which it's hard not to be bitter and cynical, but probably people of every generation face that in some form or another. It's not really an excuse for me. I suppose I am just tired of cranky people, and becoming cranky myself because I am tired of them.<br /><br />I loved how intimately and trustingly these characters prayed with God, and that is a challenge to me as well.<br /><br />As to the cringy parts of this book, I find myself at a loss for words to describe them. I don't want to lessen them or belittle those who would be hurt by them, but I don't want to deny the richness in the rest of the story or have that goodness overshadowed by the bad. It's a fine line to walk and I'm not sure I'm up to the challenge. There were some descriptions which today's readers would find racist. Is there a way to keep the good but not the bad?<br /><br />At one point, Hazel wondered why it was so important for the missionary to come to tell these people all that he had, "yet she saw in this man's face that it did matter, infinitely. To him it mattered more than anything else."<br /><br />There are a multitude of opinions on missionaries and missionary trips, whether they be to bring humanitarian aid (clean water or food), or thoughtless harm to a community (where people become dependent upon such aid rather than developing their own economies, where children become too attached to short-term missionaries who inevitably leave, whether missionaries bring disease to people groups who haven't built up an immunity, whether people go to feel good about themselves going rather than to truly help those in need - and each arriving group ends up painting the same fence over again - and then there's the issue of further propagating the image of the "white savior", that is, of white people helping other races, portrayed as unable to help themselves.) <br /><br />But beyond all those other disputes, some of which are serious charges, the real issue of missionaries is whether they convey a message that's worth all of that and worth all the contentions and worth all of the sacrifice to come and to give and to do. And I think that there is. It depends on whether or not Christianity is true. If not, then perhaps only humanitarian aid is worthwhile. But if Christianity is true, then all of the hardship and loss and sacrifice and hard work are also worthwhile if someone who didn't know Jesus could come to know Him in such a way that his sins are forgiven and that heaven, eventually, will be his home. That makes an eternal difference, not just a difference for this lifetime.<br /><br />"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." - 2 Corinthians 4:17-18, NIV<br /><br />And, as with most of the romance genre, things develop much too quickly. Hazel and John really haven't had much time together, outside of a crisis, to know whether they truly get along and even whether they truly loved each other or whether it was adrenalin. (I read recently in Daniel Gilbert's "Stumbling on Happiness" that adrenalin can be confused with love, that, for some odd reason, people are more likely to think they are in love whenever they are at the edge of a literal precipice. They misread their rise in heart rate as arousal when really it's just fear of falling.)<br /><br />Also, it was a little cringy in how helpless Hazel was, and in also that she was laughing at Amelia Ellen for the same helpless, overwhelmed feeling later on.<br /><br />Favorite quotes:<br /><br />"And sometimes, if it weren't for mother's letters, it would seem a long way from home."<br /><br />"But he was a man of marked self-control." So few people today are.<br /><br />"It was always her habit in any emergency to pray for Peter Burley." I loved that. I can identify with that. Sometimes I find it easier to pray for others than I can for myself or my immediate situation, until I calm down.<br /><br />"So, when Brownleigh wished above all to be alone with his God and his sorrow, he had to lay aside his own bitter grief and console these childish people for their griefs. And in doing so he was comforted." Well, this would've been one of my favorite quotes, except for the word "childish" in there. They weren't being childish, just different. But yes, there is the longing to talk things over with God, and sometimes there is the comfort in comforting others.<br /><br />"His future stretched out before his mind as endless and desolate as his desert. For now he couldn't see his beloved work and joy in serving - only himself alone, forsaken by all love, walking a sorrowful path apart. A great weakness, like a spirit in despair, surged over him." Well, obviously, that wasn't the end of the story, and things did change for him, but I liked that Grace Livingston Hill put such deep sorrow and bereavement in her works, rather than denying them. And yes, sometimes even such deep feelings of grief do eventually dissipate, at least somewhat.

I got this book a while ago - I believe it was free. I knew it was an "older classic" and classified as a Christian romance. It was written in 1914 and the thing is, i really liked it. About a missionary in the Arizona desert and a wealthy young woman who winds up on a runaway horse, lost in the desert and it is the missionary who finds her and brings her back to her family. It tells the story of love, faith, unworthiness, and worthiness. Love never changes with the passage of time. I was inspired and encouraged by Hazel and John's story. I would strongly recommend this book.

<strong>Sweet story</strong><br /><br />I have read many of GLH books over the years, and this is one of her best. She was a true pioneer of Christian fiction that gives a clear Gospel message. I met a lady who came to trust Christ as Savior through reading one of her books.

I read it a long time ago, so I can't remember how well I liked it, but I think most of GLH's books were okay, not great (though I used to like most of them a lot).