Unlike you, I adored Lonesome Dove from the very first page. I loved the long, slow descriptions of the ranch. And - the thing I don't think you bring out - the humor of it. A lot of the book, particularly in those opening sections, is extremely funny. The account of the Latin motto that Gus puts up, and the description of how he came to put it up - the joke runs for pages, with every new twist to the story adding another layer to it. The relationship between Gus and Woodrow is so touching partly because it is mediated through the constant banter.
It isn't a typical Western, true - it isn't Shane, or The Searchers; but it draws on those while spinning them out into a new, rich world.
But then again, I loved A Suitable Boy as well, so maybe I'm just a sucker for long, slowly elaborated novels. I always recommend Lonesome Dove without hesitation, but maybe I should alert people that it might not be to all tastes.
Lonesome Dove is novelized “manosphere” philosophy/psychology. That’s why I loved it so much. My favorite novel. The gender dynamics in each romantic relationship is just so well thought out and spot on. The other books in the series are good but not as great as this one.
On slow beginnings: isn't that a standard feature of commercial fiction as opposed to literary fiction? In literary fiction, the exciting formal elements need to be apparent right away, but, since commercial fiction relies on the thrill of narrative propulsion, the beginning can be very slow and mundane, so that the climax will be propulsive by contrast.
I'm not to familiar with Stephen King, but I believe this is one of his main tricks - the first 300 pages or so of his thick novels will be full of everyday middle class American life with hints of the eerie every forty pages or so.
A novel that does a slow beginning exceptionally well is The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - in fact, it is seriously let down by its first "exciting" chapter and only really gets good when the plot basically pauses for sixty pages.
I've taught the book a couple of times for the ways in which it represents history and historicity, and thus the slow beginning is to me rather interesting, because it's where McMurtry really shows off his chops as a guy who has looked into the historical context and knows the stories that a lot of Western myth-making up to that point would leave out--most importantly he uses it to decenter Gus and Woodrow as agents of American civilization, moral exemplars, etc. But it's a great book by any standard, and as you say as it gains momentum it really becomes something.
I love Lonesome Dove so much. I read it last summer going into my final year of college, and it defined my summer. I read it after watching 1883 on Paramount+ to discover Taylor Sheridan completely ripped the novel off for his series. The characters felt so real to me, and I agree it really takes off once the cattle drive begins. One day, I’ll reread it, but I know I cannot forget it. I read an introduction from McMurty that stated the novel is about filiety. I also read about McMurty that if he was talking to someone and wasn’t writing, he was thinking about when he could get back to writing. By the way, when Michael begins to fall in love with Holly on The Office, he tells us she’s read Lonesome Dove eight times lol. <3 ty for the read! and i need to read the other Westerners you’ve recommended.
I listened to Lonesome Dove (on many, many, many cassette tapes) the first year I lived in Wyoming, and then, at the urging of many, I watched the mini-series (a thing I rarely do), and my view of the whole thing is so bound up the wonders of my time there that I'm not a fair judge of the work. But then I also don't really believe in judging books as good or bad, only as good or bad for a particular reader at a particular time. It was perfect for me then. I suspect it wouldn't be now.
That said, I think your characterizations re: the absurd and the ham-handed rewriting of Moby Dick are spot on. Neither of those prevents something from being a good story--again, in the right place and time.
Wow, I had the exact opposite reaction. I loved the first 200 pages; yeah, not much is actually happening, but the characters are interesting and McMurtry gets to show off his sense of humor. Then the rest of the book is just pointlessly grisly and all the work he's done building the characters goes to waste. It's still fun to read but by the end I didn't really feel like there was anything there.
Many people have said they enjoyed the slower part. I don't see it. It's not that I don't enjoy a character study, but there's just not enough depth to these characters to bear the scrutiny that the book places on them in the first 200 pages. Gus is chatty, McCall is silent and tough, Pea Eye is hapless, Jake Spoon is a rake—they are all one note, and the more we learn their thoughts and backstory, the thinner they seem.
I read Comanche Moon first, during a period where I was reading a lot about the Comanche, and liked that a lot because it has a lot of cool stuff about the Comanche in it.
Lonesome Dove is kind of a grind just because it relies so heavily on the gimmick of randomly killing likeable characters in stupid ways. After about the four hundredth time he does it you start to get the message. Life isn't actually just an endless parade of disaster, good things happen sometimes - feels like a cut-rate version of the grindhouse edginess of Blood Meridian. Comanche Moon takes this even further, to the point where it starts to become entertaining as a sort of horror story - probably why I liked it more.
Ms Kanakia seems to reward only plot in a novel . . . not so much setting, character, dialogue. "The beginning of the book is boring because there's no stakes, no sense of danger. Life in Lonesome Dove is relatively slow and peaceful, and the story proceeds at a rather stately pace." That is exactly correct . . . except for the "boring" part. My favorite part of LD through several readings is the first 50 pages where we get to know the characters, mostly sitting around a campfire eating beans and farting . . . and talking--gloriously interesting, humorous, and character-revealing talking.
I read LD years ago along with a bunch of other McMurty's books. I remembered none of them. Maybe that is the best epitaph for a book: It isn't memorable. Strangely enough, I do remember where I read it, or, rather, where I listened to it on audio book. Walking the dog every evening. So I guess it had some value. The dog thought so any way.
I loved Lonesome Dove at the start - the writing seems fittingly very much based on the rhythms and absurdist analogies of Mark Twain. But I've never read it straight through because the relentless sexual assault of the female characters is just way too much to take - and way too typical of 80s male writers who managed to feature rape prominently in every book they wrote.
Boring is a virtue. In fact virtue is boring. I dunno. I thought it was funny. More generally, the fact that their aims are absurd is the most realistic thing about Lonesome Dove, a book that as an Australian I see as pretty realistic. (Try The Tree of Man.) I love your pieces; knowing about good or bad writing seems to be an aim increasingly beyond my grasp the older I get so it's nice to know what's what.
One big difference between the Australian and American frontiers is that Australian settlement had no real heroic angle. It's much more like the McMurtry mode of antiheroic Western than it is like Zane Grey. There's no lone gunmen wandering around righting wrongs. Plenty of bushranger villains to work with, but not a single heroic policeman. The Yanks believed they were forging a new world - we were just sort of filling in an empty space on the map.
Hey you're right, Strange. At least that's a background. I was once in a Nichole Kidman movie about the silliness of that. (I was a horse, if you're wondering.) In the foreground, though, was what Kate Greenaway and Patrick White wrote about. Complications of criminality and actually villainous policemen, never mind High Noon. What I love about Lonesome Dove is the crafty lunacy of his generation marrying what I like about Australian writing on this with his own tradition. (Although I admit I have not read Poor Fellow My Country.)
What a wonderful, thought-provoking piece. Thank you! Regarding novels that demystify the old west brought to mind John William’s Butcher’s Crossing. I found it an amazing read. Talk about dark realism—yikes!
I read Shane per your recommendation and liked it! That being said, I think I liked Lonesome Dove better?
The thing I liked more about Lonesome Dove is the treatment of good and evil. Within the first 100-200 pages, our characters engage prostitutes, gamble, and steal the horses/cattle they intend to drive up to Montana.
They also help the two Irishmen when they don't have to, it's revealed that Gus and McCall were Texas Rangers, and they have some sort of moral code against selling Wilbarger's horses back to him (even though they probably could, as they'd been stolen).
Some of this reflects the time, but the author of Shane is a lot clearer about who the "good guys" are. Granted, some of that is because the narrator is a child. But I'm curious: is that a feature of the Western, or is it more unique to Shane?
Unlike you, I adored Lonesome Dove from the very first page. I loved the long, slow descriptions of the ranch. And - the thing I don't think you bring out - the humor of it. A lot of the book, particularly in those opening sections, is extremely funny. The account of the Latin motto that Gus puts up, and the description of how he came to put it up - the joke runs for pages, with every new twist to the story adding another layer to it. The relationship between Gus and Woodrow is so touching partly because it is mediated through the constant banter.
It isn't a typical Western, true - it isn't Shane, or The Searchers; but it draws on those while spinning them out into a new, rich world.
But then again, I loved A Suitable Boy as well, so maybe I'm just a sucker for long, slowly elaborated novels. I always recommend Lonesome Dove without hesitation, but maybe I should alert people that it might not be to all tastes.
Lonesome Dove is novelized “manosphere” philosophy/psychology. That’s why I loved it so much. My favorite novel. The gender dynamics in each romantic relationship is just so well thought out and spot on. The other books in the series are good but not as great as this one.
On slow beginnings: isn't that a standard feature of commercial fiction as opposed to literary fiction? In literary fiction, the exciting formal elements need to be apparent right away, but, since commercial fiction relies on the thrill of narrative propulsion, the beginning can be very slow and mundane, so that the climax will be propulsive by contrast.
I'm not to familiar with Stephen King, but I believe this is one of his main tricks - the first 300 pages or so of his thick novels will be full of everyday middle class American life with hints of the eerie every forty pages or so.
A novel that does a slow beginning exceptionally well is The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - in fact, it is seriously let down by its first "exciting" chapter and only really gets good when the plot basically pauses for sixty pages.
I've taught the book a couple of times for the ways in which it represents history and historicity, and thus the slow beginning is to me rather interesting, because it's where McMurtry really shows off his chops as a guy who has looked into the historical context and knows the stories that a lot of Western myth-making up to that point would leave out--most importantly he uses it to decenter Gus and Woodrow as agents of American civilization, moral exemplars, etc. But it's a great book by any standard, and as you say as it gains momentum it really becomes something.
I love Lonesome Dove so much. I read it last summer going into my final year of college, and it defined my summer. I read it after watching 1883 on Paramount+ to discover Taylor Sheridan completely ripped the novel off for his series. The characters felt so real to me, and I agree it really takes off once the cattle drive begins. One day, I’ll reread it, but I know I cannot forget it. I read an introduction from McMurty that stated the novel is about filiety. I also read about McMurty that if he was talking to someone and wasn’t writing, he was thinking about when he could get back to writing. By the way, when Michael begins to fall in love with Holly on The Office, he tells us she’s read Lonesome Dove eight times lol. <3 ty for the read! and i need to read the other Westerners you’ve recommended.
Great piece! I agree with you McMurtry does not glamorize, but neither does he demonize. he just says what is
more thoughts on the book:
https://open.substack.com/pub/thomasvondriska/p/for-ai-cowboys-the-cows-are-incidental?r=1t99e8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
I listened to Lonesome Dove (on many, many, many cassette tapes) the first year I lived in Wyoming, and then, at the urging of many, I watched the mini-series (a thing I rarely do), and my view of the whole thing is so bound up the wonders of my time there that I'm not a fair judge of the work. But then I also don't really believe in judging books as good or bad, only as good or bad for a particular reader at a particular time. It was perfect for me then. I suspect it wouldn't be now.
That said, I think your characterizations re: the absurd and the ham-handed rewriting of Moby Dick are spot on. Neither of those prevents something from being a good story--again, in the right place and time.
Wow, I had the exact opposite reaction. I loved the first 200 pages; yeah, not much is actually happening, but the characters are interesting and McMurtry gets to show off his sense of humor. Then the rest of the book is just pointlessly grisly and all the work he's done building the characters goes to waste. It's still fun to read but by the end I didn't really feel like there was anything there.
Many people have said they enjoyed the slower part. I don't see it. It's not that I don't enjoy a character study, but there's just not enough depth to these characters to bear the scrutiny that the book places on them in the first 200 pages. Gus is chatty, McCall is silent and tough, Pea Eye is hapless, Jake Spoon is a rake—they are all one note, and the more we learn their thoughts and backstory, the thinner they seem.
I read Comanche Moon first, during a period where I was reading a lot about the Comanche, and liked that a lot because it has a lot of cool stuff about the Comanche in it.
Lonesome Dove is kind of a grind just because it relies so heavily on the gimmick of randomly killing likeable characters in stupid ways. After about the four hundredth time he does it you start to get the message. Life isn't actually just an endless parade of disaster, good things happen sometimes - feels like a cut-rate version of the grindhouse edginess of Blood Meridian. Comanche Moon takes this even further, to the point where it starts to become entertaining as a sort of horror story - probably why I liked it more.
Ms Kanakia seems to reward only plot in a novel . . . not so much setting, character, dialogue. "The beginning of the book is boring because there's no stakes, no sense of danger. Life in Lonesome Dove is relatively slow and peaceful, and the story proceeds at a rather stately pace." That is exactly correct . . . except for the "boring" part. My favorite part of LD through several readings is the first 50 pages where we get to know the characters, mostly sitting around a campfire eating beans and farting . . . and talking--gloriously interesting, humorous, and character-revealing talking.
The link to The Last Samurai appears to be incorrect; it just goes to Shane again.
I read LD years ago along with a bunch of other McMurty's books. I remembered none of them. Maybe that is the best epitaph for a book: It isn't memorable. Strangely enough, I do remember where I read it, or, rather, where I listened to it on audio book. Walking the dog every evening. So I guess it had some value. The dog thought so any way.
I loved Lonesome Dove at the start - the writing seems fittingly very much based on the rhythms and absurdist analogies of Mark Twain. But I've never read it straight through because the relentless sexual assault of the female characters is just way too much to take - and way too typical of 80s male writers who managed to feature rape prominently in every book they wrote.
Boring is a virtue. In fact virtue is boring. I dunno. I thought it was funny. More generally, the fact that their aims are absurd is the most realistic thing about Lonesome Dove, a book that as an Australian I see as pretty realistic. (Try The Tree of Man.) I love your pieces; knowing about good or bad writing seems to be an aim increasingly beyond my grasp the older I get so it's nice to know what's what.
One big difference between the Australian and American frontiers is that Australian settlement had no real heroic angle. It's much more like the McMurtry mode of antiheroic Western than it is like Zane Grey. There's no lone gunmen wandering around righting wrongs. Plenty of bushranger villains to work with, but not a single heroic policeman. The Yanks believed they were forging a new world - we were just sort of filling in an empty space on the map.
Hey you're right, Strange. At least that's a background. I was once in a Nichole Kidman movie about the silliness of that. (I was a horse, if you're wondering.) In the foreground, though, was what Kate Greenaway and Patrick White wrote about. Complications of criminality and actually villainous policemen, never mind High Noon. What I love about Lonesome Dove is the crafty lunacy of his generation marrying what I like about Australian writing on this with his own tradition. (Although I admit I have not read Poor Fellow My Country.)
What a wonderful, thought-provoking piece. Thank you! Regarding novels that demystify the old west brought to mind John William’s Butcher’s Crossing. I found it an amazing read. Talk about dark realism—yikes!
I read Shane per your recommendation and liked it! That being said, I think I liked Lonesome Dove better?
The thing I liked more about Lonesome Dove is the treatment of good and evil. Within the first 100-200 pages, our characters engage prostitutes, gamble, and steal the horses/cattle they intend to drive up to Montana.
They also help the two Irishmen when they don't have to, it's revealed that Gus and McCall were Texas Rangers, and they have some sort of moral code against selling Wilbarger's horses back to him (even though they probably could, as they'd been stolen).
Some of this reflects the time, but the author of Shane is a lot clearer about who the "good guys" are. Granted, some of that is because the narrator is a child. But I'm curious: is that a feature of the Western, or is it more unique to Shane?