About The Book. About The Author. Photo Credit: Diana Lynn Ossana. Larry McMurtry. Product Details. Resources and Downloads. Get a FREE ebook by joining our mailing list today! By clicking 'Sign me up' I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the privacy policy and terms of use. Must redeem within 90 days. See full terms and conditions and this month's choices. More books from this author: Larry McMurtry. See more by Larry McMurtry.
You may also like: Thriller and Mystery Staff Picks. Thank you for signing up, fellow book lover! See More Categories. Your First Name. Here is Gus about settling the West: "Why, women and children and settlers are just cannon fodder for lawyers and bankers," Augustus said.
After the Indians wipe out enough of them, you get your public outcry, and we go chouse the Indians out of the way. If they keep coming back then the Army takes over and chouses them worse. Finally the Army will manage the whip 'em down to where they can be squeezed onto some reservation, so the lawyers and bankers can come in and get civilisation started.
Every bank in Texas ought to pay us a commission for the work we done. If we hadn't done it, all the bankers would still be back in Georgia, living on poke salad and turnip greens. Just look at it from a nature standpoint. If you've got enough snakes around the place, you won't be overrun with rats and varmints. The way I see it, the Indians and the bandits have the same job to do.
Let them be and you won't constantly be having to ride around these dern settlements. I think we spent our best years fighting on the wrong side. He even lost the sense that he was a cowboy, the strongest sense he had to work with. He was just a fellow with a glass in his hand, who life had suddenly turned to mud.
During the drive, they are hit by misfortunes of Biblical proportions: one is killed after stepping in a nest of snakes in a river, another having been struck by lightning, the crew is hit with sandstorms, locust storms, and hail storms.
At one point, the surly Bolivar quits the company and they hire Po Campo later on to replace him. This is a good moment to point out the many moments of humor in the book - the rivalry between Gus and Po as the team's primary sources of entertainment was a great on-going joke. Po Campo is a Mexican character who walks beside the wagon all the way north being the closest to nature of all of them.
In the narrative, the drive continues, the destinies of Roscoe and Joe and Elmira play out against a background of the drive making it across to Montana with wonderful descriptions the great west, technical explanations of the various aspects of cattle drives, and of course just great storytelling.
I hope this review encouraged you to pick up and read this classic if you never had, or to reread it if you have. I was moved by the depth of the characters, the refusal of McMurtry to water down the violence or succumb to empty stereotypes or a Hollywood ending. While being faithful to aspects of the classic western, McMurtry surpassed the genre to create a real masterpiece of American literature that is enduring and beautiful.
I am watching the TV series again with my kids 10 and 13 and we all nearly cried at the end of the first episode. Just wish we had seen the rancher that Gus had that hilarious exchange about renting pigs with. Definitely worth seeking out the TV show. One of the rare adaptations to the small screen that came close to the perfection of the book.
This first episode ends with the cattle drive over the Nueces River and the first tragedy of many along the route. The second episode deals a lot with Blue Duck, Gus and Lorrie. I think they could have cast someone a bit more Heath Ledger-ish as Blue Duck as well as for Monkey John and Ermoke because the characters in the book were far more wicked and well-drawn. Episode two draws to a close as Gus comfort Lorrie.
We also finally meet Clara in Ogalalla. The last episode deals with, well, the end of the book and is full of beauty in Montana as well as the death of some important characters for whom my entire family was in tears.
It did not vary much from the book other than skipping the epic bull-grizzly fight and giving a slightly different final scene. Overall, it was an extraordinary TV show and was nearly a perfect reflection of the book.
Duvall and Lee Jones are absolutely splendid and there are more great lines here than in the last 7 Star Wars movies combined. View all 34 comments. Jun 17, Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing. Pulitzer Prize winner: It turned out to be so darn good I was crushed when it was over.
I recently learned another season will be returning. I just finished the first Pulitzer Prize winner: I just finished the first two seasons. I am thankful for the time spent inside this masterpiece. I can now understand why this book left a mark on the world! Special thanks to Lloyd, Alli, and Cheri View all 79 comments. Shelves: i-said , killer-prose , prize-winners , top , to-the-island , lets-get-real.
Hands Down my Favourite Book in First of all the physical; the book I see looking up at me from my coffee table.
It looks worn, well thumbed, well read, pages and cover alike, beginning to curl up, and soiled by use. Well that and all the casual I take books with me acquaintances, to the one, they all had to pick it up, look it over. It may look well rode, but it still feels soft, warm and pliant in my hand. I long to go back……. When Augustus came out on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake — not a very big one.
It had probably just been crawling around looking for shade when it ran into the pigs. They were having a fine tug-of-war with it, and its rattling days were over. The sow had it by the neck and the shoat by the tail. Pigs on the porch just made things hotter and things were already hot enough.
He stepped down into the dusty yard and walked around to the springhouse to get his jug. The sun was still high, sulled in the sky like a mule, but Augustus had a keen eye for sun, and to his eye the long light from the west had taken on an encouraging slant. And so it begins. I have read a number of different reviews; many of which discuss how long it took for them to get invested in the story.
It has been quite a journey. Make no mistake; I spent time with all of the Hat Creek Cattle Company, not just the ex-rangers, as they drove their herd out of Texas and across the Great Plains, bound for Montana. I pined with Dish, listened to the Irish sing, and the remuda nicker and whinny. I ate dust with Newt on the heels of the herd and scouted for water and crossings with Deets.
I was there for the water moccasins, the grizzlies and the cloud of grasshoppers, not to mention Blue Duck, one of the most frightening, sinister men ever ; he made the hair on the back of my neck, my arms and everywhere else stand, stock still at attention. I am just skimming the surface here, there are others with tales to tell, like July Johnson, the painfully shy sheriff from Arkansas, searching for his wife and Clara, the dark haired beauty with the scorching tongue in Nebraska, who may just sear you with her words.
But back at the fire I would curl up and listen to Gus talk, reassured by his very presence, as we have a drink, play a hand or two and prepare to bed down. Amid all the words, in all the books, on all of the pages I have ever travelled, never before have I met a man so damn finely crafted, so carefully rendered, so agonizingly authentic as Augustus McCrae. It is as though I know him for real.
I enjoy his company and even now, miss his conversation. Yes, I want to go back……….. I god, folks, seriously, what is happening here?
I do not read westerns. Fact is, were I not a member of this wonderful on line community of book lovers, chances are pretty good that I would never have read this book.
Do not make that mistake and yes, I Thank You one and all! Apr 01, Julie rated it it was amazing Shelves: worthy-of-another-read , pulitzer-prize-for-fiction-winner , i-ll-never-be-the-same , book-club , you-ll-need-a-hankie , favorite-books , westward-ho , larry-i-love-you , big-sky-montana , don-t-mess-with-texas. Looking for the Great American Novel? It's right here. Read this book before you die.
It's as simple as that. View all 49 comments. I approached Lonesome Dove with some trepidation. Investing a few weeks could have been risky The plot is full of incident and high excitement, the human stories are emotionally gripping and there is a lovely, wry humour throughout. The book is also surprisingly brutal in places.
Life is often I approached Lonesome Dove with some trepidation. Most of the book concerns a cattle drive, a great, messy, lumbering affair that acts as a backdrop to the lives and loves of the characters. As the outfit navigate their way across thousands of inhospitable miles without gps or weather forecasts, they are under constant threat from Indians, bandits and ill health - doctors are extremely rare.
There are many white knuckle adventures along the way and survival is random and unpredictable. The savage, untamed landscape also drives much of the story, as the ramshackle group traverse vast prairies, deserts and mesquite covered scrubland - through dust storms, droughts, monsoon like rain, snow and plagues of crickets. What most lingers in the memory though, are the people and their stories, the every day dramas and dreams of the Hat Creek outfit.
Their strengths and failings, wisdom and fears, become important to the reader. Like old friends I felt real affection for them An illusion or cliche certainly, but as the last lurid sunset colours the prairie and I close the book for the last time, I can definitely still hear their voices.
Lonesome Dove is an immense and wonderfully sustained piece of writing View all 92 comments. Oct 25, Julie rated it it was amazing Shelves: , western , classics , historical-fiction , paperback. A little background- I do not read westerns- with the occasional exception of western historical romances here and there over the years. When it comes to movies or television shows- again, that would be a big, fat, no- except for the movie Tombstone. However, after reading a nonfictional book about Dodge City, I thought I might finally be ready to try a fictional western.
Overwhelmingly, my Goodreads friends recommended I read this book- and one wonderful friend gave me a special nudge to get started on it sooner, rather than later- and I really, really appreciated that!! With the book weighing in at over nine-hundred pages, I thought I should wait for a time when I could read large portions of the book at a time and really digest it, because the praise heaped on this novel indicated it would demand my undivided attention.
As it turns out, life thew my family a few serious curveballs this past summer and I found myself struggling to keep up with everything, so I took a little sabbatical from social media, including Goodreads, and dove headlong into this unforgettable saga. But I will say, these characters, the landscape and scenery, and dialogue held me in thrall. I eventually became numb to it, though. The ending threw me a little at first, too. I rolled it around in my head for a while trying to make up my mind about it.
It is also one of the reasons why, after having finished the book months ago, I am just now attempting to verbalize my feelings- going back over everything that led to this crossroads of life for Call- and wondering if I was taking from the novel all that was intended. But, when you get right down to the nitty gritty, this novel has many of the elements I love in a good long saga that spans over a long period of time.
I love how the story takes readers on an adventure, giving the characters true tests of courage, and letting them develop in a way we don't see much of, these days. Naturally, these characters will endure hardships and tragedy along the way- and the reader is right there in the thick of it, experiencing every emotion up close and personal.
Although I have read my fair share of long sagas, I have never experienced a book quite like this one. The writing is rich and vibrant, but with a raw grit to it, that occasionally caused me to pause for time, but despite the pain, and anger, and sadness- there are moments of lightness, humor and laughter, and a deep poignancy makes this a novel that sticks with you for the long haul.
I will never, ever forget these characters, or the incredible storytelling in this novel! View all 60 comments. Dec 13, Fabian rated it really liked it. I enjoyed reading it, but McMurtry asks way too much. This epic tale spans thousands of miles from the Old West Texas to the as-of-yet-up-for-grabs land of Montana.
The best stuff here is the campfire philosophy of Gus, and his incredible relationship with the solemn Woodrow Call is the stuff that legend is made of. The book refuses to end though, and despite the authenticity of this far away world it is the Lord of the I enjoyed reading it, but McMurtry asks way too much. The book refuses to end though, and despite the authenticity of this far away world it is the Lord of the Rings of Western classics , I could not help but feel that the different story lines, of the outlaws, whores and fellow pioneers went nowhere.
A life lesson in everything? Would the plot have suffered if more chapters had been edited out? Perhaps the bigness is part of the whole Lonesome Dove Experience. But sometimes I did want it to end I'll admit the cowboys sometimes more than overstayed their welcome. View all 10 comments. My introduction to the fiction of Larry McMurtry is Lonesome Dove , consistently ranked as one of the best westerns whether the conversation is print or television.
Published the year of the Texas Sesquicentennial in and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction the following year, the magnum opus is a magnificent exploration of male friendship, with a dozen supporting characters of both genders who McMurtry could've dedicated a novella to and often attempts to over pages. The bantering My introduction to the fiction of Larry McMurtry is Lonesome Dove , consistently ranked as one of the best westerns whether the conversation is print or television.
The bantering becomes a beast of its own and the story padding crosses over into self-indulgence, but there's no question that there's a masterful novel in here. Somewhere along the border of Texas and Mexico in the late s lies the town of Lonesome Dove, which consists of little more than a dry saloon and a livery stable.
A two-time widower and a bachelor, respectively, the men lead Joshua Deets a black scout from their rangering days , Peaeye Parker an ex-ranger who is loyal but none too bright , Newt Dobbs the seventeen year old progeny of a prostitute and in all likelihood, Call and Bolivar an ill-tempered cook who enjoys clanging the dinner bell with a crowbar.
Having dedicated their prime to eliminating the threat of Comanche Indians or Mexican bandits to Texas, Gus and Call have spent nine years operating the Hat Creek Cattle Company, stabling horses, stealing fresh ones south of the border for sale and little else.
When he's not drinking whiskey on the porch or jawing, Augustus visits the Dry Bean for a card game or a poke with the town's sporting lady, a cool blonde named Lorena Wood who dreams of traveling to San Francisco, but needs a dependable man to get her there. Call, whose favorite pastime is sitting at the river crossing after dinner hoping he might catch a horse thief, hungers for a challenge.
Call was not a man to daydream--that was Gus's department--but then it wasn't really daydreaming he did, alone on the little bluff at night. It was just thinking back to the years when a man who presumed to stake out a Comanche trail would do well to keep his rifle cocked. Yet the fact that he had taken to thinking back annoyed him, too: he didn't want to start working over his memories, like an old man. Sometimes he would force himself to get up and walk two or three more miles up the river and back, just to get the memories out of his head.
Not until he felt alert again--felt that he could still captain if the need arose--would he return to Lonesome Dove. The next morning, Deets returns from San Antonio with Jake Spoon, a comrade from their rangering days whose love for ladies and aversion to work has led him to a career as a gambler. Jake had overstayed his welcome in Fort Smith, Arkansas when an argument with a mule skinner led to the accidental shooting of the town dentist, brother to the sheriff.
Jake beats it to Lonesome Dove for the protection of his old friends. Lorena falls under the spell of the rogue, wounding the heart of a top cowhand named Dish Boggett who's in love with her, while Call is seduced by Jake's tales of pristine territory he's scouted in Montana, wide open to a ranching operation. Receiving an order for forty horses from a cattleman driving his herd to Nebraska, the men cross into Mexico, where it's Call's mission to steal one hundred horses, buy some cattle and drive them to Montana to make their own fortune.
Their stolen ponies collide with a herd driven south by horse thieves, multiplying their holdings. Call begins hiring hands and convinces Gus--who realizes there won't be anyone left to talk to but the pigs--to come along on the journey. Jake prefers a card game to work or to keeping his promise to take Lorena to San Francisco, but Gus convinces him to accompany her and them as far as Denver, knowing it would satisfy Lorena, entertain himself and infuriate Call. Dangers on the trail include sand storms, stampedes, lightning strikes, nests of water moccasins in a swollen river and a barbarous Comanchero named Blue Duck, who abducts Lorena while Jake is off gambling.
Rescued by Gus, her recovery is complicated by the discovery that he intends to reunite with an old flame in Nebraska named Clara Allen, the love he never got over. His hapless deputy Roscoe Brown goes after them once his boss's wife Elmira Boot Johnson promptly vanishes, headed for Nebraska with buffalo hunters to find her first husband. The whiskey boat stank, and the men on it stank, but Elmira was not sorry she had taken the passage. She had a tiny little cubbyhole among the whiskey casks, with a few planks and some buffalo skins thrown over it to keep the rain out, but she spent most of her time sitting at the rear of the boat, watching the endless flow of brown water.
Some days were so hot that the air above the water shimmered and the shore become indistinct; others days a chill rain blew and she wrapped herself in one of the buffalo robes and kept fairly dry. The rain was welcome, for it discouraged the fleas. They made her sleep uneasy, but it was a small price to pay for escaping from Fort Smith. She had lived where there were fleas before, and worse things than fleas.
McMurtry's indulgences with epic storytelling and the tendency of his minor characters to behave like idiots--their misplaced devotion leading them on foolhardy quests in pursuit of lovers who want nothing more of them--seem to go hand in hand. I could have done without the July Johnson and Elmira Boot subplots. McMurtry's banter as instigated by Gus is often amusing, sometimes profound, but there's too much of it.
The overkill is balanced by the tremendous appeal of Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call, the archetypal visionary and practical man. Their company is stocked with archetypes I recognized, co-workers who were far from Texas Rangers or even cowboys but exhibited many of the same qualities as Deets, Pea or Jake Spoon.
McMurtry's facility with dialogue, character and description all brought to bear on Lonesome Dove. In addition to his terrific banter-- where men debate whether it is pigs or horses who are smarter or work through the great mysteries of women or death--I liked how devoted McMurtry was to exploring the relationship between two men. Like a marriage, Gus and Call love each other, but are getting fed up.
I saw quite a bit of myself in the character of Woodrow Call, a gift for an author to pull off. As antagonists go, Blue Duck has no equal. The period detail is spare but I felt I had an extremely clear proscenium on what the Old West was like as McMurtry took me through it. The Streets of Laredo was envisioned as a deconstruction, with cowboys facing their mortality. Twelve years later, McMurtry bought the rights to his script treatment and developed Lonesome Dove.
Sep 07, Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it Shelves: epic , united-states , historical , 20th-century , fiction , classics , literature , adventure , pulitzer-prize , love-strories. Movies adapted from McMurtry's works earned 34 Oscar nominations 13 wins. His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Lonesome Dove, was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations seven wins. The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations.
View 1 comment. My first time reading a Pulitzer winner and it is truly an epic story in every sense. A book that left me happy, sad, angry, and teary at times. Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call are two retired rangers who run a cattle company in a small town called Lonesome Dove.
Whereas Augustus is very talkative Call is the opposite, talking only when it is necessary. An odd pair to be friends. Everything is going fine and suddenly out of nowhere an old friend, Jake Spoon, makes an appearance out of nowhere.
Jake Spoon by mistake has murdered a doctor in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and is now wanted for same. How green it is and there is no one to claim it. Call gets all anxious to be to first to claim it and soon he starts his journey from Texas to Montana with some cattle.
I absolutely love the characters in the book. McMurtry has done a wonderful job in carving them. He has paid an equal attention to primary and secondary characters telling us about their backgrounds and how it effects their present.
I laughed with them, I cried with them, felt their pain, indecisiveness, sometimes I hated them for their foolishness but in the end I loved them all. Augustus McCrae, a non-stop talker, someone who can argue on a subject for countless hours. Fellow rangers worship him, though not for his talkativeness, but for he is a good man. I came to love his truthfulness and boldness. He is blunt but also helpful. Someone who keep his promises and has a good heart.
So a request to everyone who has this one on their tbr, please read it asap and if you don't have it on your tbr even then go ahead and read it for this is an awesome read. View all 13 comments. Feb 10, Robin rated it really liked it Recommended to Robin by: Julie. Shelves: american , pulitzer-prize-winner , buddy-read , I've always had a soft spot for western movies. In high school, I roped my friends into watching the ones starring this guy: Later, I swooned over the epic starring this guy: Westerns haven't featured heavily in my reading life, but Cormac McCarthy sure got my attention last year with All the Pretty Horses and No Country for Old Men.
This one, written in , and winner of the Pulitzer prize, is about a million pages long. So you gotta love westerns if you're gonna love this. Cowboys, guns, whores I've always had a soft spot for western movies. Cowboys, guns, whores, whiskey and plenty of adventure, much of it involving man vs. If that ain't your bag, you've come to the wrong saloon.
As I was saying, this book is a zillion pages long, and it takes about 17 million of them for the story to actually start. So the beginning is painfully slow. Twenty six chapters go by before the characters pick up and leave Lonesome Dove for their grand undertaking - bringing their cattle to set up a ranch in Montana. I struggled with the slow beginning, and was a little bit underwhelmed by the plain prose, until in section 3, when I came to a belated realisation of what I was actually reading: a STORY.
I know this sounds really stupid, like duh, what did I think I was reading? I guess the Pulitzer label and the 5-star constellations that abound for this book had me expecting something different.
No fancy writing, but an epic, all-American adventure, filled with characters who get under your skin in the most insidious manner. It sneaks up on you, but before you know it, you suffer when they suffer, your heart soars when they succeed, you understand and forgive when they fail. And you wish you had about an ounce of their grit - because these men and women are all tougher in their sleep than I could ever be on my toughest day.
I think I still prefer McCarthy's style though McMurtry gets just as dark and violent , because of the poetic depth in his writing, plus he gets there in far less pages. But I tip my hat to Larry McMurtry - what an accomplishment! Yee haw!! View all 76 comments. Nov 03, Dem rated it it was amazing Shelves: adventure , prize-winner , favorites , top , 5-star , recommended. What a phenomenal read, enormous and brilliant, witty and heartbreaking, a mamoth tale that touches the reader's emotions on so many levels.
This is a book that honestly did not appeal to me in the slightest but pages in I was hooked, invested, facinated and brought back in time to the Wild West of the s and the adventures of a bunch of unforgettable and unique characters. I can definatley see why this is a Pulitzer Prize Winner. The story focuses on a the relationship amount a bunch of What a phenomenal read, enormous and brilliant, witty and heartbreaking, a mamoth tale that touches the reader's emotions on so many levels.
The story focuses on a the relationship amount a bunch of Texas Rangers and takes the reader on an epic cattle drive from The Rio Grande to the highlands of Montana in the closing years of the Wild West days, A triumphant portrayal of the American West as it really was. I came across this book on a " What Should I read next" Podcast by Anne Bogel, It was reviewed on several of her shows as one of those books you just have to read.
When I realised that the novel was close to pages and was a Western I put it on the top shelf and decided it could not possibly be worth the time and commitment. However January can be a long month and when my husband was looking for a good book to read and something that would hold his interest I reached for Lomesome Dove and we decided it was to become our January reading challenge and what a remarkable surprise this book turned out to be for both of us.
Western Novels are totally out of my confort zone however I do like a challenge and this book reminded me of The Pillars of the Earth in the sense that it is an epic monumental novel, with a wonderful sense of time and place, the most amazing and extremely well formed characters that you grow to love and root for and a book that suprises the reader in so many ways. The prose is simple yet effective, the descriptions of the countryside and are vivid and transporting, uplifting and inspiring.
This is a story of heroism, love, honour, loyalty and betrayal. I gave this one 5 stars because it, educated me, made me laugh out loud, made me fall head over heels in love with Agustas McCrae and I couldn't wait to come home from work every evening to spend time with the boys and gals from Lonesome Dove.
I think there should be a list on goodreads for Books that you would never dream of reading but will end up absolutely loving I read this in paperback and also purchased an audio copy as well and I can highly recommend the audio as very well paced and narrated.
View all 55 comments. This epic novel is sprawling, contains a large cast of characters in every sense of the word and tells a story that combines the strongest elements of love that we can understand, those of a physical and intellectual nature. I cared deeply about these two men. And Gus McCrae has to be one of the most quotable characters I have come across in all of literature. It is a story of love and friendship. It does not sentimentalize either emotion, which makes it even more palpable, and true.
Larry McMurtry does a stellar job of deftly interweaving three or four plot lines into a story that eventually converges. The writing is beautiful and concise a rare combination and McMurtry does not belabor points. And in an page novel that is a mean feat! As for the characters, I can say I am a bit in love. No spoilers here, but McMurtry depicts the brutality of frontier life with a savageness that is realistic, quick, sudden, and then moved past.
The reader will be jarred from time to time. As a feat of writing McMurtry succeeds brilliantly in this book. Not one time when I picked up this text did I want to set it down because I was tired of reading it, or because the story dragged.
Rather it was because life got in the way. Work, family, chores, etc. This text is funny hysterically so at times heartbreaking, exciting, hold your breath tense…I could go on and on. Do not make that mistake. I will revisit this text because I love some of these characters, and I miss them. View all 39 comments. Mar 04, Dan Schwent rated it it was amazing Shelves: , kitten-squisher , pants-shittingly-awesome , man-tears , western.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Retired Texas Rangers Woodrow F. Will they make it alive? When I was a lad, around the time the glaciers receded and civilization began, I was enthralled with a certain TV miniseries. It was, in fact, Lonesome Dove. Though it took a couple decades, I finally made myself read the book the miniseries was based on and I've very glad I did. Lonesome Dove is an epic set in the dying days of the Old West.
On the surface, it's the story of two men entering old age and going on one last adventure. Digging a little deeper, it's a story about friendship, loyalty, obsession, and carving out a new place for yourself in a world that's moved on without you.
The tale of a cattle drive across three thousand miles of prairie doesn't sound that interesting on the surface but McMurtry's tale is populated with a colorful cast of characters. While being opposite in terms of personality, they both still have enough grit to be believable as former Texas Rangers and I have no trouble believing in their friendship.
The supporting cast also has its share of gems, like gambler and former Texas Ranger Jake Spoon, Arkansas sheriff July Johnson, former whore Lorena Wood, Gus's former love Clara, and Newt, the son of a dead whore whose father has yet to acknowledge him. While the book has an epic scope, the shifting viewpoints and colorful characters make it very accessible and a quick read for a book of its size.
While I'd seen the miniseries a couple times, this book managed to wring a few man-tears out of me. Knowing the deaths were coming made it harder somehow. I held out hope that a couple people would survive despite dying in the miniseries but it was not to be. The bottom line is that deep down, all men wish we had a friend that would haul our carcass from Montana to Texas if that was our dying request. Five out of five stars. Go read the son of a bitch. View all 87 comments. Feb 19, Andy Marr rated it it was amazing Shelves: favourites.
However many books I finally manage to read in my lifetime, I don't expect that Larry McMutry's incredible sweeping epic will ever be knocked out of my top 5. The account of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana in the s, this mammoth novel is packed with phenomenal writing, an incredible cast of characters, and a labyrinthine plot that's never predictable and always compelling.
While the story deservedly won McMurtry the Pulitzer in , I really can't understand why it doesn't hold a highe However many books I finally manage to read in my lifetime, I don't expect that Larry McMutry's incredible sweeping epic will ever be knocked out of my top 5. While the story deservedly won McMurtry the Pulitzer in , I really can't understand why it doesn't hold a higher position on the 'all-time-classics' argument - after all, everything about this book is just perfect.
The only reason I can think of is that people have been put off by the book's page length. If you're among this number, I'd urge you to reconsider. For me, the worst thing about this novel was that it eventually had to end.
View all 7 comments. Shelves: classics , adventure , american-southwest , historical-fiction , own , frontier-life , reads , western , geriatrics. After seeing so many positive ratings and reviews, I was determined to read this book before the end of Although I finished it January 1, , I definitely had no regrets reading it! Here's why: 1. This epic cattle drive adventure pulled me in right from the start!
From poisonous snakes, various types of storms, to renegades from all walks of life, the harrowing plot twists kept me riveted; 2. The characters really make this story! Even the misogynistic jerks had their place; 3. How about that ending? Only the writing craft of Mr. McMurtry could get away with that! I learned some new vocabulary, such as remuda, chaparral, bullbat, beeves plural for beef - who knew?
You're never too old to learn! A couple little things that made me think "Huh! I was surprised that they never encountered a tornado! After all, they were going through Tornado Alley! Just sayin' Anyways, I was intrigued by this story which motivated me to finish it. It is definitely a hit in my opinion! Highly recommend! View all 61 comments. Gus and his pig were aggravating company. When I finished this, yesterday evening, I was filled by a tremendous sense of melancholy, not just because the book was finally finished, but because of its introspective nature.
Hysterically funny the one moment, heartbreakingly tragic the next, it alternately delighted and depressed me to an extent I hav Gus and his pig were aggravating company.
Hysterically funny the one moment, heartbreakingly tragic the next, it alternately delighted and depressed me to an extent I have seldom experienced before in so far as literary fiction is concerned. It is also one of the most complete novels I have ever read, and you have to read it cover to cover before fully appreciating its power. They were on a plain of grass so huge that it was hard to imagine there was a world beyond it.
The herd, and themselves, were like a dot, surrounded by endless grass. Lonesome Dove is an occasionally hilarious, occasionally bleak glimpse at frontier life and frontier justice , and it may not be what you expected.
You will come away from this one deeply affected, for better or worse. It will also make you think. A lot. In fact, the author should be applauded for managing to keep them from coming across as caricatures. Even though the story itself is fascinating, the fantastic characterisation undoubtedly forms the very foundation of this novel.
Not to mention the fantastically endearing supporting cast. The Captain turned and handed him a holstered pistol and a gun belt. Something that is worth a mention: the author has the uncanny ability to seamlessly change character viewpoints mid stride, which gives the story a nice flow.
Highly, highly recommended. View all 22 comments. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream. Technically, Lonesome Dove being the third book, chronologically, but the first book of the series to be published, I began with this one.
But this is in this little spot not too far from the border of Mexico, where these two once-upon-a-time Texas Rangers are enjoying their middle years remembering their days as captains, and looking forward to a new adventure of life in Montana. Captain Woodrow Call, assisted by his friend Augustus McCrae, set out to lead this cattle drive into the yet unsettled area of Montana looking for a life they have yet to live, to discover what only a few others have found and managed to survive.
This is a story based in the old west that read a little like another epic read, Gone With the Wind in the sense that it has a sweeping scenario set in another era, with a love story tucked inside, a last, fleeting, look at an era soon to be no more — in both the good and bad ways, along with some memorable moments, dazzling writing and the perfect cast of characters. View all 54 comments.
Jan 21, Maciek rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: Everyone who enjoys reading. Recommended to Maciek by: Tressa. Shelves: owned-books , big-tomes , favorites , pulitzer-prize-for-fiction , own-in-paperback , reviewed , read-in , western , historical-fiction. All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. This is an epic novel, and the quotation by T. Whipple which I provided above is indeed an appropriate epigraph.
It's interesting that Larry McMurty originally devised it as a All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. It's interesting that Larry McMurty originally devised it as a screenplay in - but the project never went through. Luckily for us the man did not scrape the idea, and decided to turn it into a book.
He finally published the complete novel in to great acclaim, which culminated in it being awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in The titulary Lonesome Dove is a small town at the very end of south Texas, near the Mexican border.
It's - just eleven years after the end of the Civil War, and a short while since the Mexican-American war which ended up with the U. The U. As a result of the war, Mexico lost about half of its national territory, and the U. This was a great loss for Mexico, considering the discovery of silver in Nevada and the fabulous gold mines of California with its gold rush, along with the rich agricultural potential of the region. The war also had a tremendous psychological effects on both nations - the U.
For Mexico, the war was a tragedy - as the country has just won its independence from Spain in the indignity of having its capital occupied and losing half of its territory to the enemy was a deep blow, from which it never really recovered. Big as it may be, Lonesome Dove is not a political novel. The Mexican-American War and the Civil War are relevant to both the setting and timeframe - but never overtake it. The town of Lonesome Dove is populated with Texas Rangers, who used to guard the border against a possible Mexican invasion - and are not getting bored, since the invasion is question is less and less likely to happen.
One of the characters mentions that Lincoln freed Africans, not Americans - and that's about it for the politics of Lonesome Dove. Set in a border town, Lonesome Dove seems to be more focused on the shrinking border between civilization and wilderness. The novel opens with the image of two pigs eating a rattlesnake. They are holding it together, by the neck and the tail, "having a fine tug-of-war with it, its rattling days were over".
This image - of two domesticated animals swallowing a wild one - is an accurate representation of man's progress in the West: the western expansion of civilization, resulting in expulsion and extermination of natives to pave the way for the settlers - wilderness and nature literally being swallowed by civilization.
Lonesome Dove is also a road novel - which I would consider a particularly American branch of fiction. The sheer physical size of the country is irresistible for people who dream of a long journey of exploration and discovery, both of the country and themselves; novels such as On the Road are a testament to that.
However, the journey is not always motivated by such desires - sometimes it is a forced journey of desperation and escape, such as the one taken by Oklahomans to California in 's after the Dust Bowl, which John Steinbeck chronicled in The Grapes of Wrath. After the Civil War, Texas was almost overflowing with cattle for which there was no local market - but there was a demand all the way up in the northern region in the country. Cowboys herded the cattle and went on cattle drives to Kansas, from where their cattle was shipped to Chicago stockyards via rail.
In Lonesome Dove the cattle trail stretches from the border in southern Texas all the way to another border in northern Montana - a truly epic journey, considering the fact that a large part of the trail would have to run through what was still then Indian Territory, with many hostile inhabitants. Indians would not be the only hostile inhabitans as the deserts were full of bandits waiting for easy prey, and the country itself provided plenty of natural obstacles - scorching heat and thunderous storms, deceitful rivers and swarms of insects, the impenetrable darkness of the night.
McMurty manages to walk on the delicate line which divides the romantic from the ridiculous: The West is full of dirt and scorching sun, and the work unpleasant and pays low; the civilization is still in its infancy, its cities and megacities are a vision of the distant future. Still, there is a dreamlike aura hovering around it, pointing our attention to the beautiful bonds and friendship formed between the cowboys and the beauty of their life on horseback on the vast, empty plains, and the bravery of the people who came to settle them, conquering hard conditions which welcomed them with their own hard labor.
Sometimes it must have felt like they were the only people on earth, with the vast emptiness of the great plains stretching around them in all directions. But more and more people came, and eventually the land had to give in - as much as they could make it.
The novel excels at characterization, bringing to life some of the most memorable characters in Western fiction. Of particular interest are two former Texas Rangers, Augustus McCrae and Call Wood: One is loves a good talk and moving around, and the other is taciturn and still. Augustus is the owner of the two pigs who eat the snake in the opening scene. When Gus is preparing a sign which will advertise their horse trade - which he has no problem stealing from Mexico on night-runs, despite hanging people for the same crime in America - he makes sure to emphasize that the pigs are not for rent.
What would you do with a pig once you rented it? The rest of the cast is also beautifully drawn. The novel is not solely focused on the characters of Gus or Call, and features an ensemble cast, where even the minor characters are given an unique voice and characters; it's easy to forget that they are constructions made of words, as they sound real, act real, and all but jump off the page.
I found myself thinking about the meaning of the title - view spoiler [McMurty says that he thought of Newt as being the Lonesome Dove: an innocent, young and lonesome man, never recognized by his father.
But I think that basically all characters are unable to form a relationship - Call refuses to acknowledge that Newt is his son because and give him his name, and is "afraid to admit that he's human"; Lorena is a dreamer, captured by the vision of San Francisco, refusing to pay attention to the feelings of men in the town of Lonesome Dove; Gus is unable to settle down anywhere and have a meaningful relationship with anyone; he was rejected by Clara because of that.
Clara is unable to have a son as they all died early; her husband also dies, leaving her alone on the prairie with their two daughters. Even the Mexicans, Bolivar and Po Campo are alone - Bolivar is separated from his family in Mexico and has a strained - putting it mildly -relationship with them. Po Campo is a loner, who keeps mostly to himself. It is perhaps the reason why these characters form a bond, and reach out bravely for the unexplored frontier, hoping for it to be the land of happiness, where their dreams would be realized.
The novel has the advantage of having an acclaimed TV miniseries to accompany it - with a great cast of Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover, Diane Lane and Anjelica Huston among others - which I fully intend to watch a bit of trivia: although the novel is set entirely within the U.
Lonesome Dove is reminiscent of a victorian novel, where the focus falls on character and theme - a somewhat old fashioned kind of novel it these times, with a strong sense of place achieved by visualization and theme being explored with the pure energy of narration, not employing any stylistical gymnastics common in contemporary fiction. What's also remarkable is how it is paced - the first quarter moves along slowly, like a day in a small Texas town where it takes place, but when the cast hits the road the events significantly pick up speed, and develop into an utterly grand adventure - not that it was boring or dragged in the first place.
The slow and relaxed first part is a brilliant introduction to the rest of the text, allowing the reader to gently sink into the saddle before grinding down the spurs. True to the time, the novel features plenty of violence sometimes gruesome but also moving human drama and genuinely funny humor - not in the least provided by the two pigs. I found myself hooked to the book and read it with pleasure all the way to the very end, and intend to revisit it in the future - it's certainly worth reading several times, and fully deserves the Pulitzer.
Lonesome Dove is a great American story of the time when the country was still full of unexplored wilderness, populated with great characters and fantastically told - there really is not a boring moment in all its pages. Once upon a time people could take what they had and go to the West, where they could make history or be killed: Lonesome Dove is a testament to these pioneers, who made America the country and nation it is now, and on its pages we can live the lives they lived.
Jul 30, Steve rated it it was amazing. Even so, Lonesome Dove continues to hold a spot in my top ten. Before I get to the content itself, let me first mention that this sample was biased to the upside, with an average rating of 4. Hardly anyone rated this book below 4 stars.
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