How do I become a cowhand?

Book Review: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

…Ok, I know it has been a long time coming (not that anyone probably took notice that I said I was working on this review many weeks ago), but I have finally collated and organised my thoughts on Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. I say a long time coming because I started reading this book while at home in the summer and then only finished it once I got here to Denmark (nearly 4 months ago). At the time of completion, I made several pages of sprawling and chaotic notes on paper (sidebar: no matter how much I seem to write for my first drafts of these things, my handwriting only seems to get worse. I really think my prime years of handwriting were at the end of primary school. It is genuinely horrific now.) much of which probably won’t be included in the ensuing review, as coming back to some of these ideas months later has filled me with that feeling you get when you hear yourself speak on video, some absolutely shocking attempts at intellectual commentary or comedy. With that being said, I’m sure I will do the same when I reflect on all these posts later down the line, but for now, I can bury the past cringe and work to make some new.

A separate point I wanted to make before diving into how I ended up grabbing this Pulitzer-prize Prize-winning epic is about reading slumps. Not only their benefit but also their necessity. For those of you who noticed (I know you all wait anxiously all weekend for the moment I post), I didn’t write a review or blog last week. This gap in production this time wasn’t due to one too many on Friday night or any other particularly poignant or pressing reason. I simply had had enough of reading. I felt like I hit a wall. Couldn’t be bothered whatsoever to pick up another book after finishing The Hobbit last week. It wasn’t even as if The Hobbit was an overly tough read or something I had to pull myself through – in fact, I really enjoyed reading it. It was just that the thought of applying myself to another book at that time didn’t fill me with the usual excitement or enthusiasm. So instead, I decided to use my free time to watch the Harry Potter series (if it’s not your annual end-of-November-to-Christmas period watch, then it should be). But why am I even talking about this? Because taking a week break from reading is hardly a very interesting or noteworthy event. I suppose it’s a reminder to myself that I don’t have to rush through books or go at any specified pace. There’s no proper way to read and enjoy books. With reading, there is often an element of external pressure and/or comparison; literature itself can come across as stuffy and snobbish at the best of times. All these lists and posts telling you what you should be reading, all these people reading at ungodly paces finishing four books a week, and all the while there’s you getting into bed, managing 6 and a half pages before your eyelids become heavier than lead. So, this is a note to me and a reminder to you if you need it; read what you want, when you want, and how much you want.

Okay, enough with whatever that was. Onto how I picked up this lump of a book. It was March of this year, and our season at Merrimack had come to a pitiful end. I was in dire need of a break from both Andover, Massachusetts and basketball itself; to NYC and my dear friend Sean Bresnan I journeyed. It was here that I found myself in a Midtown Manhattan Barnes & Noble (basically a Waterstones on an American diet to my fellow Brits) browsing and wandering around in my normal pedantic, undecisive manner. I had time to kill as Bres was not set to be released from servitude for another couple of hours. This meant some pure unrestricted dawdling. You know the routine by now: endless wandering about, Goodreads reviews, and pondering occurred before I settled on Lonesome Dove. To make my dithering even more futile, Lonesome Dove was one of the first books I looked at in the store, as it had been placed front and centre on a promotional table. Maybe I was influenced by being in the middle of watching 1923 Yellowstone, or perhaps I was in search of filling the ever-growing free time I was due to have after the basketball season at Merrimack. Either way, I succumbed to the marketing effort like the gullible consumer I am and stuffed this 900-page beast into my already packed rucksack.

Not to spoil much but I absolutely loved Lonesome Dove. It is a simply epic tale of all measures. One which deserves every bit of praise it receives, and a book that I will forever recommend. Now to find out why…

 

There’s something very intimidating about a book over 500 or so pages to me. The way they just sit there imperiously on your bookshelf, taunting you. Every time you catch its eye, you know it is mocking you, daring you to start it. But you know exactly why you keep putting it off and averting its gaze. The thought of the amount of commitment and effort required to make even a small dent in such a juggernaut is off-putting enough to drop it to the bottom of your TBR list. This procrastination and avoidance led me to shelving Lonesome Dove for over four months from its original purchase date. I kept postponing starting for one reason or another, but ultimately it came down to the fact I wasn’t mentally prepared enough for the journey and process which such an undertaking entails (perhaps that sounds a bit dramatic, it is only a book at the end of the day). Once I finally grew the balls to take a swing at this titan, its brilliance was obvious from the onset. Never would I have imagined I would want a book of 858 pages to be even longer, but as I finished it up, I yearned for more and more text, more information, more feeling. This book definitely requires all of the commitment needed for a book of its stature, yet it is one which is easily granted and miles away from being a burden. The level of anticipation and urge to pick up the book every chance I got is something I have seldom felt. The interest in the storyline and, more importantly, the characters was one which promoted an almost greedy pace of reading, not in a cliff-hanger gimmicky thriller sense, but in a genuine deep thirst for connection.

This leads me to perhaps the most important and, for me, the best element of the novel. The characters. The level of character development Larry McMurtry produced in Lonesome Dove was incredible. You get to know the ragtag group of individuals on such a profound personal level. Over the course of the novel, your relationship with the characters becomes so strong that you find yourself getting annoyed at them as if they were your own mates. Your reactions become like those of a friend whose mate does something stupid or annoying. You create such a bond that you want the best for these characters (or the majority of them), and in doing so, their missteps, mistakes, or woeful decisions genuinely frustrate you like no other. The characters are perfectly imperfect. They are all deeply flawed, but this only adds to your connection and attachment to them. With their mistakes and downfalls, an unapologetic humanness is formed. Through this, you learn to love their full character and are presented with authenticity rather than an idealised protagonist or a perfect Hollywood cowboy. These characters are gritty, funny, stubborn, witty, and unmistakably human.  

Through these characters, you are forced to experience the full oeuvre of human emotion. Along this long journey, you are faced with adoration, anger, annoyance, sadness, love, friendship, fear, worry, and laughter. The complex relationships the characters have with one another – either through prior experiences or developed in front of your face – display this vast range of emotions for you, the reader, to feel. You cannot help but be swept up by the witty lovability of some, nor can you stop the visceral frustration at others’ stubbornness. The complete emotional and relational immersion is something beautifully unique about Lonesome Dove. So much so that you may have noticed that I haven’t even mentioned anything about the plot or the storyline of the book. This wasn’t initially deliberate; however, after beginning this section of the post, I realised that my deepest memories and mental mementoes from this book were those of the characters and my connection to them. This is not to say that the plot is subpar or inadequate (the opposite is true. The storyline is equally magnificent. It moves with great balance and pace. It provides the perfect plot points and experiences to tie you up with the characters. A truly impressive tale. I mean, it’s never going to be a bad story when you have a pair of legendary ex-Texas Rangers muster up a cattle outfit to drive thousands of cattle from southern Texas to Montana. All the while they fight off Native Americans, unsatisfied love, and inner turmoil along the monumental drive.), but my love for this novel lies heavily with the characters themselves. Obviously, one cannot come without the other; however, as I sit here and write this “review” several months removed from finishing the book, the deep, lasting memory of this novel is the moving realness of the people I read about. I remember the funny comments, the idiotic decisions, the fear, the pride, the love both spoken and unsaid. I reminisce about my time spent in that world and with those characters. It’s one of the very few books I cannot wait to revisit and take the time to reacquaint myself with those living and breathing in its pages.

Just epic.

5/5