Lonesome Dove (Lonesome Dove, #1) in The Complete Idiots Guide to the Ultimate Reading List

Jul 11, 2011 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, novels, literary-fiction, ultimate-reading-list, popular-fiction, historical-fiction, westerns

Lonesome Dove screams epic. The trade paperback is 858 pages long; the story features dozens of perspectives, and tells of a cattle drive around 1877 by twenty people of 2,600 head over 3,000 miles from the Texas borderland to Northern Montana. This is a very celebrated book. It didn't just win the Pulitzer Prize, but is a popular favorite. Whether you look on Amazon or GoodReads or LibraryThing you'll see an overwhelming number of top ratings and fierce defenders commenting on the sparse negati Lonesome Dove screams epic. The trade paperback is 858 pages long; the story features dozens of perspectives, and tells of a cattle drive around 1877 by twenty people of 2,600 head over 3,000 miles from the Texas borderland to Northern Montana. This is a very celebrated book. It didn't just win the Pulitzer Prize, but is a popular favorite. Whether you look on Amazon or GoodReads or LibraryThing you'll see an overwhelming number of top ratings and fierce defenders commenting on the sparse negative reviews. I was reading through a Western recommendation list and left this one to the end precisely because I heard it is the epitome of the genre, and Sharon Kay Penman, my favorite historical fiction writer, rated it five stars.

This is definitely not Louis L'Amour--nor is it Cormac McCarthy--it's neither pulp nor eccentric in style. I didn't adore the way McMurty whipped through different points of views. It made the narrative feel rather disjointed to me although I did eventually get used to the rhythm and feel. On the other hand, from the beginning I felt the author painted the setting and its people vividly. I felt the white heat of the Texas landscape, filled with rattlers, centipedes and black widow spiders. McMurty has a cast of dozens of distinctive characters, but I think the standouts are the two partners in charge of the Hat Creek Outfit that make the drive, the two ex-Texas Rangers Gus McCrae and Captain Woodrow Call. Gus is the gabby, funny, exuberant extrovert, Call the quiet introvert who feels the weight of leading the others. About the first 228 pages is set in the town of Lonesome Dove and are taken up with introducing the various characters who'll come along to the drive--which only starts in Part 2, 26 chapters in. I only really got hooked about 300 pages into the novel. And women characters? For that entire first part, there's only one really--Lorena Woods, the town prostitute with a heart that initially seemed made of stainless steel. Well into the second part it seemed just about every woman we met was a prostitute, a shrew, or both. Part Two brought a lawman into the mix, July Johnson. And when it also added a scary comanchero, Blue Duck, the pace certainly quickened. I liked Janey once she showed up--and then we hit Part III, and meet Clara, and by then I'm no longer feeling disgruntled with McMurty's women.

My liking of the book crept up on me--maybe I can blame a sort of Stockholm Syndrome after taking over a week to read this, but I did come to love many of the characters, especially Gus who provided so much of the lightness and humor in what is so often a violent and dark tale. So a book that after 100 pages I thought I probably wouldn't finish, by the end despite flaws that included a fairly abrupt ending, wound up a favorite. ...more

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Jul 11, 2011 Dan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Do your self a favor and read this classic. Never thought I'd care so much about fictional characters. This is a long read (about 900 pages), but never once did I feel any of it to be superfluous. ...more

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