Review: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
I very nearly gave up on this doorstopper, even though I'd started it with ample warning from numerous reviews about its slow pace and character-driven narrative. I'm so glad I didn't. This was a profound literary experience, on the order of Shogun and LOTR.
McMurtry's prose is effortless and beautiful, but the first half of the book felt like wading through treacle. Cowboys doing cowboy things? Fun, sure, but there wasn't enough happening to sustain my attention for a novel running just shy of a thousand pages. Many say it gets better once the cowboys embark on their journey, but for me it took a bit longer than this. At around the halfway point, I was hooked, and I stayed hooked till the very end.
There's nothing to say about this that hasn't already been said, so here is some unapologetic gushing. The characters are compelling and lifelike. I went from finding Gus and Call irritating in different ways, to loving them, despairing for them, and cheering for them. It's not just about them, though. The cast is fairly large, and one of the joys of reading this was seeing the characters' paths converge and intersect across the vast land. And each POV character was distinct and well formed. I would happily read a whole novella about Clara working on her ranch. I found Lippy a familiar and comforting presence by the end. There's no shortage of despicable characters either, whether they're violent psychopaths or more mundane but still-awful-in-their-own-way bipedal turds.
The themes exist on interpersonal and macroscopic levels, and they are subtle and cleverly woven into the characters motivations and fates. I didn't appreciate how subversive some of the underlying messages were, until I got off the roller-coaster ride of emotions and took a few moments to ponder. This is far from an archetypal Western with glamorous cowboys and thrilling gunfights.
Bottomline: I think the hype is absolutely deserved (assuming my opinion counts for much against a Pulitzer). There are a few potential dealbreakers, apart from the pacing, such as a few gory scenes and more frequent period detail "-isms"—but oh boy it's been one of the highlights of my reading life.