Lonesome Dove: Book Review

 

Book title: Lonesome Dove

Book author: Larry McMurty

In an online work meeting I expressed my curiosity to my colleague’s book shelves which I peeked through the video. We chatted about books a little. I told him I was reading Nexus, he told me he was reading Lonesome Dove. He shared that he grew up amidst nature and reading this book reminds him of a different time, of nature. I haven’t read anything of Western genre before. So I tried reading the first few pages, and after reading I became so glad for the work meeting, for it brought an amazing book to my life!

The book’s premise is on a migration. It’s hot and dusty Texas. Life is slow, blended with nature. The centipede, lice, bugs all part of living, as modernity hadn’t swept the nature like today. In a small town Lonesome Dove, two veteran Texas rangers — Captain Call and Augustus lead a group of cowboys and thousands of cattle to the north, their destination is Montana. The herd’s migration — driving cattle, riding on horseback amidst barren land, sandstorm, hailstorm, crossing rivers — so well captured in words. The book reminded me of The Dollar Trilogy movies, as the boys carried the yellow dust of Texas with them.

The characters, so alive! Augustus the philosopher, a man of talk… Call a man of work… and their partnership sometimes made the men tired of each other, but it was as solid as one could get.

There is a fluidity of the writing that was carried over through the whole book. The kind of book I love so much, yet I don’t highlight much because the reading took all the attention out of me. All words are placed neatly so that if I had to underline, I had to do it to the whole book. In that sense, it was like John Steinbeck’s books. And the migration part added a hue which I found in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.

The book is written about a hundred years after the timeline of the events, yet the knowledge of a later time period was not shed into the writing, making the current tradition, the local words sound very natural. Only exception was — when Mr. McMurty built the women characters. They were of strong personalities, which was always there, but I think that got focused due to the recent women empowerment.

Sporting women, other names for whores, had a major part in this book. Sporting is probably the oldest profession for women. Not just whores, women characters appeared so uniquely in this book. Elmira gave me the vibe of Kathy from Steinbeck's East of Eden. The farmer woman, the running girl, they had something in common - they were like men in some or other perspectives. The farmer woman didn’t like to cook food, but she liked to farm. The running girl was the model cowboy any boy could look up to. These women, so unconventional from their time, made the story utterly interesting. And there was Clara. Oh Clara, the one that was the most man. 

I switched between reading the kindle copy and listening to the audiobook. The voice of the narration is deep, perfectly casual to make you feel it’s 1870s.

The vast landscape and slow cooked story of Lonesome Dove truly offered me an escape I looked forward to at the end of everyday, or to pair with my morning coffee.

My highlights and notes from the book