I see now that it is claimed to be a trend among those book readers that remain to read long books, the longer the better, multiple volumes if need be. Therefore, Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove quartet is having a moment.
I read it recently, unawares of this trend, and for some other, random reason, probably finishing some heavy-duty non-fiction, wanting a good yarn, and not in the mood for crime noir. So, off to the Old West.
I had, many years ago, seen the first TV series based on the book, and although Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall are fabulous and favorite actors, the series seemed not too interesting to me, and I don’t even think I ever finished it. It was advertised as if it were a soapy saga in the vein of other such series, which is maybe what it was, but did not have to be, and did not represent the books very well. They are, as I shall argue here, much more than that and far, far from being soapy.
A thing that is often discussed among fans is in what order to read them, seeing as the chronological order is different from the published order. For the record, I chose chronological.
McMurtry sees himself as a writer, period, not a genre writer. He even says somewhere that of all the ‘Western’ writers, he thinks that himself and Cormac McCarthy are the only writers that transcend the genre-writing and reach the level of literature. I agree, but will also note that though the universe of Lonesome Dove is bordering that of Blood Meridian, it is, you could say, a world apart. I am not so sure that the two writers aim to do the same at all with their writings.
"Because of when and where I grew up, on the Great Plains just as the herding tradition was beginning to lose its vitality," McMurtry writes, "I have been interested all my life in vanishing breeds."
There was, of course, another writer doing Western epics set in that era: Louis L’Amour. A review of Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen has this to say:
"Yet the two of them, shared surfaces notwithstanding, are in their work almost diametrically opposed. L'Amour, dismissed (more or less rightly) as a pulp writer, sought to prop up the cowpoke myths of the West. McMurtry, often dismissed as a Hollywood writer (less rightly, though the whir of an unseen film projector seems to accompany much of his later output), has throughout his long career sought to knock those myths down, to expose those ersatz illusions with a bright shine of truth -- or at least with the bland glare of the suburbs now sprawled like weeds across the West. L'Amour never needed to wax elegiac; in his mind, the image of the West was fixed, like that of a dead child in its father's eye. McMurtry, however, has watched that child grow as closely as anyone has, and he isn't always pleased with the adult it's become."
McMurtry — in this and other works — looks at a disappearing world: the timespan of these four books is more or less from when the 'West was won' to the Old West vanished. I guess that the Native Americans did not win anything, and McMurtry does not suggest that they did. But it is not some heroic Golden Age he looks at: it is dusty, hot (and cold, very cold), mostly poor, and most of all, it is lonely and violent death can happen anytime and when you least expect it. And yet, the West is slowly settled for the settlers keep coming up the river valleys like ants and besides, the buffalo is dying out, fast.
Some of these are historical facts, and a lot are not, not really: Lonesome Dove did not exist, nor did Crow Town. The Comanches never raided Austin, Roy Bean was not hanged by Garza, the bandit, and so on and so forth, but it could have happened: it almost happened like that. It is not an alternative history, but a history evolving within a known world.
The books have a number of major themes that run through all four volumes.
Violence is always present: the Native American humpback is out there in the dark, his spear at the ready; your friend suddenly thinks — because he is drunk — that you cheat at cards and he draws on you; your favorite horse suddenly panics and throws you off. Violent, sudden death is everywhere, all the time, and is a defining feature of the landscape, the era, and the people. And indeed of the nation being built. But as the ants crawl up the river valleys and homestead and build schools and bake bread and farm, the violent world recedes. But it never disappears, the violence: it remains the bedrock and the foundation of the nation being built, as we know all too well now.
Men without women: the men are by themselves, have few friends, and take care of their sexual needs with brief encounters with whores. There are few functional relationships and few functional families. Male friendships, maybe, but even so, they are not emotionally close but forged in work and booze. And can turn violent at any time (the booze comes in here).
Religion there is little of — except perhaps for Famous Shoes, the Indian tracker, who is something of a holy goof with a spiritual connection to the world. Indeed, he is most content when he just observes an eagle or a deer, feeling at one with the animal world. The others barely enter a church, feel uneasy there, have no feeling of a greater purpose to life, or a connection to the world or their fellow men. They are adrift in a void, marred by violence and sudden death.
For them, there is no purpose to life, just carrying on, conquering the land, killing the injuns, but for no particular reason. They are certainly not going towards a city on a shiny hill, nor do they feel they are spreading civilization. They are barely civilized themselves, such as it is, and as lonesome as the dove we never see.
So when people call it something like 'a great Western yarn', they miss the point in a quite monumental way. This is not as drenched in blood and horror and depravity as Blood Meridian, but it is close. Nobody would think that Blood Meridian is a 'great Western yarn'. But interesting that some are willing to spend the energy required to get through these 2,500 pages and then utterly misunderstand it.
Somewhere on the internet, I saw that 'this is a story about male friendship and bonding'. Is it now? Gus and Woodrow have some kind of relationship, being frenemies or so, but they are barely friendly. More just accepting because they have to work together.
On the other hand, women are capable of much deeper connections, for example, Clara/Lorena. They also have close connections to their children, save for Maria/Joey. But they can live quite contentedly without the violent and quiet and lonesome men.
Perhaps it is an idea to sum up where the characters stand in all this:
- Call is a killer who kills without hesitation and without regret. He is not a sociopathic killer: he kills when he has to, and does it quickly and efficiently. It brings him no joy. He is utterly lost and without the capacity to form a meaningful relationship with others. He is a broken and damaged person.
- McCrae: Affable drunk, lazy, will step up if required, but step back immediately after. Likes women, wants women, but not capable of an emotional attachment — so whores. Accepts death and defeat with the same lifeless stoicism as he accepted the other events of his life.
- Pea Eye, for him, there is some hope. He is inept at most things, but once he finds Lorena, he is, at least, loyal and faithful and seems to enjoy this new direction in his life
- Famous Shoes: does good deeds, but why? He is an enigma, an empty vessel, more akin to the empty landscape that he savors than he is to other humans. Perhaps his role is to show how little we understand someone from a different culture, even as we interpret some of their actions as kind and good. For Shoes himself, perhaps it all means very little: there is always an eagle he would much rather gaze at for some time.
The protagonists have foes. The foes are, generally, psychopathic killers: Joey Garza, Mox Mox, Blue Duck, and the Black Vaquero. You could say that some — Garza, Blue Duck — have father issues, but don’t we all? Mainly, they are just ciphers that plainly like what they do, and that is that.
Then we have the arch foe, Buffalo Hump. One scary dude, but one detail: he doesn’t just kill and maim to get a hard-on: he is kind of rational in what he does. And even McCrae wonders if it could not just be the case that this brave has a bite of a just cause?
Are there any positive characters, then? Well, there are. They do have one thing in common, and that is being of the female persuasion: Lorena, Clara, Maria (mostly), Teresa (for sure). They are the ones actually trying to eke out an existence that is a little more than just surviving (and killing, of course).
A few men are decent and are capable of empathy. It is certainly not the norm, so let us name the railroad accountant, Billy Williams, Charlie Goodnight, and perhaps a handful of others.
But on balance, the men are weighed and found deficient. The few decent specimens show that it is not a given then men should be like they mostly are. But it is an uphill struggle. Perhaps when the river valleys are completely full of the ants moving in and building something akin to a civilization, things will change. Or perhaps they will not, for a very long time, and this will be a persistent, negative inheritance?
McMurtry has said somewhere that he ended up being tired of Call and McCrae. Mind you: he does not say he got tired of the series itself. Maybe this explains some of the ongoing and sometimes winding sidetracks?
Nevertheless, it is clear that in the end, Call and McCrae are not that interesting, men of few qualities that they are. The books, though, are interesting, and a mighty entry in the Pantheon of Great American Novels. And just like Blood Meridian, it is the story of an America that makes you squirm and feel a certain unease. Brouhaha chest-thumping exceptionalism it is not.