A western for people who hate westerns
I admit. I had nothing but scorn for western novels until a copy of Streets of Laredo, the sequel of Lonesome Dove, fell into my hands. A few pages into the novels and all my prejudices were thrown out the window. Larry McMurtry’s vision of the Wild West has nothing to do with the clean-cut black hats vs white hats cowboys from the 50’s TV or the corny posers from modern country music. It is a rich and engrossing world of violence, failed lives, hopeless love and the minutia of the day-to-day lives of cowboys, all told with wit and a piercing understanding of human nature that reminded me startlingly of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels (from which the movie Master and Commander – The Far Side of the World was adapted from).
McMurtry’s particular mix of humour, action and romance makes for a very entertaining reading experience. His novels also feature very strong and endearing women, African-Americans and Native Americans characters. I must add that my wife requested that I mention that she enjoyed these books tremendously. In fact, women who enjoyed the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon will certainly get a kick out of McMurthry’s novels.
Lonesome Dove
Lonesome Dove is the Pulitzer Prize tale of Captain Augustus "Gus" McCrae and Captain Woodrow F. Call, two famous retired Texas Rangers who, on a whim, decide to move a herd of three thousands (stolen!) Mexican cattle all the way up to Montana. They are joined by old and new acquaintances, including Lorena Wood, a reformed prostitute looking for a better life in the fabled city of San Francisco and Jack Spoon, a dashing former Texas Ranger running from the law who is more interested in clean bed sheets and gambling than cattle herding.
The story chronicles their journey from the extreme south of the United-States to its Northern limits. We witness the daily workings and logistics of cattle herding and the complex inner lives of cow-boys. Lorena Wood’s presence in the periphery of the cattle drive will break many hearts and expose her to grave danger.
The Indian wars have been over for many years and the remaining rebels are being dealt with systematically by the army. Cities, farms and bankers are sprouting all over the place and the freewheeling life that old-timers like Call and McCrae have known is fast becoming a thing of the past – a life that now has more its place in legends than in this new civilized order. Still, the law has not tamed the entire West. Wild, vicious, incredibly violent outlaws still roam the land and the old ways can still be of use in dealing with this kind of danger!
This drive is also an opportunity for young cow-boys such as Newt Dobbs, a young orphan raised by Gus and Call, to prove himself and possibly learn the identity of his biological father. Will Gus get a second chance to settle unfinished business with Clara Allen, his former love – but a lifetime habit of bad decisions is hard to break.
Streets of Laredo
Lonesome Dove was adapted by Larry McMurtry into a television miniseries (available on DVD) starring Robert Duvall as Augustus McCrae and Tommy Lee Jones as Woodrow F. Call. This series was so successful that another TV series sequel called “Return to Lonesome Dove” had been produced, this time without the author’s involvement. In classic Hollywood tradition, this sequel was essentially an uninspired copy of the original with Woodrow Call doing another big cattle drive and all the loose ends from the first story ending up nicely tied. It has been reported that this sequel was so horrid that it drove McMurtry to write Streets of Laredo, his own sequel to Lonesome Dove. This novel was subsequently adapted to the screen with James Garner as Captain Call.
Streets of Laredo is set many years after the events from Lonesome Dove. Woodrow Call, now retired from the ranching business, has become a bounty hunter. This story chronicles his fumbling attempts to stop a young, crafty Mexican train robber psychopath. Here again the consequences of bad decisions and regrets constitute the main thread of the story as Call continues to live a hard life regardless of his old age and diminishing abilities.
The Wild West brought back to life
Larry McMurtry’s genius is in showing how even the smallest of decisions can profoundly impact one’s life as well as family, friends and complete strangers living thousands of miles away. A recurrent theme is also how pride and impulsivity will make anyone, even highly intelligent hardened war heroes, make bad decisions and do terribly stupid things.
These extraordinary novels manage to bring the west to life in all its sordid, violent glory while avoiding the usual clichés that gave Westerns such a bad reputation. These cow-boys are for the most part, illiterate, fussy, horny, lousy at cards, robust, inveterate gossips and either too old or too inexperienced to be truly efficient. They are also loyal, shy around women, deeply human and scared of crossing serpent-infested rivers. The bad characters they encounter along the way are also quite ruthless and terrifying, if not always competent. These characters have the most peculiar and colorful nicknames, such as Pea Eye, Dish Boggets, Blue Duck, Mox Mox and Famous Shoes.
A piece of history
According to McMurtry, Gus and Call were not modeled after historical characters, but there are similarities with real-life cattle drivers Oliver Loving and [Charles Goodnight] . Goodnight himself makes a brief appearance in Lonesome Dove and significantly involved in the Streets of Laredo storyline, probably to compensate for the absence of Gus McRae. Streets of Laredo also features other historical characters such as the killer John Wesley Hardin, and the “hanging” Judge Roy Bean.
Lonesome Dove vs Master and Commander
The parallels between the works of McMurtry and [Patrick O’Brian]’s Aubrey-Maturin novels are many and worth noting. In fact, anyone who enjoyed one of these fine author’s work will undoubtedly benefit from discovering the other’s. Both relate the story of a great friendship between two very different and exceptional men. McMurtry’s surly and dutiful Captain Woodrow Call and his talkative and fun-loving long-time partner Captain Augustus “Gus” McCrae are clearly in the same line of great literary friendship than O’Brian’s sanguine and duty-driven Captain Jack Aubrey and his particular friend, the introspective surgeon/secret agent Stephen Maturin.
Both sagas also chronicle perilous journeys of groups of men cut-off from civilization (and women) for long stretches of time as one deals with the crews of ocean-crossing 17th century warships and the other with cow-boys and rangers crossing vast stretch of untamed wilderness. Both series also feature first rate humor and top-notch action combined with a deep understanding of human nature, a profound knowledge of what drives people to do grand and stupid things. In fact, I would say that the combination of imperfection and grandiosity of their characters are what make these work so great and set them apart from the rest.
