Winner of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove
McMurtry’s great skill is in that ability to splinter the story without destroying the narrative greed of the novel. As a new major character is introduced, McMurtry carves out a new plot line, although they all eventually intersect and not always in credible ways. Each of the major characters is deep and complex and given adequate “page time” to give the reader the full sense of the man or woman – particularly Gus McCrae, who would probably make my list of the top 20 protagonists in any novels I’ve read, with a shot at the top 10 – and even the secondary characters were three-dimensional with perhaps the lone exception of the biggest villain, the murdering Native American named Blue Duck.
Lonesome Dove is mammoth – I think it’s the third-longest novel I’ve ever read* – but the variety of storylines and significant quantity of dialogue kept it moving. Where the novel was light, for me, was in what I usually call literary value. When reading most books I can pick up on themes or metaphors without really trying; my wife, an English major in college, always tells me that if you have to work that hard to find them, they’re probably not there at all. Without that, Lonesome Dove felt more like great popular fiction than great literature, which isn’t a bad thing, but it makes it hard for me to rank the book as highly as some of my favorite novels, which had the same evocative prose and intriguing characters as Dove but add more weight from the themes they tackle.
*My best guess at the longest novels I’ve read, going by pages since word counts aren’t available for some of the titles:
1. Don Quixote – originally published as two books, now sold as one; over 1000 pages
2. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell – over 1000 pages
3. Lonesome Dove – roughly 940 pages
4. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling – 860 pages of tiny print
5. The Pickwick Papers – 840 pages of not-much-larger print
6. Vanity Fair – over 800 pages
7. The Sot-Weed Factor – around 750 pages
8. Anna Karenina – over 700 pages
9. The Woman in White – around 650 pages
10. The Three Musketeers – around 650 pages
Oddly enough, all of those books that I had read before assembling the Klaw 100 are on the list, and all ten will probably be on the next iteration.
Part of why McCrae was my favorite character was his slight obsession with food, not the least his ten-year-old sourdough biscuit starter. One wonders how cowboys lived so long on diets that would make the food Nazis at CSPI have aneurysms, but reading about them certainly put me in the mood for southern breakfasts.
Since I have nothing else intelligent to say on this novel, I’ll just move along and mention that I’m following up one of the longest novels I’ve read with one of the shortest, John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps
Excellent use of Pozterisk.
the book was good, but man, trying to watch the mini series all in one shot is painful. Lonesome Dove is probably my favorite out of that series. Dead Man’s Walk was ok if for nothing else, the historical fiction having to do with that time in Mexican American history. Really though, He probably should have stopped at Lonesome Dove. Streets of Laredo was kind of a downer after Lonesome Dove.
I love Lonesome Dove.
The longest I’ve read is either Count of Monte Cristo or Brothers Karamazov. You haven’t read either one?
Just thought of more:
War and Peace
Les Miserables
I’m surprised you haven’t read any of those.
What about “Grapes of Wrath”? The copy I recently read had around 750 pages.
Grapes is on my to-be-read shelf.
War and Les Mis are something like 1400-1500 pages apiece. I’m not getting to either of those any time soon.
Get the abridged version of Les Mes, if you’re going to read it. Normally I’m against that, but Hugo goes of on long, long historical tangents about things that have very little to do with the book, like the Paris sewers, convents, and Waterloo.
I would definitely recommend East of Eden over Grapes of Wrath, the scale of Grapes is bigger and more impressive, but the characters, story, and themes of Eden are much stronger.
For a long book you might want to try 2666, the new book by recently deceased Chilean author Roberto Bolano that is winning all sorts of awards, its tough and chilling at times, but it is impressive beyond belief.
klaw, you’ve never read any Clavell? No Shogun? No Noble House? Criminal.
S R –
Have you read Savage Detectives? I’m reading it presently (the recommendation was: read Savage Detectives, then read 2666), and it’s perhaps the most meandering, unfocused novel I’ve ever come across. Interesting in some ways, but absolutely no plot to speak of so far, 250 pages in.
Clavell is great too. I have only Whirlwind to read in that series. Some of Michener’s works like Texas, Poland, The Covenant etc are pretty long. Texas has to be around the 1000 page mark. Gary Jennings books are also pushing the 1000 page number and are quite good. It’s really unfortunate he only put out so few books before he died. My favorite of his has to be Spangle. I believe they don’t even print that book in one voluem any more because it’s so long.
I have to agree, Clavell is great, but only Shogun, Tai-Pan, and Noble House.
2666 is pretty unfocused, so Keith may not enjoy it, its divided into 5 separate books each with its own plotlines that at times are connected, but other times are not. Together they sort of form a holistic view of the world, at times while reading it, it feels like a battle, but at other times especially once you finish it you begin to wonder a the author’s genius.
The LD mini-series was great entertainment. I saw it first as an 8ish year old and that’s why I decided to read the book.
Best part was the episode that ended with Ricky Schroeder getting mauled by a group of water moccasins while trying to ford a river. Classic unintentional comedy.
Gone With the Wind?
Haven’t read any Solano yet.
GWtW is on my shelf now. It’s on at least two of my greatest-books lists, including the Novel 100 in the, uh, Mr. Irrelevant spot at #100.
The second in the series Comanche moon is a very good book streets of loredo wad the worst and lonesome dove is one of the best books ever written