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Summary: The Fastest You'll Ever Read 900 Pages
Review: This is a terrific book. I was daunted by it's length and actually had it hanging around my office for a month before deciding to wade in. Needless worry on my part. Larry McMurty's classic cowboy novel is one of the most delicious works of fiction I have ever read.This is a book about the Old West. Cowboys, Texas Rangers, whores, gamblers, drinkin', cattle, indians, sheriffs, cattle drives, the Plains --- its all here. The main story revolves around a group of retired Texas Rangers, bored with running a minor ranch in the two-bit town of Lonesome Dove, who decide to take one of the last great adventures left in a West that is almost conquored. They decide to gather and drive a cattle herd from the Rio Grand to Montanna -- one of the last open areas where men could stake a claim and subjugate raw land. What McMurty does so well is craft believable and highly entertaining characters. Gus and Call, the two Rangers are two of American literatures most memorable figures. The story revolves around their ambitions -- very different as are their personalities -- and the way they affect about twenty or so other characters who people the book. This is a big book. It has several strong sub plots that could have been novels in themselves. The author ties each together in a manner that lends the unembarrassed moniker of epic to the whole. The characters are each well developed and believable. Human to the last, there are no super heros here -- no Tom Clancy like Jack Clarks who can do no wrong. But several of the major characters are heroic in their struggles to survive and overcome the rough obstacles that frontier life often entailed. They are made more believable because of their flaws and mistakes and the less than direct paths they follow in following their souls. The villains and those in between are also memorably drawn and made full in the telling of this tale. The West protrayed in Lonesome Dove is not the type found in Hollywood protrayals. McMurty's West is brutal, lonely and very tough. Living is hard, life often tragic and cheap. The joys are either hard earned or purchased in the form of liquor and/or women. Altogether a more realistic portrayal of life at the edge of law and civilization than the romanticized version often held forth in movies. McMurty's dialogue is wonderful, creating a warmth that makes the characters stay with the reader. This is a book I could not put down and was sorry to finish. A treasure that any devote of good fiction will enjoy. "Dern good," as Gus Mcrae would say.
Rating:
Summary: My Dime's Worth of Gushing
Review: When fellow book lovers ask me to name my all-time favorite novel, Larry McMurtry's magnum opus impulsively rises to my lips. Upon reflection, this answer might not be fully accurate, as I've clutched many great books to my soul in the years since I first read Lonesome Dove. Nevertheless, I don't think this instinctive first response will ever really change. From the opening sentence, when Gus exiles the disruptive pigs from the sanctuary of his porch, I was pulled into this book like a starving prairie orphan longing to trail after these powerful characters and find companionship, sustenance and adventure in their midst. While McMurtry tells a great tale, Lonesome Dove is essentially a story about love -- bedrock love, that is, in all its bittersweet, complicated immutability. It's about a friendship between two men who share a bond so strong, forged of history and loyalty, that it bridges large disparities of individual character. It's about a true but unfulfilled love between a man and woman that really wants to stay precisely there, deriving energy from the protracted state of tension. And it's about the unrequited love of a son for a father, who so naturally inhabits his role as leader, but remains achingly unable to breach the isolation of his dominion. Of course, Gus is my favorite character - a man so full of courage, humor, verve and effortless passion for life that I half-wanted to be kidnapped by a passel of seedy outlaws so that he would come riding to my rescue. When Gus died, I put the book down for weeks in angry bereavement, and almost didn't forgive McMurtry. When the book itself ended, I grieved for months, and it was a good piece of time before I could break into another work of fiction with any satisfaction. I did move on to love other books, and I'll go on to love countless more. But Lonesome Dove is the book by which I will always instinctively judge others, from the standpoint of raw, visceral emotion and psychological resonance.
Rating: 
Summary: Great epic novel
Review: Incredible epic western set on the American frontier. Captain Woodrow Call and his best pal and cohort Augustus McCrae forge north, driving a cattle herd to Montana to become the first cattle ranch in the state. Very involved story and complex cast of characters. Never seemed to drag or get boring. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
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Summary: You must read this book!
Review: This beloved book is by far the best Pulitzer prize winner of the late 20th century. Do not be put off by the cowboy theme! The characters are lushly drawn, realistic and tragically rendered. While described as the tale of a cattle drive from southern Texas to Montana, it is so much more than that. McMurtry succeeds by fleshing out each character to the utmost, and spicing the dialogue with the ultimate in hang-dog realism and the charming & robust humor of Gus, the central heroic figure of this epic. I loved Gus, because be loved those around him, and my favorite scene is his reunion with his long lost Clara. Every chapter contains adventure, pathos, and redemptions. McMurtry could never again write a better book. I place Lonesome Dove on the top of my best books list. I read it at least once a year!
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Summary: Tolstoy on the Range
Review: Stay with me here. I'm serious. I think Lonesome Dove can stand comparison to Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. Of course, I've only read Tolstoy in translation, so chances are I've missed alot, but there is no question that McMurtry creates something here very close to that impossible dream: The Great American Novel. I dont know that any other American writer has ever suceeded on this scale, which is why I go to Tolstoy. McMurtry uses the Western as a starting point, but there is a little of everything here. Surely there has never been another American Western with so many varied characters, both men and and women. McMurtry juggles many different points of view, but manages to give all his characters a unique voice. Most remarkable of all, I think, are the women in the book, who manage to escape the usual stereotypes of madonna or whore, even though many of them are, quite literally, prostitutes. Lonesome Dove is written in a deceptively simple, unpretentious style. I've just finished reading it for the second time. Despite its length it is really a fast read, since it is one of those books that demands to be taken with you where ever you go until you are done.
Rating: 
Summary: Lonesome Dud
Review: I don't get it. Why do people think this book is so great. This is one of the all time worst books. With all the great books out there to read nobody should waste a second on this generic, unimaginative piece of crap. Pulitzer Prize......what a joke! This book is good for one thing only: a fire starter.
Rating:
Summary: This should be required reading of every book hound....
Review: This a great read-period! I had never been interested in reading western novels-but due to its popularity, I decided to try it. I, too, stayed up into the wee hours reading that one more page. I took the book to the gym, to the park, any place where I knew I would get a few minutes to pick up where I last left off. The reviewer that wrote that this book is the quickest 900 pages that you may ever read-could not have been more accurate. It is a very special book.
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Summary: How the West was really won
Review: I can understand why so many authors of westerns romanticize and distort history; it takes real talent - the kind that McMurtry possesses - to write a realistic, accurate and enthralling story. It's amazing how much I cared about Gus and Call, an inarticulate odd couple on a long cattle drive. What was it really like in the Old West? McMurtry's only agenda is to tell it like it was, and to tell it well. Dive into this fat story, and learn a lot about yourself and other people on the way.
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Summary: Even this Mystery Fan LOVED it!
Review: One night, having finished my latest murder mystery, upon which I feast daily, I had nothing else to read. My husband, of much higher standards in the fare he reads (mostly non-fiction & biographies) told me I ought to expand my horizons and try Lonesome Dove. "It won the Pulitzer Prize." he stated. I was not impressed. Frustrated that so "little" was happening initially, I plowed on. Now, I'm almost done, staying up late each night to keep my eyes open & read just one more page before falling asleep. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this book, even to you mystery lovers out there! The story is rich, sad, happy & moving. I'll be picking up more written by this talented author! :)
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Summary: A Light in Dark times
Review: I have read LD about three times and watched the movie so many times my wife has threatened to leave if I watch it again. What I use it for is a guide when I am confused. I relate to Gus and if I could pick someone to be he would be my choice. For instance, " I found myself in a tricky situation a while back where I felt I was being treated unjustly by three of my supervisors. My mind thought I could reach across the Big Bosses desk and grab his hair and slam his head down on his desk and break his nose. When the one beside me got up I would turn, raise my knee quickly to where men hate to be kneed at and I figured the young one would get scared and run".
That is right out out of the baroom scene in San Antonio. But I am not Gus so I figured I would just stick around and aggravate them for about another four years and retire. My point is I was able to use the Story in troubled times as a guide to what would have been right to me. Life was simple and quick and sure in the Lonsome Dove Time period, not cluttered by 401K's and health insurance and financial insecurities. Like Gus Said, By God Woodrow, dying ain't what I'm talking about, it's Living."
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