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Summary: The Great American Novel
Review: It's real simple folks. This is the great American novel. Which via mini-series', weekly half-hour TV shows and generalhype we'll grind into pop culture dust. Leave it be; it's one of the best books ever written
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Summary: My vote for best book to take on a loooong journey
Review: I read some books because I keep turning the pages for the need to see how it ends. Some books I read because I love the writers style or wit or turn of a phrase. Some books I read because I can care about or identify with the characters. However, Lonesome Dove didn't fit in any of these catagories. I would have to label this book as pure and unadulterated entertainment. As I got closer to the end of this 823 page book, instead of reading faster to see how it would end, I found myself reading slower because I didn't want it to end. I felt as though I could read this book every night before bed eternally. I am not a reader of westerns and never will be, unless McMurtry writes them. So if you are traveling from Sydney to Miami in a tramp steamer my advise to you would be: Pick up a copy of Lonesome Dove and your trip will be a whole lot more enjoyable
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Summary: A classic tale of the American West
Review: For those who want a dash of realism with their adventure stories, "Lonesome Dove" is the tale for them. It is the story of the American West: loss of beloved friends, love found and misplaced, cowboys who cry, and two old Texas Rangers well past their prime who succumb to the dream of seeing one last unsettled place before they "take up the rocking chair". This is not a John Wayne-esque tale in which the fellow in the white hat always wins. See a version of the West well aside from the movie serials of your youth. As you read it you too will feel as though you have saddled your best horse and ridden a piece on what is perhaps the most adventurous cattle drive in history. The suprises will astound you, and you will not be disappointed
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Summary: McMurtry Masterpiece
Review: A western beyond compare. McMurtry describes lives of cowboys and gamblers and the women who loved them. He paints a vivid picture of frontier life. One that was often brutal. You fall in love with these characters and will hold them dear all your life. Definitely one of the all time great reads
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Summary: Great read!
Review: Lonesome Dove is the story authors haven't told before. I have read two of the books Larry used to tell this story. Both books were dry bones, Lonesome Dove puts flesh on history. Marvelous from the Baptist Church that lent its name to this saga to the hardships the men and animals endured, you won't be able to put this novel down.
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Summary: What A Ride
Review: Add me to the already overflowing numbers of Lonesome Dove fans. McMurtry develops characters better than almost any author I have read. And his grasp of setting is wonderful. Augustus McCrae has to be one of the great characters in literature and in some unfathomable way has become a hero to me. If you love the West and you have always wanted to be a cowboy for awhile, Lonesome Dove will be the journey of a lifetime for you. From the country's southern border to its northern, there's nothing like riding alongside Augustus,Call, Pea Eye, Deets, and the others. Lonesome Dove reached far into my soul and grabbed me in places I didn't know existed. I won't soon forget Lonesome Dove
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Summary: Down to earth, Realistic.
Review: This is with out a doubt the finest book that I have ever
read. I love to read, and the American west is a favorite
subject of mine. Lonesome Dove is the story of two freinds that are as different as night and day. One is a tuff hard worker and the other is a "laid back western philosopher" that enjoys the simpler side of living. It is realy true of a lot of friendships one personality compliments the other even though they are different.
The story is about a dream that is put into action, to be the first to run cattle in the Montana Territory. But along the way the hardships take their toll.
I suggest that you don't start this book until you have some time on your hands, because once you start it is hard to put down.
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Summary: Stunning, vivid explication of "real life" in the Old West
Review: Enjoyable on every level--from action-adventure to art-piece and everything in between--McMurtry's *Lonesome Dove* is ostensibly about a couple of old Texas Rangers and Civil War veterans who decide to (literally) rustle up some cattle and move from the harsh realities of Rio Grande-country to the sweet hospitality of Montana. Things don't quite turn out the way they planned... Really, a description of the plot-line can't do it justice.
The most powerful western ever written (and possibly the greatest American novel since *Gone With the Wind*), *Lonesome Dove* transcends the genre to deliver a dynamite-charged message about the randomness of life and death in the "good-ol' days." A veritable primer of cognitive dissonance, *Lonesome Dove* manages to pack in lessons about the wisdom of innocence, the virtue of iniquity, the nobility of villainy, the intrepidity of cowardice, the hollowness of heroism, and the triumph of the weak--all the while confirming Frederick Jackson Turner's assertion about *The Importance of the Frontier in American History.* A picture painted subtly with bold colors, McMurtry's epic simultaneously offers an achingly sad story full of great jubilation and a joyous story full of incredible despair. Most of all, though, *Lonesome Dove* is a story of a great number of people who end up happy, even though none of them end up with what they want. Just like life.
Run, don't walk, to the "Buy Items Now" button, and purchase a copy for yourself plus at least one copy for a friend. You'll thank yourself later.
The best!
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Summary: Please read this truly outstanding book! You'll thank me!
Review: What a marvelous journey. If only this huge novel wasthree or four (or ten) times longer than it is. I couldbarely wait to return home from work and guiltily ignore my children so I could launch back into this fantastic trek across the expanses of the American midwest. The characters are so vivid that you will consider them friends and mourn at their loss. I've recommended this book to friends and family and all have thanked me for it; you will too!
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Summary: Happy Trails
Review: The Amazon reviews of this book range from "Lonesome Dud" to "American Tolstoy". I believe 'ol Leo painted on a somewhat bigger canvas but "Lonesome Dove" is a very enjoyable Western, not a dud at all. No in media res foolishness for McMurtry, the technique here is to fire up a half-dozen parallel story lines and move from one to another every few pages to keep the reader from losing interest in any one of them (102 chapters). With all of them ending up in Ogallala Nebraska with everybody conveniently widowed at precisely the right moment to seem to ensure a happy ending; but the apogee is still to come at that point and enough loose ends are left to provide for a sequel. A sequel!?? At 945 paperback pages it's a lot of reading and you have to get through most of it before you're ready to agree that the Pulitzer folks were right in their judgment. But if you have the stamina the story will carry you happily from Lonesome Dove (a flyspeck town in south Texas) on a cattle drive to Montana, with numerous stops, characters and adventures along the way. The Pulitzer was deserved. Heroic men on horseback, evil drunken murderers fit only for the hanging they eventually get, beautiful compassionate women, Indians good bad and pitiful, whores, card sharps, innocent young cowpokes, the US Cavalry, grizzly bears, bad whiskey, big skies, dangerous rivers; you've got 'em all: Festus, Doc, Kitty, Matt, Roy, Dale, Trigger, Tonto, John Wayne, Gary Cooper and Ronald Reagan. Maybe a little Mel Brooks, too; a bit before Butch Cassidy's time. The story centers around two Texas Rangers who are past their prime Rangering years. Part of the appeal for any similarly-aged readers is the fact that these men have had their share both of triumphs and life-altering failures with which they have to live the rest of their lives. There are many vignettes throughout that have a very strong odor of "Lord Jim", a haunting feeling I think we all begin to wrestle with when we are no longer children. The characters are very well developed and they become your friends (even the bad ones) as you lope along on horseback in the Old American West. The reviewer who complains of political correctness is right. There are only two references to the Civil War, no mention of Reb or Yank at all, and Mark Twain is much truer to the race relations of the time. Nonetheless, it's not supposed to be historically accurate: it's supposed to be a great love story set on the frontier, which it is; and a good one. Dr. Zhivago is a closer comparison than War and Peace. McMurtry paints his pictures beautifully, romantically; both the people and the country, the way Americans like to think of themselves and Gus McCrae is just the man to tell us about it: "... the Indians have had this land forever. To them it's precious because it's old. To us it's exciting because it's new." "You've had a long ride for nothing, I guess", she said.
"Why, no," he said. "It's happiness to see you." There's no sadder story than that of a man who lives his whole life without the woman he loves most in the world.
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