GANC: Lonesome Dove

What a refreshing book to read after last month's literary aerobics. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry is my second book in The Great American Novel Challenge. This book may never be on many lists as one of the great novels in American history, but I fear that is only because it is not steeped in heavy prose and a dictionary of multi-syllabic vocabulary. Instead it is built in an unpretentious style that welcomes the reader in as a fellow traveler. Lonesome Dove exemplifies everything I feel a great American novel should contain. It has action, adventure, exploration, romance, murder, tall tales, moral dilemmas, humor, strong characters (I dare you to find a weakly written character in the whole bunch). At times I question the true success or value of list-topping items or award winners, but this novel definitely deserves its 1986 Pulitzer Prize.

At its most basic, this is a book about a cattle drive from south Texas north to Montana. It follows a crew of men (and a woman) - a mix of Texas Rangers, greenhorns, and immigrants - as they go north, encounter old friends and enemies, make new ones on both counts and try to survive all nature throws at them. This novel sets the cowboy stereotype on its head. The former Texas Rangers steal horses and cattle, the Mexicans in the outfit are hard-working and wise, and the women are more than a person who cries and waves good-bye when their men leave for the cattle drive. Every hero is flawed, the good guys die sometimes, the reader cares about the bad guys and, above all, there is heart. There is a refreshing transparency to many of the characters - they speak their minds and never once does McMurtry write one of them expressing him or herself in a manner out of character. Even the in the most guarded or hardened of people, those small cracks are written in their story such that humanity shines through.

In a greater sense, though, this is a book about self-discovery. Men and women seeking out what they have longed for, whether it be a lost relationship, a new start in life, respect among peers, closure, reconciliation. It must be difficult to fit so many personal discoveries into a book, but McMurtry accomplishes it with seamless fluidity. Nothing is pressured or jumps out as out of context or character. Nor does self revelation upon self revelation stack atop one another. It, much like the rivers theses men cross, meanders and roams, bending one way then another, cutting a new path with a sudden flood. I by no means imply that this is a book where, to borrow a Western film stereotype, the black hats lose and the white hats win every time. As I mentioned earlier, the good guys die in the book - due to past mistakes, wrong allegiances, stubbornness, and the natural dangers of the frontier. However, for the most part, each is allowed his own closure, though it may not be of the kind he wanted for himself.

To me though, that is what made the epic story all the more personal, even beyond sympathizing in the loss of comrades or the joy of reunion. When a sandstorm kicks up on the cattle drive, you as the reader feels the stinging grains on your cheek and the glass shard particles in your eyes. When some of the outfit must decide whether to hang one of their own for murder, you agonize over the decision with them. When frontier surgeries are performed, you are right there with them wincing and feeling queasy. And so, in your own way, as a reader you too are on a journey of self-discovery.

If I have left any doubt, let me state it clearly here - this is most assuredly and positively one of the greatest American novels I have had the joy to read. I would place it on the shelf with Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, Little Women and others as a book I would relish escaping with time and time again and point to as an excellent window in to superb, if fictional, Americans.

Great American Novel Challenge Booklist:
July 2009: Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner, publ. 1936