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Summary: yes sir....the legend continues
Review: another great addition to the Lonesome Dove saga...tell the story before Lonesome Dove. A must read for the Lonesome Dove fan. A quick read compared to the first two
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Summary: A Respectable "Prequel" to the Great LONESOME DOVE
Review: This is a harsh tale of the earliest partnership between Woodrow Call and Gus MaCrae, the marvelously heroic anti-heroes of LONESOME DOVE. In this tale the two, as young men, stumble into the early Texas Rangers, drawn by the naive love of adventure which rangering promises the two youths. But they soon find that they and the rangers they lucklessly attach themselves to are no match for the harsh country they confront. The Commanches and the Apaches are harder and smarter in the ways of the wilds and the Mexicans are more numerous and better prepared. The Texans are bunglers, led by charlatans and self-interested adventurers. Worst of all, none of them, from the lowliest ranger, to the officers, to the whores who trail along behind them, know what they are letting themselves in for. It is a hellish passage which they undertake, rife with the sudden violence and grotesqueries which characterize McMurtry's vision of the west. There is the oversized whore, Mattie, who alternately mothers and fornicates with the young rangers she finds around her; the simpering easterner who has set himself up as an officer in the rangers; the pirate turned soldier of fortune who leads his troop of adventurers into country he neither understands nor is prepared to encounter; the sudden lightning storms and tornadoes; the misshapen Commanche war-chief who hunts the white men like buffalo; the deadly Apache who culls the white herd in the night through a long and arduous desert death march; the overly proud Mexican army officer whose life, in the end, depends on the goodwill of his remaining captives; the old mountain man and the scout who travels with him; the brain damaged quarter master whose luck it is to live while other, more complete men must die. All of these rush blindly toward that strange fate which awaits them in the end and which will overwhelm those who will survive, in a moment of surrealistic beauty and dread which somehow wipes away the harshness and suffering which have gone before. In the end, MacCrae, the carefree instinctive man of action, and Call, the careful and thoughtful planner, are forced to see that they, as they have been, callow and inexperienced youths, are no match for the country and the people they have found in it. But, unlike most of their comrades, they miraculously survive their trek. And are changed and enlarged by it. Country bumpkins and veritable greenhorns at the outset, they are fast on the way to becoming the tough rangers we will meet once more, in the books which tell of their subsequent adventures, by the end of this tale. This one does not quite rise to the resonant strains of its precursor LONESOME DOVE, but it is a fitting prequel. We get to see how the country and the experiences of a harsh youth began to form the two men whose tale this ultimately is. And if there is not much plot here, there is a vividness in the description and the dialogue that make you feel like you are there with these men. True, the tale is so grotesque as to seem almost unreal. But McMurtry's writing is sharp and evocative and fresh so that, despite a certain predictability in the events, you want to stay with the characters, to experience this harsh and nightmarish world along with them. Not up to LONESOME DOVE. But that was a hard act to follow.
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Summary: Dead Mans Walk
Review: I read this book a second time recently, partly because I was not sure if I had read it in the past. The first two thirds is wonderful with the introduction of the characters and the harrowing situations that they find themselves in. I'm puzzled how this book is suppose to reveal how the characters of Gus and Woodrow are created, since they make it through alive mostly on just plain luck. They both certainly get enough experience to fear nothing in the future, but where do they become the fierce fighters that we meet in Lonesome dove? Another book between the two is sorely lacking. The last third of the book is impossible to read a second time. By this point I had long realized that I had read the book before, and remembered how it became a series of weird, gory events. Lonesome dove's is such a better book because it is coherent, and build upon a theme and enriches it. Even though Gus loses his life at the end in an unpredictable encounter, it still fits within the context of his life up to that point. The other themes of this series have nothing to do with the luck of a bean lottery. In Lonesome dove you feel that Gus and Cal are who they are because of their lives experiences that they themselves had influence over. It is out of context to have them survive due to a lucky draw of a colored bean. I got up to that point the second time around and returned the tapes. The first time through despite the above, I was spellbound and shocked by the gore. But you can't read that a second time around and get anything of substance out of the experience.
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Summary: Depressing !
Review: By far, .......the MOST depressing book I've ever read! Couldn't there have been at least one or two good things to happen? Maybe I should have read Lonesome Dove first. Well, . . . I'm working on it now.
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Summary: A Most Intriguing "Western"
Review: Shattering many of the old stereotypes recalling the "glory" of the Old West, McMurtry has actually created many new stereotypes of his own. Here, in this new tale, are the grotesques we have come to expect of him, the suddenly violent eruptions, the sense of utter despair. And yet the tale resonates, with its feeling of hopelessness, with all the aimless wandering and low-down betrayals and the angry, incomprehensible bloodiness of the Indians who understand the land better than the whites and yet are doomed to lose it to the ever swelling numbers of them as they trek west to encroach on the Indian lands. Neither side understands the other and so are brought together in nothing less than a bloody war of attrition. The harshness of the terrain in which they all travel imposes its bloody, dehumanizing regimen on these people. This tale is, finally, one of pointless wandering by men who seem to have nothing better to do. And, indeed, perhaps they haven't. Even more, it is a tale of the savage interplay between the peoples of this land as Indians brutalize whites and Texans brutalize Mexicans who, in turn, brutalize the Texans, each yielding to the baser impulses which the land elicits from them. There is not much plot here either, just the love of adventure of two young frontier boys on the way to becoming men which draws them into one foolhardy campaign after another, leading them to participate in, and witness, some of the meanest conditions living can offer, and some of the ugliest means of dying. It doesn't quite make men of them, to be sure, but it hardens them and teaches a bit about living in the harsh world in which they find themselves -- a world which, through good luck and some basically sound personal traits, they manage to survive in long enough to embrace.I am reluctant to invoke LONSEOME DOVE here, the tale which started all this but, in fact, that is the obvious reason for this book, to show us how the two old Texas Rangers, Call and MacCrae, got to be the way we found them in the latter book. And yet it all works here without reference to that first book. This one reverberates with a real feeling of life, despite its lack of any real plot and the utter sense of despair which permeates the tale. And it holds you. It's not so much that you want to know what happens (I already largely did, having seen the TV movie previously), but that you want to be there with them, to experience the world which McMurtry so brilliantly conjurs up for Call and MacCrae. Sometimes it's not a matter of trying to guess what's around the next bend only but wanting to live it. And that's what McMurtry gives us here. And that's good writing.
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Summary: More, and less, of the same
Review: The thing is, the fatalism wears a bit thin when it ends up amounting not even to a hill , but a bowl of beans. There are some vivid scenes; trekking along the top of a ridge full of indians, and the murderous hunting party hanging out and getting drunk at the trading post. It feels as if Mcmurtry is saying something over and over again about life being short. Having bled Call and Macrae dry with the first two books, he appears to barely believe in them anymore, and the epic journey they take is stagey and not a little absurd (gang of rangers burnt to death by a field of grass?) It lacks the surprises of the first two novels, and seems coy with the characterisations. It's fair to assume he didn't expect to get this far, and it's a shame to agree that he didn't.
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Summary: Great, but I'm biased
Review: Hi, it's me again, that annoying 14 year old obsessed with LD. I have just read DMW, and I think it was fabulous. Unfortunately, Im extremely biased. I love Gus and Call so much that the book could be terrible and I would love it. Luckily,m this book is just plain great. The characters are expertly set up, and you can see how their experiences made them who they are in LD. I particularly love to see what made Call so silent, with such a serious, determined nature. If I hadn't read LD and SOL, maybe I wouldn't like it as much, but come on: who wouldn't want to read a book as brilliant, touching, and heartwrenchingly funny and sad as LD?
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Summary: Brutal Prequel To Lonesome Dove
Review: The first adventure of Western heroes Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call, whose later life story was immortalised in LONESOME DOVE. A very readable novel that reflects the brutally of that time and place, even if it is somewhat unpolitically correct with its use of Indian villains. Apart from the two known characters, the novel is full of strong characters who breath life into this remarkable and entertaining book. Powerful and well worth reading, it is only let down by the rather weak and silly ending which all too obviously sets itself up for further adventures - no problem with that, it's just a shame it had to detract from the power of most of what had gone before.
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Summary: A good read but a little disjointed
Review: Having Read Lonesome Dove and Streets of Laredo, I found this book to be also quite good. I enjoyed the story line and the characters. The style is vintage McMurtry except for the one weekness I saw. The plot seems to be a bit disjointed, with the characters going from one difficulty to the next without ever really wrapping up anything. It leaves you with an unfullfilled feeling at the end. I guess I just wasn't satisfied. It seems a little too obvious that McMurtry is simply setting us up for another prequel.
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Summary: Nowhere close to Lonesome Dove...
Review: I would have liked to have known what I would think of this book had I not read Lonesome Dove. After reading LD, I thought Streets of Laredo was a great book, and a very fitting sequel-- I went through it just as quickly as I went through Lonesome Dove. I went through Dead Man's Walk very quickly and enjoyed it, but the reason I enjoyed it was that I've already read about Gus and Call, and have grown fond of them and their adventures. Had I not read LD and SOL, I don't think I would like DMW too much. Read this book, but only after reading Lonesome Dove.
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