Rating: 
Summary: "It's a poor prophet who can't even save himself."
Review:
Now that I,ve just completed the 3rd book in the series,'By Sorrow's River',I am more convinced than ever that one benefits by getting these books together and reading them all,one right after another.Tonight is Christmas Eve and a little Elf told me that 'Folly and Glory' is awaiting under the Christmas Tree.
'By Sorrow's River' was a fascinating continuation of the spellbinding saga of the Berrybender expedition in the early West.
Every page produced another glimpse of this most unusual adventure.McMurtry continues to come up with fantastic lines ,observations and soul-searching thoughts.I guess this is what makes him one of the great writers around today.
A few of my favourites:
"Life was never so good or so bad as one thought-"
"These damnable American freedoms-this democracy!-were clearly
inimicable to sound British order.Democracy could ruin a good
servant faster than gin."
"What a pity there are no stocks anymore."
"There's no calm like the calm of a battlefield,once the
killing's over."
"We'll all leave husks someday,somewhere.Let's just bury them
and go along."
"I don't even feel that I'm in a place anymore.Places have boundaries or borders,and this goddamn place has neither."
"I like to think of Eternity as having a constant temperature,
though.In the great peace of infinity there should be neither
hot nor cold-one can't say that of Neuvo Mexico."
A great read;can't wait to read the finale!
Rating: 
Summary: Still Shooting But Still Missing
Review: 4. By Sorrows River by Larry McMurtry
Third book in the Berrybinder series, this carries the menagerie to Santa Fe, MN. The book is an easy and interesting read because McMurtry creates such vivid characters and incidents. Unfortunately, he does not have a compelling driving force for the narrative; the characters carry it along in picaresque style. It is rather like being on a raft with them as they flow aimlessly down the river of life. Still, can't wait for the next in the series. As long as Larry churns them out, I'll read. Still looking for the heart of Lonesome Dove.
Rating:
Summary: Too much Tasmin
Review: I'm a big McMurtry fan, but after the first two books of the series I became weary of Tasmin. The pace slows considerably, with her repetitive musings and reflections on "What am I doiing here?" I started skipping her chapters with no loss of coherence in the narrative. Her husband Sin Killer is far more interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Historical Inaccuracy
Review: Larry McMurtrey books are not great literature (well, maybe with the exception of LONESOME DOVE) but they are a lot of fun to read. I especially enjoy listening to these on books on tape or CD. The Berrybender series is no exception. Many Westerns are written for a male audience but Larry McMurtrey has in Tasmin Berrybender a strong female character with many quirks, supplemented by her sisters and stepmother. However, this last book had me yelling at cassette tape player in my car at the end. Couldn't Larry McMurtrey look in his giant bookstore for a biography of "Pomp" Jean Baptiste Charbonneau to learn that Pomp lives until 1866, participates in the California Gold Rush and escorts Mormons across the Rockies? Glaring inaccuracies like this will aggravate readers who like historical fiction but cannot abide this much stretching of the truth. But now I'll wait for the fourth volume in the series, perhaps Pomp isn't really dead and will do an "X Files" reappearance.
Rating:
Summary: Historical Inaccuracy
Review: Larry McMurtrey books are not great literature (well, maybe with the exception of LONESOME DOVE) but they are a lot of fun to read. I especially enjoy listening to these on books on tape or CD. The Berrybender series is no exception. Many Westerns are written for a male audience but Larry McMurtrey has in Tasmin Berrybender a strong female character with many quirks, supplemented by her sisters and stepmother. However, this last book had me yelling at cassette tape player in my car at the end. Couldn't Larry McMurtrey look in his giant bookstore for a biography of "Pomp" Jean Baptiste Charbonneau to learn that Pomp lives until 1866, participates in the California Gold Rush and escorts Mormons across the Rockies? Glaring inaccuracies like this will aggravate readers who like historical fiction but cannot abide this much stretching of the truth. But now I'll wait for the fourth volume in the series, perhaps Pomp isn't really dead and will do an "X Files" reappearance.
Rating: 
Summary: Narratives Draw Reader In
Review: O. K., I'm a sucker for Larry M. and I enjoy MOST of what he creates. We must remember that ; 1) Everything L.M. does is eventually (and unfairly) compared to his masterwork, "L.D." Well, this Berrybender series is NOT L.D., nor is it supposed to be. Yeah, it takes place in the wild west. Yeah, it's got about a million characters. Yeah, yeah yeah! We like that! But why? Well, that takes us to ; 2) L.M. has a way of creating characters and situations that are absolutely ridiculous, horribly brutal, toe tinglingly entertaining and in the final tally, endearing and compelling to the extreme. The B-bender books follow in this thread. The books are demanding because almost everbody in them would, in "real life", be insufferable (yet we keep wanting to know more about them). Also, in the classic L.M. style we are used to, characters are painstakingly developed over hundreds of pages... just to die in nightmarish ways under savage circumstances! Hey, the B-bender books are, if nothing else, entertaining. If they want to make a mini-series, they better put it on HBO 'cause the sex just won't quit!
Rating:
Summary: Dude! This ain't Lonesome Dove?!!?
Review: O. K., I'm a sucker for Larry M. and I enjoy MOST of what he creates. We must remember that ; 1) Everything L.M. does is eventually (and unfairly) compared to his masterwork, "L.D." Well, this Berrybender series is NOT L.D., nor is it supposed to be. Yeah, it takes place in the wild west. Yeah, it's got about a million characters. Yeah, yeah yeah! We like that! But why? Well, that takes us to ; 2) L.M. has a way of creating characters and situations that are absolutely ridiculous, horribly brutal, toe tinglingly entertaining and in the final tally, endearing and compelling to the extreme. The B-bender books follow in this thread. The books are demanding because almost everbody in them would, in "real life", be insufferable (yet we keep wanting to know more about them). Also, in the classic L.M. style we are used to, characters are painstakingly developed over hundreds of pages... just to die in nightmarish ways under savage circumstances! Hey, the B-bender books are, if nothing else, entertaining. If they want to make a mini-series, they better put it on HBO 'cause the sex just won't quit!
Rating:
Summary: Narratives Draw Reader In
Review: The Berrybender Narratives is a story of English people traveling in the "wild west." Sometimes the whole story seems a bit implausible, but somehow it draws the reader along, wanting to know more about what happens to the characters. It is easy reading, good summer reading, not too deep, but an interesting story. I never intended to read all 3 books, but in the end I did. I assume Larry McMurtry is working on the 4th.
Rating:
Summary: Lively and Unpredictable --- Definitely Worth the Wait!
Review: The settling of the United States by European interests has within the past 100 years swung radically between glorification and vilification in the telling. Larry McMurty's Berrybender Narratives, now in its third volume with the publication of BY SORROW'S RIVER, takes a middle, and more realistic, course. One comes away from the pages of each volume wondering how the genetic strain of the pioneers endured. Mutilation, and likely death, came suddenly and without warning from multiple sources, whether by animal, nature or fellow human beings.BY SORROW'S RIVER follows the narrative thread of its two predecessors, SIN KILLER and THE WANDERING HILL, in that it follows what is left of the Berrybender family on their ill-fated trek through the unsettled Western frontier. Lord Berrybender, the besotted, irredeemable family patriarch, is the catalyst for this journey. He is determined to hunt more and more buffalo, even as his family members and his bodily appendages are whittled away by accident and hostile design. It is Tasmin Berrybender, the Lord's irrepressible daughter, who remains the focus of the narrative. Married to Jim Snow, the Sin Killer in the first novel, and yet almost desperately in love with the (almost) non-responsive Pomp Charbonneau, Tasmin is a fish out of water in the American West but seems to be the only crew member capable of dealing with her surroundings. BY SORROW'S RIVER chronicles the Berrybender trek across the Great Plains toward Santa Fe. It is by far the most interesting and fastest-moving of the Berrybender volumes to date. This is not to slight its predecessors; it is simply an acknowledgment that McMurtry, having ensconced the nucleus of his characters in place, can now introduce new characters and situations at will. And what a motley, entertaining group he introduces! There are a pair of journalists --- one British, one French --- who are set on crossing the Plains via a hot air balloon. Their appearance is at once uproarious and poignant, for Le Partezon, a legendary and feared Sioux war chief, sees the end of his people foretold in the presence of this rudimentary but still revolutionary air travel. There is The Ear Taker, an Indian whose specialty is creeping up on his victims while they sleep and slicing a trophy ear off with a razor-sharp knife. He cannot be caught because he has never been seen. There are hardships to be endured, and death is an ever-present companion. McMurtry keeps his narrative lively and unpredictable. One never knows when a dialogue between characters will be interrupted by sudden and irrevocable violence --- which, by the way, is a mainstay of the book. McMurtry does not shrink from graphic descriptions; if you've been tempted to switch to a vegan diet, but you've never had the impetus to make the jump, some of the descriptions of cattle slaughtering in this book may be enough to help you break your meat-eating habits. BY SORROW'S RIVER is not for the faint of heart or, for that matter, the weak of gag reflex. You can heighten your enjoyment of BY SORROW'S RIVER by reading SIN KILLER and THE WANDERING HILL first, if only to gain a feel and familiarity for each of the characters and their situations. Don't get too attached to anyone, however. McMurtry won't hesitate to kill off a sympathetic character, though he does not do so gratuitously. Practically every word of BY SORROW'S RIVER serves to advance the plot along in some way. The only downside to this fine saga is that a year will be too long to wait for the final volume. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Rating:
Summary: A Violent But Engaging Look at the Old West
Review: This continues the Berrybender Saga - a seamless continuation with more of the same violence and romance that has populated the first two volumes in this 4 book set. McMurtry is a good writer in that he give you enough descriptions to make you feel a part of the story and enough character "thoughts" to give you insight into their presumed take on all the violence and uncertainty that surrounds them; while delivering some interesting history about a time when the West was a frontier, and change was afoot.
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