1001 Books for Every Mood - Readers Guide

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

(Pulitzer, 1986)

“When Augustus came out on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake,” begins the epic story of a cattle drive to Montana. A clichéd myth of the American west? Not hardly, as aging anti-heroes (and ex-Texas Rangers) Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call battle dangerous ex-comrades and evil Comanche Blue Duck.

-- 1001 Books for Every Mood

Readers Guide by Patricia Kennedy

Overview

Gus and Call have been living a dry, dusty and mostly uneventful life in the small Texas town of Lonesome Dove running the Hat Creek Cattle Company when a former Ranger comrade, Jake Spoon, re-enters their life. Jake’s description of Montana inspires Call to gather a herd of cattle to drive north. “…there’s going to be fortunes made in Montana. Why it’s cattle land like you’ve never seen, Call. High grass and plenty of water.”

Jake is on the run because he accidentally killed a dentist in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Sheriff July Johnson, the dentist’s brother is hunting him down. Jake, whose penchant for liquor, poker, whores and soft beds has frequently landed him in similar difficulties, quickly regrets his suggestion as he begins to understand that Call has taken to the idea and that they will soon be enduring the hard and dangerous life of herding cattle, fording rivers, and evading marauding Indians and grasshopper plagues.

They set off on the 2,700 mile journey with former Rangers, ranch hands and Lorena Wood who has given up the “sportin’ life” for Jake. By the time they reach Montana many of the original riders have died along the way – by Indian attacks, gunshot wounds, hangings, water moccasins and “drownding.”

Discussion Questions

The Anti-Western

1. McMurtry thought he had written an anti-Western, but critics and readers quickly declared it the greatest Western ever. He says, “The romance of the West is so powerful, you can't really swim against the current. Whatever truth about the West is printed, the legend is always more potent." Is McMurtry successful at portraying the American frontier during the late 1870’s as anti-mythic -- populated by savages, wranglers, whores, half-wits and other dangerous and demented people who led lives both tedious and dangerous?

2. Exactly why did August and the Captain embark on such a dangerous journey? “We’re set on being the first there,” Call said. “It can’t be no rougher than Texas used to be.” Were they driven by opportunity and money? Was it just the thrill of adventure?

3. Do you think that McMurtry’s own “consuming restlessness” is symbolic of the American West psyche?

4. What is the meaning of the motto written by Gus on the Hat Creek Cattle Company’s sign: Uva, Uvam, Vivendo Varia Fit? As the sign disintegrates on the Captain and Gus’ mournful return to Texas, only a very small section is left to mark Gus’s grave. What is the significance of the sign falling apart?

5. Did McMurtry exaggerate the savagery of the Indian characters? Should he have included at least one sympathetic Native American or told more of the story from their point of view? Does his depiction reflect a less “enlightened” view than might be written today?

Character and Relationships

6. Do you admire Captain Call whose driven and stubborn persistence leads them to Montana? At the end of the novel, a young newsman (“a red-headed boy scarcely twenty years old, white with excitement…”) says that Call is “a man of vision” and Calls replies, “Yes, a hell of a vision.” What is the significance of this exchange?

7. What about Gus? Is he just a vainglorious old coot who is trying to relive his glory days? Are Gus and Call just burnt-out old men goading each other to take once last grand but ultimately luckless and futile journey?

8. Gus is constantly referred to as lazy, but Clara says that “Gus would never miss an adventure…not for you or me or any other woman. No one could have kept him home. He was a rake and a rambler…” Do you think this is a true assessment, or is Clara just a bitter woman? If Clara had been more welcoming, would Gus have stayed on in Nebraska? “I don’t have respect for men,” she said (to Gus). “I’ve found very few who are honest, and you aint’ one of them.” Is this true?

9. Gus and the Captain have the most enduring relationship in the entire novel. What ties them so closely? Is Call’s last journey with Gus back to Texas believable for such a solitary and unemotional man?

10. Does one character represent “goodness?” When Lorie takes up with Jake Spoon and gives up being a “sporting woman,” she still accepts Gus’ offer of “fifty dollars for a poke.” Why does she do it? Does her acquiescence compromise her? How is this different from Clara Allen giving up the love of her life to marry a more settled and richer man? Which of these two women could lay claim to being the moral center of the novel?

11. With the exception of the loathsome and cruel Blue Duck, which character elicits the least sympathy?

12. In a tale with so many minor eccentric characters (human and animal), who is your favorite and why? Does McMurtry add them for color and humor, or do they contribute to the narrative?

The Setting

13. In the opening scene McMurtry says, “the sun had the town trapped deep in dust…a heaven for snakes and horned toads, roadrunners and stinging lizards, but a hell for pigs and Tennesseans.” Discuss McMurtry’s use of imagery to convey narrative. How does it change as they make the long trek north?

14. Do the descriptive sections convey McMurtry’s goal to write the anti-mythic Western?

15. Why is the title Lonesome Dove? Isn’t this novel about leaving Texas behind? Shouldn’t the title have been something more like True North?

The Great American Novel

16. Some have said that Lonesome Dove is the Great American Novel, at the very least the Great American Western novel. Do you agree?

About the Author

Larry Jeff McMurtry (1936- ), the son and grandson of cattlemen, grew up on a ranch just outside Archer City, Texas, when small Texas towns were losing their long battle to the cities. It was a time, he says when there was a “consuming restlessness – an urge to be on the move.” He published his first novel, Horseman, Pass By, before he was 25. McMurtry is a prolific novelist as well as a screenwriter and book collector.

Larry McMurtry has observed that he too has the cowboy-traveling urge. “I grew up in a herding tradition and that’s determined everything I’ve done. I was never good at herding cattle, but writing is a way of herding words and rare books a way of herding books, and I suspect by my constant driving around the country I’m practicing a form of trail-driving, driving whatever happens to be ahead of me, the cars and the trucks, rather than cattle. “

The tale of Lonesome Dove was first written as a screenplay with Peter Bogdanovich. It was to be called Streets of Laredo from a famous cowboy song of the same name, but the movie was never produced so McMurtry rewrote the script – brilliantly -- into a Pulitzer-winning novel. The title “Lonesome Dove” was derived from a sign McMurtry once saw on a Baptist Church in Texas.

If You Liked This...

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Also by Larry McMurtry--

Horseman, Pass By
This was McMurtry’s first novel written in 1961 when he was not yet 24. The narrative portrays life on a cattle ranch in post-World War II and is written from the perspective of an orphaned adolescent boy whose grandfather owns the ranch. The novel inspired the film Hud.

Dead Man’s Walk
A prequel to Lonesome Dove, this tells about the earliest adventures of young Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call as they join up with the Texas Rangers.

Comanche Moon
This is the bridge novel between Dead Man’s Walk and Lonesome Dove, Woodrow Call and Gus McCrae are in their middle years, still serving as respected Texas Rangers.

Streets of Laredo
Follows Captain Call into Mexico, now a relic of the old Texas Rangers, as the great American West adventure comes to a close.

In other formats: Lonesome Dove

Lonesome Dove -- the 1989 DVD starring Robert Duval (Gus) and Tommy Lee Jones (Call).
Lonesome Dove -- the audio tape read by the great Wolfram Kandinsky available through www.booksontape.com.

Patricia Kennedy

Patricia Kennedy is a communications consultant in Boston, MA. Her company, Patricia Kennedy Communications, works with senior executives and their teams to build integrated based on business objectives and strategic directions.