I won’t waste time with excuses here. Please forgive me if my reviews (if that’s what you want to call them) aren’t up to par. I don’t expect to remember every little thing when it’s been two months since I’ve read these. As always, "*" denotes a Pulitzer Winner. Let’s get July’s Lollapalooza underway!
BOOKS ACQUIRED JULY 2010
None (What? This can’t be right…)
BOOKS READ JULY 2010
Dead Man’s Walk, Larry McMurtry: The first book in the Lonesome Dove series is a look at the early careers of Texas Rangers Augustus McRae and Woodrow P. Call. It’s a pretty easy read, centering on the beginning of the long relationship between Gus and Call, and their first run-in with Buffalo Hump (and his son, Blue Duck), the Comanche leader that would prove to be the two Rangers’ biggest enemy during their careers, and Kicking Wolf, noted Comanche horse-theif (during Part One). The bulk of the book, however, focuses on the Rangers signing up to free Santa Fe from Mexico. Upon getting sold out by the General in charge of the “raid,” the Rangers are marched south through the deserts of New Mexico to be tried and executed, the “Dead Man’s Walk.” Obviously, since this book was written after Lonesome Dove, we all already know that Gus and Call survive, so I’ll just move on to the next book in the series…
Comanche Moon, Larry McMurtry: This book caused me problems. Not during the reading of this book, I actually thoroughly enjoyed it (We’ll get to the problems later in the post). Comanche Moon takes place during the twenty years between Dead Man’s Walk and Lonesome Dove. We’re given early stories of some of the characters we were initially introduced to in Lonesome Dove, and get the stories of some of the characters mentioned in Dove, but not actually included (spoiler: they’re dead during Dove). Again, the book is set in Austin, the Llano, and Palo Duro Canyon in west Texas. Buffalo Hump and Kicking Wolf are again central in causing grief and problems for Gus, Call, and the rest of the Rangers, as Buffalo Hump leads his final great raid from the Palo Duro south through Austin and on to the “Great Water.” We’re treated to the continued relationship between Gus and Clara, as well as introduced to the strained relationship between Call and the whore, Maggie, and her son, Newt. Blue Duck has a much more important role in Comanche Moon, and the book serves as a slightly less than decent fleshing out of the story arcs for those involved in Lonesome Dove.
Lonesome Dove*, Larry McMurtry: I have to start this by saying this is my favorite mini-series of all time in the history of EVAR. Well cast, well filmed, and a great tale of a cattle drive started on a whim. However, by the time I was 100 pages in to this book, I was ready to get in my car, drive to Booked Up in Archer City, TX, and wait there until Mr. McMurtry graced his store with his presence so I could berate him. That’s not to say that I disliked the book. I very much liked it. A whole lot, actually. BUT… Mr. McMurtry and his editors apparently didn’t feel they needed to go back and revisit this book when he wrote Comanche Moon. Not a single detail from the original book in the series was lined up with the details in Comanche Moon. And since I read them in order that they take place, it was infuriating while I was reading Lonesome Dove. I don’t know if it was laziness, or if McMurtry wanted to change the stories 12 years later while writing the prequel, but it bothered me so much I almost couldn’t get past page 150 of Lonesome Dove. My recommendation, if you’re going to read these books, is to read them in the order they were written, not in the order that they take place (and you probably shouldn’t read them one following the other, either). As this was a Pulitzer Winner, I had no choice other than to push forward and read it all. I did, and I’m glad I did, inconsistencies aside. Once I was able to stop my mind from focusing on the other books, I found Lonesome Dove to be one hell of a book. Gus and Call are two of the best American literary characters in history (in my humble opinion), and the sprawling epic nature of this book is phenomenal. The characters are well-imagined, the scope of the story is amazing, and it’s a wonderful journey from Texas to Montana (with a little Arkansas thrown in for good measure). READ THIS BOOK. Even if you don’t like westerns. I promise it’s worth your time.
The Cheese Monkeys, Chip Kidd: I wanted to like this book. I really did. But I didn’t have it in me. This book is a prime example as to why people that make their living designing covers for books probably shouldn’t try to write one. The story idea was alright. But this book has all kinds of problems. The narrator switches between three different names for another character, and I found it confusing. No problem if it’s happening as the story moves forward, and there’s an explanation, as far as I’m concerned. But when you’re switching between names multiple times in a paragraph (and sometimes in the same sentence) and you’ve never explained why the narrator doesn’t use just one name, it gets very confusing and frustrating. I spent the first quarter of the book thinking he was talking about three different people until I made the connection. I’m not stupid. If it took me that long to figure out that he was referring to one character with three different names, the writer and editors fucked up (I would not usually use that word in these posts, but that’s the best term for this: they didn’t make a mistake, they fucked up). The ending sucked (I’d love to find a more eloquent way of saying that, but there’s not. “Sucked” is the best word for it). I felt like Kidd was going for a forced existential ending, trying to make me wonder what it all meant (while ultimately deciding that it didn’t mean anything, as our actions don’t matter). Instead, I was wondering why I wasted my time on his miserable excuse for a book about a freshman art student in college and the junior female (in a relationship with an architecture student) that he has a crush on. I picked this book up because the blurbs on the back did their jobs: they made it sound REALLY interesting. It wasn’t worth the dollar I spent on it from the clearance shelf at the used book store. Not to mention the fact that I could have spent the time I took reading it doing absolutely nothing, and it would have been a better use of said time.
BOOKS ACQUIRED JULY 2010
None (What? This can’t be right…)
BOOKS READ JULY 2010
Dead Man’s Walk, Larry McMurtry: The first book in the Lonesome Dove series is a look at the early careers of Texas Rangers Augustus McRae and Woodrow P. Call. It’s a pretty easy read, centering on the beginning of the long relationship between Gus and Call, and their first run-in with Buffalo Hump (and his son, Blue Duck), the Comanche leader that would prove to be the two Rangers’ biggest enemy during their careers, and Kicking Wolf, noted Comanche horse-theif (during Part One). The bulk of the book, however, focuses on the Rangers signing up to free Santa Fe from Mexico. Upon getting sold out by the General in charge of the “raid,” the Rangers are marched south through the deserts of New Mexico to be tried and executed, the “Dead Man’s Walk.” Obviously, since this book was written after Lonesome Dove, we all already know that Gus and Call survive, so I’ll just move on to the next book in the series…
Comanche Moon, Larry McMurtry: This book caused me problems. Not during the reading of this book, I actually thoroughly enjoyed it (We’ll get to the problems later in the post). Comanche Moon takes place during the twenty years between Dead Man’s Walk and Lonesome Dove. We’re given early stories of some of the characters we were initially introduced to in Lonesome Dove, and get the stories of some of the characters mentioned in Dove, but not actually included (spoiler: they’re dead during Dove). Again, the book is set in Austin, the Llano, and Palo Duro Canyon in west Texas. Buffalo Hump and Kicking Wolf are again central in causing grief and problems for Gus, Call, and the rest of the Rangers, as Buffalo Hump leads his final great raid from the Palo Duro south through Austin and on to the “Great Water.” We’re treated to the continued relationship between Gus and Clara, as well as introduced to the strained relationship between Call and the whore, Maggie, and her son, Newt. Blue Duck has a much more important role in Comanche Moon, and the book serves as a slightly less than decent fleshing out of the story arcs for those involved in Lonesome Dove.
Lonesome Dove*, Larry McMurtry: I have to start this by saying this is my favorite mini-series of all time in the history of EVAR. Well cast, well filmed, and a great tale of a cattle drive started on a whim. However, by the time I was 100 pages in to this book, I was ready to get in my car, drive to Booked Up in Archer City, TX, and wait there until Mr. McMurtry graced his store with his presence so I could berate him. That’s not to say that I disliked the book. I very much liked it. A whole lot, actually. BUT… Mr. McMurtry and his editors apparently didn’t feel they needed to go back and revisit this book when he wrote Comanche Moon. Not a single detail from the original book in the series was lined up with the details in Comanche Moon. And since I read them in order that they take place, it was infuriating while I was reading Lonesome Dove. I don’t know if it was laziness, or if McMurtry wanted to change the stories 12 years later while writing the prequel, but it bothered me so much I almost couldn’t get past page 150 of Lonesome Dove. My recommendation, if you’re going to read these books, is to read them in the order they were written, not in the order that they take place (and you probably shouldn’t read them one following the other, either). As this was a Pulitzer Winner, I had no choice other than to push forward and read it all. I did, and I’m glad I did, inconsistencies aside. Once I was able to stop my mind from focusing on the other books, I found Lonesome Dove to be one hell of a book. Gus and Call are two of the best American literary characters in history (in my humble opinion), and the sprawling epic nature of this book is phenomenal. The characters are well-imagined, the scope of the story is amazing, and it’s a wonderful journey from Texas to Montana (with a little Arkansas thrown in for good measure). READ THIS BOOK. Even if you don’t like westerns. I promise it’s worth your time.
The Cheese Monkeys, Chip Kidd: I wanted to like this book. I really did. But I didn’t have it in me. This book is a prime example as to why people that make their living designing covers for books probably shouldn’t try to write one. The story idea was alright. But this book has all kinds of problems. The narrator switches between three different names for another character, and I found it confusing. No problem if it’s happening as the story moves forward, and there’s an explanation, as far as I’m concerned. But when you’re switching between names multiple times in a paragraph (and sometimes in the same sentence) and you’ve never explained why the narrator doesn’t use just one name, it gets very confusing and frustrating. I spent the first quarter of the book thinking he was talking about three different people until I made the connection. I’m not stupid. If it took me that long to figure out that he was referring to one character with three different names, the writer and editors fucked up (I would not usually use that word in these posts, but that’s the best term for this: they didn’t make a mistake, they fucked up). The ending sucked (I’d love to find a more eloquent way of saying that, but there’s not. “Sucked” is the best word for it). I felt like Kidd was going for a forced existential ending, trying to make me wonder what it all meant (while ultimately deciding that it didn’t mean anything, as our actions don’t matter). Instead, I was wondering why I wasted my time on his miserable excuse for a book about a freshman art student in college and the junior female (in a relationship with an architecture student) that he has a crush on. I picked this book up because the blurbs on the back did their jobs: they made it sound REALLY interesting. It wasn’t worth the dollar I spent on it from the clearance shelf at the used book store. Not to mention the fact that I could have spent the time I took reading it doing absolutely nothing, and it would have been a better use of said time.
Just noticed I spelled "thief" wrong. That's embarrassing...
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