Writes Rachel Monroe, in "How Larry McMurtry Defined and Undermined the Idea of Texas/The 'Lonesome Dove' author’s great subject was the mismatch between the glamorized West and the grimmer reality." (The New Yorker).
Last year, the Archer County News reported that Booked Up had been purchased by another Texas celebrity: Chip Gaines, the telegenically scruffy co-star of “Fixer Upper,” the home-renovation show that’s been credited (or blamed) for the spread of the “farmhouse chic” aesthetic. Gaines... said that he and his wife had gone through McMurtry’s collection and, with an eye for beautiful bindings, picked out books to be showcased in a new hotel that they’re opening in Waco this fall....
Gaines told me that he identified with McMurtry’s late-in-life return to small-town Texas. “He chose to go back to his roots, back to simple beginnings,” he said. “I just hope I make him proud."
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44 comments:
“Majority white.”
The Left is fixated on race.
I'm confused. An estate sale purchased by Chip and Joanna gives the author a reason to bash McMurtry?
And isn't Fixer Upper a show that's majority white, semi-rural (agrarian), definitely heterosexual, and a Texas staple?
Larry McMurtry did not define Texas, and he did not undermine it. He was not happy as a Texan, and tried to do very un-Texas things such as run an eclectic bookstore in a small town. He was for a time a (?adjunct) professor at Rice University, and later went Hollywood, with significant success.
McMurtry would not be pleased with what Texas has become either, but 30 million Texans are happy enough with the state that they remain here, with more coming, legally and illegally, every day.
Now, his books are being judged literally by their covers. Larry McMurtry would not be happy with Texas today.
I am grateful for many things, not the least of which is that I have found a home here, as have my children and grandchildren.
I thank you for the link, although I had to suffer through the inane modern day whining about diversity in a novel set decades ago. To me Larry McMurtry is a colossus of literature. Lonesome Dove is a beautiful tale of adventure and friendship. My favorite novel by a large measure. “It ain’t dying I’m talking about’ it’s living”.
I'm sure The New Yorker knows as much about Texas as they do about us knuckle dragging troglodyte Southerners. Bite me Rachelš¤¦♂️
Chip Gaines's heart is in the right place. I am not sure that his judging McMurtry's books by their covers would make Larry all that proud, though.
"...two years later, a state representative said that schools 'might need to ban 'Lonesome Dove"' for being too sexually explicit." Might need to ban...
It don't believe it actually happened, and it was one rep who suggested it. Bad ideas abound on all sides.
McMurtry wrote about the Texas that he knew and the one that was, from his perspective. He didn't much spend time counting peoples skin color or vaginas. But he did portray humans as they are. He was a great writer and a terrific story teller. Which is what writers used to be, before we entered the era of writer/activists and the belief that you cannot write about other people if you are not of those people. Imagine the Odyssey under those circumstances. Well hell...Homer was just another white guy anyway.
McMurtry said that he wanted to demystify the aura of the old west when he wrote "Lonesome Dove". It only expanded that aura. Such is the effect of a great storyteller.
PS- another Texas writer who painted a great picture of the Texas from another era, and parts of Texas that don't get much attention any longer, was Cormac McCarthy. Reading him, you see and feel the land and the people.
Makes me wonder how Ann Patchett's bookstore is doing. Parnassus Books, in Nashville. If an independent bookstore could work, that one would sure seem to have all the necessary ingredients. Can it fight the trends of commerce?
A million books in Archer City. Sadly, competition for the largest ball of twine between Darwin MN and Cawker City Kansas has left both towns saddled with maintaining said balls against the ravages of burrowing insects, rot, mold and disinterest, with little bump in the tourest trade. This kind of collecting is a guy thing. If either had female mayors, they would have been pushed into the dump.
I loved Lonesome Dove. Gus was such a great character, both in the book, and as played by Robert Duvall in the miniseries.
>"...his early novels is distinctly Texan and rural (and white): Cadillacs and roughnecks, Hank Williams songs on the jukebox at the pool hall, aimless drives down empty streets."<
"And white". Well, yeah, duh...and so the fuck what? He wrote about his existence in Texas. Why is "white" notable? It's not - it is simply an opportunity for this New Yorker writer to gratuitously deliver what her parochial, (guaranteed) lefty mind thinks to be a slur on "deplorables" like those racist Texas freaks.
I will confess that my living room bookcase, itself beautiful, is stocked with beautiful hardcover books.
These books are selected from scruffier bookcases in just about every other more intimate room in the house stuffed full of books very imperfectly sorted by subject or author or sometimes binding -- all the paperbacks together -- or just stacking factors to keep the most paper in the least space. Mess is integral to the collection.
The proposal that the only books shelved are shelved for visual display is slightly repugnant.
McMurty also owned a bookstore in DC.
https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/03/26/rip-larry-mcmurtry-whose-georgetown-bookstore-was-a-dc-literary-center/
And isn't Fixer Upper a show that's majority white, semi-rural (agrarian), definitely heterosexual, and a Texas staple?
Joanna's mother's side is Korean I believe. Is that white now?
...and doesn't all writing have a point of view, a perspective? Must we obsess over applying the new awful standards to historic everything and erase that which does not comply? That sounds like what the baddies would do...
Archer city is quite a bit off the beaten path. I've been there and to Larry's bookstore. Even saw him and some family members hanging around inside, not doing much, just hanging around.
An enormous bookstore, I wonder if he had it digitally catalogued ( probably not). So much of it had the feel of a garage sale site. Floor to ceiling books loosely catalogued.
But something someone eccentric like Larry would do. His son James is now handling the estate, great musical artist by the way.
Some Russian novels make me feel cold, Lonesome Dove did a great job at making me feel parched.
I like reading to my kids before bed and I'll read all kinds of books, science, philosophy, sci-fi, fantasy, etc. As they get older it tends to be books I'm more interested in. I once started to read Lonesome Dove to them and I was editing on the fly too much and had to shut it down. But a high schooler should be fine with it at the very least.
The reason the Left attacks whiteness and lack of diversity is because it works. And it works because they get little or no pushback from the Right. Just powderpuff stuff about "wah, wah, don't talk about race". Keep that up, and the Left will win. You don't win a fight by pretending there's not a fight.
As for McMurty he was the real deal and not a fake like Cormac McCarthy. Its good he loved books and tried to go back to his roots.
I'm guessing that the New Yorker's readers are majority white.
Very late in life Q&A with McMurtry:
https://www.reddit.com/r/LonesomeDove/comments/kp5e25/larry_mcmurtry_ama_response_thread_mr_mcmurtry/
Quote from above:
"I’ve tried as hard as I could to demythologize the West. Can’t do it. It’s impossible. I wrote Lonesome Dove, which I thought was a long critique of western mythology. It is now the chief source of western mythology."
I think what McMurtry missed, and what many arts insiders have missed, is that the audience was way ahead of them. You can't demythologize something that average Joes are already sifting for truth.
The version of the state... no longer feels so central—there are plenty of other Texas stories to tell....
There are of course other Texas stories to tell. So go TELL them!!!!
This is as inanane as the comenters here insisting the host abandons blogging about what SHE in interested in.
I loved Lonesome Dove.
So Gritty. The characters flawed beyond comprehension.
But the Story is ALWAYS compelling. As others have noted, McMutry set out to blow up the myths of the old west.
Geez walking for days in the desert. No food, not water. Finally shooting your horse so you can drink the urine, since you haven't made any for days.
I never considered the book sexual in nature, I dont see kids wading through the long book looking for racy parts...the internet is a real thing, and kids no were to get what they want. For my kids, if they were reading, I left them alone. If our son wasnt reading in highschool, I would left my copy of Fanny Hill in the coffee table. Reading is fundamental.
"Joanna's mother's side is Korean I believe."
I was speaking more about the show's clients, and my point (which I failed to clearly make) is that the journalist's notion of Texas is an East Coast stereotype.
I've read quite a few of his books. Seems to me that there are lots of pages in some devoted to non-white characters. I supposed because they are blood-thirsty, torturing everyone hideously, neatly-named Indians, it doesn't count.
MarcusB. THEOLDMAN
I re-watched Lonesome Dove a few weeks back. It was as good as I remembered.
My grandfather, my mothers father, who I barely remember, Was a land surveyor in West Texas around 1890/1900. He worked for the State of Texas. He was paid in state chits. A chit equaling about one section. One square mile. On any given month he would be worth quite a lot of Texas real estate. Hundreds of sections. But a room for a week. With meals and laundry. Plus stables and fed for his horses would cost a hundred sections. If they would take them. He owned a Wnchester sporting rifle in 45/70. I forget the model and a Scholfield revolver which cost him several months pay, about 1000 sections.
He was considered well off and well heeled for those days.
I never read a word of McMurtry, but good on him and his clan for the bookstore venture.
Quixotic, like Nicholson Baker's attempt to save physical newspapers from destruction.
He was a high school classmate of my wife's old boss...a very dear friend.
Will have to ask her if she has any juicy stories...
One of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. I'm the son of a man who loved western novels (even though he was an electrical engineer who was born ion Canada) so I guess it was in my blood to be a fan. I loved the way McMurtry swept away the Hollywood gloss and gave us a more 'realistic' idea of what how the West was won.
He was so good at depicting people struggling — and rarely succeeding — to find love, honor, dignity and meaning in a hopeless world. And he could spin a yarn when he was inspired. Sure, there were a lot of disappointing sequels. But at his best, he made you feel as if his characters were people you had actually met, and even befriended. Lonesome Dove alone would put him among the best of the last century. I feel sorry for those who stay away from it because it’s a Western. The man who created Gus and Captain Call must have been a soul worth knowing.
Read , which is his first published novel. It was made into , which starred a very young Cybil Sheppard in ironically her first motion picture. Larry was a good guy who loved talking about writing. He also supported the UCR Writers Workshop and was a guest for Writers Week when I was in the Creative Writing program in Riverside. This was just prior to Lonesome Dove.
Wait. WHAT?
‘Purchased good to adorn their hotel’. What the hell?
I’d not been to his massive ‘4 corners’ store, but I really liked his sister’s earlier store, ‘The Blue Pig’, back in the late 80s.
I think this completes my utter disgust of the Gaines. In order to sell my house recently, I’ve had to paint the exterior white and I refused to paint the trim black (painted the brick a light gray). This is the ‘Joanna Gaines’ influence - every single house that flips goes white (with black trim). It’s as if they have a hate for natural brick or a requirement for rigid uniformity.
Stories of Mr. McMurtry of his driving around Texas in a white Lincoln inspired me (and a girlfriend at the time) to rent a white Continental and we toured the borderlands for a weekend, camping in Big Bend, stopping at Judge Bean’s cabin and walking to the river (which was not as ‘active’ back then), and driving along the long, empty border.
We really showed the rental place what ‘unlimited mileage’ meant.
I've read several of his books and find him OK but I'm not that big a fan.
Most recently, having listened to a great 5-6 hour interview with Peter bogdanovich, I tried to read the last picture show but couldn't get into it. Or the movie.
His tales of commanche torture in dead man's walk spoiled that novel for me and I have a pretty strong stomach.
I've not read lonesome dove but have seen the series 5-6 times and love it and most of the characters in it. I just discovered last night that I purchased it on Amazon and plan to download it to watch on an upcoming trip.
There's a prequel, I forget the name, which is pretty good to, even if it doesn't have Duvall a D Jones
John Henry
"Blogger Rory said...
Very late in life Q&A with McMurtry:"
THANK YOU!!
Wow Blogger left out LEAVING CHEYENNE and THE LAST PICTURE SHOW from my post.
I loved Lonesome Dove, read it on a train ride to DC for a sales conference a long time ago. Then finished it on the train ride home. I had very vivid mental images for all the characters, then I saw the miniseries and lost them all. The casting of that miniseries was fantastic, as was the music by Basil Poledouris. I've seen it several times now, always entertaining.
I read the Lonesome Dove sequel, then I read the two prequels that McMurtry wrote. They were ok, but lacked the something special that made Lonesome Dove so unique and engaging. Recently listened to Lonesome Dove on audible. Quite a literary achievement.
Will miss Netflix DVD when it closes Friday. Just used it for a 1981 film I had never heard of, Hard Country, which introduced Kim Basinger, Darryl Hannah, and Tanya Tucker. Filmed in Midland. How did 43 stick it out there? Great soundtrack.
Lonesome Dove is American Shakespeare. Despise it at your own risk.
FTR, being a white man in public is not a crime and no EDU brainwashing that it is a crime will work on us.
"He wrote about a Texas that was majority white..."
According to the census Texas is 77% white, though that may be due to the funky way the census counts Hispanics. Now that I've set that straight, I think I'll head in to town for a poke.
Mike (MJB Wolf)
> Wow Blogger left out LEAVING CHEYENNE and THE LAST PICTURE SHOW from my post.
Well...*heavy sigh* of course it did.
Seriously "Leaving Cheyenne" is one of the books in that first (non-)trilogy he wrote about Texas, with "Hud" being the 'end of early Texas, the beginning of the oil times'.
Super book "Leaving Cheyenne". It's been 44 years now, so I need to add it to my list to read again.
Also: "Last Picture Show" is one in that 'trilogy'. "from small town into Urban Texas". At least that's how I've heard it discussed.
The movie is faithful. Cloris Leachman won that Oscar for a reason.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBdiNbSNVbw
"Lonesome Dove is American Shakespeare. Despise it at your own risk."
I don't care for Shakespeare either, and don't know enough about LD to despise it.
I've never read any of his novels, but he was certainly showered with more than aesthetic blessings by the movie and television versions of his works: Hud, Terms of Endearment, The Last Picture Show, Lonesome Dove. He made enough money to indulge himself. The Archer bookstore wasn't as spectacular as buying Twitter, but he certainly scratched an itch in an inconvenient place.... Maybe someday I'll read Lonesome Dove. Sometimes a first rate screen version diminishes interest in the book. They say good but not great books make the best movies. Based on the quality of the movies based on his books, I thought of him as a kind of Maro Puzo of the west.
Speaking of Books, movies and Mario Puzo, I recently watched "The Offer" about the making of The Godfather. I also watched, for perhaps the 1oth time, all three Godfather movies and Read, for the first time, The Godfather. Also read The Sicilian.
Of the 3, I think I liked The Offer, about converting the movie to a book the very best. The novel was OK but not the kind I would read a second time. The Sicilian I found very pedestrian and even a bit dull. Though I did get all the way through.
And maybe I've seen the movies too many times already but, good as they are, they left me wondering what all the fuss is about. Or perhaps one of us is not ageing well.
John Henry
HUD! Yes can’t believe I didn’t recall that yesterday.
I saw Hud for the first time a few years ago. Which is to say, I watched it through for the first time; it's one of those movies that other people liked a lot and so it was often on if it caught my interest.
But it never did, and after seeing it through at last I wonder what all the hoopla is about.
I didn't know about the McMurtry angle at all.
But then I never had much invested in the mythos of the American West.
Hud - Oh, I think the hoopla was all about Paul Newman in the title role. Even the title is changed to focus on Hud. Not the events / tragedy that happens.
It's mostly about the old Cattle Texas vs. the Oil economy. Hud is all about selling leases, but the old man wants to keep his herd. ("Beginning of Oil Texas")
(yarr be spoilers) - In the end, the old man and the boy (Lonnie) have to watch while the state kills his entire herd of cattle because of possible disease. Old man dies of a fall from a horse.(i.e. "End of Cattle Texas")
Sort of Larry David 'faithful' to the book (I.e. Pretty... pretty... pretty faithful).
The Black cook is swapped out for Patricia Neal. But that was 1963. They have Lonnie stop Hud from assaulting the cook, saving Hud from being totally bad. In the book, Hud is really a bad.
Yeah, I'll stack that ("Horseman, Pass By") behind "Leaving Cheyenne"...
The article is ridiculous. Independent and then even chain bookstores closed everywhere, probably in largest numbers in NYC, because of Amazon, and that was McMurtry's stated reason for his bookstore closing. It has nothing to do with culture. All people have more access to more books now. Though I love bookstores, Amazon delivers the biggest bookstore in the world to me.
Books are not banned by school libraries. A few are removed from the purchase and access lists for a wide variety of reasons. Some are limited to older students. Tennessee has an excellent law that assigns responsibility for books and other educational materials to parents through a process of review by the locally elected school board, which should be the locus of control over book purchasing. The American Library Association, which has poached that control, is staffed and currently run by a self-defined revolutionary Lesbian Marxist -- that's capital M Marxist, as in she attends their meetings and brags about ignoring parents' academic and sexual standards for their children. She also endorses teaching grade schoolers about anal sex. What does that have to do with literacy?
The ALA is hopelessly politicized and is being removed in many states from its limited official role of certifying teaching school Masters in Library Science programs. They're not a real authority to begin with: they're just another trade organization that surrendered all credibility by becoming a hard leftist political entity, just like PEN.
McMurtry was partially responsible for the similar hard left politicization of PEN. They're a prison elimination group now and give out awards and most of their resources to talentless people who were domestic terrorists or just run-of-the-mill rapists and killers writing bad poetry. Look at their most recent prize books: A pervy white billionaire villain who wants to kill MLK again recruits an autistic black math professor; yet another second-rate screed about black women; two about 'life on the rez'; South Africa during apartheid; Philippinos overcoming prejudice in America; a passel by disgruntled women who use "lapidary" prose ... always watch out for that lapidary prose. It means even Amazon can't sell it.
I've read many of McMurtry's books, and I agree with him that they're above average but not great. I don't think sixth graders would get much out of his Houston Series, which includes Terms of Endearment and All of my Friends Are Going to be Strangers, but adolescents might enjoy them as beach paperbacks. His politics always were adolescent and petulant. He's above average for your typical academic creative writer.
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