Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry - spoiler free book review

Рет қаралды 2,947

2 жыл бұрын

My review of Lonesome Dove, the Pulitzer prize winning epic western novel by Larry McMurtry, famously filmed as a hit TV mini series.
Blurb:
It begins in the office of The Hat Creek Cattle Company of the Rio Grande.
It ends as a journey into the heart of every adventurer who ever lived . . .
From the author of The Last Picture Show and Texasville - here is Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece. A powerful, triumphant portrayal of the American West as it really was.
More than a love story, more than an adventure, Lonesome Dove is an epic: a monumental novel which embraces the spirit of the last defiant wilderness of America.
Legend and fact, heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers - Lonesome Dove is the central, enduring American experience dramatically recreated in a magnificent story of heroism and love; of honour, loyalty and betrayal.
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Пікірлер: 60

@MIDDLEoftheBookMARCH 2 жыл бұрын

Probably a top five of all time book for me. Great review! 🤓

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you!

@AnneEWilliamson 2 жыл бұрын

I love the idea of a book both set in a unique setting as well as feeling to be able to be set anywhere. Your review makes me want to read this even more!

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks, Anne! I think you’d really like it

@MichaelRomeoTalksBooks 2 жыл бұрын

Excellent review. Lonesome Dove is definitely epic. It swept me away into the old west and sent me on a cross country cattle drive. Interestingly when it was given to me as a Christmas gift I expected to hate it. I only stated reading it because I knew at some point the friend who gave it to me would ask if I'd read it yet. Once I started it I couldn't stop.

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

It really is a great work of popular fiction. Really glad you enjoyed it too!

@patricegravino8120 Жыл бұрын

"Lonesome Dove" is high literature as much as anything by Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, etc., that you would find on a syllabus for English lit studies, or philosophy or history. And it should be taught as such. It is a mighty novel that is so grand in its scope and ambition and readability that it truly is one of the best novels ever written--not just for Americans. It strikes so many readers so intensely because it is, simply, The Story of Life. It's the best novel I've ever read, and that's coming from a lit major.

@CriminOllyBlog Жыл бұрын

That's a great description of it - it really feels like it covers every part of our existence.

@markymarkzero 4 ай бұрын

Cringe

@DDB168 2 жыл бұрын

Your review has made for a compelling must read for me. Thanks.

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

Great! I think you'll love it!

@n8colt 2 жыл бұрын

Great video Olly :) I haven’t read this book yet but I did find it in a charity shop last week and picked it up specifically because I saw it on your channel. Love your videos

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

Hey! Thank you so much :) I still have no idea why people like my videos, but I'll take it :D Hope you enjoy the book as much as I did.

@BookwormAdventureGirl 2 жыл бұрын

Loved hearing your thoughts, Olly. Totally agree about the characters. I think that's what I enjoyed the most. They are so well developed. I also enjoyed the humour and appreciated that the humour was written well but so were the more serious scenes. Thanks again for reading this with me.😊💙

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks, Jolene. It really was a wonderfully rich book, with a bit of everything. Thoroughly enjoyed our first buddy read 😊

@BookwormAdventureGirl 2 жыл бұрын

@@CriminOllyBlog Me too!!🤗

@AJDunnReadsandWrites 2 жыл бұрын

This is officially on my future tbr list. I think I would really love this book. Interested in the other books in the trilogy.

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

I think you would too, it's wonderfully rich and enjoyable.

@johnnym4594 7 ай бұрын

Yeah your gonna wannna read this

@drnocka-rocksteady 2 ай бұрын

Best book I've ever read. Every time I eat a biscuit I think about Gus Mc cray. Definitely a page turner. Larry mc crutry does a great job with the flow. Couldn't pit it down.

@CriminOllyBlog 2 ай бұрын

It is a cracker!

@coreyledin-bristol7068 Жыл бұрын

I do not like Westerns. Books or movies. However, LD is one of the best books I have ever read. I was completely immersed in the story

@CriminOllyBlog Жыл бұрын

It’s wonderfully done isn’t it. He’s so very good at creating believable characters and that really pulls you in.

@phatmattcowboys Ай бұрын

Lonsome Dove is my favorite single book!

@fadista7063 2 жыл бұрын

This was a very thoughtful review--thank you! As an American I should have read this--and likely will at some point. God knows I sold a ton of them in the bookstore gig of 10+ years 😁 esp when the tv miniseries came out.

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

I’m not surprised it was so successful, it’s one of those great popular novels that really ticks all the boxes

@anotherbibliophilereads 2 жыл бұрын

I read it 15 years ago and remember flying through it at a fast pace. Definitely a contemporary classic. I’m not sure about the sequels. I heard mixed reports and feel they may have been written as cash cows.

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

I suspect that is the case with the other books. I do think I’m going to try one of them for June on the Range though

@nickfoster9350 10 ай бұрын

"Lonesome Dove" is one of those books that's in a class all its own. It was the first and only western I've ever read, and I've been searching for his other books. I'm particularly interested in "The Streets of Laredo."

@CriminOllyBlog 10 ай бұрын

I have the others on kindle but haven't tried them yet. I did read The Last Picture Show by him, which was great

@mindysbookjourney 2 жыл бұрын

I am looking forward to reading this for June on the Range.

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

It’s a fantastic pick for that!

@michaelk.vaughan8617 2 жыл бұрын

I honestly have no idea why I haven’t read this yet. Fantastic review.

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

I’m kind of amazed you haven’t. It seems like a book you would have read

@michaelk.vaughan8617 2 жыл бұрын

@@CriminOllyBlog I’m going to start it at the end of June on the Range. That seems appropriate.

@palebluewave 2 жыл бұрын

I picked this up from a goodwill thrift shop run today after seeing your video. I tried to tag you in the haul video I put together, but I guess my channel isn't big enough yet to tag. bummmmer! looking forward to reading it.

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

Cool! I’ll check that out. I think you need 100 subs to tag.

@Ian-xd2in Жыл бұрын

My favourite book as well as favorite movie. They compliment each other so well

@CriminOllyBlog Жыл бұрын

I haven’t seen the movie but I really want to

@W3TFART 2 жыл бұрын

Another book to read now thanks 🙏

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

My pleasure! Hope you enjoy it

@jshaers96 2 жыл бұрын

I think I have this lurking on an old Kindle. I'll hunt it out and give it a try because it's not the first time I have seen this recommended.

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

It's really great!

@michaelmoore6481 2 жыл бұрын

You have tempted me. Kind regards.

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

Hope you enjoy it, Michael!

@jeremyfee 2 жыл бұрын

I love this book. I only have one criticism for your analysis. It's not about "Gus and Call" as you say; it's about Call and Gus, LOL. I love Gus, but in my opinion Call ultimately comes first in their friendship. :)

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

Well, obviously you're wrong, but thanks for watching anyway :D

@nedmerrill5705 Жыл бұрын

Hey CriminOlly: About the problems with the indigenous characters...I'll just point out that life was dangerous on the range, especially given the language barrier.

@TheAnarchitek 10 ай бұрын

Louis L'Amour wrote great westerns, but Larry McMurtry wrote the Great American Western Novel, a towering saga of the Old West at the moment of a sea-change, never again to be the same. I've read Lonesome Dove seven times, waiting for another six months-year, to read it again. If I only wrote one book, and it was Lonesome Dove, I'd walk around with the biggest smile on my face! For those who haven't saddled up with Call and McCrae, you have missed one of life's most sublime moments, a journey into the heart of the American dream.

@CriminOllyBlog 10 ай бұрын

What’s your take on the other books in the series? I haven’t tried any of them yet and am slightly nervous to as they can’t possibly live up to Lonesome Dove

@TheAnarchitek 10 ай бұрын

@@CriminOllyBlog The other books are interesting, but not compelling. Anything for Billy is good, and Cadillac Jack is comparable prose, but modern settings. Also, The Last Picture Show is good, the first McMurtry book I read.

@angelaholmes8888 Жыл бұрын

Just finished reading lonesome dove it was good soon I will watch the adaptation 🤠

@CriminOllyBlog Жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it!

@alannagilmore8982 Жыл бұрын

Subbed bc I LOVE lonesome dove!!!

@CriminOllyBlog Жыл бұрын

Excellent! Hope you find other things to enjoy on the channel

@jshaers96 2 жыл бұрын

Olly, have you ever read Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess? On one hand it's a typical Burgess book with lots of obscure vocabulary and showing off, but on the other it's presented as a sort of chunky novel you'd pick up at the airport with lots of humour and action. Worth considering if you've never heard of it, rather a hidden gem. It has one of the most memorable opening sentences I have ever read.

@CriminOllyBlog 2 жыл бұрын

I haven’t ever heard of that, sounds very appealing though. Just looked it up and I see what you mean about the first sentence 😂

@johnnym4594 7 ай бұрын

I have a big problem with this book. It needs to be longer!!!

@CriminOllyBlog 7 ай бұрын

At leat there are more in the series

@dead2me82 Ай бұрын

I’m very surprised that you would remove a star rating because of how the native Americans and the Mexicans and Deets are portrayed. This is a book written from the perspective of the frontiersman of that day, not from our modern perspective of what we would like frontiersman of that day to have experienced. Larry McMurtry’s writing is perfectly fitting of the historical documents that we have in that time period. It’s these very same viewpoints that you negate the rating that make the book so real and believable. That’s not a fault of the author. Your deduction of a star is the fault of the reader. If you want a book that is sympathetic to the cause of the Native Americans, then you should find a book from the perspective of Native Americans. Lonesome Dove is not that book.