Lonesome Dove Lecture: The Valley of Death (Chapters 26-74)

"It's all right, though," Augustus said. "It's mostly bones we're riding over, anyway. I'm told that over in the Old Country you can't dig six feet without uncovering skulls and leg bones and such. People have been living there since the beginning, and their bones have kinda filled up the ground."

Today we are discussing the second part of Larry McMurtry's masterful Lonesome Dove. We are meeting even more compelling characters, continuing to wrestle with the deepest themes of the human condition, and riding on with our crew of friends.

We're discussing vigilante justice vs law and order, remembering death in order to live, the mundane reality of mortality, how to map out your hero's journey, the American Sublime, talk as an antidote to grief, chains of thoughtless actions, lost love, friendship, and much more.

Please feel free to listen before, during, or after your reading and enjoy the work at the pace that best suits you. You do not need to have read all of these chapters to enjoy the discussion as I am keeping only to plot details revealed in the second part of the novel.

Timestamps:

0:00 meeting the characters of Fort Smith

4:00 my technique for meeting characters

7:00 July Johnson and Roscoe Brown

10:00 delaying the call to adventure

13:00 Aristotle’s art of living ethically 

15:00 Peach as voice of vigilante justice

18:00 Jake Spoon’s unromantic downfall

20:00 remember death in order to live

21:00 the women of McMurtry’s world

23:00 what does it mean to be a hero?

25:00 the duty of being a human being

28:00 the painful backstory of Elmira 

32:00 July & Roscoe’s journeys begin

34:00 two options are no options at all

36:00 the mundane reality of mortality

38:00 mapping out your hero’s journey

40:00 being in the belly of the beast

42:00 meaning in the battleground of life

44:00 a great storm hits the cattle drive

46:00 the power of near death experiences 

48:00 McMurtry & the American Sublime

51:00 physical pain is emotional pain

53:00 Augustus on the shortness of life

55:00 the lost love of Clara Allen

57:00 why did Gus delay his journey?

59:00 the first death on the cattle trail

1:01:00 talk it through vs get over it

1:03:00 the character of Louisa Brooks

1:05:00 the chain of thoughtless actions

1:08:00 numbered days of the human race

1:10:00 ‘the grave’s our destination’

1:12:00 why talk’s the way to kill grief

1:14:00 life philosophy of Gus McCrae

1:16:00 fate as consequence of actions

1:18:00 Bolivar leaves the cattle drive

1:20:00 Gus vs disrespectful bartender

1:22:00 ‘I guess they forgot about us’

1:24:00 taking moral inventory of life

1:25:00 justice as duty to community

1:26:00 The Last Picture Show film

1:28:00 the visit to Clara’s Orchard

1:30:00 Call as the father of Newt

1:32:00 Lorena Wood & Gus McCrae

1:36:00 the antagonist of Blue Duck

1:40:00 kidnapping of Lorena Wood

1:41:00 The Searchers film appreciation

1:45:00 riding through the valley of death

1:48:00 Augustus in the heat of action

1:52:00 Gus collides with July & Roscoe

1:54:00 Call fears the death of his friend

1:56:00 July Johnson buries his friends

1:57:00 Gus warns against vengeance

2:00:00 Jake Spoon proves a coward

2:02:00 we are who we associate with

2:06:00 the Spoon saga gets worse

2:08:00 you make your own chances

2:10:00 hung by friends vs enemies

2:12:00 your thoughts on the novel?

Resources to Explore:

• Film Appreciation: We've previously recommended directorial masterpieces in the Western genre from the likes of Howard Hawks, Sergio Leone, John Ford, and Sam Peckinpah. If any specific film resonated with you, its definitely worth steadily exploring the rest of their filmographies. But my curated Western film recommendations this time are: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969, dir. George Roy Hill) and Unforgiven (1992, dir. Clint Eastwood). And, because I simply can't help myself, I'd like to give you a bonus recommendation with The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007, dir. Andrew Dominik). Any one of these will prove to be incredibly thought-provoking read up against Lonesome Dove, so check out the trailers and some clips and go for the one that intrigues you the most. For another movie from McMurtry's filmography, check out Brokeback Mountain (2005, dir. Ang Lee), as the screenplay was adapted from the Annie Proulx short story by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana.

• The Streets of Laredo: Lonesome Dove began life as a screenplay called The Streets of Laredo, which is now the title of the second book published in the Lonesome Dove series. You might find it interesting to watch some clips of the actors that McMurtry and Bogdanovich had envisioned for the movie and see if they line up with your vision of the characters. John Wayne was intended for Woodrow F. Call, but turned it down because the waning-of-the-West theme was too melancholy. James Stewart, who was interested in the project, was set for Augustus McCrae. Cybill Shepherd was pictured for the role of Lorena Wood. Henry Fonda was set for the character of Jake Spoon. You might find it interesting to compare these actors to those who starred in the 1989 miniseries: Robert Duvall as Gus, Tommy Lee Jones as Call, Danny Glover as Deets, Diane Lane as Lorena, Anjelica Huston as Clara, Ricky Schroder as Newt. For many lovers of Lonesome Dove, these actors are the character. Here is one of my personal favourite scenes from the series (and book): The Gus McCrae School of Bartending.

• Epic Tradition: We've brought the epics of Homer into our discussions of Greek tragedy, but Larry McMurtry invites us to consider two specific writers of epic in Lonesome Dove: Milton and Virgil. These are the two writers that Wilbarger has in his saddlebag. He reads a little bit of Mister Milton each morning and leaves the books to Gus. If you're interested in Paradise Lost, check out some of our discussions on that masterpiece. You don't need to read the entire thing in one go. A few minutes spent with the poem here and there over the long-term is a great way to engage with the work. For Virgil, my favourite translation of the Aeneid is by Robert Fagles. We brought this writer into our discussions on Dante's Inferno. McMurtry suggested that Dante was the most significant influence on his work, so his Divine Comedy is well worth appreciating steadily too.

• American Influence: Larry McMurtry said two writers set the standard for greatness in the American tradition: William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. You can get a feel for Faulkner's influence in our introductory lecture to The Sound and the Fury. For an easy entrance into both writers, I'd recommend the short stories 'A Rose for Emily' and 'A Good Man is Hard to Find'. I believe we can also discern the presence of Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and Willa Cather. For Hemingway, we have a discussion diving into a selection of his short stories here (which, along with The Old Man and the Sea might prove complementary). To get a sense of Steinbeck's style and themes, we have a discussion on his East of Eden here. And when it comes to Willa Cather, I find that the first of her great prairie novels O Pioneers! is a powerful entrance to her work. If you want to see just how different two writers in the same year and genre can be, then I've included some readings of Cormac McCarthy's prose in this talk on Blood Meridian. For non-fiction, we've mentioned how Gus and Call embody the philosophies of Epicureanism and Stoicism, but can we feel any broad influence of American Transcendentalist writers like Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman?

• Art Appreciation: In our discussion of the American Sublime, we mentioned the paintings of Thomas Cole who founded the Hudson River School art movement of the mid-19th century. Here are just some of my personal favourites: The Voyage of Life quartet, The Oxbow, Catskill Mountains, Distant View of Niagara Falls, Prometheus Bound, Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, The Course of Empire Destruction. If you're interested in this movement, then there are some wonderful short videos here and here.

• Westerns: If you've been enjoying Lonesome Dove and are wanting to dig deeper into the Western genre, then Library of America has a superb volume containing four of the most influential Westerns from the 1940s and 1950s: The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark, The Searchers by Alan Le May, Shane by Jack Schaefer, and Warlock by Oakley Hall. By going to the books that McMurtry grew up reading, you can see where he diverged from the tradition and forged his own path through the mythology of the Old West.

Reading Assignment:

Our next discussion will cover up to and including chapter one hundred and two of the story, which takes us through part three and to the powerful close of this saga.

This coming weekend, we will be discussing our next Greek tragedy with Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, which means the following weekend we will be back to Lonesome Dove. As always, if you're running these reads at the same time, it would be great to know how you're finding that experience.

Questions for You:

1) How did you feel about of the new cast of characters?

2) What does this novel teach us about love and friendship?

3) What did you make of the events of this part of Lonesome Dove?

4) What series of choices and events led you to where you are now?

5) 'Anything gets boring if you talk about it enough. Even death.' Do you agree with how Gus gets through grief?

If this is your first reading of Lonesome Dove, I would love to know how the story is meeting your expectations. If this is a reread for you, what is it like returning to the story? And please do share with us your favourite passage from the second part of the story.

Happy reading, everybody!