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Author Topic: Larry McMurtry  (Read 80426 times)

Offline michaelflanagansf

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Re: Larry McMurtry
« Reply #75 on: March 07, 2007, 01:41:37 PM »
Hi all,

Here's another review from the S.F. Chronicle of the new book:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/07/DDGL0OFT7T1.DTL&hw=mcmurtry&sn=001&sc=1000

Sounds like another qualified thumbs down.
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. - Karl R. Popper

Offline Nikki

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Re: Larry McMurtry
« Reply #76 on: March 07, 2007, 07:46:12 PM »


Michael, very interesting reviews re McM's new book.

Sorry McM feels the need to get into priapic-style writing. Has he run out of something to say? Sounds like a novel by Roth. BTW I like the way Giardina writes -- do you know him personally, or do you read his reviews frequently?  Sounds like a serious critic.

The San Antonio site really slammed McM -- they also called the 'Loop Group' trashy. I just posted that I finished it only becaue of McM's humor.      (Note to DJ: leave it in the bin!)

Warwick really praises the new book -- what a contrast to Giardina's review.

BTW I read 'Leaving Cheyenne' this past fall. It is very gooI  d -- interesting characters who keep the reader's attention -- they are appealing and poignant. I think Giardina mentioned it in this review.

I'm working my way through 'The Berrybender Narratives,' a four part series of a querky British family traveling through the west post-civil war.  Part 2 was published in 2003. So many characters that McM lists a cast of characters in each of the series. I'm really enjoying it -- hard to believe McM wrote 'When the Light Goes' if it's as bad as it sounds.
The shirts hanging on a nail shudder slightly in the draft.

If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven!

Offline michaelflanagansf

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Re: Larry McMurtry
« Reply #77 on: March 08, 2007, 01:16:37 PM »
Michael, very interesting reviews re McM's new book.

Sorry McM feels the need to get into priapic-style writing. Has he run out of something to say? Sounds like a novel by Roth. BTW I like the way Giardina writes -- do you know him personally, or do you read his reviews frequently?  Sounds like a serious critic.

The San Antonio site really slammed McM -- they also called the 'Loop Group' trashy. I just posted that I finished it only becaue of McM's humor.      (Note to DJ: leave it in the bin!)

Warwick really praises the new book -- what a contrast to Giardina's review.

BTW I read 'Leaving Cheyenne' this past fall. It is very good -- interesting characters who keep the reader's attention -- they are appealing and poignant. I think Giardina mentioned it in this review.

I'm working my way through 'The Berrybender Narratives,' a four part series of a querky British family traveling through the west post-civil war.  Part 2 was published in 2003. So many characters that McM lists a cast of characters in each of the series. I'm really enjoying it -- hard to believe McM wrote 'When the Light Goes' if it's as bad as it sounds.

Nikki - Giardina is an author and has taught at U.T. Austin - he currently is teaching at Mt. Holyoke.  I like the way he writes too.

Here are reviews of 2 of his books:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/07/04/DDGOBIQ33L1.DTL

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/review?oid=oid%3A81258

As your review of Berrybender shows, I don't think Larry has run out of things to say.  Perhaps he's fixated on ol' Duane somehow - doesn't want to say goodbye.  So maybe he has just run out of things to say about Duane and crew and should just move on to other topics.


Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. - Karl R. Popper

Offline Nikki

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Re: Larry McMurtry
« Reply #78 on: March 08, 2007, 03:04:09 PM »

 Thanks Michael for your links re Giardina's books. Both sound definitely worth reading.
The shirts hanging on a nail shudder slightly in the draft.

If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven!

Offline Nikki

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Re: Larry McMurtry
« Reply #79 on: April 29, 2007, 09:53:18 AM »


I guess this thread has died down, or maybe no one is interested in McMurtry. However, if you like western novels -- real western novels -- then McMurtry is for you.

I posted a while back that I was reading McM's 'The Berrybender Narratives' a four-volume series: Sin Killer, The Wandering Hill, By Sorrow's River, and Folly and Glory. These stories follow the Berrybenders, a family of querky British aristocrats and their retainers across down the Missouri River and across the great plains. Although McM brings   humor to this family of eccentrics, he describes the beauty and brutality of the plains filled with dust storms, drought, Indian attacks, and cholrea.

In an interview with Planet Jackson Hole, Annie Proulx, discussing the screen writing of BBM, remarked I would likely have said no to any other screenwriter(s) who approached me on this story...I trusted them. especially Larry McMurtry, whose ear and eye for Western America is equaled by none.   McM has proved himself many times over, especially with his sweeping 'Lonesome Dove' the Pulitizer prize winning novel, and many other stories set in the vast reaches of the American desert.

The 'Berrybender Narratives' should be read in order, since the narrative flow of the stories follows the character development as well as the description of the developing American west. McM includes a number of real-life historic figures, as well as an account of the Alamo.

 In a review in the 'Book Reporter,' Joe Hartlaub writes, 'Folly and Glory' may well be the best of the Berrybender Narratives. McMurtry is perfect here, capturing the feeling of danger and casual brutality that was part of the everyday existence of the frontiersmen in the mid-19th century...[it] is, ultimately, the capstone of what may well be McMurtry's penultimate work in a career that has been marked by creative summits.

This is more than a 'western' -- it's a description of life the way it was lived in a harsh, unforgiving land filled with beauty and brutality. For those who like McM and accounts of early American western life, these stories are well worth reading.

 
The shirts hanging on a nail shudder slightly in the draft.

If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven!

Offline dejavu

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Re: Larry McMurtry
« Reply #80 on: April 29, 2007, 10:42:52 AM »
Hi, Nikki,

They sound very interesting.  I haven't read much western fiction, but a couple of years ago I was reading a lot of history books covering the period you talk about -- including the Alamo.  I'd like to read these books by McMurtry someday.

This thread does seem to have died down, doesn't it?  But it's not from interest in Larry McMurtry.  I still have a stack of his novels that I got from my father's basement -- I did intend to read them all (and still do).  Other things keep interfering, but I'll get back to them someday.
Jack's from Texas.
Texans don't drink coffee?

Offline Nikki

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Re: Larry McMurtry
« Reply #81 on: April 29, 2007, 11:10:34 AM »

... well, ya know DJ, I think a lot of people are put off by the western genre. IT's not just cowboys and Indians, it's the whole saga of the west that is part of American history, and McM tells it beautifully and entertainingly.

If you want to read the 'Berrybender Narratives,' get them in paperback, and start from the beginning. I think you'll enjoy them.

The shirts hanging on a nail shudder slightly in the draft.

If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven!

Offline Ellen (tellyouwhat)

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Re: Larry McMurtry
« Reply #82 on: April 29, 2007, 12:51:49 PM »
Nikki, how old are the Berrybender Narratives?  When were they written?
sometimes I think life is just a rodeo the trick is to ride and make it 'til the bell --john fogerty

Offline Nikki

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Re: Larry McMurtry
« Reply #83 on: April 29, 2007, 07:13:10 PM »
Nikki, how old are the Berrybender Narratives?  When were they written?

Hi Ellen,

The first: 'Sin Killer' was published in 2002
Second:  'The Wandering Hill' published in 2003
Third   :  'By Sorrow's River' published 2003\
Fourth :  'Folly And Glory' published 2004

Don't have any info as to when McM actually wrote them - probably not long before publication.
The shirts hanging on a nail shudder slightly in the draft.

If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven!

Offline WhenPigsFly

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Re: Larry McMurtry
« Reply #84 on: April 26, 2008, 02:07:45 PM »
OT, but not sure WHERE it belongs ... and thought ya'll might appreciate:

Author and Bookshop Owner Larry McMurtry Receives the LAPL Literary Award
Quote
... because he is a “bibliophile par excellence.”

That’s how City Librarian Fontayne Holmes describes the novelist, essayist and screenwriter. “He really is such a book person in every single meaning of the word, as a bookstore owner, as a book collector, as a writer and as an incredible reader of literature." <snip>

http://www.downtownlascene.com/index.php/scene/news_item/31349/
...somehow, as a coat hanger is straightened to open a locked car and then bent again to its original shape, they torqued things almost to where they had been, for what they'd said was no news.  Nothing ended, nothing begun, nothing resolved...

Offline Nikki

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Re: Larry McMurtry
« Reply #85 on: April 27, 2008, 09:08:47 AM »
OT, but not sure WHERE it belongs ... and thought ya'll might appreciate:

Author and Bookshop Owner Larry McMurtry Receives the LAPL Literary Award
Quote
... because he is a “bibliophile par excellence.”

That’s how City Librarian Fontayne Holmes describes the novelist, essayist and screenwriter. “He really is such a book person in every single meaning of the word, as a bookstore owner, as a book collector, as a writer and as an incredible reader of literature." <snip>

http://www.downtownlascene.com/index.php/scene/news_item/31349/

Thanks JD.  There was a Larry McMurtry thread on the Forum a while back.  Jo, are you here?  Remember the thread?  You posted that you had met McMurtry once.  I think we discussed 'Lonesome Dove,' one of my all time favorites -- The miniseries of LD was highly applauded by critics; I watched it again not long ago, and it still holds up -- very true to the book.  Glad McMurtry is still writing.
The shirts hanging on a nail shudder slightly in the draft.

If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven!

Offline CANSTANDIT

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Re: Larry McMurtry
« Reply #86 on: April 27, 2008, 09:24:08 AM »
Hi, Nikki- you are NOT going to believe this:

I am in the middle of "Comanche Moon", and I had the thought that I should post on the Larry thread to mention some things about the book-just yesterday.!..Very weird. You know we are getting to be like a family around here, when we start telegraphing stuff to each before it hits the board...!!

I think I'll have to do that, now.

Offline CANSTANDIT

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Re: Larry McMurtry
« Reply #87 on: April 27, 2008, 09:27:40 AM »
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

However, its archived...I might just mention it in the 'books you've read lately' thread....

Offline Nikki

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Re: Larry McMurtry
« Reply #88 on: April 27, 2008, 09:33:36 AM »
Hi, Nikki- you are NOT going to believe this:

I am in the middle of "Comanche Moon", and I had the thought that I should post on the Larry thread to mention some things about the book-just yesterday.!..Very weird. You know we are getting to be like a family around here, when we start telegraphing stuff to each before it hits the board...!!

I think I'll have to do that, now.

Jo, I loved 'Comanche Moon.'  Hadn't seen the Larry thread, so thought it was archived or something. I think you and I were the only ones posting in it towards the end, no?  Let me know if it's resurrected.  I also bought a used copy of 'Dove' recently, 'cause I want to read it again. 
The shirts hanging on a nail shudder slightly in the draft.

If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven!

Offline Nikki

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Re: Larry McMurtry
« Reply #89 on: April 28, 2008, 06:23:55 AM »


Jo,  we're back on tract w/McM.  Look forward to your opinion of 'Comanche Moon.' Have to dig my copy out and review! LOL
The shirts hanging on a nail shudder slightly in the draft.

If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven!