lonesome dove

[country doctor]

It must stay in print and it must be taught in American literature classes so a new generation of lit professors are exposed to the work. Those who read Owen Wister's The Virginian and Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, felt these two would become classics. Now no one reads Wister's novel and, to my knowledge, GWTW is not taught in lit classes. While Lonesome Dove may be a good book, I don't think it will ever attain the status of "a classic". It just doen't have the universal appeal of The Great Gatsby and The Sun also Rises.
The whole world doesn't live in Texas.

it might not ever achieve the 'label' of a classic but it should stay in print long after you and the doc have seen our last days on top of this old planet...

the doc figures that there's gonna be many a reader that reaches for this one for many years to come...

the history of the texas rangers is a big part of the history of texas and of this country's history of manifest destiny...it might not always be pretty and it might not always be just...but it was what it was, and it's not something that should get swept under the rug of political correctness...

cowboys and indians is a crucial part of american history...

[country doctor]

well general literature chatters the doc has got an update for this thread...

the doc's reading larry mcmurtry's memoir right now called appropriately enough, 'books: a memoir'...it's mostly about mcmurtry's career as a book collector and seller, but he did throw this gem out there in the book...

the doc is paraphrasing but it was something like this...'i consider lonesome dove the gone with the wind of the west'...

there you go, general literature chatters...if the doc and mcmurtry both consider this an american classic, it must be ipso facto...

and...

btw...

ROAR!

[country doctor]

ipso facto, general literature chatters, ipso facto...

ROAR!