"Blood Meridian" vs "Lonesome Dove"

[ajvenigalla]

Since it's the 30th anniversary of Cormac Mccarthy's great American novel Blood Meridian and Larry McMurty's Pulitzer Prize winning epic Lonesome Dove, I have decided to launch and dedicate a post to these two great Western novels.

I have read only Blood Meridian and not (yet) Lonesome Dove, so I don't have a comparison myself.
However, I would like to say that my favorite novel of all time is Blood Meridian. I like its haunting and maximalist prose style, I like its brave depiction of explicit and extreme violence, I like its almost transcendent, mythological feel.

Which ultimately is the better novel? Which is a more effective depiction of the West? Which is a better "ultimate Western"? Who is the better Western novelist? Is it Larry McMurty or Cormac McCarthy?

[Eiseabhal]

As far as the best Western writer is concerned, you have reduced it too far by knocking it down to two. There's more to McCarthy than just being a genre writer. McMurtry is entertaining. H L Davis was a writer of Westerns which feel more authentic than either of these two who are probably better writers than he was.

[Pompey Bum]

There's more to McCarthy than just being a genre writer. McMurtry is entertaining.

True. I was trying to think if there was much more to it than that. Blood Meridian is the better novel and McCarthy is the better writer. But parts of Lonesome Dove are really funny (which can't be said for Blood Meridian), and some are genuinely moving (others, more melodramatic). Lonesome Dove is a Western in the classic sense. Blood Meridian is set in Mexico and Texas, but its themes are more like Melville's in Moby Dick. Bottom line: read both.

Although he only wrote one Western, John Williams' Butchers Crossing is getting quite the literary reputation these days. Has anyone read E.L. Doctrow's Welcome to Hard Times, by the way? Would you recommend it?

[ajvenigalla]

^ thanks. I've read Blood Meridian.

I will read Lonesome Dove soon.

And I will also re-read Blood Meridian

[kev67]

I have not read Blood Meridian, but I have read Lonesome Dove, its sequel and two prequels. Of the Lonesome Dove Series, my favourites were in the order of

1) Dead Man's Walk, 2) Lonesome Dove, 3) Streets of Laredo, 4) Comanche Moon

Larry McMurtry was a cruel god to his creations. The only character he really protected was Captain Call, who was my favourite too.

[Pompey Bum]

I was more the Augustus McCrae type. Call was too legalistic.

[Bustrofedon]

Blood Meridian is one of my top books, too. That book hooked me on McCarthy and I like it better than anything of his I read after. I never considered reading Lonesome Dove but that may have been a mistake. Little Big Man might be my favorite novel that I consider a western even though it is a parody. I always thought that Blood Meridian sort of transcended the genre.

[Pompey Bum]

Little Big Man might be my favorite novel that I consider a western even though it is a parody.

Little Big Man is sometimes considered a revisionist Western (a loaded term, I know, but then shouldn't terms about Westerns be loaded? ) I think Welcome to Hard Times is considered a revisionist Western as well, although I've never actually read it.

[bounty]

ive not read either, but I do have lonesome dove and would be happy to read it right after I finish the book im presently in.

ive been skeptical about Cormac McCarthy because of our recent experiences here on the forums with an insufferable character who held McCarthy as one of his favorite authors. however since then, ive seen a fair number of other people praise him too.

so at the moment, im ill-equipped to answer the op's exact question, but to me the question about westerns is, is this just a story that happens to take place in say, Colorado or California or does it capture the essence of the time and place?

ive read zane grey, Louis l'amour, max brand and a small handful of some others. I like zane grey the best of the bunch I think in part because he often writes in the cowboy/western vernacular. though although the authors I have read do this to an extent, im also particularly fond of his main characters rugged individualism, love of freedom and the land, their chivalrous spirit and the rough justice they visit on the bad guys. to me, those are essential characteristics of a good western.

[Pompey Bum]

ive been skeptical about Cormac McCarthy because of our recent experiences here on the forums with an insufferable character who held McCarthy as one of his favorite authors. however

Oh come on, I'm not that bad.

Another sort of Western that was sort of good was Woe to Live On by Daniel Woodrell. This was less a cowboy story than a historical novel set in "Bleeding Kansas." It was gruesome enough, and it's graphic depiction of cruelty bothered me a little. I guess I'm getting too old for the rough stuff. Woe to Live on was later turned into an Ang Lee movie called (I think) Ride With the Devil. I never saw it, so I can't comment.

[bounty]

laughs...

I think that's one of the attractions of the westerns I tend to read---they are for sure rough, but what "cruelty" exists is almost exclusively limited to the bad guys, and its not graphic in comparison to today's literature.

and its also one of the "wrongs" the good guy "rights."

I recently picked up "deadwood" by pete dexter, which is supposedly one of the all time great westerns.

which leads me to star trek: the next generation! there's an episode where worf's son alexander invites his father to join him in the holodeck as the sheriff and deputy in deadwood. worf is at first skeptical but then they are in a bar and a bunch of guys attack worf, while he is busy beating the tar out of them, he turns to alexander and shouts gleefully in his deep bass voice "I am beginning to see the appeal in this program!"

its sooo funny.

its interesting to note the variety of depictions out there---for instance, I cant imagine clint eastwood playing a character from a zane grey novel, but neither can I imagine zane grey writing a novel like any of the clint eastood westerns---yet they are both westerns.

has anyone seen gary cooper in high noon, and then sean connery in outlander?

[Pompey Bum]

Sure, I know the Gary Cooper film. I've never seen Outlander but my old college roommate was always talking about it (VCRs were still around the corner, which dates me pretty badly). I thought it was Science Fiction, though.

By the way, the "insufferable character" you referenced earlier took his name from a character in a great old Western movie called The Wild Bunch. He must have thought of himself as a rootin' tootin' badass from day one.

Oh and do you (or does anyone else) know anything about a writer named James Carlos Blake (In the Rogue Blood, Country of Bad Wolfe's, etc.)? I think his books are very violent, too, but I've heard that they have some literary merit. Anyone read him?

[ennison]

I had forgotten all about H L Davis. I think I have a novel of his in the house: Honey in the Horn. Read it in my mid teens. Very realistic.

[bounty]

yes, outlander is science fiction, but its pretty much the same story as high noon. even more than "my sweet lord" by George Harrison is like "he's so fine" by the chiffons!

what makes it work for both stories, is that the locales in both movies are "frontier" so to speak. it would be interesting to have a sci-fi fan who doesn't like westerns, but who has enjoyed outlander, watch high noon. or vice-versa. one wonders what matters more, the essential stories or the settings?

seems like I might have seen the wild bunch when I was a kid...

I have not read james carlos blake...

[WyattGwyon]

I don't think Blood Meridian is even McCarthy's best novel set in the west, let alone his best work. I prefer The Crossing among the "westerns." Suttree, I believe, is much better, and even his first novel, The Orchard Keeper, I find more interesting than Blood Meridian.