Yeehaw!!! I'm here to report that I finished reading
Lonesome Dove this afternoon! And, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing.
Throughout the book I noticed so many little details that remind me of BBM that I pretty much stopped keeping track. Some things reminded me of the movie/screenplay and other things reminded me of the story more than the movie. I don't know what all of Proulx's literary sources of inspiration were, I'm sure there were many, many things that she looked to when writing BBM, but I wouldn't be surprised if LD was amongst them. Phrases like "let be" and "I swear..." appear more than once in LD and the "I swear..." takes on a pretty inportant significance in LD, though maybe not as much as in BBM (or at least not as highlighted as in BBM). And, there are funny specific phrases like "the pelts be damned" in LD (a quick reference made in a conversation about hunting beavers) that of course remind immediately of BBM.
And, then there are major themes that seems so important in both LD and BBM (possible minor **
spoilers** ahead). It's very striking to me that Call starts dreaming about Gus after he dies, and even seems to hallucinate about him a bit while awake. The whole concept of returning the remains of a partner/loved-one's to a significant place seems to be another common theme. The intensity of the relationship between Call and Gus and an awareness of that intensity is much more foregrounded at the end. In the conversation between Clara and Call, I was really struck by her statement that one of the many reasons she never married Gus was because she thought she'd always be in competition for Gus with Call. Specifically, she says to Call, "Another reason I didn't marry him was because I didn't want to fight you for him every day of my life." And, in very general terms, I still think the theme of long travel from south to north and north to south is interesting in both BBM and LD. The contrast of how that travel is achieved and what it means in each story seems pretty significant.
I thought the increased pace of the writing towards the end of LD was kind of interesting. It almost felt like McMurtry might have really been working to wrap things up quickly, compared to other passages through the center of the novel that seemed much more leisurely.
Someday I'll read the other books in the series. I'm particularly curious to read about the early days of the partnership between Gus and Call. Gus is such a great character, it was very sad to see him die in LD.