BBM and Lonesome Dove

[southendmd]

Sophomore is a great word.  From the Greek "sophos" = wise, and "moros" =stupid.

[Clyde-B]

I think the Don Quixote effect may be a reflection of real life.

I know that I am often attracted to people that have qualities that I feel I lack and would like to have myself.  In the process of getting to know them and being with them, I often learn how they do what I admire and pick up that learning for myself.  I assume that they do something similar.

It would seem that you would want to incorporate that facet of real relationships into fictional relationships as well.

[Brown Eyes]

I think the Don Quixote effect may be a reflection of real life.

I know that I am often attracted to people that have qualities that I feel I lack and would like to have myself.  In the process of getting to know them and being with them, I often learn how they do what I admire and pick up that learning for myself.  I assume that they do something similar.

It would seem that you would want to incorporate that facet of real relationships into fictional relationships as well.

I wonder (and guess) that deeply entrenched literary traditions probably are reflections of aspects of real life.  So, I agree with your observation here.  If so many authors over so many generations and different cultures gravitate to a concept, there's probably some core of "truth" to it.

I always get excited to learn about ways and think about ways that BBM fits into wider literary and film traditions.

[mariez]

Heya Marie!  Could you explain more about the series of books?  Should readers read these in a particular order?  How big is the full series?

Hi Amanda!  They were not written in chronological order, and I knew Lonesome Dove was written first - but I confirmed the specifics at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonesome_Dove_series

The Lonesome Dove Series is a series of four books written by Larry McMurtry. The order in which the books were written is:

Lonesome Dove (1985)
Streets of Laredo (1993)
Dead Man's Walk (1995)
Comanche Moon (1997)

However, the chronological order of the story is:

Dead Man's Walk
Comanche Moon
Lonesome Dove
Streets of Laredo

This series, which has also been adapted into several made-for-television movies, follows the exploits of several members of the Texas Ranger Division, from the time of the Republic of Texas up until the beginning of the twentieth century.

Recurring characters include Augustus "Gus" McCrae, Woodrow F. Call, Joshua Deets, Pea Eye Parker, Jake Spoon, Clara Forsythe Allen, Maggie Tilton, Lorena Wood Parker, Blue Duck, and Buffalo Hump.


Amanda, I would stick with reading Lonesome Dove first.  After that, it might help to go back to Dead Man's Walk and Comanche Moon before tackling Streets of Laredo, which is very grim. 

I watched the series on DVD not too long after BBM came out. I remember L.M. talking about how he had wished he's written BBM and questioning himself as to why he didn't think of it 1st and he mentioned Gus and Woodrow. SO, I watched it, and like it too. One of the DVD extras was an interview with L.M. circa 1989 when the series was made. He talked about how in literature a story involving a pair of friends is almost invariably patterned after "Don Quixote". I posted on IMDB ages ago about this. His point was the pair exchange qualities or character traits by the end. Frequently one character is a "dreamer" and the other a "realist", but in the end the realist adopts the dream of his friend as his own......

Let me add my thanks for this, retropian!  I had the same thoughts about pairs of friends, and I really like the Don Quixote referenc.  I do agree that it's a reflection of real life.

Marie

[Brown Eyes]

Hi Amanda!  They were not written in chronological order, and I knew Lonesome Dove was written first - but I confirmed the specifics at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonesome_Dove_series

The Lonesome Dove Series is a series of four books written by Larry McMurtry. The order in which the books were written is:

Lonesome Dove (1985)
Streets of Laredo (1993)
Dead Man's Walk (1995)
Comanche Moon (1997)

However, the chronological order of the story is:

Dead Man's Walk
Comanche Moon
Lonesome Dove
Streets of Laredo

This series, which has also been adapted into several made-for-television movies, follows the exploits of several members of the Texas Ranger Division, from the time of the Republic of Texas up until the beginning of the twentieth century.

Recurring characters include Augustus "Gus" McCrae, Woodrow F. Call, Joshua Deets, Pea Eye Parker, Jake Spoon, Clara Forsythe Allen, Maggie Tilton, Lorena Wood Parker, Blue Duck, and Buffalo Hump.


Amanda, I would stick with reading Lonesome Dove first.  After that, it might help to go back to Dead Man's Walk and Comanche Moon before tackling Streets of Laredo, which is very grim. 

Thanks Marie!  I'm glad for the recommendation about reading Dead Man's Walk next when I decide to continue reading the series.

In a way, it reminds me of the Chronicles of Narnia, which were written/published originally out of the chronological order of the narrative.  And, in that case I like reading the Chronicles out of chronological order and piecing things together... in the way that Lewis wrote them.  Or... at least I know there's a literary controversy about the correct reading order.

[Ellemeno]

Hey!  I'm happy to see this thread.  I LOVED reading Lonesome Dove about ten or so years ago.  And also thought the mini-series, which I rented from Netflix after reading the book, was really good - excellent cast.  I've thought many times that Gus and Woodrow prove that Ennis and Jack could have had that cow n calf operation, if they were discreet.

[Brown Eyes]

Hey!  I'm happy to see this thread.  I LOVED reading Lonesome Dove about ten or so years ago.  And also thought the mini-series, which I rented from Netflix after reading the book, was really good - excellent cast.  I've thought many times that Gus and Woodrow prove that Ennis and Jack could have had that cow n calf operation, if they were discreet.

Elle, I have such happy memories of buying my copy of Lonesome Dove in Seattle with you and Lynne (was Roux in town yet when we stopped at that bookstore?)!!  Everytime that I look at my copy or read it, I have multi-layered happy Brokie feelings, ideas and memories.



Have you read the other books in the series?

[Ellemeno]

Elle, I have such happy memories of buying my copy of Lonesome Dove in Seattle with you and Lynne (was Roux in town yet when we stopped at that bookstore?)!!  Everytime that I look at my copy or read it, I have multi-layered happy Brokie feelings, ideas and memories.



Have you read the other books in the series?

Oh yeah!  I had forgotten that.  That's nice little bookstore in Fremont.  Roux had arrived in town by that point, but wasn't with us yet.  What a great weekend. 

Thanks for starting this thread, Amanda.  I also want to say that for me, Chris Cooper playing July Johnson also feels like a BBM connection, even though empirically, it's pretty tangential.  I guess I meld him from Jake's father in October Sky, to the guy who wants to kiss Kevin Spacey so badly in American Beauty to ..what?  Something else I'm blanking on, I think.

[Ellemeno]

Oh yeah, a quick glance at IMDb about Chris Cooper and his BBMness - The Patriot, Jarhead, Capote (grr) , Lone Star (which has no BBM connection, except to me - I see them as so similar, so connected as films and as love stories), and his general connection to John Sayles, who makes great movies.

[Brown Eyes]

Heya,

So the other night I marked a little sentence in LD that reminded me of of a sentence in the screenplay of BBM that many of us have noted and have even incorporated into our lexicon of major Brokieisms.  It doesn't really have to do with the meanings of the sentences, but the odd grammar and syntax.

Nothing here really constitutes much of a spoiler...

There's a part in LD where a character discovers he's being followed by someone and he asks... "How come you to follow?"  This made me think of Ennis's odd sentence as written in the screenplay "That's how come me to end up here."  I know that in the actual film Ennis says "That's how come me end up here."  But, in the published screenplay the sentence is the slightly longer "That's how come me to end up here."

I don't know what McMurtry is trying to indicate about dialect or whether in the case of Ennis he and Ossana are try to display an fairly obscure humor in Ennis's sensibility... sine the odd placement of "me" in Ennis's sentence may refer back (in a seemingly witty way) to the previous sentence in his conversation... "No more room for me."

Anyway, the contexts are clearly greatly different.  The odd sense of grammar just struck me as reminiscent for whatever reason. The LD character is a southern man in the late 19th century and Ennis obviously is a late 20th century Wyoming boy.    But, again, that little sentence in LD stuck out like a sore thumb to me.