Thanks Lee. Yeah, there was a lot of really nice writing in Comanche Moon... and a lot that seemed to have strong resonance with BBM one way or another.
Anyway, I'm here to report that I finally finished CM after a long, slow reading process! Yeehaw!! And, in the end I really liked this book. Some of it really was tough to read (in terms of the subject matter, etc.)... but it was very riveting. And, I liked the pacing of this book a lot better than Dead Man's Walk. I particularly liked the last third-or-so of the book. I still like Lonesome Dove itself the best of the 3 I've read, but CM is a close second.
I'm totally fascinated to learn more about the history of the Comanche people after reading this book too. It's interesting to realize that there actually was a famous Comanche named Buffalo Hump, and that Quanah was also a real person. It's interesting to wonder how much of this series touches on historical fiction more than just plain fiction. I keep wondering how accurate McMurtry is being with his descriptions of Comanche life. I also find it interesting that McMurtry is so good at shifting first-person perspectives around from the various Texas Rangers, to the women in the Rangers' lives, and even to some of the male Native American characters... but he doesn't ever really seem to step into the shoes of the Native American women. He describes them and what they're up to sometimes, but we don't see the situation through their eyes in the same way that we do with other catetgories of characters.
The end of the book is just so incredibly sad. The encroachment of white settlers, slaughter of the buffalo and the younger generations of Comanches forgetting the old customs, methods of hunting/fighting, etc. is almost unbearably sad to think about.
I also thought the book ended really abruptly... maybe expecting the reader to jump right into the next book.
