Customer Reviews

Comanche Moon

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(55)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

"Comanche Moon" is described as the final volume of the "Lonesome Dove" saga although chronologically it is the second of the four novels, taking place between "Dead Man's Walk" and "Lonesome Dove". Readers of the other volumes in series will encounter familiar names here: Woodrow Call and Gus McCrae, of course, but also Jake Spoon and Pea Eye Parker and Deets of "Dove", Long Bill Coleman and Buffalo Hump of "Walk", Famous Shoes and Charlie Goodnight of "Streets of Laredo" and others. As has become increasingly evident in his novels, McMurtry is not concerned with presenting a story of the West correct in all the minor historical details. For example, in "Comanche Moon" we find one character armed with a Winchester rifle 10 years before that weapon's introduction. Instead, his aim appears to be to create a story of about four parts gritty realism and one part romantic myth - and in "Comanche Moon" he achieves success. The novel abounds with characters more extravagant, larger-than-life personalities, yet these people are true to the story McMurtry is telling. Captain Inish Scull of the Texas Rangers and his wife, Inez, and the "Black Vaquero" Ahumado are unlikely to have had close real-life models, but in "Comanche Moon" they are forceful, fascinating figures. As is usual, McMurtry's characters are driven by their own obsessions. If I might sum up the theme of this novel, and much else of McMurtry's fiction, I would say that it would be "times change, people don't" - and not just "people" in the larger sense, but people as individuals, holding true to their own particular, narrow view of how they should live their lives. Characters like Woodrow Call and Inish Scull and Buffalo Hump are admirable because of their great integrity, no matter what destruction they seed while pursuing their individual visions of what is right. In "Comanche Moon", McMurtry's Indian characters - the Comanche Buffalo Hump and Kicking Wolf and the Kickapoo Famous Shoes - are perhaps more finely drawn than in any of the other Lonesome Dove books. They are not merely white men wearing paint and feathers. They live and die by their own logic, as alien as that system of belief may seem to a late Twentieth Century reader. Although any judgment must be subjective, I would rate "Comanche Moon" as at least the equal of "Streets of Laredo" and better than "Dead Man's Walk", although not so high as the magnificent "Lonesome Dove". I know that part of my enjoyment of the novel is my familiarity with several of the major characters, and my advice to any reader new to the "Lonesome Dove" saga would be to read the books in their order of publication rather than their chronological order of internal dates.

Lonesome Dove, a masterpiece, deserved the Pulitzer Prize but the prequels and sequel have been disappointments. Comanch Moon is actually one of the better books of the series but there are some inconsistencies in continuity that make me think McMurtry forgot what he wrote before or perhaps he got someone else to wtite these less than stellar books. For instance the histories of Clara and Maggie the women who loved the main protaganists do not match up with the Lonesome Dove descriptions. Clara never returns to Austin TX to runs her parents' store as in LD after a terrible Indian attack in which her parents perish. She marries a dumb horse trader from Kentucky and leaves Texas forever leaving the store to languish in CM. Maggie, Call's ever suffering prostitute lover never makes it to Lonesome Dove to languish and die as an alcoholic as she does in the first book. Instead she dies of consumption 6 years after cleaning up her life and having Newt in Austin Tx in CM. Neither does the past marital history of Augustus ring true. Did he marry two fat women and become widowed after less than one year each or was 7 years his longest marriage?

Are they piddly details in an otherwise compelling story? Perhaps. But it is certainly annoyingly disappointing to encounter these simple continuity mistakes. Why make such mistakes in your own books? The changes wouldn't improve the story but only make one suspicious.

I think Margaret Mitchell had it right to not try to inflict on the public a sequel to Gone with the Wind. No one could ever top it. Look at the romance novel sequel that followed 50 years later written by another author and a different writing style. Take my advice. Read Lonesome Dove and enjoy but I wouldn't think it necessary to read the other books in the series.

How can one man write four books about the same characters with no concern for continuity? I don't know, but I am equally clueless as to how he can dispense with continuity, alter events, change characters' histories and personalities and still make me love the work. As he did in Streets of Laraedo and Dead Man's Walk, McMurty changes certain elements of his well established characters' pasts. The changes are most glaring in this book, the immeadiate precursor to his magnificent Lonesome Dove. However, as poorly as his four Gus and Call books fit together, they stand alone very well. In Comanche Moon, McMurtry leads us from Gus and Call in their late twenties to their mid fourties. It appears to end roughly 5 or so years prior to Lonesome Dove. Many will be surprised and delighted to find that the relationship between Call and Maggie, mother of Call's son Newt, is well defined and much more significant than was alluded to in Dove. Another detail that completely reverses itself from Dove is that of the life of Jake Spoon. Far from a romantic rival with Gus for the heart of Clara Allen, Jake is a dippy young moron, afraid of any action, desperate to end his days as a Ranger alive. But much of the action here centers on a new character, Capt. Skull, the rangering Ranger captain who gives Gus and Call their first command by abandoning them and the Ranger troop in order to learn how to track by walking off with Famous Shoes. Skull is a classic McMurtry eccentric, and the only person whom really provides any suspense, as only the future of his life is unknown to us. Skull is witty and full of vim and vinegar. His battles, both mental and physical, are among the most engaging portions of the story. And the most revolting.

Certainly, the way McMurty takes liberties with characters that many love is often maddening, but when seperated from the other books, Comanche Moon stands on its own well. It is another gripping and unflinching look at an unromanticized American West, and it continues the! excellent development of the Indian characters McMurtry began in Dead Man's Walk. Buffalo Hump, Kicking Wolf and Blue Duck are fleshed out in a manner that is not often seen with Indians in most Western novels. Far from ciphers, they are realistic characters that cause you to see that Ranger-Indian fights are not as simple as Good vs. Evil. They are, rather, Man vs. Man, and Culture vs. Culture, and they are all the more heartbreaking because of it.

I don't know if McMurtry is getting lazy. I don't know if he simply doesn't give a damn about whether or not readers care. In the end, it really doesn't matter as he still can deliver page turners with the best of them. And by the the time you finish Comanche Moon, you realize that the changes in Gus and Call's history, changes that can make rereading Lonesome Dove jarring, are for the best. This is how he should have set up their pasts in Dove. It a richer, more poignant past for Gus and Call than what was alluded to in that Pulitzer Prize winning novel.

Finally, the audio presentation is top notch. Of course, how could it not be with the peerless Frank Muller as narrator?

I think McMurtry's Lonesome Dove books are hands down the best western books out there today. It's because of this series that the western genre has become so exciting for me to read. His discription of life in Texas in the mid 1800's is so descriptive, I can close my eyes and envision the places he writes about.

First I read Lonesome Dove about ten years ago. Since then I haven't really read many westerns and have stayed primarily in the sci-fi\fantasy genre, but at the book store a couple weeks back I picked up Dead Man's Walk, the first story of Gus and Call. I bought it because I remembered how much I loved Lonesome Dove. I remembered laughing, crying and sitting there awestruck at how good a book it was. While Dead Man's Walk was not as good as LD, I still though it deserved five stars. It brought me right back to the world of LD. I also laughed out loud several times at the antics of Gus and I really loved that Mr. McMurtry put more humour in this book. After reading that I found out there were a couple of more books in the Lonesome Dove series, Streets of Laredo and Comanche Moon. I immediatley ran out and got Moon and Laredo.

Moon was next in the series and I thought it perfectly showed how Gus and Call become the men in Lonesome Dove. This book wasn't as humorous as parts of LD and Walk as it had a more somber tone and much more death than the other two. Maybe it's because this is the final book McMurtry said he is going to write in the LD saga but that tone of finality is there. Especially with Buffalo Hump and Kicking Wolf I thought.

I recommend this book and this series to anyone who likes westerns, love stories, grand adventures, great action, funny and poignant dialouge and another trip into the lives of Call and McCrae. Five out of five stars

How many books, where this is is the fourth in a series, retain this much quality? Especially for books that are this long (over 700 pages). After reading the first three, I had been hoping for a book in the series that showed Gus and Call in their prime. While it does have a few themes that I wish Larry McMurtry would not dwell on so much, I was very satisfied with the novel.

The first negative I have is McMurtry's obsession with torture. I'm currently reading a non-fiction book called "Trail of Tears", which tells of the fall of the Cherokee nation. "Trail of Tears" does indeed confirm that violence and torture were indeed big parts of Indian society. And they probably had their share of sadists to took what was common sport to them, and stretched it to extremes. It's just that McMurtry has used this theme a lot of times before, and I wish he had gone in another direction.

And it's not the huge amount of death that takes place here as much as it points to the futility of life that McMurtry portrays. For all the adventure of "Lonesome Dove", we find out in "Streets of Laredo" that the whole cattle operation turns out to be a bust. And in "Streets of Laredo", for all that Call did to protect people in his life, it's later years were spent in virtual poverty. I would have liked to have seen at least once in the series where they do something great that gets proper historical recognition.

That aside, even though the book is 700 pages, one realizes while reading it that once it's done, there will probably be no more Gus and Call. Yes, I've read of the historical innacuracies, and how the timelines of the book are not quite in sync. I'll leave these worries to the pickier of the readers, and concentrate on the chemistry between the characters. McMurtry captured lightening in a bottle when he wrote "Lonesome Dove", and we readers can be greatful he took it to the lengths he did.

In this novel, we get to see how the characters from "Lonesome Dove" got to where they were at the start of "Dove". While the coordination of the stories should have been tighter, it did take a lot of work to tell a story where you basically know who's going to live or die while making it interesting. We get to know where Pea, Deets, and Spoon fit in the mix from the beginning. For this I thank Mr. McMutry, and which there were someway to fit in a fifth story. As this will probably not happen, read this one slowly to enjoy it.

I put this one a close third in the series. Of course, "Lonesome Dove" is first, but I really liked how he portrayed Call as an old man in "Streets of Laredo" I would put this one right behind "Street", with "Dead Men Walking" taking a distance fourth.

I would have liked to have seen at least once in the series

Comanche Moon is the seemingly lost fourth volume of the Lonesome Dove series. I actually encountered it on a used book sale rack at my local library. I picked it up and was stunned to discover that it was an additional installment to the series by Larry McMurtry. I had bought and read the other three and enthusiastically read this one.

Comanche Moon is actually the second book in the series and takes up where Dead Man's Walk leaves off.

Comanche Moon is essential in that it provides much-needed connective tissue between Dead Man's Walk and Lonesome Dove. It brings Gus and Call back home after their failure in taking Santa Fe. It also paints much clearer portraits of important characters like Maggie, Newt's mother, and Clara Harris, the love of Augustus McCrae's life.

Especially important are the answers to questions that Comanche Moon provides about Blue Duck. But I'll leave you to the book to discover those for yourself.

No less than Lonesome Dove, Dead Man's Walk and Streets of Laredo, Comanche Moon is an incredible story in true Larry McMurtry style and, as already noted, is essential to the complete Lonesome Dove saga.

First, I will wail, and lament, and gnash my teeth (all five of them). "Lonesome Dove," THE definitive novel of the American West, should have proudly stood all alone, on its own shining merits, sans sequels and prequels. From what I understand, several motives drove Larry McMurtry to write the other three books in the "Lonesome Dove" series; I only wish he had resisted all temptations and allowed Gus and Call to dwell in literary history exclusively in the pages of his Pulitzer Prize winning novel. But, I realize, I'm whistling up a ladder: a sequel ("Streets of Laredo") and two prequels ("Dead Man's Walk" and COMANCHE MOON) were written, and now that the "Lonesome Dove" series is complete, with McMurtry's COMANCHE MOON, I found myself relishing a psuedo "closure" with the story--with the author's unforgettable characters.

COMANCHE MOON is a delightful read, starting in the mid-1850's, when Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call were coming into their own as newly-promoted Captains in the Texas Rangers. Gus and Call's main task: keep marauding bands of Comanches, led by the menacing Buffalo Hump, out of the western frontier settlements (no easy task, given the Rangers' limited resources and manpower). Even more fun, we get to meet, for the first time, the mainstays of Lonesome Dove's Hat Creek Cattle Company: Deets, Pea Eye Parker, Jake Spoon--Newt Dobbs. For this very reason, there is so much more of a "connection" with "Lonesome Dove," a fact making this prequel so entertaining.

Yet, despite its entertainment value, what is this book about? What is the motor that drives the story? Why are we reading about Gus and Call as they travel the llano estacado in search of bad guys (some very, very bad guys)? I must confess: after some 750-plus pages, I still don't know what this book is about, as the plot meanders and swirls over some 10-year period, and nothing. . .nothing. . .is resolved, when it ends. We are introduced to a plethora of interesting characters, who do very interesting things, but their deeds (or misdeeds) do nothing to enhance the nonstory. And Maggie Tilton, Newt's long-suffering mother who so desperately loves Call, leaves the story with an insignificant whimper that did her character no justice. On turning the last page I felt so incomplete I wish there had been another 300, or more, pages to tie up infinite loose ends. For one thing: the town--Lonesome Dove--does, briefly, dominate the story, yet we're given no details telling us how Gus and Call left the Rangers, left Austin, and moved south to the Rio Grande. An integral facet setting up "Lonesome Dove," I would maintain, so why doesn't McMurtry provide more information?

There are also numerous chronological/timeline/plot inconsistencies leading into "Lonesome Dove," but I won't go over this tired old ground; it's been rehashed via several reviews on this website. But I will express my utter disapointment, for a book coming out of a major publishing house like Simon & Schuster, at all the typos--and just plain sloppiness--of the copy. Where in the world were the copy editors? On Spring Break? They weren't paying attention to the proofs, that's for sure, so reading this book becomes a most turbulent experience.

For diehard fans of the "Lonesome Dove" series, COMANCHE MOON will, overall, constitute a must-read. For those of us who mourn the fact the original novel spawned three other books, this novel has its moments--and its problematic non-moments. I only wish this book hadn't been written, but since it has, I recommend it with very reserved reluctance.

--D. Mikels

This is a middle book in the Lonesome Dove series; it's the one that comes before Lonesome Dove proper. Pleasantly, McMurtry doesn't subject any of his main characters to horrible deaths this time around. On the other hand, if you've read the other books you know what's coming, so the comforting effect of that is relative.

Native Americans get a slightly better portrayal here than in some of the other volumes. There are still psycho killers, including one really frightening bandit, but there are also brave and genuinely human characters. Overall it's a gritty version of the period just before the Civil War, with gripping scenes of torture and survival. As usual, there are strong female characters, but they generally come to bad ends, just as the men do.

I'd recommend this for readers of the series. I'm not sure how well it stands alone.

How could Mr. McMurtry improve this book so that it could ever live up to the standards of his novel Lonesome Dove? He just couldn't. That's why I gave this book four stars. Not because it was a lesser novel, just that Lonesome Dove was so great NOTHING could/will ever be able to compete. I loved Comanche Moon. It's so completely gritty and raw, I was on the edge of my seat always with Gus and Call. Mr. McMurtry's description, his talent for the written word will run the gammut of all your emotions in one breath. Oh this book is a deffinite must read. You'll miss out on alot if you don't.

Having read many of McMurtry's books, including all in the "Lonesome Dove" series, I was anticipating a let down of sorts. I was pleasantly surprised with Comanche Moon. It developed many of the characters seen in Lonesome Dove, Streets of Laredo, and even Dead Man's Walk. McMurtry's ability to truly explore the characters about which he writes is superb. His background and description of the villains made them seem very real, and the suffering of their victims was comparable with anything McMurtry's ever done. This was an outstanding book, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who's acquainted with Captains Woodrow F. Call and Augustus McCrae