Customer Reviews

The Wandering Hill

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book picks up right where "Sin Killer" left off. Literally. I read these books consecutively and they could easily had been packaged as one six hundred pager.

This is not "Lonesome Dove" in several ways. Where any of the four Lonesome Dove books could be read as a stand-alone, I don't think The "Wandering Hill" would make any sense to someone who had not first read Sin Killer. McMurtry is also writing this series as a sort of Black Comedy. The characters are less well developed, the plot just conveniently happens and there is scant background or development. Just action and happenings.

As for the Black Comedy, think of an R-rated version of the old TV show "The Adams Family." Quirky characters abound, led by a loony father, unreal supporting characters and a strong female who by far possesses the most intense drive and assertiveness of any of the lot.

In this book, the Berrybenders and hangers-on -- reduced by Indian attacks, self-inflicted wounds, attempted familycide and the elements -- winter on the Yellowstone River before heading South toward Santa Fe.

Various Indians come into play and the fearsome "The Partezon" looms on the edge of the story, ready to strike havoc like Blue Duck or Mox Mox in McMurtry's other stories. Historical figures are also woven into the plot from Lewes and Clark's French guide Charbonneau to Kit Carson and other mountain men. The central part of the story remains the wily Tasmine, oldest of the Berrybender children and Jim Snow, aka "The Sin Killer" an American mountain man who alternates between remaining the wild loner of the range and Mr. Tasmine Berrybender now that he has fathered a child by his amazing English bride - a woman he can't begin to fathom and who astounds him at every turn.

This series remains quite a ride. The action -- much of involving fornication or rutting (as the characters put it) -- comes quickly and certainly page after page. Although thin with somewhat weakly drawn characters, McMurtry can still tell a good story.

Larry McMurtry's The Wandering Hill is the second installment of his proposed tetralogy following a wealthy English family and their trek to the west in the 1830's. Whereas the first novel, Sin Killer, started slow and revealed a zany, action-packed tone, Hill charges straight out of the gates but mellows eventually to attach the reader closer to the glorious characters. This tetralogy is essentially one giant novel that will equal Lonesome Dove in characters and story. The writing combines subtle humor, fast-paced action, and startling violence that brings the reader directly into the savage world. If you have read Sin Killer, pick up The Wandering Hill immediately. If you haven't read Sin Killer, pick up both books and lose yourself in the exciting yet tragic world McMurtry has created.

By his own reckoning, Larry McMurtry is past his literary prime. Nearly 12 years after a heart bypass surgery plunged him into an abyss of depression, and 17 years beyond his Pulitzer Prize-winning magnum opus, Lonesome Dove, McMurtry has not evaded that single harshest criticism of his fiction: His own. He knows hes not in top form and he admits it.

In his autobiographical Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, he revealed two things, one intentional, one not: He considers himself only a shadow of what he once was, the greatest western novelist of his generation. The second, unintentional revelation? His non-fiction of the past decade has far surpassed his fiction.

Comes now The Wandering Hill, sequel to Sin Killer and second in a four-part series about a the eccentric and dysfunctional Berrybender family and its motley coterie -- British nobles in search of adventure, big-game hunting and sex -- as they explore the virgin West of the 1830s.

For historical-fiction readers, and especially for fans of the Lewis and Clark era, McMurtry populates this book with supporting characters straight out of Western legend: real-life mountain men Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Tom Fitzpatrick and Hugh Glass, Scottish adventurer William Drummond Stewart, frontier artists George Catlin and Karl Bodmer, trader William Ashley, and Pomp Charbonneau, the son of Sacagawea.

Partly because The Wandering Hill ends, in effect, only halfway through the saga, its denouement is underwhelming. The Berrybender adventures are plucked from various unrelated historical accounts. Considered separately, they illustrate the moments of terror the frontier likely held, but the trip often seems as aimless as the Berrybenders journey through unexplored territory.

Its difficult to know whether the Berrybenders are ultimately headed to a geographical Eden or some abstract encounter with destiny, or both. One might look at this saga as a kind of western serial, but The Wandering Hill doesnt close at the edge of a cliff, rather on less dramatic footing.

If McMurtrys tetralogy follows its pre-ordained literary path -- a tetralogy is four related literary works, traditionally three tragedies followed by a comedy -- the destination might be more interesting than the journey. Sin Killer and The Wandering Hill, with their promise of more to come, feel a lot like historical fluff floating on a wayward breeze.

Like Larry McMurtry himself, the Berrybender narratives pale by comparison to earlier greatness. Tasmin Berrybender is no Gus McCrae and Jim Snow is no Sam the Lion.

Larry McMurtry's The Wandering Hill is quite an enjoyable tale, not quite as good as Sin Killer, but still excellent. I wouldn't however recommend Wandering Hill to anyone who didn't enjoy Sin Killer, nor would I recommend it to anyone who only wants to read another Lonesome Dove. The Berrybender Narratives are a group of novels unto themselves, not really like anything else McMurtry has ever done. McMurtry's excellent writing is still there and the novel will certainly make you chuckle. Sin Killer had a more thematically pulled together feel, while The Wandering Hill does wander, as it were, a bit more. We meet up with the Berrybenders and there varied entourage at a trading post in the American west in the 1830s. Tasmin and her husband Jim, have a bit of a spat and he takes off into the wilderness, leaving a pregnant Tasmin to fend for herself. Lord Berrybender is still his same eccentric self and the rest of the characters are equally as nutty. Some bits of the writing isn't quite as strong as it should be, but all in all, this is still a strong novel and worth reading if it is what you are looking for.

You can read this as a stand-alone book, but I think it's better if you read it as it's intended: the second in a 4-book series, The Berrybender Narratives. It's a comic melodrama, typical of some of McMurtry's best stuff, that grabs up some unwashed heathens from the mountains and some arrogant English nobs, stirs them altogether on the banks of the Yellowstone River in the middle of the 1800s, and then stands back to watch with high glee as they try to get everything straightened out. Think of it as an American Western soap opera, and you won't be far wrong.
Enjoy it; it's not great literature, but it's a great read.

I am really trying to like this trilogy--thus this was the reason I forged headlong into the second book of the Berrybender family. I was not disappointed. The Berrybender family is what made the American West WILD.

This erstwhile second tome continues the wandering of the Berrybender family finding them at a trading post waiting for spring to arrive so they can again go on their trip across through the old American West (their Wild West). As usual, they are arguing with each other and with others - the others being an assorted of local fur trappers and renegades. Tasmin is waiting for her child to be born while her father, having most of his appendages shot off (except the important one) thereby becoming mad as a hatter.

Along with this, Mary and Bobbety get randy in their own right continuing the insatisable sexual appetities of the Berrybender family into the next generation.

This book is not at all like Lonesome Dove, but more like a farcical rendition of Lonesome Dove. Read it, and enjoy the Wild West through the eyes of the Berrybender family.

The story continues with the Berrybender clan, one of the most interesting and dysfunctional groups ever tackled by the famed western author, Larry McMurtry.

On a par with Book 1: Sin Killer, The Wandering Hill continues the well-written story of the plains of the frontier complete with Kit Carson. I can't wait for book 3.

Throughout most of this book it seemed like a four star effort, not quite up to the hilarious standard set by Sin Killer, the first in this series. The Wandering Hill is not hilarious. It's a good action story with interesting and very unusual characters.

The final chapter of the book is what earns that final fifth star. It is an awesome scene involving Pomp Charboneau, Tasmin Berrybender, and Pomp's deceased mother Sacagawea. I could see it in a movie, bringing tears to everyone's eyes, including Tasmin's.

There is a sort of humor in death. Larry McMurtry kills his characters off more than just occasionally, and those he doesn't kill he will often maim. One of the oddest scenes I've ever read involves Lord Berrybender, his son Bobbetty, and a fork in the father's hand. Poor Bobbetty really gets it in this story, harmless and silly though the teenager is. He seems like a nice enough kid to me, completely unsuited to the wild, but having lots of fun, come what may.

Tasmin is still the star of the book, as she was in Sin Killer. She's amazing.

I'm really glad I discovered this series. Sin Killer just showed up in a drawer. I don't know who bought it or how it got there. It had been sitting there for a long time, maybe years.

This second book in the Berrybender Narratives is even wackier and woolier than the first book.I read Sin Killer over a year ago,see my review dated November 30,2003.
I purposedly decided to wait till I had the other three books before continuing.I am glad I made this decision because there are so many characters and stories involved ,that if too much time passes the story will get too foggy,at least for me.I strongly recommend that one reads them in order and read them as close together as you can.
Also,the multitude of characters makes it necessary to keep a "scorebook".Larry helps by giving a list of characters in the front of each book.I tagged it and added notes as I read the book.
All these characters are going to be great when the time comes,and it will,to turn the books into a movie or TV series.I am sure it will be every bit as good as Lonesome Dove.
As you read this book,never mind what's coming in the next chapter,of which there are 60,this book moves so fast,you never know what to expect in the next paragraph.It's a very fast paced read,with lots of great lines and statements.However,every so often Larry throws in some word to keep us on our toes.For instance:
lachryymose
pudendum
bastinadoed
Overall,McMurtry at his best!

In THE WANDERING HILL,Volume Two of the four volumes of the Berrybender narratives, McMurtry begins to polish and sculpt his delicious cavalcade of characters out of the American West. (Don't start here though. Begin by reading THE SIN KILLER and continue through the 4 books in order. The story is vast as the western sky, an odyssey, and it requires the length and breadth of all four books to get "home".) The cast includes an oscillating number of the unpredictable, aristocratic Berrybender family; Jim Snow (the Sin Killer); and a thoroughly entertaining parade of European explorers, mountain men and Indians. This series is "compare and contrast" gone wild: Old World/New World, nature/civilization, human/animal, male/female, adult/child, wild/domesticated, free/enslaved, alive/dead, young/old, European/American, white/Indian, crazy/sane, servant/master, safety/danger, historical fact/myth, tragedy/comedy and so on. McMurtry has neatly sandwiched genuine historical characters (who develop quite complex fictional personalities) and events of the 1830's into this western salad. I recommend THE WANDERING HILL for its entertainment value as well as its delineation of personalities that survive and thrive (or not) in the New World. While Cormac McCarty's ALL THE PRETTY HORSES illustrates the solitary visual beauty of man and nature in the American West, McMurtry's gift in The Berrybender Narratives is the clash and complexity of colliding souls and civilizations. Enjoy!