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26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A worthy prequel to the classic Lonesome Dove, November 2, 1997
"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.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Once again, McMurtry diverts, distorts and delights., May 11, 1998
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?
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36 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Lots of Problems, but Still Enjoyable (3.5 Stars), February 24, 2005
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
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