Larry McMurty’s first novel starts out
with a beautiful passage about life on the plains of Texas. The idealized
description of the land hits the reader and brings to life the feeling of being alive. It also explains why the writer felt the need to explain the beauty of the land where he was from.
What continues is a melancholy coming
of age story, (Aren’t they all?) about the loss of the narrator’s way of life
and home.
The book I has a sense of desperation and
sorrow in it, the good kind. The sorrow is the sad, earnest sense of losing a
lover and the desperation feels like that of a maniac, the writing contains the riveting energy
of a boxer behind by points in the final round.
I am a big fan of McMurty. His later
novels, “Lonesome Dove,” and “Streets of Laredo” are well-known westerns set in
the Wild West’s last days. “Horseman, Pass By” like “The Last Picture Show,”
are perhaps not as well know, but are both classics. Both were out shined by movie
productions starring some of the coolest men to ever step on the screen,
Harrison Ford and Paul Newman.
Still, “Horseman, Pass By” will be a favorite
of mine because the characters are as real to the reader as a pair of Levi
Jeans and a big front porch.
The novel is written from the viewpoint
of Lonnie, who lives on a cattle ranch with his grandfather, his grandfather’s second
wife, her son Hud, a house keeper and several cow hands. Life is changing on
the ranch, and not necessarily for the better.
Revealing too much more wouldn't ruin the joy of reading the book, but I don't want anyone not to read it because they feel the plot has been spoiled.
The book is set in a time more than 50
years ago, and although a lot has changed since then, people today still feel a
bone chilling sense of loneliness from time to time. I wish I read this book years
ago, because I could have been able to really relate to the author.
Below is the Yeats poem the book's title is from. I love books that are as inspired as "Horseman, Pass by" is.
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