Horseman, Pass By

The first author to write about Texas in transition, Larry McMurtry shows in Horseman, Pass By all the conflict rooted among the generations. Narrated by 17 year old Lonnie, it is clear he wants a different, less confined life than lived by his grandfather Homer, the ranchhands and a struggling neighbor. The story centers around not just the wants, needs and desires of individuals on the ranch, but right and wrong, honor and dishonor.Homer Bannon, an aging rancher is independent, stuubborn, decent, and is used to doing things his own way. His stepson Hud is immoral, cruel, deceitful, and cares about no one but himself. Lonnie admires his grandfather, but realizes the old man has limitations because all Homer knows is the life of a cattleman.This is a remarkable book, with themes that set precedents. Homer's entire livelihood is threatened by a force out of his control, hoof and mouth disease, robbing him of his independence, and putting him at the mercy of the government. There are strong imprints of race relations between black and white, perhaps unheard of since Edna Ferber wrote Showboat, more than 30 years before this book was published. There is inner loneliness too, for all the characters seem to drift in their own thoughts, especially Lonnie, whose sounding board is the black maid Halmea,until she is forced to leave after being abused horribly by Hud.The family is all torn apart. Hud wants to undercut Homer and control the ranch, willing to sell diseased cattle if necessary to make a buck. Lonnie sees dark visions and cannot quite decide what is right and just, Homer and his wife tolerate each other in old age. No one is happy. There is a yearning for something else in life, but whatever that is remains undefined.But Horseman is neither sour nor depressing. It is a slice of real people living in a different age, with virtues and flaws, dreams, urges and faults. An educated guess is that it had an impact on the great Elmer Kelton, who wrote the equally wonderful The Time It Never Rained, which displayed similar themes. This was McMurtry's first book, and among his best.

Before Lonesome Dove and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, before about 30 other novels, before Brokeback Mountain and more than 40 other screenplays, Larry McMurtry wrote Horseman, Pass By , his first novel. And it is one of his best. Along with The Last Picture Show, it is also one of his most honest, being based on first-hand knowledge of a Texas that was.The time is 1954; the place is a ranch outside the fictional town of Thalia, near Wichita Falls (a stand-in for Archer City, McMurtry's home town); the narrator is Lonnie, a 17-year-old trying to find the man he will turn out to be. Three people loom large in his life: Homer Brannon, his 80-year-old grandfather, an old-time, hard-working rancher dedicated to his land and his cattle; Halmea, the black cook, both a mother-figure for him and an object of his teenage lust; and Hud, the grandfather's stepson, a first-class SOB (no other way to say it) dedicated to money and chasing women.Many very bad things happen in this novel, beginning with the dreaded threat of hoof-and-mouth disease, which could mean that all the carefully-bred cattle will have to be slaughtered, essentially bringing an end to the grandfather's way of life. And that's not the worst.What saves this book from being just an incredibly sad tale of the demise of the Old West is the lack of romanticism in character portrayal, the authenticity of the dialogue for the time and place, and the lyrical poetry of the language in describing the landscape. It all feels so real that one can only assume that, while the story details are probably fictitious, the yearnings of the young Lonnie must have been those of the young McMurtry.Just a note about the movie Hud, which was made from this book--it starred Paul Newman as Hud Bannon, and he was so magnetic, so sexy (for those older readers who remember him), that the focus of the movie necessarily shifted to his story, his motivations. Don't expect that from this book. Also, in the movie the character Halmea was switched to a white character, Alma. They didn't want to tackle the race-relation angle in the 1960s, I suppose.Highly recommended, particularly for Texans.

Larry McMurtry has been one of my favorite writers for a very long time now. He has always had a knack for bringing out emotions in me. He has made me laugh out loud hysterically in the night (which wasn't necessarily hysterically funny to my husband- asleep next to me) and weep at how pitiless the world can be. He has shown how achingly beautiful love can be and how terribly sad loss is. I can only think of a couple of other writers who have had this effect on me.This is the first time I've read this book. While the movie starring Paul Newman centered around Hud, a character in the story, the book is really the story of Lonnie, a 17 year old young man on the cusp of adulthood.One one side of Lonnie is his grandfather, Homer, an honest hardworking old world type of man who runs his ranch and raises his grandson. On the other is Hud, Homer's stepson. Hud is not a good man. He does what he wants, takes what he wants and seems to be very good at avoiding the consequences of his actions. He resents his stepfather and makes no effort to hide the fact that he intends to get the ranch one way or another. On one dark night these two men will inadvertently take what is left of Lonnie's childhood and set him irrevocably on the road to manhood.While this was written in 1961, do not let it make you think that it is in any way a Mayberry type of book. Life on a ranch is not romantic. There are some very brutal incidents that take place. As I do not want to give anything away I will just say that I'm very glad that some things have changed.I am also very curious about the reaction to this book when it came out. Was the realism a breath of fresh air, or did Mr. McMurtry have to worry about a tar and feathering? As he is still very much with us, he obviously weathered any storm that arose. For which I am absolutely grateful.

And then you realise it’s Hud. And suddenly you can’t help but see Paul Newman - and at first it’s really annoying - but then it’s like a better version of the film playing in your head. And then right when you’re loving the trail you’re moseying down you understand the title. And it’s humbling. And beautiful and sparsely profound.

My first McMurty novel, and I am certainly going to read more of him. He captures the American West with great flair and understatement, and avoids all the Hollywood cliches, even though many of his books have been turned into films, and he himself had a screenplay writing career in Tinseltown.Lonnie Bannon is the sensitive 17-year-old living with his grandparents, having lost his parents along the way (we are not told much about when, where, or how). He idolizes his 86-year old Grandpa Homer, who is resisting change and trying to make a go of it at raising cattle. Hud is the villain of the piece, Homer’s stepson, misogynistic, opportunistic, sadistic. Hud hates his step-father for sending him off to the war, and doesn’t do much around the ranch except run around at night, partying and sleeping with other men’s wives. Hud’s openly stated ambition is to usurp the Bannon ranch from his aging grandfather.There are also some secondary characters who are well drawn: Halmea the black domestic help, and Jesse the lonesome cowhand who has spent his years in the rodeo business amassing many experiences but not a nickel to his name. The suppressed sexual tension oozing between Lonnie, Halmea, and Jesse is palpable, although Hud is the only one able to act upon it—and how he does!With some foreshadowing of what’s to come, we realize that there is trouble when the dreaded Hoof and Mouth Disease strikes the Bannon herd, forcing Homer to make tough choices: kill the herd, liquidate, or sell oil rights on his land? He rails, “What good’s oil to me? What can I do with it? With a bunch a oil wells. I can’t ride out ever day an’ prowl amongst ’em, like I can my cattle. I can’t breed ’em or tend ’em or rope ’em or chase ’em or nothin’. I can’t feel a smidgen a pride in ’em, cause they ain’t none a my doin’.” One wonders whether this cattle disease is too convenient for Hud or whether he has had something to do with it, although according to Lonnie, “Hud had done everything he could to keep Granddad from buying the Laredo cattle—he hated the whole South Texas area, and especially the Mexicans that were in it.”The annual rodeo comes to town and Lonnie tries to escape his domestic strife by looking for girls, booze, and entertainment, all of which seem hard to come by for him, given his deeply introspective and sensitive nature. McMurty evokes the atmosphere of the rodeo very well, a time when women and men drink to excess and cross boundaries, when animals go onery and maim their riders, when everyone lives an unnatural existence for four days and returns to normal life a bit changed.There were some elements of stagecraft that were lost on me. I couldn’t understand how Hud had such a hold over his step-father, and how old Homer made it so far from home in his nightshirt on the fateful last night of the rodeo. And most importantly, why someone didn’t beat the crap out of Hud for his in-your-face, upstart and immoral behaviour. Cowboys, you custodians of the upstanding moral code of the American West, where were you hiding?This is a tale of loss. For not only is the beloved herd lost (midway in the book, so no spoiler), but Lonnie starts to lose the people who matter to him, including his home. And even though the events leading to the ending are dramatic, the climax fizzles out. The avenging cowboy laying the bad guy low does not happen, cliché though it is; instead the ending reinforces that Might is Right in America, that change is hard-to-impossible for the older generation, and that crooked people win over honest ones. I was reminded of that Shakespearean quote “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.” McMurty seems to modify it slightly to imply, “The evil men live after the good ones are interred with their bones.”

As one of my favourite films 'Hud ' is based on this book I couldn't wait to read it. It was hard going as the book is of it's time and quite brutal at times. Sadly Hud in the book is totally unlikeable, I prefer the film and McMurtry's other books. Watch the film, Hud's character is still questionable in that but you get a little more insight to be able see past the bravado and hostility, something the book didn't really portray.

The story itself was very good - quite atmospheric, good characters and it left you "dangling" wondering what was going to happen next with the characters. Really good stuff.The book itself was in a shocking state and reminded me why I stopped using library books! I felt the need to wash my hands every time I had touched it, it was grubby, full of underlinings and scribbled notes.Given that it was described as "used, very good" I think I will be avoiding second hand purchases in future.The seller needs to be given grief for the description not matching the product.As I said in the the title of this review - Reading enjoyment spoilt!