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5.0 out of 5 stars
Not the movie, but equally good. . ., May 17 2004
This was Larry McMurtry's first novel, published in 1961, long before "Lonesome Dove." It's also his first of several books set in and around the small Texas town of Thalia. The story was quickly transformed into a Paul Newman film "Hud" in 1963, which is the version of the story most people know. In spirit, the two stories are similar - they are both anti-westerns, in which code of the West is subverted and corrupted by failure of moral character. But McMurtry's novel tells a story with a darker vision. At the center is Lonnie, the teenager growing up on his grandfather's ranch, and it's through his eyes that we see the cold, self-serving indifference of his uncle Hud. Still a boy, unschooled in much of anything besides the dawn-to-dusk labor of ranch work, Lonnie is no moral center, following his grandfather's example. In many ways, he accepts Hud's violent behavior, his disrespect for the old man, and his ruthless use of women as a kind of norm. In the end, as he leaves the ranch, he takes the first steps toward a life that may well be no more rewarding or purposeful than that of the regretful hired hand Jesse, who gets too drunk to ride his cutting horse in the rodeo. To streamline the story, the film has scaled back or eliminated interesting key characters like Jesse, another ranch hand Lonzo, a neighbor Hank, and a friend Hermy, who is badly injured trying to ride a bull. Also, by casting a white woman in the role of the black cook Halmea (Patricia Neal's Alma), the film sidesteps a racial dimension that the novel brings to the story. So for readers who know and like the film, this is a very different telling of the story and well worth reading. As usual in McMurtry's early novels, there is a richly detailed capturing of character, speech, and setting. He knows these people inside and out, how they think, talk, and behave. He also totally deromanticizes ranch work, representing it as mercilessly hot, dusty, and exhausting. The small-town rodeo, with its drinking, womanizing cowboys, fares little better. I heartily recommend this novel for anyone interested in the rural West and ranching, along with McMurtry's more melancholy but less bleak "Leaving Cheyenne."
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