≡ [PDF] Horseman Pass By Larry McMurtry 9780140046915 Books

Horseman Pass By Larry McMurtry 9780140046915 Books

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Horseman Pass By Larry McMurtry 9780140046915 Books

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.


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Horseman Pass By Larry McMurtry 9780140046915 Books Reviews

An elegant, elegaic, affecting first novel about a seventeen-year-old's attempt to grow up in a changing rural Texas. In the movie the teenager was played by Brandon de Wilde, the maid was African-American, and the boy's amoral uncle Hud (Paul Newman) took the center of attention. Not so here, and while HORSEMAN, PASS BY is a little dry at times, it's an excellent introduction to the novels of Larry McMurtry, which include THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, TEXASVILLE and LONESOME DOVE.
Some reviewers seemed to have a problem with this book being sold under it's original name, instead of as "Hud", the title of the movie based on the book. I found it a good read, and the changes that were made to the movie version were interesting. Early McMurtry is the best of his work, in my opinion, and this one would be worthwhile to own - and read - if only because it WAS one of his first big success stories, if you will forgive the pun. Not a warm, fuzzy, "feel-good" tale - but most of this author's work is not. As a Texas writer myself, I feel a kinship of sorts to Mr. McMurtry, and having been to most of the towns he puts his characters in maybe helps me understand him better. I highly recommend this one to any of his fans.
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.