Lots of fans of the book and miniseries here. In the past, I've commented that McMurtry just basically stole the story of Goodnight and Loving and made a good tale out of it.
Found this article recently, and McMurtry disagrees. Thought fans would enjoy this read where he discusses what is historical and what is fiction.
https://texascooppower.com/a-page-of-the-past/
https://texascooppower.com/lonesome-in-a-library/
Second link is to a Daytripper short, where Chet Garner visits the "Wittliff Collection" at Texas State University. If you're like me, you probably didn't recall that Wittliff wrote the screenplay for Lonesome Dove. The collection includes western art, and works by Cormac McCarthy and Sam Shepard.
The main attraction are all the artifacts Wittliff saved from the miniseries: hats, guns, arrows, the "body" of Gus, and lots of other things.
Found this article recently, and McMurtry disagrees. Thought fans would enjoy this read where he discusses what is historical and what is fiction.
https://texascooppower.com/a-page-of-the-past/
Quote:
Millions of copies of Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove have sold since the novel was published in 1985. The miniseries that followed in 1989 was likewise immensely popular. McMurtry himself called it the Gone With the Wind of the West, but he never loved the book as much as his fans. "You know most writers come to dislike their most popular books," he once told journalist John Spong. "Henry James hated Daisy Miller, which is what he is known by. He's probably written 35 other books. I feel a little that way about Lonesome Dove."
McMurtry said he never saw the miniseries. Maybe if he had, he would have better understood how endearingly Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones and Diane Lane brought their characters to life. I can't help but wonder if those characters were modeled after real-life Texans.
But McMurtry said that that wasn't his aim. Though Woodrow Call has some attributes of Charles Goodnight, and Gus McCrae has some attributes of Oliver Loving, the novel's main characters were not modeled after actual historical figures. McMurtry said the book is not meant to be a faithful history of the era but rather one that has echoes of those times.
In fact, he sought to authentically demythologize the life of the cowboy and show how brutally difficult their lives were. "The whole book is permeated with criticism of the Old West from start to finish," he said.
https://texascooppower.com/lonesome-in-a-library/
Second link is to a Daytripper short, where Chet Garner visits the "Wittliff Collection" at Texas State University. If you're like me, you probably didn't recall that Wittliff wrote the screenplay for Lonesome Dove. The collection includes western art, and works by Cormac McCarthy and Sam Shepard.
The main attraction are all the artifacts Wittliff saved from the miniseries: hats, guns, arrows, the "body" of Gus, and lots of other things.
