goes down so easy; classically good prose with no tricks, the likes of austen or munro. i fell right into mcmurtry's world and liked it there. i was surprised by how quickly i inhaled this novel, having begun with no particular interest in cowboys or westerns. i enjoyed the sprawling scale of the narrative, following many different characters across the unforgiving plains. where lonesome dove really delighted me was its pirouetting perspective: the third-person limited narration switches from character to character multiple times per scene, and each distinct voice adds something interesting. their idiolects come through quite strongly (i like when call thinks of lorena as 'that woman'). i enjoyed that mcmurtry lets his characters be: like real people, i still have questions about their histories and their behaviour.
miscellaneous notes (spoilers):
inexplicable character 'superpowers,' like gus' eyesight, deets' 'knowing,' janey's swiftness & endurance & accuracy, blue duck's strength, even lorena's beauty — builds a sense of reality rather than dismantling it, taking the reader 'out': you believe that this is really the kind of place where anything can happen. no longitudinal explanations for these things, no 'a-ha!' moment
Great observations. Highly recommend reading the sequel, Streets of Laredo, which twists some of these central themes a little further. (Don't bother with the prequels though. They have a few good characters but I don't think they're worth it.)