Lonesome Dove, Letter to Parents
Dear Parents of Sophomore Students,
English II is an in-depth study of American Literature and how that literature reflects the history of the development of America. We are currently preparing to read and study Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, an 858 page novel I added to the curriculum last year. This novel is often called “the Great Western Novel”; when it was released in 1985, The New York Times called it “thrilling and perfectly realized.” The following year, it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It is on the reading lists of many American high schools and appears on the AP English Literature and Composition Suggested Reading List, along with the other novels on the Augusta Prep curriculum this year.
During the Parent Night Open House at the beginning of the year, some parents were excited and pleased that I was teaching this novel. Indeed, I was pleased with the response to the novel from my students last year. Never before have I witnessed so many self-professed “non-readers” sheepishly admit that they were reading and enjoying the book. Students of all levels came to class eager to discuss what had happened in the assigned reading. The vast majority of my students enjoyed it; however, I don’t ever begrudge students who don’t like what we read (as long as they read it). In the end, all of my students read a nearly 900-page novel, an accomplishment worthy of pride.
The novel has some frank scenes and language that reflect the seedy side of life of the American cattle driver in the late 19th century. Yes, it was hard and bad things happened. For instance, one of the main characters is a prostitute who has sexual relationships with many of the men she is with. Some of the men in the novel treat her kindly; some do not. It is our job as readers then to interpret how the author has portrayed his characters or set up his reader for an accurate or biased interpretation of them. In my class, I generate an atmosphere in which we may discuss these topics with maturity and respect, mindful of the historical and social context in which these scenes take place. In my experience, high school sophomores are capable of treating these sensitive passages in a sensitive manner, especially when this material is presented in a sensitive way, which we always do in my class.
As an English teacher of sophomores, any novel that the students will read and many enjoy is worthy of merit. However, the novel did not win the Pulitzer Prize only because it was fun to read. The novel reflects the history of America in the frontier era and exposes us to the realities of life in the newly settled American West, an often stark contrast to the promises inherent in Manifest Destiny and the Homestead Act of 1862. We romanticize this era of cowboys on their horses, but many of us would not have survived it well. How does the reality hold up to the mythic Old West? Why do we still gravitate toward this notion of the West as freedom? In English II, Huck Finn starts us off with this idea in the 1830-40s when he ends The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by declaring, “I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest,” and yet the idea prevails in Holden’s imagined escape to the West in The Catcher in the Rye in 1951 and in Nick’s surprising assertion at the end of The Great Gatsby when he says, “I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all.” Lonesome Dove helps us understand much of the truth, beauty, and fallacy in these ideas, and indeed it is a journey that mirrors other epic journeys worth reading, such as those in the Odyssey and the Aeneid. The extensive work we do with Lonesome Dove will prepare the students for a more rigorous study of the poems, short stories, and novels that follow this epic American journey, and I hope we enjoy this journey together. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read Lonesome Dove and share this journey with us.
Sincerely,
Katelynn Bell