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Jun. 16th, 2025 12:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pshaw_ravenAs promised I wrote up some thoughts on Lonesome Dove. At one point it was getting too literary, too criticism-focused so I deleted a lot and just wrote from personal point of view, from a personal response. Obviously I have to spoil a few things, so if you haven't read it and plan to, perhaps skip this.
Several weeks ago, I posted about Larry McMurtry's 1986 doorstop of a novel, Lonesome Dove. I read it in 1998 fresh out of college, a welcome palette cleanser after finishing my thesis and reading nothing but Anais Nin for years. I was not a kid anymore, but I knew as I read it that I didn't have the kind of life experience that allowed me entry into the book's real emotional depths. So as people began to get excited for the novel's fortieth anniversary I decided to read it again and see how my response to it had changed.
Lonesome Dove is a novel about regret.
I could understand regret to a certain extent. When you're twenty-two you haven't had much chance to rack up regrets yet, but you've probably gotten started. I suspected many of mine were simply FOMO, though the term didn't exist at that time, it was just the road not taken.
The real problem with regret is that it can eat you alive if you let it. And Call clearly does this, constantly busying himself in the face of emotional discomfort, constantly trying to escape having to deal with regret, failure, or anything else that my shift his somewhat fragile sense of self. That said, he isn't a weak man, by any stretch, just in many ways a dishonest one. And this is especially in contrast to Gus, who you will never mistake for anything other than what he is.
From where I sit now, the entire cattle drive seems like a big distraction that Call seizes upon to finally "fix" himself, his life, his regrets. It carries the same energy as when we post stuff like "I'm sure this 500-page book/giant cinnamon bun/forehead kiss will heal me." Obviously it doesn't. The journey does hold out opportunities, but Call doesn't take them. Perhaps he can't take them. His long journey back to Texas, though, forces him to face up to his regrets and failures, long days and weeks of driving with nothing else to do but mull on the past.
The problem is that we're always going to have regrets for something. Not even someone in perfect, hermit-like isolation will be free of regret. Simply being alive will do it. It isn't about living in so flawless a way as to avoid regrets, it's how you deal with them later, and how you either make amends with the living and how you relate to the dead. Often the dead seem to hold a much greater sway over us than any living person, our promises becoming like blood oaths. I probably don't have to point out to you, dear reader, that trying to make our peace with people while they're still alive can help prevent us from being driven by the whims of those who've passed on.
Regret allows us to hold onto the past. If you have a regret then you can turn it over and over in your mind, thinking about how things might have been different, worrying it like a polished stone. Becoming too attached to these ruminations can blind you to the opportunities popping up in your present, or they can convince you not to act on them. A promise to a dead friend can bind, but regrets can be like chains and anchors, miles of weighted metal that you drag until you can barely move any more.
There's no way to avoid regret entirely, and in fact, trying to could lead to its own set of regrets. You either make mistakes and learn from them, hopefully becoming a better person, or you stew in it for the rest of your life. There will always be people who are happily ready to remind you of all the ways you've messed up, and oftentimes that voice gets into your head and becomes the background noise of your daily existence. These people are the proverbial crabs in a bucket.
I can't tell you how to live your life or how to deal with your own regrets. But if you can't even acknowledge them, you can't handle them effectively. They become corrosive inside you. One day you find that you don't even have yourself to lean on.
Several weeks ago, I posted about Larry McMurtry's 1986 doorstop of a novel, Lonesome Dove. I read it in 1998 fresh out of college, a welcome palette cleanser after finishing my thesis and reading nothing but Anais Nin for years. I was not a kid anymore, but I knew as I read it that I didn't have the kind of life experience that allowed me entry into the book's real emotional depths. So as people began to get excited for the novel's fortieth anniversary I decided to read it again and see how my response to it had changed.
Lonesome Dove is a novel about regret.
I could understand regret to a certain extent. When you're twenty-two you haven't had much chance to rack up regrets yet, but you've probably gotten started. I suspected many of mine were simply FOMO, though the term didn't exist at that time, it was just the road not taken.
The real problem with regret is that it can eat you alive if you let it. And Call clearly does this, constantly busying himself in the face of emotional discomfort, constantly trying to escape having to deal with regret, failure, or anything else that my shift his somewhat fragile sense of self. That said, he isn't a weak man, by any stretch, just in many ways a dishonest one. And this is especially in contrast to Gus, who you will never mistake for anything other than what he is.
From where I sit now, the entire cattle drive seems like a big distraction that Call seizes upon to finally "fix" himself, his life, his regrets. It carries the same energy as when we post stuff like "I'm sure this 500-page book/giant cinnamon bun/forehead kiss will heal me." Obviously it doesn't. The journey does hold out opportunities, but Call doesn't take them. Perhaps he can't take them. His long journey back to Texas, though, forces him to face up to his regrets and failures, long days and weeks of driving with nothing else to do but mull on the past.
The problem is that we're always going to have regrets for something. Not even someone in perfect, hermit-like isolation will be free of regret. Simply being alive will do it. It isn't about living in so flawless a way as to avoid regrets, it's how you deal with them later, and how you either make amends with the living and how you relate to the dead. Often the dead seem to hold a much greater sway over us than any living person, our promises becoming like blood oaths. I probably don't have to point out to you, dear reader, that trying to make our peace with people while they're still alive can help prevent us from being driven by the whims of those who've passed on.
Regret allows us to hold onto the past. If you have a regret then you can turn it over and over in your mind, thinking about how things might have been different, worrying it like a polished stone. Becoming too attached to these ruminations can blind you to the opportunities popping up in your present, or they can convince you not to act on them. A promise to a dead friend can bind, but regrets can be like chains and anchors, miles of weighted metal that you drag until you can barely move any more.
There's no way to avoid regret entirely, and in fact, trying to could lead to its own set of regrets. You either make mistakes and learn from them, hopefully becoming a better person, or you stew in it for the rest of your life. There will always be people who are happily ready to remind you of all the ways you've messed up, and oftentimes that voice gets into your head and becomes the background noise of your daily existence. These people are the proverbial crabs in a bucket.
I can't tell you how to live your life or how to deal with your own regrets. But if you can't even acknowledge them, you can't handle them effectively. They become corrosive inside you. One day you find that you don't even have yourself to lean on.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-16 05:43 pm (UTC)Part op-ed with some wisdom & a bit of a pep talk <3
I lost my ability to write anything of merit. I can barely string together a comment that makes sense, so I end up throwing out platitudes or some-such lol. Hopefully, the heart from which I write manages to peek through.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-18 03:45 pm (UTC)