Book Review: The Last Picture Show, by Larry McMurtry
Up today we have a non-western novel from a novelist known best for his westerns.
The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry
I picked this one up because, to be honest, it wasn't too long. When I told my Dad that I was reading Valdez is Coming to get a feel for "real" westerns, he said I should read McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, which Dad said was great. When I got to the bookstore, I had trouble finding Lonesome Dove on the shelves, however, because it wasn't filed with the other western novels. It was filed with the other Larry McMurtry novels, of which there are many. Note to bookstores: pick a system, would you? Emphasis on the singular. So there was Lonesome Dove, in all its 700+ page glory.
"No way," says I to myself. Knowing that I get, at best, about a half hour of reading time every night before lights-out, I didn't feel like taking a month to get through one book. So I looked for a shorter McMurtry western. I didn't really find one that grabbed my eye, but I did find Last Picture Show. It, at least, is set in Texas, all be it a mid-20th century Texas.
So what's the verdict? Characters: A-. Story: B+. Writing: C.
We'll go in reverse order on that list. This book had the same chief problem as Valdez did: 3rd person omniscient POV with unannounced switches from character to character. Irritating as hell. As I said before, it's hugely jarring to get confused and have to backtrack and re-read a paragraph or two because suddenly the narrator is on some other character that you weren't expecting. Takes me right out of the story. I was making notes in the margin of the book as I read, and for the first couple of chapters I was marking these because they felt like genuine errors--the book is in the main centered on the character of Sonny, so the switches felt like violations of the 3rd person limited POV--but eventually I realized that no, it was just garden variety 3rd person omniscient but badly handled.
The writing does have good qualities, though, which rescues the grade up to a C. McMurty does an abolutely brilliant job with choosing words very carefully to feed you huge amounts of subtext, context, or setting in an amazingly efficient way. He has a doozy of that right on page one, I think it might have even been in the first sentence or at least the first paragraph, where he describes the weather as a "cold norther" blowing in, and that word "norther" just did wonders for placing the setting and character (the opening scene is of Sunny driving his POS pickup truck at night) squarely where McMurtry wants them, in that time and place of mid-century Texas. A chapter or so later, he had another gem that sticks in my mind where he's describing a minor character who is a hot-shot pool hustler down at the local pool hall. He references the man's posession of a money clip, but he did so with devastating choice of wording (here I wish I could remember it verbatim, as I don't have the book with me at the moment) that managed to convey that the money clip was a rarity among the town's inhabitants, and thus, managed to convey in about three words the man's entire personality and attitude towards everyone else in town. Brilliant.
I don't have much to say about the story itself. It's yet another teen angst coming of age story, except set in a town that is itself on its way out. In the process of becoming a ghost town. The book takes place over the course of one year, in which much changes for Sonny and his best friend, as they cope with the end of High School, social drama, love, lost love, lust, jealousy, envy, and the prospect of future employment in the oil industry or in the army.
But where any book succeeds or fails is in its characters, and Last Picture Show has plenty to choose from. Some are likeable, some are loathesome, and some are pitiable, which was clearly McMurty's intent. All of the main characters--with the somewhat odd exception of Sonny's best friend Duane--get a fair shair of narrator time and so we get to know them fairly well. Sonny himself is a good kid. He's basically normal--not the biggest man on campus, but not a social outcast either. That was a refreshing change, as so many books in the coming-of-age genre tend to pick outcasts as their main characters. That almost didn't matter, though, as so little of the book takes place within the school itself. Anyway, McMurty does a fine job of portraying Sonny's struggles, his teen lust, his desire to be good and do the right thing versus his desire to be wild and have adventures, and his desire to do things that will elevate his social standing. The theme of social hierarchy is hugely prominent in this book, and most of the characters spend considerable time dwelling on theirs.
Particularly Jacy Farrow. She is Sonny's best friend's girlfriend, and the object of Sonny's unspoken desire. I have to say that Jacy irritated the crap out of me. She's the daughter of the town's rich family, her father being a successful oil man or something, and she is just about the most shallow, vain, cynical, manipulative, status-obsessed little bitch I've ever encountered either in real life or fiction. Everything she does in the whole book is carefully weighed and calculated as to its impact on her own social status. Jacy was a case where I think that the choice of 3rd person omniscient, even if it had been handled with better skill, hurt the book. Sonny and Duane spend most of the book confused and upset about Jacy, her behavior, and how she treats them. I think that McMurty's intent was to let the reader see into her head to know exactly why she does it, so that we would understand Sonny and Duane's feelings about it. And although we certainly can understand their feelings, having such a clear vision into Jacy kept me from really identifying with with them about her. Keeping Jacy at arm's length, narratively, only showing us her actions but not her thoughts, would have left the reader in a better position to empathize with Sonny and Duane. McMurtry should have relied on the adult reader's own experiences to fill in Jacy's motivations (which wouldn't have been hard to deduce) just fine. McMurty could have had his cake and eaten it too, as it were, except for the ironic fact that he tried to feed the reader too much cake.
The last character I want to talk about was Ruth. Ruth is the 40-something wife of the school's utterly disgusting P.E. teacher. And while she doesn't show up until late in the book, McMurty does a really lovely job of conveying the sadness and despair of her life, her loveless marriage, and her unfulfilled desires. My heart breaks for Ruth, for her lost chances at happiness, and for the incarceration of her role as an unwilling 1950s housewife. She's a minor player in the book as a whole, but she's a real gem.
The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry
I picked this one up because, to be honest, it wasn't too long. When I told my Dad that I was reading Valdez is Coming to get a feel for "real" westerns, he said I should read McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, which Dad said was great. When I got to the bookstore, I had trouble finding Lonesome Dove on the shelves, however, because it wasn't filed with the other western novels. It was filed with the other Larry McMurtry novels, of which there are many. Note to bookstores: pick a system, would you? Emphasis on the singular. So there was Lonesome Dove, in all its 700+ page glory.
"No way," says I to myself. Knowing that I get, at best, about a half hour of reading time every night before lights-out, I didn't feel like taking a month to get through one book. So I looked for a shorter McMurtry western. I didn't really find one that grabbed my eye, but I did find Last Picture Show. It, at least, is set in Texas, all be it a mid-20th century Texas.
So what's the verdict? Characters: A-. Story: B+. Writing: C.
We'll go in reverse order on that list. This book had the same chief problem as Valdez did: 3rd person omniscient POV with unannounced switches from character to character. Irritating as hell. As I said before, it's hugely jarring to get confused and have to backtrack and re-read a paragraph or two because suddenly the narrator is on some other character that you weren't expecting. Takes me right out of the story. I was making notes in the margin of the book as I read, and for the first couple of chapters I was marking these because they felt like genuine errors--the book is in the main centered on the character of Sonny, so the switches felt like violations of the 3rd person limited POV--but eventually I realized that no, it was just garden variety 3rd person omniscient but badly handled.
The writing does have good qualities, though, which rescues the grade up to a C. McMurty does an abolutely brilliant job with choosing words very carefully to feed you huge amounts of subtext, context, or setting in an amazingly efficient way. He has a doozy of that right on page one, I think it might have even been in the first sentence or at least the first paragraph, where he describes the weather as a "cold norther" blowing in, and that word "norther" just did wonders for placing the setting and character (the opening scene is of Sunny driving his POS pickup truck at night) squarely where McMurtry wants them, in that time and place of mid-century Texas. A chapter or so later, he had another gem that sticks in my mind where he's describing a minor character who is a hot-shot pool hustler down at the local pool hall. He references the man's posession of a money clip, but he did so with devastating choice of wording (here I wish I could remember it verbatim, as I don't have the book with me at the moment) that managed to convey that the money clip was a rarity among the town's inhabitants, and thus, managed to convey in about three words the man's entire personality and attitude towards everyone else in town. Brilliant.
I don't have much to say about the story itself. It's yet another teen angst coming of age story, except set in a town that is itself on its way out. In the process of becoming a ghost town. The book takes place over the course of one year, in which much changes for Sonny and his best friend, as they cope with the end of High School, social drama, love, lost love, lust, jealousy, envy, and the prospect of future employment in the oil industry or in the army.
But where any book succeeds or fails is in its characters, and Last Picture Show has plenty to choose from. Some are likeable, some are loathesome, and some are pitiable, which was clearly McMurty's intent. All of the main characters--with the somewhat odd exception of Sonny's best friend Duane--get a fair shair of narrator time and so we get to know them fairly well. Sonny himself is a good kid. He's basically normal--not the biggest man on campus, but not a social outcast either. That was a refreshing change, as so many books in the coming-of-age genre tend to pick outcasts as their main characters. That almost didn't matter, though, as so little of the book takes place within the school itself. Anyway, McMurty does a fine job of portraying Sonny's struggles, his teen lust, his desire to be good and do the right thing versus his desire to be wild and have adventures, and his desire to do things that will elevate his social standing. The theme of social hierarchy is hugely prominent in this book, and most of the characters spend considerable time dwelling on theirs.
Particularly Jacy Farrow. She is Sonny's best friend's girlfriend, and the object of Sonny's unspoken desire. I have to say that Jacy irritated the crap out of me. She's the daughter of the town's rich family, her father being a successful oil man or something, and she is just about the most shallow, vain, cynical, manipulative, status-obsessed little bitch I've ever encountered either in real life or fiction. Everything she does in the whole book is carefully weighed and calculated as to its impact on her own social status. Jacy was a case where I think that the choice of 3rd person omniscient, even if it had been handled with better skill, hurt the book. Sonny and Duane spend most of the book confused and upset about Jacy, her behavior, and how she treats them. I think that McMurty's intent was to let the reader see into her head to know exactly why she does it, so that we would understand Sonny and Duane's feelings about it. And although we certainly can understand their feelings, having such a clear vision into Jacy kept me from really identifying with with them about her. Keeping Jacy at arm's length, narratively, only showing us her actions but not her thoughts, would have left the reader in a better position to empathize with Sonny and Duane. McMurtry should have relied on the adult reader's own experiences to fill in Jacy's motivations (which wouldn't have been hard to deduce) just fine. McMurty could have had his cake and eaten it too, as it were, except for the ironic fact that he tried to feed the reader too much cake.
The last character I want to talk about was Ruth. Ruth is the 40-something wife of the school's utterly disgusting P.E. teacher. And while she doesn't show up until late in the book, McMurty does a really lovely job of conveying the sadness and despair of her life, her loveless marriage, and her unfulfilled desires. My heart breaks for Ruth, for her lost chances at happiness, and for the incarceration of her role as an unwilling 1950s housewife. She's a minor player in the book as a whole, but she's a real gem.