Dead Man's Walk

McMurtry revisits Gus and Call, but what can he do after killing them both off in earlier books? He goes back to the earliest days when they first join the rangers and start adventuring. Buffalo Hump is the great antagonist, but the rangers are no great organization. They are a bunch of opportunists who seek glory and money, but also ignorant and naive in dealing with the realities of the land and the people. The group essentially falls apart and is essentially destroyed on the march across the llano and their encounters with Buffalo Hump. The group that survives is captured by the Mexicans and forced to march across the Jornado Muerte, and even then half of them are executed.

Gus and Call have one great adventure in escorting an English countess across the west Texas desert with a highly unlikely encounter with Buffalo Hump again. The book is nowhere near McMurtry's best and far too many improbabilities and coincidences. Still, a lot of gratuitous violence and bumbling characters with a lot of comic relief provided by Gus. The narrator turned me off at some points. He just didn't have the range of voices to pull it off, certainly not as Lee Horsley did with Lonesome Dove. I enjoyed Dead Man's Walk much more in print years ago when it first came out.

Author: McMurtry, Larry

Date Published: 1996

Length: 14hr 31min

Narrator: Patton, Will

The Stranger

Another classic from my youth. What in the world could I have gotten from this when I was 18 years old? I was struck this time with similarities with Hemingway stylistically--especially the "no ideas but in things." The abundance of sensual details supports the everyday commonplace life of Mersault as opposed to the extraordinary details on the Spanish Civil War or the Italian front in WWI.

At age 18, Mersault was something of a hero to me, but he does not come across as very sympathetic now, especially in his relationship with Raymond and his agreeing to write the letter to Raymond's ex girlfriend, and his refusal to keep Raymond from beating her. And he seems to make excuses for his choices from his lethargy brought on by the sun. He doesn't take responsibility for his choices. Mersault is "everyman," condemned to die in a meaningless life. Condemned to life in prison with no freedom but with a sense of starting life over, regardless of the circumstances.

We're here by fluke, searching for meaning where there is no meaning. Mersault never searches for anything beyond the sensual detail of his experiences, and that's all there is. "I laid my heart open to the tender indifference of the universe."

Author: Camus, Albert

Date Published: 1942

Length: 4hr 14min

Narrator: Davis, Jonathan

From Russia With Love

What can I say? Entirely escapist. And James Bond, as written, is certainly not Sean Connery. Even though SMERSH centers its plot entirely on killing Bond, mentioning his role in the previous four books, and even though he falls straight for their ruse to capture and kill him, he doesn't seem to warrant the attention. He is not the superspy portrayed in the movies. The movie does seem to hold relatively closely to the plot, though. But it is Bond's arrogance that ends up with Kellim Bey being killed, and his lack of cunning that mistakes Red Grant for a British secret service agent. Bond's escape from Grant is entirely too easy. But it is interesting that Rosa Krebs does seem to deliver a fatal kick with a poisoned toe knife in the end of the book. I wonder if Fleming had grown tired of him by this point, but was convinced to bring him back from the dead for a sequel in Dr. No.

Author: Fleming, Ian

Date Published: 1957

Length: 7hr 52min

Narrator: Vance, Simon

Catch 22

Another book that I read as a 19/20 year old and thought was really funny and spot on then, and that I think is probably one of the great novels on re-reading now. Parts of the absurdity of it made me laugh out loud, again, but I also realized that it is so much more than a book about bureaucracy or against war. It's a book about the absurdity of the human condition, a point made by Yossarian when he walks through the streets of Rome trying to befriend Nately's whore's kid sister.

Catch 22 isn't just a bureaucratic trick; it's the trap that we are all caught in just being alive. War is just of way of making that more clear to the rest of us. I found it hard not to dismiss Yossarian and to root for him all at the same time. Of course, when he refused the deal from Colonel Korn, especially after looking for the whore's kid sister, it is one of the few "stand-up" moments in the novel.

I also had a lot of trouble not thinking that all of my life was absurd when I got up from reading it. Everything in the universe seemed like a huge joke was being played on me. But then, it really is a huge joke being played on me.

Author: Heller, Joseph

Date Published: 1961

Length: 19hr 59min

Narrator: Sanders, J. O.

Grendel

I thought that this was a great novel when I read it back in the late 70's, and it has only gotten better with age. Grendel's character is hard to deal with much of the time, but what would you expect from a nihilist who is driven by forces that he cannot control and has trouble comprehending? At times Grendel comes off as a petulant little boy who destroys because he cannot have his own way, and he calls for his uncomprehending mother a lot when he runs into trouble. He is so taken in by the poet and the stories of common humanity that it wounds him deeply when he realizes that the stories were all lies and fabrications that thrust him into the outer darkness.

The dragon is an interesting creature who can see past and future and finds all of it meaningless except for the hoarding of gold. Beowulf then comes off as something of a prig, even as he restores order to the human realm of things.

Author: Gardner, John

Date Published: 1971

Length: 5hr 31min

Narrator: Guidall, George