Rhino Ranch

I am bummed to finally see the Duane Moore novels come to an end. I first read Last Picture Show shortly after the movie came out, though I did not actually see the movie for years afterwards, and I even liked Texasville and When the Light Goes though they were both trashed in reviews. I've even visited Thalia, uh, Archer City, on more than one occasion, even before Booked Up opened its doors a few years back. In short, I've come to like and to identify with Duane as we have both grown older and I'm sorry to lose him as a friend.

OK, Rhino Ranch in pretty unrealistic in much of its plot and with many of its characters. Billionairesses and top notch chefs and porn stars hanging out in Archer City? I don't think so. And are there really that many meth heads cooking out in the open fields? I find that pretty hard to believe. The whole concept of the Rhino Ranch is pretty hard to believe, too, but there are enough game ranches and wildlife preserves dotting the Texas landscape now that maybe it isn't all that farfetched. And how about all those young things--at least two, anyway--that keep offering themselves to Duane? (Jimmy said that McMurtry really is a horny old man, a judgement seconded by Sara) Or that he didn't know that Annie was a meth freak while he was married to her?

And the final pages do read like McMurtry has gotten tired of the whole gig and is trying to bring the saga to a close. Of course, one of McMurtry's faults has been an inability to bring some of his books to a satisfactory close, but the ending of Rhino Ranch, where he covers 10 years in about two paragraphs or so, reminds me a lot of That Evening Star where Aurora's grandson remembers his final moments with her about thirty years later.

But I do think that McMurtry was spot on with many of his characterizations and puzzlements of old age. Duane, as always, is a pretty passive observer of life that continually surprises himself with his feelings and some of his impulses. He's also surprised at all of the changes happening to himself and to his friends and to Thalia as they all grow older, especially as he watches so many of his friends die. (Of course, nothing matches his surprise in having Karla suddenly die in an automobile acccident in Duane's Depressed--Sara reached over and slugged me when she read that part a few years back, "You didn't tell me that Karla dies!") And Duane's reverie where he considers that it would just be OK to go to sleep and not wake up seems to be a thought that I'm having more and more these days myself. It's just kind of a resignation that the best is over and the rest is just kinda sitting around watching it all come apart. So much of that comes from Duane's rudderlessness, his loss of sense of purpose, his feeling of pointlessness. These are feelings that I'm having to deal with more and more myself and it feels right on to have McMurtry give voice to them.

Author: McMurtry, Larry

Date Published: 2010

Length: 2010

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