Here is a solid short essay about the significance of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, the two anti-mythic Western novels published a few weeks apart in 1985. I would like to have a discussion on what it was about the culture and politics of the mid to late 1980s that made these novels possible, and allowed them to resonate.
A clip:
"But when the Western gave up its promise of empty entertainment, it finally could achieve its true destiny. The cowboy story could now take its place as the authentic American epic, raw and unapologetic. When writers gave up the pulp formulas that had charmed readers during the first three-quarters of the 20th century, a new honesty and complexity could emerge in their works. Only after we stopped assigning roles on the basis of white hats and black hats could we come to grips with what was really wild in the Wild West."
A clip:
"But when the Western gave up its promise of empty entertainment, it finally could achieve its true destiny. The cowboy story could now take its place as the authentic American epic, raw and unapologetic. When writers gave up the pulp formulas that had charmed readers during the first three-quarters of the 20th century, a new honesty and complexity could emerge in their works. Only after we stopped assigning roles on the basis of white hats and black hats could we come to grips with what was really wild in the Wild West."