Lonesome Dove: Fidelity (1)

This week I finished Lonesome Dove (the Pulitzer Prize winning book and the miniseries), but I’m not sure it’s finished with me.

The book is more a study of the human condition than a morality tale, although there’s some good that shines through and some bad that casts a shadow (sometimes personified, as in Blue Duck).

One key theme permeating the book is fidelity, notable both in its presence and its absence:

* commitment to pursue and hang horse thieves and other criminals and to rescue those in trouble, even if it means hanging one of your closest friends, having to bury someone over nothing more than a dozen horses, or risking the lives of young companions

* commitment to keeping your word, even if it means hauling a corpse two thousand miles on a wagon

* commitment to doing one’s job, even if it means loss of limb (personified in Deets)

* commitment to respecting others, with the possible exception of “Messicans”.

* joyful commitment to brutal honesty with others, including the ability to call one another out on very personal matters

* commitment to life “where you are”.  Even though it’s a travel epic, there’s still a sense in which the movie preaches a certain commitment to contentment.  So Gus tells Lorena, the whore who longs for the freedom, cool weather, and sophistication of San Francisco:  “Life in San Francisco is still just life. Now if you want only one thing out of life too much, it’s bound to be a disappointment. So, the only healthy way to live life, as I see it, is to enjoy all the little everyday things, like a sip of whiskey in the evening, a soft bed, or a glass of buttermilk, or say a feisty gentleman like myself.”  (This is also epitomized in the scene where Gus chases buffalo…)

In a separate post, I’ll look at the darker side of fidelity.

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