Status
Available
Call number
Call number
F MCM
Series
Genres
Collection
Publication
Simon & Schuster (2003), Edition: Reprint, 432 pages
Description
A comedy on a man's belated mid-life crisis at the age of 62. It strikes Texas oil tycoon Duane Moore and not even his wife of 40 years can figure out what caused it. That task is left to a pretty psychiatrist.
Subjects
Original publication date
1999
Similar in this library
User reviews
LibraryThing member tgsalter
The kids from Thalia are in their 60s. Duane struggles with meaning, breaking through into the next part of his life.
LibraryThing member russelllindsey
This is one of my favorite books. Duane's journey represents an inner journey to which most people can relate.
LibraryThing member rocketjk
I was surprised by how much I loved this book, and I loved it a lot. It is the third in what turned out to be a 5-part series by McMurtry following the lives of the residents of Thalia, Texas, whom we first see in the wonderful, and famous, novel, The Last Picture Show. My perspective on Last
The second book in the series, Texasville, shows Duane Moore, one of the main characters of the first book, struggling to reconcile his relative success as an oilman with his confusion about his wife's, and his own, restlessness amid the claustrophobia of small-town Texas life. Texasville, is funny and knowing, but the restlessness manifests itself in frequent bickering, which is difficult for me to get past sometimes (I hate bickering in real life and in books/films/TV shows). Still an enjoyable book, but not a comfortable one.
Duane's Depressed, on the other hand, is a different deal, entirely. Yes, the book is about depression, as a 62-year-old Duane Moore suddenly decides to stop riding in pickup trucks and begin walking everywhere he goes. This is considered the height of looniness in his part of Texas. And soon Duane is living in his cabin rather than in his big house, full of a squalling family of kids and grandkids, much to the understandable consternation of his wife, Karla. There's not much plot to this book, or at least to the first half of it, but the beauty of the writing, for me, is transcendent. It is a book about a man looking back at his life and feeling disappointment at what he sees, as in this passage:
"The list of things he had never done was far longer than the list of things that might be considered accomplishments. All that he had done in the way of building things had merely slipped away, into the great stream of human effort, gone as silently as the sand below him slid into the flowing water. What had happened to his life? Why in 62 years, had he made so little of it? He was not educated, he had not traveled, he knew nothing of the great cities of the world, he could speak no language except a crude English; he had never visited a great museum, or seen a great picture or heard a great symphony orchestra, or read a great book. He was ignorant, except at the most general level, of the works of great men and women who had made something in their time as living beings. Duane felt both a need to hurry and a sense of the hopelessness of hurry. How could he now, a sixty-two-year-old man with no education, hope to encompass more than a tiny fraction of what he had missed by casual misapplication through decades of wasted time."
There is nothing out of the ordinary about Duane's predicament, certainly. But, to me, sometimes I feel like the greatest of all art is that which is able to clearly and gracefully turn a fresh, knowing and tender spotlight onto the commonplace. It is impressive enough that McMurtry makes of Duane Moore in this book an sympathetic character rather than a man simply awash in self-absorption and self-pity.
At any rate, I found Duane's Depressed to be a fine, moving read, more than a little because throughout the work runs a current of hope and of a love of life. It helps to have read the first two books in the series, but I think this book could also stand on its own quite well.
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Picture Show has changed, now, having read three books of the series. It has dawned on me recently that one of the important aspects of Last Picture Show is the characters' dawning realization, as they prepare to begin their adult lives, of the pervasive part that discontent is going to play in those lives.The second book in the series, Texasville, shows Duane Moore, one of the main characters of the first book, struggling to reconcile his relative success as an oilman with his confusion about his wife's, and his own, restlessness amid the claustrophobia of small-town Texas life. Texasville, is funny and knowing, but the restlessness manifests itself in frequent bickering, which is difficult for me to get past sometimes (I hate bickering in real life and in books/films/TV shows). Still an enjoyable book, but not a comfortable one.
Duane's Depressed, on the other hand, is a different deal, entirely. Yes, the book is about depression, as a 62-year-old Duane Moore suddenly decides to stop riding in pickup trucks and begin walking everywhere he goes. This is considered the height of looniness in his part of Texas. And soon Duane is living in his cabin rather than in his big house, full of a squalling family of kids and grandkids, much to the understandable consternation of his wife, Karla. There's not much plot to this book, or at least to the first half of it, but the beauty of the writing, for me, is transcendent. It is a book about a man looking back at his life and feeling disappointment at what he sees, as in this passage:
"The list of things he had never done was far longer than the list of things that might be considered accomplishments. All that he had done in the way of building things had merely slipped away, into the great stream of human effort, gone as silently as the sand below him slid into the flowing water. What had happened to his life? Why in 62 years, had he made so little of it? He was not educated, he had not traveled, he knew nothing of the great cities of the world, he could speak no language except a crude English; he had never visited a great museum, or seen a great picture or heard a great symphony orchestra, or read a great book. He was ignorant, except at the most general level, of the works of great men and women who had made something in their time as living beings. Duane felt both a need to hurry and a sense of the hopelessness of hurry. How could he now, a sixty-two-year-old man with no education, hope to encompass more than a tiny fraction of what he had missed by casual misapplication through decades of wasted time."
There is nothing out of the ordinary about Duane's predicament, certainly. But, to me, sometimes I feel like the greatest of all art is that which is able to clearly and gracefully turn a fresh, knowing and tender spotlight onto the commonplace. It is impressive enough that McMurtry makes of Duane Moore in this book an sympathetic character rather than a man simply awash in self-absorption and self-pity.
At any rate, I found Duane's Depressed to be a fine, moving read, more than a little because throughout the work runs a current of hope and of a love of life. It helps to have read the first two books in the series, but I think this book could also stand on its own quite well.
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LibraryThing member repb
A strangely wonderful book. McMurtry has a wide skill set. I love almost all of the stuff he has written. I'd have given this a perfect score, but I have problems with the use of certain language. It was slow starting for me, but once I got going, I read quickly.
LibraryThing member BookConcierge
3.5 ***
This is the third book in the series of novels that explore the lives of the residents of Thalia Texas. Duane Moore is 62 and a successful oilman, married, with 4 children and 9 grandchildren. One day he parks his pick-up truck and starts walking, becoming the subject of town gossip and
This is the third book in the series of novels that explore the lives of the residents of Thalia Texas. Duane Moore is 62 and a successful oilman, married, with 4 children and 9 grandchildren. One day he parks his pick-up truck and starts walking, becoming the subject of town gossip and
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speculation, and completely baffling his wife, Karla. Duane’s “mid-life crisis” and search for a meaningful life forms the central plot of this work. Show Less
Pages
432