Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen : Reflections on Sixty and Beyond

I’ve been making my way recently through McMurtry’s essays. I am thoroughly enjoying them. The best way to describe this collection of thoughts is as an old-timer rambling at the local DQ about old-timers rambling at the local DQ. That is how the book starts anyway. It quickly evolves into memoir, and it doesn’t seem like it was intentional. McMurtry has, of course, more recently written a trilogy of memoirs. In this book, he mentions the aging novelist’s work as it becomes repetition and/or self-parody, and well, that is what his essays begin to do (as old-timers at DQ are also wont to do). While that observation may seem biting, it is not a negative criticism because I enjoyed sitting at the table at the DQ in Archer City with Larry as he passed on his stories, repeated or otherwise. In the repetition there must be some extra meaning and importance. The final paragraph left me smiling but nostalgic, also thankful that he committed his thoughts to memory. Because his version of Texas is so very similar to my ancestors. But they left no record, written or oral, for me to access. So in the place of their silence, I’ll listen to Larry as he rambles and connect with my own history through his. It’s probably not so far off. In light of the recent passing of Charles Portis, another favorite, I also feel compelled now to venture the few hours North from Austin to Archer City. Maybe Larry will be at the DQ drinking a Dr Pepper with lime. Maybe I’ll shake his hand. And in so doing, maybe I can physically touch the past as it was, romantic fool that I am. Likely not. But I can always read his books. He might like it better that way anyway.

It is next to impossible for me to be objective about this writer--and particularly about this exquisite collection of essays. So much of his experience parallels mine--Scots-Irish pioneer ancestors, growing up in the "bitterly beautiful" southwest during the forties--in an impoverished environment where books (and readers) were not valued. Like Mr. McMurtry, I developed an insatiable appetite for books when an older cousin gave me his "liberry." Like him, I became a book collector on a shoe string. I especially related to his essay on the tension between reading and writing/herding words. (The latter won out in his life; the former has triumphed in mine.) Mr. McMurtry is far too modest about his work; he is a master storyteller by Benjamin's or anyone's standards. HORSEMAN, PASS BY, is one of the most teachable books, one of the best "rites of passage" books I've worked with. LONESOME DOVE is one of the ten "best reads" I've had in nearly 60 years of heavy reading. Even in my least favorites of his books, such as MOVING ON, there are memorable characters and descriptions that stick in my head. For example, the vast silence of the southwest makes Patsy aware of her isolation: . . . and the sense was heightened when she stepped out on the front porch for a minute. . . the stillness, the moonlight and the stars over the plains gave the night a cleanness and a clarity that were tangible. . . . The night was so beautifully clear that it was disturbing. . . . Like many others, this passage resonates with the joys and sorrows of the human condition, especially in the dry barren vistas of my own "home place." Mr. McMurtry is uniquely equipped to weave the tapestry of the Southwest with all its flaws, its grandeur and stark beauty, its anguish, joy, richness, and its barren, impoverished lives. I love to think of his returning to Archer City--and especially love his bringing all those books home to Texas with him. I believe/pray his best work may be yet to come. God bless him!

Written when McMurtry was 62, WALTER BENJAMIN AT THE DAIRY QUEEN is probably best classified as a memoir, although it is not presented as such. Rather, the construct (perhaps "artifice" is the more apt word) is McMurtry sitting in the Dairy Queen in hometown Archer City, Texas reading an essay on storytelling by Walter Benjamin, which then prompts McMurtry to reflect on and then pass along some of the stories of his life. This Dairy Queen/Walter Benjamin construct comes across as a tad contrived, maybe a little too self-consciously "artsy," but on the whole the stories McMurtry tells are well worth listening to.The two principle subjects of the book (tracking, one assumes, the two principle preoccupations of McMurtry's life) are (i) the American West -- including that pocket of the West local to Archer County, Texas where McMurtry grew up and his grandparents were pioneering settlers -- and (ii) books, reading, and writing. Throughout the book, seamlessly interwoven with reflections about larger themes such as the West, the doomed and mythical cowboy, and literature are themes or events personal to McMurtry, such as growing up on a hard-scrabble North Texas ranch, his father, going in his teens to the big city and later Rice University, returns to Archer City relating to "The Last Picture Show", and his quadruple-bypass surgery and its extended psychic aftermath.I see that previous reviews have characterized McMurtry as "crusty" or "cranky," which in my view does him and the book a disservice. Without any obvious effort to ingratiate himself with the reader, McMurtry comes off as personable and likeable. It is not much of a stretch to envision him actually relating these stories and reflections after the meal around a dining room table or maybe even a campfire (albeit not any Dairy Queen of my experience). Yes, in such circumstances McMurtry probably would tend to monopolize the discussion, but he knows more than most of us and, as his fiction suggests, he is a better storyteller than most.

Authentic, laconic voice of the West in praise, not of cowboys, but books. Great company.

the book was in pefect condition, as new, though it had been described as used. Excellent packaging, and prompt dispatch. The book was a very interesting retrospect of the author's life, with emphasis on his career as a secondhand bookdealer (or book scout, as he describes himself)

Elegiac, wistful, funny, a lovely memoir of one man's education through books and reading.

I love the way the author connects Walter Benjamin's philosophy with a West Texas Dairy Queen.