By Sorrow's River

We pause in our heedless wanderings to think and ponder and wrestle with relationships. Well not a pause in the journeying, but during the journeyings, between actually getting anywhere and anything else happening, we get our interlude of romantic complications. Or anti-romantic complications. Poor Tasmin, falling out of love with her fierce, taciturn, wandering husband, and into love with a gentle, passive, guide without a lustful bone in his body. It's a typicially McMurtrian triangle, where desire and personality and timing and opportunity and geography all fail spectacularly to harmonise, leaving everyone confused, miserable and tortured. And then Indians come along and torture them. Well, no. Maybe. Not for lack of trying.

With show more more babies on the way and balloons in the air and smallpox on the river and a long dry walk, we must brace ourselves for the death to come, and come it does, and if we've had horror and brutality and senseless violence, McMurtry, like a literary conductor who has expertly woven individual themes out of familiar motifs, builds to a new and novel crescendo of actual heartbreak that leaves the reader sitting, fuming, knowing that you shoulda seen that coming, or something like it. God dammit. Now I've got to read the last book and I know he's got to top the ending of this one and I'M VERY WORRIED ABOUT THE BABIES. show less

By Sorrow's River is part three of a four-part series chronically the adventures of the aristocratic, English Berrybender family exploring the American West in the 1830's on a steamship on the Missouri River. Lord Berrybender is accompanied by his gluttonous wife and six of his 14 legitimate children. The series is historical fiction in that it incorporates actual people such as Kit Carson and Jim Bridges, yet the tales are so fanciful that history is left in the dust.

Outrageous is the best general characterization of these stories. The adventures and their characters seem larger than life and more colorful than neon. Not for the faint of heart, unexpected, random, senseless and disturbing atrocities, injuries, and deaths litter these show more tales, with a side of lots of “rutting.” The majority of the initial primary characters do not survive to see book four4 of the series.

Yet, the stories grabbed me. I went through the series like popcorn, wanting to see what amazing events would occur to the crazy Berrybenders and their growing entourage. The series is intense, rollercoastering through every facet of human emotion and many aspects of abnormal psychology. Nothing dull in these books. The frequent connections to actual historical persons and events keep the tales interesting and grounded, despite the continuum of bizarre incidents. Not for everyone, but I liked it. show less

By Sorrow's River, the third in Larry McMurtry's folly-laden four-volume 'Berrybender Narratives', finds itself treading water. Our eccentric English aristocrats and their varying entourage of mountain men, servants and fools continue to tool around the American West with no sense or reason, and the story is only maintained in the reader's heart by its author's ever-present ear for dialogue.

The characters also remain palatable, though the most endearing of the previous book, young Kate, is almost entirely absent here. Pomp, who emerged as a point of interest in the previous book, takes on a larger role here, though the ultimate purpose of the narrative remains obscure. A solid final act, in which a random act of chaos intrudes, pulls at show more the heartstrings with surprising effectiveness, and that is enough to redeem the previous 300 pages of irrelevance. But this is the least of the three Berrybender books so far, and it will require a rousing finish in the fourth and final volume (or at least some indication that there was a point to the story) for the whole thing not to have felt like merely a way to pass the time. show less

Yes, I enjoyed another bit of time with the Berrybenders (most especially Tasmin) and following their exploits. More accurately, I enjoyed spending more time with McMurtry, as he has a unique style and definitely has created a recognizable world of his own. The books are not always outstanding (though some are definitely so), but I never fail to appreciate the entry into his world. And there are only a few of his novels which I have not yet read...which may be why I will hold the 4th and final Berrybender adventure on my "to be read" list for a while.

By Sorrow’s River is the third book in Larry McMurtry's four-book series known as "The Berrybender Narratives."

By the beginning of this book, the Berrybender family and its traveling party have several fewer members than they had at the beginning of Lord Berrybender's quest to kill as many of the wild animals populating America's West as he possibly can. But the old man is not ready to call it a day and, in fact, he could not do so even if he wanted to because he has placed himself and his entire party in such a dangerous position that the only choice they have is to move on to Santa Fe.

It will not be an easy journey, and if everyone is to get to Santa Fe before winter sets in, they need to start moving in that direction immediately. show more But hard as they know the trek will be, they also know that those who manage to survive the journey will have a relatively safe place to spend the cold months just ahead - a refuge promising them a brief respite from the onslaught of fierce Indians who have been killing off the adventurers one-by-one for the last several months.

Despite all the suffering and brutality endured by the Berrybender group, By Sorrow's River is really a love story - one involving a love-triangle in which the passionate Tasmin Berrybender finds herself torn between Sin Killer (her husband) and Pomp Charbonneau (son of, Sacagawea, Lewis and Clark's famous interpreter). By nature, Sin Killer can take only so much of civilization and "crowds" before he feels compelled to head out on his own again. And now, because he has been away from Tasmin for so much of their marriage, she is happily giving in to her attraction to Pomp, who seems to be just the man she has been looking for all of her life. Pomp, though, is at best a reluctant participant in the love-triangle, and if anything is to come of their relationship it will be up to Tasmin to make it happen.

By Sorrow's River, too, is another rousing adventure story with quirky fictional (two French hot-air balloonists, for example) characters interacting with real-life individuals from one of the most exciting periods in American history. It is Larry McMurtry at the peak of his skills. "The Berrybender Narratives," all four volumes of it, deserves to be placed on the shelf right next to the author's masterpiece, Lonesome Dove. It is just that good. show less

The story of the Berrybender family, a traditional British family who is transported to the frontier West by the patriarch for a hunting and sightseeing expedition. Along the way, they run into Sin Killer, an Indial fighter and frontiersman, who immediately falls in love with one of the Berrybender girls. The story follows the Berrybender's arduous trek through the rugged landscape. The story is filled with rich and strong-minded characters, all crashing into one another.

I enjoyed the opening novel the most, while the others seemed to fall back onto a redundant story line a few times. Also, the characters do not connect easily with the reader in some cases. And the ending novel in the series left me a little disappointed in the show more resolution. But, I am a McMurtry fan and his wit and ability to create raucous and unusual situations was ever present. There were quite a few laugh out loud moments. show less

You know, I had to quit on this. I really like the plots and characters, but McMurtry just spends too much time on sex. Seriously. I listened to only 3 discs out of 10, and there had already been numerous sex scenes, including an adulterous relationship. I'd love it if it were just the western stories of the trappers and all that, but I really just don't enjoy or need to entertain myself with ribald tales of random love affairs. It is unfortunate because the stories are pretty good!