Sunday, May 04, 2008

LAO: Q&A with Larry McMurtry

My fellow Native Intelligence blogger Deanne Stillman at LA Observed posted an insightful Q&A with Larry McMurtry this past week.

It begins with an unfortunate truth, McMurtry's take on the short life and quick death of cowboy culture in America:
... I don't consider us a cowboy culture. We're a suburban culture. The cowboy survives as an image because it's an image of independence. In reality, that independence only survived for about twenty years. The cowboy myth comes out of the trail drives. Once the railroads came into existence, there was no need for cowboys to do cattle drives. Since then, they've been workmen--hired hands in a rural trade, and have become more and more marginal.

Read the entire Q&A conducted by Deanne Stillman at Native Intelligence.

— TJ Sullivan in LA

No comments:

Post a Comment

All comments are appreciated, especially those that inspire spirited-but-courteous discussions. Your comment will be reviewed before it is posted on the site.

Anonymous comments are not permitted. I put my name on what I say here, so I hope you don't mind doing so as well.