r/LonesomeDove • u/Far_Gur_7361 • 22d ago
Please no spoilers bc I’m only like 500 pages deep- but I just needed to express how gd much I hate this mf named Jake Spoon
I had to get ts off my chest, y’all. No one else ik has ever read this book; so I have no one else to talk to abt it 😂 but I’m a little over halfway thru, and I’m fully obsessed. It’s def cracked my top ten list; and I have the suspicion that by the time I’ve finished it, it’ll have cracked my top 5.
Anyways, 500-ish pages in, and these are my top two impressions: I LOVE Gus. And I fuckin HATE Jake. I mean, genuinely I can’t remember the last time I hated a fictional character w/ this much of a burning passion. All my love and respect for Gus honestly just stokes the fire of hatred for Jake even more; bc it just calls him into comparison.
Pls let this mf die. Pls let someone like July, or Gus, or Lorena herself- or even Blue Duck at this point- brutally k!ll his b!tch ass, I hate him so much. (For context: I’m at the part where he’s let Lorena get kidnapped, Gus has rescued her back, and Jake has gone off to wh*re around and play cards and blame it all on her- if he ever even thinks of her at all).
Anyhoo, thx for letting me ramble, can’t wait to finish this book.
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u/KMorris1987 22d ago
Jake is awful, but Elmira is the fucking worst character to ever exist
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u/Far_Gur_7361 22d ago edited 22d ago
Ok, so again pls no spoilers- I’m only like 500 pages deep, and at this point July has only just gotten started looking for her, and she’s only just gotten started traveling w/ the buffalo hunters- but I don’t rlly hate her all that much?? I mean don’t get me wrong; my boy July (not to mention poor Joe!), deserve so much better.
But I feel I do have to hold her actions in context of how few options women had during this time. Elmira herself says she’d have gotten an abortion if it wasn’t for how dangerous they were for women during that time. And she only married bc she wanted to be safe from the violent SA she experienced as a sex worker. I can’t fault her too much for that- for a poor woman w/o any family; what were her other courses of action?
In a way, I almost admire the spirit it must have took for her to run away- a lot of women during that time didn’t have the courage, will, or presence of mind to try and change their circumstances at all.
That said; she’s def a terrible mother and terrible wife. But again: she’d prob never have chosen to be those things in the first place if the societal expectations of the day didn’t literally demand it of her.
EDIT: I obv say all these things w/o the benefit of having finished the book; so I’m fully aware that my opinion of her may change by the time I’m thru w/ the book! And again, pls no spoilers. I can’t remember the last time I was this invested in a book; and I rlly wanna experience it all fresh; w/o having it spoiled for me.
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u/Avhumboldt-pup0902 22d ago
I think your points are exactly how i feel about her. She sucks but there are reasons for it that are understandable in the historical context of the story. Jake is just a fuck boi.
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u/Jenbrooklyn79 20d ago
Lonesome Dove became my favorite book. When I started reading it I gave it to a neighbor and she read it at the same time and it was so nice to be able to text her about each part of the book. Come back in a few days and update where you are!
Agree that Gus is the shit and Jake is doo doo!
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u/Far_Gur_7361 20d ago
I’ll update ya rn pal: Ellie has run off again, and gotten her and Zwey killed. I def have a lower opinion of her now than I did before. After the way she abandoned her baby, took advantage of Zwey, and refused to even look July in the face when he found her and all… that was rough. But I do still stand behind the general sentiment I expressed in my original comment- I think of Elmira (as opposed to Jake), as a much more sympathetic character. Jake had so many other paths he could have gone down- he could have joined the Hat Creek outfit, and settled Montana, he could have married Lorena, and moved to San Francisco, etc. etc. Elmira rlly had no other options; in terms of being independent and creating a better (or happier), life for herself. Those options just didn’t really exist for women at the time. So while I can see how both characters selfishly foisted their problems off on others; and did things that created horrible consequences; I think Jake is much more to blame for the havoc he wrought in his life than Ellie is for hers. But also- I STILL haven’t finished the book; I’ve got like 150 pages to go; so again- pls no spoilers!!
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u/Jenbrooklyn79 20d ago
Oh Ellie! That part of the book really made me mad. I just felt so bad for July.
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u/MoneyMontgomery 22d ago
Why did you make the words kill, bitch and whore not easily legible, yet threw the word "fuckin" around like you're at church?
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u/Far_Gur_7361 22d ago
Bc auto mods are super sensitive to anything related to violence, and hate speech. Run-of-the-mill cursing is pretty easily looked over, but those other words can pretty easily catch you a ban.
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u/CrotalusHorridus 22d ago edited 22d ago
I watched the miniseries before I read the book
Robert Urich makes Jake so likeable, even though he’s making such horrible decisions.
When I read the book for the first time, I had a hard time separating Zurich’s Spoon from what McMurty really meant him to be.
Re-reading several years later with a clean palette gave me a much better appreciation of how slimy he was meant to be.
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u/Augustin323 22d ago
Well I thought he was likeable. I mean he was liked by all the characters. He was weak and selfish, but he was likeable.
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22d ago
Yeah that’s what made him realistic in my eyes. He’s charming but deeply flawed. A guy you’d have a beer with but once you get to know him you realise there’s a lot of issues
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u/jschaferhess 22d ago
I'm just jealous you're able to read it for the first time. How I wish I could read it for the first time again. Wonderful, wonderful book.
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u/Lopsided_Drive_4392 22d ago edited 22d ago
And yet, he's somehow likeable.
I seldom like little flourishes added for film versions, but have always loved when Jake tells the boys, "If you two ain't a pair!"
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u/Round-Month-6992 22d ago
Jake is extremely hateable. He sets in motion so many monumental events without a care in the world.
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u/JadedChef1137 22d ago
Semi-spoiler ahead. READ LATER. These are actually my favorite type of characters to hate on and really think well of authors who craft this type of bastard: the ones that start out somewhat likable or, at least, ambiguously so. But as the book goes on and the character has one, two, a dozen opportunities for moral redemption and just passes on them, well it swings open the door for justifiable dislike. It's far too common (and lazy) for authors to allow for that final act of redemptive heroism. It really was the mid 1980s when great writers allowed for the iredeemable to take a more center stage. For sure, earlier examples abound (Lolita, A Clockwork Orange) but sooo many good ones came about this time (I'm looking at you Cormac McCarthy), that I cannot help wonder if there's something of an intellectual blowback to the hero arc of Hollywood actions films of the time (Topgun, Rambo, etc.)
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u/Kind_Temperature16 RIP Mouse 21d ago
AGREED! At first I was like "oh he's kind of like a lady's man suave cowboy, like Gus almost" and then I was like OH those traits are only endearing with Gus because he's genuine behind it; he likes people, looks out for them and has some flair. Jake Spoon is concerned with his own pleasure--he doesn't care about the boys, he's jealous of them, shirks his duties, and doesn't even see Lorena as a person, just as one of his many whores.
I really like the duality of how Jake and Lorena think back on their relationship; to Jake, Lorena blends in with one of his many whores, he recalls her as being difficult. To Lorena, Jake blends in with the other men she's known, below even Xavier.
I was thinking recently about his horse, we don't know it's name, it's always referred to as "Jake's pacing horse" and he likes it in particular because it's comfortable to ride--and I think that sums up a lot of Jake; he doesn't want to sacrifice his own comfort in doing anything hard or uncomfortable or right.
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u/miifiikii 22d ago
When Jake is first introduced as the haphazard doofus that gets mauled by that cougar (aka Captain Scull’s wife) I liked him (wait, that’d be the Comanche Moon book). I was amazed at what seemed to me to be a total 180 in his character as an adult in Lonesome Dove, he was hardly recognisable to me as the same individual!
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u/ZithrontheInsistent 22d ago
My 81 year old Dad just finished LD after I gave him my copy. He found Jake’s character forgivable because he had “the good sense to ride a pacer.” My father raced standardbred pacers for almost 50 years and likes horses as much or more than people.
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u/Zealousideal-Path330 13d ago
Sooo… OP, have you finished the book? And were you satisfied with how Jake was handled in the text?
Somewhat off topic but one of my favorite quotes from Gus when speaking to Jake in the MS before heading out on the cattle drive. “Money well spent, Jake. Both times.”
It really is a brilliant piece of literature. Not just for Jake’s arc but for how richly McMurtry develops even the minor characters.
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u/Altair82 22d ago
Let it out. This is a safe place. Here, have some bacon and a biscuit.