| Author | Larry McMurtry |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | memoir |
| Published | 1999 |
| Publication place | USA |
| Followed by | Roads: Driving America's Great Highways |
Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen: Reflections on Sixty and Beyond is a 1999 autobiographical book by Larry McMurtry. It was inspired in part by German essayist Walter Benjamin's "The Storyteller". The book is considered to be the closest McMurtry wrote to an autobiography.
Reception
Salon Books wrote, "As a critic, McMurtry is far too peripatetic; his desultory analysis of Benjamin amounts to something like a raveled sweater full of aimless tangled threads. Better to view him here, I think, as a memoirist -- and more just, as well, since the majority of the book is devoted more to his history and to that of his grandparents, first-generation Texas pioneers, than to the bricks and mortar of analysis. From this angle, McMurtry's thin book glitters."
Publishers Weekly called it a "digressive, erudite and frequently glum assessment of his career and the importance of storytelling... a thoughtful, elegant retrospective on Texas, his work and the meaning of reading by an author who has the range to write with intelligence about both Proust and the bathos of a Holiday Inn marquee."
The Los Angeles Times wrote the book contained "brief illuminations of themes McMurtry has treated at length in his novels. It’s like Texas’ Red River in summer, braiding itself into random channels, sometimes more sand and cottonwoods than river, but pleasant, as riparian habitat usually is."
Kirkus said "it’s philosophy, literary criticism, and memoir all rolled up into one neat package, and McMurtry’s constant readers will find much pleasure in these pages."
References
- Reynolds, Clay. Review of Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen: Reflections at Sixty and Beyond, by Larry McMurtry. Western American Literature 35, no. 3 (2000): 325-326. https://doi.org/10.1353/wal.2000.0004.
- "Texas Monthly Recommends: A Lesser-Known Larry McMurtry Book". Texas Monthly. 23 April 2021.
- Miles, Jonathan (29 November 1999). ""Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen" by Larry McMurtry". Salon.
- "Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen: Reflections at Sixty and Beyond". PUblishers Weekly.
- "'Walter Benjamin, at The Dairy Queen, Reflections at Sixty and Beyond' by Larry McMurtry". Los Angeles Times. 30 November 1999.
- "Walter Benjamin". Kirkus Reviews. 1 November 1999.