The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie Jr. Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Big Sky
Book Review: Lives of Mountain Men
Summary: 5 Stars
What a good book--A.B. Guthrie paints a vivid picture of what it was like to be an independent mountain man through his use of descriptive passages and colorful, authentic language. It is easy reading, suitable for all ages. There is also a good cast of characters--readers learn about various Indian tribes, mindsets of that era and the different personalities that result.Book Review: Love this book
Summary: 5 Stars
Story about the American frontier and the strong and compelling characters that bring the era to life on the page. A.B. Guthrie Jr. is a master storyteller using simple yet effective narrative and superb dialogue. Young Boone Caudill's journey through the high plains country, mountains, and Indian territory to escape an abusive father is one of the oldest American myths - the civilized man changed by the American wilderness, and in this case never told better. As he goes deeper into the wild country and away from civilization making him stronger and more self-reliant with each challenge, Boone Caudill's fatal weakness emerges.
Dennis McKay
Author of Fallow's Field and Once Upon Wisconsin
Book Review: Masterpiece of Western fiction.
Summary: 5 Stars
The Big Sky is not just a masterpiece, it's probably THE masterpiece of the genre of western frontier fiction. This is unusual because it deals with a moment in time that isn't really dealt with that much - the Rocky Mountain fur trade during its golden age of about 1820 - 1850. The cowboy era has been responsible for most of western film and literature, partly because the images and events that happen in that world are recognizable to us: the economic and social issues you always see dealt with in "cowboy" movies mirror our own experiences in many ways. The cowboy has also been said to be an image of freedom to Americans, when actually nothing was further from the truth. Cowboys were regular working stiffs, about as romantic as carpenters or plumbers in their own day. They didn't consider themselves "free", nor would they have spent much time thinking about it during their brutal 14 hour work day. They did what they did because they loved horses and riding and cattle and it was good honest work that paid a living wage, and there was a bit of swagger to it - people in town recognized cow hands for the tough-as-leather men they were, especially with their characteristic boots and hats and general flair for the dramatic that many had. But it was backbreaking work, and the entire cowboy heydey lasted less than 30 years.
I said all that to say that "The Big Sky" really is about freedom, and really is about the West. It's about the true, wild, primitive west, before the plow, before roads, when there were still huge, intact Indian cultures in place with armies of horsemen and enormous herds of buffalo. So it's interesting to me that this genre is largely ignored, but I can see why - there are no set-piece plots just begging to be turned into movies - no "new sherriff in town" characters, because there are no sherriffs, and no towns other than a few trading posts. There is only the land and the sky and the interaction between a few incredibly brave white men and all those Indians.
If you don't already know, this is the story of Boone Caudill and his friend Jim Deakins, and several important side characters, but it's basically Boone's book. He's driven west by an aching need for wildness and freedom, and is pushed out by a brutal father. He makes his way west to St. Louis, along the way befriending Deakins, in hopes of meeting his uncle Zeb who had become a trapper years earlier. The rest of the tail is complex and interlaced, and not a simplistic good guy/bad guy plot at all, and what stands out is the crystalline depictions of the people and places and over all, arching like the sky itself, is freedom. Freedom to roam at will in that beautiful country is the main character of this book. Freedom is the religion, the politics, the philosophy, the recreation - it is everything that is important. The trappers are there to trap - sure - but they're really there because this is a wild, free place, where they will not be hampered by rules, where they can be natural men. It sounds over romanticized, but it really did happen that way, and from what we know, that is truly the way they felt about their lives and why they endured the agonies of that existence. Despairing that new settlers are moving west and building farms and towns, Boone cries "Lord, Jim - remember the Tetons standing proud in the sun, and the Seeds Ke Dee...don't you remember her when she was all purty and new and not a man track on her save Injun?" This novel makes you sob like few I've ever read. The sense of loss, the closing of an age of the world, hangs in the air like mist. They are going to be the last to see something so precious, and for their pains they get to watch their world wither and die under the press of settlement.
The movie "The Mountain Men" with Charleton Heston comes close to capturing a tiny bit of this book, and you can tell it's inspired in many ways by it, but no other book or film has ever come close to truly painting the world of the mountain man as has this novel. "Jeremiah Johnson" is another good film, with many fine touches. But if you want to follow the water up stream, back to its source in the mountains, then please, before you grow too old, read "The Big Sky" and open your heart to that time and place and the wild, brazen beauty of the America few Americans know ever existed.
Book Review: Montana
Summary: 3 Stars
I rate a book by whether I would read it more than once. That is why I gave this one only a 3. I have always heard tell of this book ever since when I lived in Choteau, Montana in the 50's as a child, my parents would run into Guthrie at the local bar. He gave them an autographed copy of this book which my mother kept until her death. So I decided it was time I read it. I am a western history fan and read lots of Elmer Kelton, T.T. Flynn and others. This book is huge in its panorama of the country, and could be called an epic. The main character, Boone Caudill, is a tragically flawed character who never seems to get hold of what he really wants out of his life. He leaves home at age 17 after cold-cocking a brutal father with a piece of fire wood and fortunately meets the kind and friendly Jim Deakins almost immediately. The story flows from there as these two make their way west along with the third character, Dick Summers, a mountain man/hunter. For thirteen years they live and fight and suffer along with the Indians they live amongst. I found the most important parts of the book for me to be the description of the land and the ways of the Indian tribes. I have lived in the west in Montana, Wyoming and Utah for 50 years and the descriptions are so true to nature and to the Indians that still live there. What you see in the big plains, the valleys and the high mountains are well-described. I did not much enjoy seeing Boone Caudill deteriorate into a sociopath. Men that make decisions in their lives that isolate them from others pay a huge price and Boone did. He seems very self-centered and immature in his relationships with everyone. He does not fit in anywhere. He may be the kind of man that broke ground in new territory but he did not contribute to the development of this great nation in a lasting way. I felt pity for him and did not feel compelled to hope he had a good ending to his life. I did not like the representation of women as either housekeepers or tent warmers. I know the theme has been used often, but from what I know of my own ancestors who struggled to live and settle this country, women had a huge contribution to their men's success. Also, I do not think the theme of settlers coming like locust to spoil a pristine paradise is a good one. Settlers turned this wild country into a land of opportunity for the whole world. Some things are no longer around because of the changing nature of the land as it was settled, but that happened everywhere and in all periods of time. Maybe after I read the sequel books I will be more favorably disposed to this one. I am glad I read it, but think there are other books that have a more lasting impression on the reader, such as the Leatherstockings Tales.Book Review: Realistic and beautiful
Summary: 5 Stars
Especially for the Western genre, I don't think you'll find a better-written book on this time and place. The description of the land as well as the psyche of each character is so subtle and true-to-life.