The Last American Man

Rating:
Summary: The Last American Man
Review: I would definitely recommend The Last American Man to anyone who favors conserving nature. Eustace Conway definitely emphasizes this throughout the book. What I liked most about the book was the in depth detail that the author goes through to explain the nature journeys that Eustace goes on. The journeys really show how Eustace's character is shaped through his adventures in the wild, and every adventure is filled with excitement and suspense. The Last American Man is a book that I would surely would not put down after starting. The book has such a precious message about setting and achieving one's goals in life. Eustace starts out with a goal to teach a primitive way of life to everyone in America. Although in the end he does not succeed in doing so, his effort and determination were precise and accurate from the beginning to the end. Eustace set his goal, spoke to his people, and in a sense created his own little teaching empire. These are all tremendous efforts toward achieving one's goal. I think the book could greatly encourage others to strive to achieve their goals.

Rating:
Summary: Another American Male
Review: Ok, ok I take issue with the title. Being married to an avid outdoorsman, committed and wonderful husband and father, resourceful, talented and extremely soul-full and mature American man left me wondering about the proclamation Elizabeth has for Eustace Conway. Speeding through the out of doors across the country in record time, skinning animals and eating roadkill, mistreating loved ones, and teaching without self-reflection does not a man make. But, I enjoyed the insight Elizabeth understood and relayed about how we project our need for the expression of our Wild Men onto Eustace and people like him who are merely human beings. Eustace is another bright and searching, creative man who has been cast under Saturn's shadow and unable to see his own light. I hope he finds it the way others find it in him, and need to find it in themselves.
Found the book chock-full of great characters, her delivery is precise and deep as an objective witness without ever becoming sloppy sentimental. This is not the courageous story of an independent, mature American man, but the poignant story of an entangled, co-dependent American Family ~ the tragedy, the comedy, the drama and the survival. Bless the Conways and all of us who are struggling to love each other in spite of our humanity.

Rating:
Summary: The Last American Man
Review: The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert was a very interesting piece of literature that I thouroughly enjoyed. I think that at one point in every person,s life they envision what it would be like to leave everything behind and be free in the wild. The Last American Man took you there. At some points in the novel I could actually picture things as if I were there. I saw deer, trees, flowers, and the mountains. Sometimes I even felt the wind or the cold of the snow as if I were there due to the profoundness of imagery.
To those who are free spirited and want to get away from it all I would gladly recommend this book. It takes you to new places and opens you up to new adventures to the point that you can see yourself riding through open pastures or living in a teepee. The book opens you up to new thoughts and ideas about how to live your life. The way Eustace Conway portrays himself makes you want to be like him and unlike him all at the same time.

Rating:
Summary: A classic American documentary...
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read. I cannot say enough good things about this book.
On the surface, this is an outstanding biographical account of a man who "left it all" and went to live in the mountains. But the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, manages to include just about every aspect of life in the story. She has put together a story which covers: pursuing impossible challenges, achieving your dreams, parent-child relationships, disfunctional families, male-female relationships, why women desire men that are the opposite of what the women really want and need, alcohol abuse, the eco/back-to-nature movement, and adventures in the great outdoors.
Gilbert accomplishes this by combining her writing skills, life experience, humor, and personal acquaintance with the subject, Eustace Conway. Her style includes a dash of Tom Wolfe and even Hunter S. Thompson. It is an added bonus that she provides a female perspective in an area that is a male domain. What is particularly remarkable is that the story is true, and Gilbert has packed it all into a short work of non-fiction.
Upon reading this work, I was dying to meet Gilbert and Conway, and discuss a million questions and issues with them. I will leave it up to other readers to formulate their own list.

Rating:
Summary: A modern-day Daniel Boone. . .
Review: This is one of those books that stir up strong opinions and heated controversy. Eustace Conway, the back-to-nature mountain man of the title, is someone you can see as a living American myth or a nut case. The author's portrait of him, full of ironies right from the title onward, lends itself to either point of view. And depending on how the book is read, you can see either admiration or skepticism in what she says about Conway.

Or you can see subject and author in all of these ways which, as I understand the book, is what the author intends. Eustace Conway is full of contradictions. He's both immensely appealing and stridently off-putting. A rigorous thinker, naturalist, and walking whole-earth-catalog, he is still a babe in the woods in knowing how to negotiate just about any kind of relationship with another human being - including the many, many young women he attracts. By the author's account, few men so lucky in bed have been so unlucky in love.

For every amateur psychologist the author provides more than enough back-story to puzzle over Conway's behavior. There's a tyrant father who heaps withering scorn on his son, starting at the age of two. And there's his great-outdoors-loving mother, who rescues him from his father by encouraging his unsupervised forays into the woods. By the time he is out of high school, he's already living in a teepee, beading his own moccasins, killing game for food, skinning animals, and hiking the entire Appalachian Trail wearing nothing more than two bandanas, weather permitting.

Meanwhile, his epic journeys on foot and on horseback and his pioneering in the North Carolina backcountry are mythic Americana. While our first reaction to all this may be admiration, Gilbert writes in a wisecracking tone that heightens the ironies and more than once made me laugh out loud. And she reminds us that if there's anyone to fault, it's not Conway but the gullibly romantic Americans who believe literally in their own national mythology and heroes. Looking back to Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, for instance, she reveals that they were in fact no different. Like Conway, they were supporters of the myths and legends that grew up around them and good old-fashioned American entrepreneurs and self-promoters.

Anyway, there's much to enjoy in this book. And it's full of surprises - right up to the last pages, as Gilbert tells a poignant story of how Conway touched the life of a troubled teenager who spent a week with him in the woods building a fence. And the author's closing image captures the spirit of the entire book - Conway getting out of his truck and shouting, "I love you!" at a buck deer that refuses to move off the road. The image is moving, ridiculous, or both; take your pick.

Rating:
Summary: The Last (Thank Goodness!) American Man
Review: When I saw this book advertised in a periodical, I knew I would enjoy it. My own boyhood fantasies of wild independence were stirred by what appeared to be this great man's life.

While not a great man, Eustace is an incredible human being. Anyone with but a passing interest in wilderness living and primitive human heritage will be riveted by every other page of this book. The intervening pages may be a bit tedious for action-oriented types as these examine the finer points of Mr. Conway's psychological uniqueness, his family relationships, and his romantic (?!) adventures.

The writing is superbly done and the quality of the author makes reading a pleasure. My attraction to the story is based on my love of Appalachia (wilderness in general) and the extraordinary drama of life it stages every day. This book does not disappoint on that score - the wild exploits of Mr. Conway will captivate you. A great gift for that man or woman in your life who bemoans our civilization's increasing detachment from nature.