Rating: 
Summary: One Of The Best Books Ever
Review: The Big Sky is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. In my opinion it is better-written than its sequel, The Way West, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Both books are really great! The characters in the Big Sky are well-developed. The descriptions of both the people and the country in which they live are very well done. Guthrie has a real knack for pulling the reader into the story. This book was extremely hard to put down. Boone Caudill, Dick Summers, and Jim Deakins are the stuff of which legends are made. I am so glad there are 6 Big Sky novels. I am currently reading the 3rd one, Fair Land, Fair Land, and so far it is every bit as good as the first two. If you enjoy reading about the early West you will definitely go for The Big Sky and its sequels. Enjoy!!
Rating:
Summary: Montana's finest
Review: The Big Sky, by A.B Guthrie,tells the too-real-to-be-fiction story of Boone Caudill, Jim Deakins, and Dick Summers. The great description of the area, Northwestern Montana, is 100% accuate, from the indian tribes found in the region, to the local dialects of the men. Guthrie wrote this story as if he were actually in the place of the men, and if everything actually took place in the story. Boone is the stereotypical "mountain man" of the story, the rough, rugged, hard nosed hero. His best friend, Jim Deakins, is the anti-Boone character. Jim can also be considered a mountain man, but his personality is completly different then Boone's. Throughout the book, the characters come to life, where the reader becomes concerned and scared for Boone, Jim, and Dick through their trials. The tone almost throughout the entire story is Paranoia. Thsi is true, because Boone and Jim start to realize their paradise in Montana is becoming new stomping ground for people coming west to settle. Boone then becomes paranoid of people around him, where he finally isolates himself in the woods, with no human contact beside a few blackfeet indians. Boone also becomes weary of staying inside a house, or any space where he is not outside in the free land. He becomes depresed if he is taken out of his habitat for a great period of time, perhaps because he is paranoid that he won't be able to stay in nature any longer if he is stuck outside it. This becomes clear when his father dies, and he travels back to Kentucky. He describes his feelings of Kentucky as follows "He had felt at home outdoors. It was as if the land and sky and wind were friendly, and no need for a pack of people about to make him easy. The wind had a voice to it, and the land lay ready for him, and the sky gave room for his eye and mind. But now he felt different, cramped by the forest that rose thick as grass over him, shutting out the sun and letting him see only a piece of sky now and then, and it faded and closed down like a roof. THe wind was dead here, not even the leaves of the grat poplars, rising high over all the rest, so much as trembled. It was a still, closed-in, broody world, and a man in it went empty and lost inside, as if all that he had counted on was taken away, and he without a friend or an aim or a proper place anywhere."(page 357) Overall, this book is a great book if you love reading a passionate story about a man and his one true love, nature. Boone represents the man with the call of the wild in his soul, and his struggle to keep what he has while he can. Living in Montana, this book is also an interesting story that depicts the lives of people living where I now call home in the 1830's.
Rating:
Summary: Montana's finest
Review: The Big Sky, by A.B Guthrie,tells the too-real-to-be-fiction story of Boone Caudill, Jim Deakins, and Dick Summers. The great description of the area, Northwestern Montana, is 100% accuate, from the indian tribes found in the region, to the local dialects of the men. Guthrie wrote this story as if he were actually in the place of the men, and if everything actually took place in the story. Boone is the stereotypical "mountain man" of the story, the rough, rugged, hard nosed hero. His best friend, Jim Deakins, is the anti-Boone character. Jim can also be considered a mountain man, but his personality is completly different then Boone's. Throughout the book, the characters come to life, where the reader becomes concerned and scared for Boone, Jim, and Dick through their trials. The tone almost throughout the entire story is Paranoia. Thsi is true, because Boone and Jim start to realize their paradise in Montana is becoming new stomping ground for people coming west to settle. Boone then becomes paranoid of people around him, where he finally isolates himself in the woods, with no human contact beside a few blackfeet indians. Boone also becomes weary of staying inside a house, or any space where he is not outside in the free land. He becomes depresed if he is taken out of his habitat for a great period of time, perhaps because he is paranoid that he won't be able to stay in nature any longer if he is stuck outside it. This becomes clear when his father dies, and he travels back to Kentucky. He describes his feelings of Kentucky as follows "He had felt at home outdoors. It was as if the land and sky and wind were friendly, and no need for a pack of people about to make him easy. The wind had a voice to it, and the land lay ready for him, and the sky gave room for his eye and mind. But now he felt different, cramped by the forest that rose thick as grass over him, shutting out the sun and letting him see only a piece of sky now and then, and it faded and closed down like a roof. THe wind was dead here, not even the leaves of the grat poplars, rising high over all the rest, so much as trembled. It was a still, closed-in, broody world, and a man in it went empty and lost inside, as if all that he had counted on was taken away, and he without a friend or an aim or a proper place anywhere."(page 357) Overall, this book is a great book if you love reading a passionate story about a man and his one true love, nature. Boone represents the man with the call of the wild in his soul, and his struggle to keep what he has while he can. Living in Montana, this book is also an interesting story that depicts the lives of people living where I now call home in the 1830's.
Rating:
Summary: A great, and fairly accurate, story of the mountain men
Review: This is historical fiction as it should be. All the main characters are fictional, and actual people (like Jim Bridger and Jedediah Smith) are either only mentioned in passing or play a small enough role so as to not conflict with actual history. In fact, the whole story is fictitious, and only the setting and some of the main events are real. But that is what gives this story its power--the ability to see, through the eyes of the characters, the American west as it would have looked through the eyes of a mountain man. The novel centers on Boone Caudill, a young Kentuckian who sets out for the west and becomes a true mountain man. The story follows Boone through thirteen years of Indian fights, beaver trapping, and winters of near-starvation. Boone, along with his companions, lives a life that is representative of the one many true mountain men actually led, and there is very little attempt made by Guthrie to romanticize it. The life was a hard one, a cruel one, and Guthrie does not make it seem more glamorous than it actually would have been. Despite this, however, we can still feel Boone's pull toward the West, and we are able to feel longing for the solitude of the mountains through his eyes. This novel is, for the most part, pretty historically accurate. The Rendezvous of 1837, the smallpox epidemic among the Blackfeet that same year, the greenhorns swarming to Oregon--all these are things that are very real. These events are woven nicely within the narrative, giving the reader a true feel of the disappearing west such as could scarcely be gleaned from a history text. Granted, this book should be taken with a grain of salt. It is not a romanticized view of the west, but then it is not a historical text either. It would be wrong to see it as anything more than one man's interpretation of how it was to be a mountain man. Still, for all that, it is a wonderful and compelling story, very well-told. And don't be surprised if you learn a little bit of history while reading it.
Rating:
Summary: A great, and fairly accurate, story of the mountain men
Review: This is historical fiction as it should be. All the main characters are fictional, and actual people (like Jim Bridger and Jedediah Smith) are either only mentioned in passing or play a small enough role so as to not conflict with actual history. In fact, the whole story is fictitious, and only the setting and some of the main events are real. But that is what gives this story its power--the ability to see, through the eyes of the characters, the American west as it would have looked through the eyes of a mountain man. The novel centers on Boone Caudill, a young Kentuckian who sets out for the west and becomes a true mountain man. The story follows Boone through thirteen years of Indian fights, beaver trapping, and winters of near-starvation. Boone, along with his companions, lives a life that is representative of the one many true mountain men actually led, and there is very little attempt made by Guthrie to romanticize it. The life was a hard one, a cruel one, and Guthrie does not make it seem more glamorous than it actually would have been. Despite this, however, we can still feel Boone's pull toward the West, and we are able to feel longing for the solitude of the mountains through his eyes. This novel is, for the most part, pretty historically accurate. The Rendezvous of 1837, the smallpox epidemic among the Blackfeet that same year, the greenhorns swarming to Oregon--all these are things that are very real. These events are woven nicely within the narrative, giving the reader a true feel of the disappearing west such as could scarcely be gleaned from a history text. Granted, this book should be taken with a grain of salt. It is not a romanticized view of the west, but then it is not a historical text either. It would be wrong to see it as anything more than one man's interpretation of how it was to be a mountain man. Still, for all that, it is a wonderful and compelling story, very well-told. And don't be surprised if you learn a little bit of history while reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Designated "The best novel of the American West"
Review: What Larry McMurty's "Lonesome Dove" is to the cowboy of the old west, A.B. Guthrie's "The Big Sky" is to the mountain men of roughly the same period. "Lonesome Dove" gives us August McCrae and W.F. Call; "The Big Sky" introduces us to Boone Caudhill, Jim Deakins, and Dick Summers. These are magical characters, brought to three-dimensional life by the skills of the respective authors. The pacing of "The Big Sky" is right on. Guthrie gives us a few pages of quiet introspection as we get to know the heart and soul of his creations, and then hints of danger to follow building extreme foreboding of trouble ahead. This is followed by high-tension, full-fisted action as the individual conflicts are met head-on; then comes another quiet period to allow us to catch our breath. This is not a shoot-em-up Western, but a realistic portrayal of life and times of 1830 to 1843 in the American northwest written for the mature reader. In fact, it is realistic to a surprising degree. No more to be said about that, because I don't wish to destroy your delight of discovery. "The Big Sky" is the first in a series of six books in the so-called "Big Sky series." This first book has been designated "the best novel of the American West" by the Western Literature Association. The sequel, "The Way West," won the Pulitzer Prize. I can't wait to read it; in fact I began immediately following the last page of the first book.
|
