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adogg13's review
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death
Moderate: Alcoholism, Murder, and Gore
The dichotomy between the imagery of the pristine western U.S. and the brutal nature of the humans that inhabit it and settled it is truly amazing.tarmstrong112's review against another edition
1.0
Time has passed this novel by. Not good at all. And the language would be considered racist by the standards of 1947. Maybe people talked like this in the 1830s, but the slurs and stereotypes were so common in this book it made it awkward at times.
blevins's review
4.0
I've owned a copy of Guthrie's THE BIG SKY for at least a decade and finally made it to it and now I'm kicking myself it took me so long. I will be reading more of Guthrie's "Big Sky" series in 2013 and 2014. I'm not waiting another decade to read one. Written in the late 1940s, this western still holds up quite nicely as it tells the story of a seventeen year old who takes off west in the 1840s and finds adventure, peril, romance and all the other mythical gifts that the west offered in the 19th century. THE BIG SKY is actually one of the best westerns I've ever read, that's how much I enjoyed this one.
cypress13's review
adventurous
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Racial slurs
Moderate: Gun violence, Colonisation, Death, Violence, War, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexism
Minor: Slavery, Child death, Genocide, Infidelity, Addiction, Cannibalism, Alcoholism, and Physical abuse
halfcentreader's review
3.0
I found this book easy to get into, although a bit repetitive living the life as a mountain man... no vegetarians there! I wanted to like Boone and admired everything about him except his quick temper which I guess he inherited from his Pa. Jim Deakins was also a favorite of mine. Both men had some close shaves, but the tragedy at the end was such a downer that I had to force myself to go on. I guess the story came full circle in more ways than one.
zena_ryder's review
5.0
I would probably give this book 4.9 stars, if I could, because there was one stretch of the book fairly early on that I didn't enjoy — the author introduced a whole bunch of new characters all at once (traders on the Mandan), and it was hard to keep track of them and the main character we had been following up to that point (Boone Caudill) got a bit lost. The speech of the traders was also hard to understand at first too. But I'm so glad that I persevered through that part. This book is, overall, fantastic.
Guthrie does an amazing job of bringing alive the three main characters — Boone, Dick and Jim — and their experiences as "mountain men" in the wild country of Montana in the 1830s and 40s. The love between the men is powerful, but of course understated and unspoken. The love between Boone and Teal Eye is also well described and believable, although I do look forward to getting to know Teal Eye better in later books in this series. (If she remains only Boone's "perfect," beautiful, quiet, dutiful squaw, I will be disappointed.)
As well as love, in this book there is violence, hatred, prejudice, hardship, danger, jealousy, suffering and death. The end of the book is both tragic and beautiful. The last paragraph is one of the best endings I've ever read.
(Of course I can look up the history online, but I would have enjoyed and appreciated a historical note at the end of the book.)
Guthrie does an amazing job of bringing alive the three main characters — Boone, Dick and Jim — and their experiences as "mountain men" in the wild country of Montana in the 1830s and 40s. The love between the men is powerful, but of course understated and unspoken. The love between Boone and Teal Eye is also well described and believable, although I do look forward to getting to know Teal Eye better in later books in this series. (If she remains only Boone's "perfect," beautiful, quiet, dutiful squaw, I will be disappointed.)
As well as love, in this book there is violence, hatred, prejudice, hardship, danger, jealousy, suffering and death. The end of the book is both tragic and beautiful. The last paragraph is one of the best endings I've ever read.
(Of course I can look up the history online, but I would have enjoyed and appreciated a historical note at the end of the book.)
twistinthetale's review
4.0
This novel brilliantly captures the wildness of frontier life in America. Boone flees his violent father and, as a teenager, heads west to live as a mountain man. Boone becomes as wild as the world around him. He shies away from people and interacts in halting, aggressive and confrontational ways. He seems only truly at ease among the big landscapes empty of humanity but filled with nature and nature's wonders. Amazing and memorable descriptions bring this lost world back to life.
amynbell's review against another edition
I'm going to have to abandon this one. The first part of the novel was interesting as Boon ran away from home, but now that he's traveling by boat with French trappers, it's become extremely boring (except for a slight detour to collect a scalp). I've spent the entire week listening with a wandering mind during my commute and during my noontime walk. When my library borrowing time expired this morning, I was frankly quite happy. I really wanted to love this, but onward to the next book I go.
sewfrench's review
4.0
An old school western, not my usual genre, but it was enjoyable. Might even have learned a few things!
chrislatray's review
2.0
Finally got around to this one. It's considered a classic and I get it, especially for white people who have an idea about what they think this part of the world was like a couple hundred years ago. And Guthrie gets a lot of that right, especially his descriptions of the landscapes, the hardships, the complex relations between cultures, the likely general loathsomeness of the men who tried to get rich out here. I loved that element, I loved that I know these mountains and watersheds (I listened to the book, and literally drove over the Dearborn River at one point as the characters were discussing it). Ultimately I didn't much care for the book as it contributes to the erasure of some of the Indigenous people who were here, and it makes caricatures of the ones he does include. It's about what one would expect from a white guy writing 70+ years ago. Also, put me down as someone who would have preferred the primary protagonist died about halfway through. I'd suggest more people read James Welch instead.