Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.43 AVERAGE
3.43 AVERAGE
Realistična i okrutna, kao i vreme u kom je pisana.
This book has some pretty interesting elements:
- a Native American boy who can see the past, the future, and absorb spirits
- a battle between the Natives and the whites
- a white soldier absorbed into a Native American boy's body upon death
- a Native American man (the boy grown up) attempting to blow up Mount Rushmore and/or kill the president
But alas, the book didn't survive the 50-Page Test. (After 50 pages, I wasn't compelled to continue). I have no idea how something with that bizarre a premise failed to draw me in. I like Simmons' work, too. Drag, yo.
- a Native American boy who can see the past, the future, and absorb spirits
- a battle between the Natives and the whites
- a white soldier absorbed into a Native American boy's body upon death
- a Native American man (the boy grown up) attempting to blow up Mount Rushmore and/or kill the president
But alas, the book didn't survive the 50-Page Test. (After 50 pages, I wasn't compelled to continue). I have no idea how something with that bizarre a premise failed to draw me in. I like Simmons' work, too. Drag, yo.
Having read another Simmons book, The Terror, which was fascinating. I had high hopes for this one, it was confusing and hard to follow and keep straight--but overall an interesting life.
I'm fairly certain I already read this before I started entering books on Goodreads.
Unfortunately, this was a low three stars. It just felt a little bit like this book was all over the place. What WAS the main story? The fact that Paha Sapa had Custer's ghost rattling around inside his head, or that he could sometimes see into the past and future? The loss of his family's ancestral lands? The building of Mt. Rushmore? Custer and Elizabeth's love story? Just Paha Sapa's life story, with a ghost hanging around? It was definitely longer than it needed to be, and still managed not to wrap up the stories in a satisfactory way; things just felt random a lot of the time.
I picked this book up because of the regional interest, and the regional and historical components were most interesting to me. Also, I was fascinated to learn that the main character, Paha Sapa, was also real, and that there was a rumor that he was haunted by Custer's ghost. I think this may have been more interesting as non-fiction, but, let's be honest: I never read historical non-fiction, so I wouldn't have discovered it anyway.
I picked this book up because of the regional interest, and the regional and historical components were most interesting to me. Also, I was fascinated to learn that the main character, Paha Sapa, was also real, and that there was a rumor that he was haunted by Custer's ghost. I think this may have been more interesting as non-fiction, but, let's be honest: I never read historical non-fiction, so I wouldn't have discovered it anyway.
DNF. Started reading because I’d been recommended Dan Simmons other books but they weren’t available at the time. After listening to this and learning more about the guy, I shan’t be revisiting him anytime soon.
I got the chance to get this book for free in a good reads giveaway.
I was at first turned off by the unnessarily explicit ramblings of General Custer's ghost, which was trapped inside our main characters head (yes, you did just read that correctly). But while this book started slow it proved to be a wonderful read. The insight it brought not only to native american Lakota culture, but also to the Chicago World's fair, the carving of Mt. Rushmore was astounding. By the end I was left having to look so much of what really happened up, because Dan Simmons does a beautiful job of mixing truth and fiction and leaving you wondering.
I have never read a Dan Simmon's novel before, but plan on getting a couple more as soon as possible!
I was at first turned off by the unnessarily explicit ramblings of General Custer's ghost, which was trapped inside our main characters head (yes, you did just read that correctly). But while this book started slow it proved to be a wonderful read. The insight it brought not only to native american Lakota culture, but also to the Chicago World's fair, the carving of Mt. Rushmore was astounding. By the end I was left having to look so much of what really happened up, because Dan Simmons does a beautiful job of mixing truth and fiction and leaving you wondering.
I have never read a Dan Simmon's novel before, but plan on getting a couple more as soon as possible!
Stretching from the years just after the Civil War until the years just before World War II, this amazing novel ties together several historical events into the life story of a Lakota Indian who, quite unusually for his people, was named after a place, Paha Sapa, the sacred Black Hills. The story opens when, as a 10-year-old who has followed the warriors and older boys to the battlefield, Paha Sapa finds himself inhabited by the spirit of General George Armstrong Custer at the moment he counts coup on the dying man at the Battle of Little Big Horn. He carries the spirit with him for sixty years, and only years later, after being taught English by Catholic missionaries, does he begin to understand what the voice inside him has been saying. As his eventful life progresses, we see him taking his vision quest in the Black Hills for which he is named, working in Buffalo Bill Cody's show, visiting the Chicago World's Fair with his future wife in 1893, and finally working as a blasting expert for sculptor Gutzon Borglum during the construction of the Mount Rushmore monument. After a life filled with pain (both physical and emotional,) loss, disappointment, and what he perceives as repeated failures, Paha Sapa finds a joyful redemption waiting for him at his life's rock bottom. Simmons's skill in weaving all these diverse story lines together is awesome, his insights into the emotions and motives of a diverse cast of characters is remarkable, and there were moments throughout that left me literally breathless!