Customer Reviews

Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas (50th Anniversary Edition)

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It will be 3 years ago this February that I first read this book. I then bought the hard cover version so I could keep it in my library and read it over and over again.

Prior to this, my interest in Western history was confined to pioneers and cowboys. The Indians were just some folks who happened to get a tough break. This book though, opened my mind to a culture that I had never known or thought much about. Now I read every book I can get on the subject, and spend my summers touring forts and battlefields.

Since my first reading of Crazy Horse I have read a biography of Sandoz. I know that her research was maticulous and that she had a good rapport with the Indians who knew Crazy Horse and were still living at the time she was writing. Of course, since this is mostly an oral history it is hard to know what is actual truth and what is the myth which grew around the subject, but it doesn't really matter. No one can read this book without coming away with a new understanding of what it was like to live the free life on the Plains, and how devestating it must have been for those who lost it.

What can you say about a shy, slender, half-blind woman, about five feet in height, who slept on the open prairie, lived with Indians on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation, interviewed the likes of Black Elk, He Dog, Short Bull, Red Feather and others who personally knew Crazy Horse, who had already struggled for years as a writer before penning the ultimate biography of America's first authentic hero? From page one of "Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas" there is a sense that something spectacular is being recorded for posterity, never again to be witnessed by a living being. We are fortunate that Mari Sandoz lived during a time when the legend of Crazy Horse was still able to be told by those who knew and lived with him, but even more fortunate is that this amazing biography was written by an artist of the highest order. The story of the great Lakota warrior who refused to let his heritage be destroyed by the white man, will make you weep and wish you could have ridden with him on that open prairie.

I read this book some days ago, and I am deeply impressed on both the life of Crazy Horse and the way Ms. Sandoz told it to the reader. Since long I have been reading books about Plains Indians and their wars and had a special interest in the person of Crazy Horse. But I had not expected that this strange man, hardly to be understood by his own people, would have become so vivid to me. Ms. Sandoz book is by far better than that of Stephen E. Ambrose who often quoted her, because unlike him she was able to tell it from the Indian point of view and did not always evaluate what she wrote about. Crazy Horse was an Indian hero as out of a Greek tragedy alway doing the best for his people but condemned to be beaten by unmeasureably stronger forces than those of his people. I think he will keep in my heart and brain.

In his foreword to the 50th anniversary edition, Stephen Oates, himself an historian and biographer of note, describes how Sandoz came to write the life of Crazy Horse and states,"Mari Sandoz and Crazy Horse may be the most potent pairing of author and subject in the history of modern biography." He praises Sandoz for writing "with a creative and lyrical brilliance that makes Crazy Horse a tour de force of language and style" and calls the book "...an almost perfect work of biographical art." I could not agree more with Oates. I have read the entire book two times and portions of it many more times.

Readers are often faced with the dilemma of deciding to read further after the first few chapters of a book in the hope they'll "get into it" or to close it and turn it into a dust-catcher. Not so with Sandoz's Crazy Horse. The reader is immediately drawn into it. I was hooked by the lyricism of the first few words of the book which told me that this was going to be no ordinary biography. They read as follows: "The drowsy heat of middle August lay heavy as a furred robe on the upper country of the Shell River, the North Platte of the white man. Almost every noon the thunders built themselves a dark cloud to ride the far crown of Laramie Peak. But down along the river no rain came to lay the dust of the emigrant road, and no cloud shaded the gleaming 'dobe walls and bastions of Fort Laramie, the soldier town that was only a little island of whites in a great sea of Indian country two thousand miles wide."

This story is told, not in the voice of a distant historian, but in the voice of an eyewitness. The vividness of her narrative would convince you, if you did not know otherwise, that Sandoz walked with Crazy Horse and his people. But even though she did not walk with them, she knew them well.

This is an extraordinary work of creative nonfiction that makes you love being a reader.

The strange man of the Lakotas made very little contact with the "white man" and remains a mysterious character of native American culture. Not much is known about him, his birth, his death, his burial.

Sandoz attempts to document as much history is known about this man, and she puts it in the form of a novel. It is easy to read and entertaining. Yet it includes historical facts, events and characters. While it is difficult to pen a biography about someone who so little is known about, Sandoz documents all that is known about him in this book. Many of the facts were taken from interviews with people who knew him and lived with him. Those people are all long gone. The only comprehensive memory of Crazy Horse is this book.

Immerse yourself in the life and mind of the Oglala Lakota with Sandoz's biography of Crazy Horse. In his preface, Steven Oates perhaps best summarized the book in writing "by incorporating the Indian oral tradition into her narrative...Sandoz got closer to the truth of Crazy Horse and his world, and thus to the truth of history, than she could ever have done had she adhered strictly to "facts" taken from the written records of the white people." Although she had been accused by some of putting words in Crazy Horse's mouth with her style and use of oral history, Sandoz was no slouch as a historian. The book was a dozen years in the making and meticulously researched. As I read the story of Crazy Horse, I found myself so captivated by his story, and by Sandoz's retelling of it, that I was somehow hoping to be saved from the inevitable, tragic conclusion to the life of this truly heroic American. Anyone with an interest in American history must read this book.

This is probably the most comprehensive biography of an Indian leader that I have ever read. The research is painstaking. The book was written in novel form and makes for an excellent read. Although there are no pictures of Crazy Horse, Ms Sandoz' first hand information from people who knew him creates an indelible snapshot of the man. He was a mystic, a visionary, a defender of his people, a modest man, who wore no fancy regalia, who never bragged after he had accomplished something great. His own people were ambivalent about him, and called him the Strange One or the Silent One. Moreover, he had fair complexion with light hair and brown eyes. He wanted desperately for his people to speak with one mind and with one heart. But the divisions within the Lakota people were simply too strong. What is most interesting is the tension between Crazy Horse and Red Cloud. Red Cloud is not painted in a positive light in this book. He is shown as petty, jealous and desperate to show up Crazy Horse. Wherein Crazy Horse was a 'natural' at everything he did, it was not so with Red Cloud who was forced to live under the specter of Crazy Horse's natural aptitude, particularly in matters of war. As a matter of fact he was one of the Lakota that held Crazy Horse down when he was fatally stabbed in 1877 by a white guard at Fort Robinson (Crazy Horse's vision as a young boy had prophesized his murder at the hands of his own people). Red Cloud is much lauded for being the only Native American to beat the cavalry soundly (Fetterman fight). In fact, it was the brilliant strategist Crazy Horse that won that fight. He had learned the ways of the white man in terms of war tactics and applied them brilliantly. Crazy Horse was certainly not without his faults, the matter of running away with another man's wife springs to mind. The Author is scrupulously fair in her assessment of him and of the time in which they lived. In the end Crazy Horse was not able to unify his people - he had his followers, and Red Cloud had his. The book is elegrantly written, paints a thorough picture of a tragic time in American history as natives ultimately fell into poverty, starvation and despair. The buffalo was gone. As noted in the preamble to the book, Natives of Turtle Island, were the victims of 'historical inevitability'. Ho.

This is a highly unique biography and is a well-deserved classic in the world of literature. Sandoz did not write the standard Native American story from the point of view of the outsider (that is, the white conquerors), but created a book that feels as if it was written by the Indians from their own world view. Sandoz had the great advantage, in the 1930s, of interviewing still-living oldtimers who really knew Crazy Horse, and her combination of first-hand Indian accounts and meticulously well-crafted prose makes for an extremely compelling story of the last years of Indian freedom. In fact, this is not so much a biography of Crazy Horse, but a much larger story of the Lakota (Sioux) people in which he is the central character. The book does not include much historical detail, as that would be the white man's method of writing, so for such information on late Sioux history you would have to look elsewhere (such as *Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee* by Dee Brown).

However, we do get a book full of beautiful and poetic prose such as "there was a star with a long white tail to speak of good things," and consistent use of Indian terminology such as "burning cup" for whiskey or "soldier chief" for army officers. This style of writing does make the reading of this book stiff and long-winded in places, but Sandoz must be commended for her very unique and moving methods. In the end, Crazy Horse himself comes across as a troubled loner among his people, a bit manic-depressive but a strong leader and warrior, and he remains as dark and mysterious to us as he was to his friends and enemies. And as usual for Native American histories from this period, the end of the story gives us the depressing loss of the people's freedom and the noble but hopeless efforts of a great leader to save his people. Concerning the special 50th anniversary edition of the book, you can ignore the rather sycophantic introduction by Stephen B. Oates, but the stunning cover painting by Ed Lindlof is almost worth the price of admission alone. [~doomsdayer520~]

Mari Sandoz did a great job on the biography of Crazy Horse. It gave me a better understanding about how Native American life was and how the British took over. It explained how they believed in certain rituals to prepare for war such as the magic water they believed that stopped bullets from hitting them. Mari Sandoz gave a very fine description of Crazy Horse without using pictures. He seemed to be a great man from his characteristics and her words left you to think and imagine the scenes and appearances of people she mentioned. Crazy Horse was a leader and never a follower. He would try to do anything for his people. He was brace and independent. I admired him a lot because I favor people who take leadership and are not ashamed or frightened. At first I didn't want to read this book because it was so long and I wanted to get the book done to accomplish my project. But the book caught my attention and it was so deep. The book had happy scenes that made your spirit happy and sad scenes that made you cry. Crazy Horse was a great role model. I really related to him because as a boy he always wanted to accomplish his goal and he tried and did good deeds. However, I, also as a young lady in high school have dreams and goals to succeed and achieve and want to be confident in my work. Crazy Horse I would recommend for anyone who will take the time to read it, because it's a really good book. This is one of my favorite books and I will remember Crazy Horse for his courage, honor, gifts, bravery, and determination.

For two years in college, I studied with Stephen B. Oates, who wrote the Foreword to this edition. An award-winning biographer of Lincoln, King, Nat Turner, John Brown, and others, Oates often told his classes that in his opinion, Mari Sandoz's Crazy Horse was the best biography ever written. His chief reason was Ms. Sandoz's ability to make the reader feel as though he or she is in the actual time and place where Crazy Horse lived, and the quality and style of her language, which has the feel of an oral history told by an Oglala elder at a ritual ceremony. I first read the book in Oates' class in 1985 then recently bought the newer edition with his contribution and read it again. Oates is a very wise man (and an extraordinary writer himself!).