Customer Reviews

Dark Bridwell

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I read this book several years ago, but believe the scenario was
the dry farm areas east of Idaho Falls & Rigby, ID where I was born and raised.I was dismayed to learn that this book is not available at the public library here in Boise and that it is out of print. This book and "Toilers of the Hills" are richly rewarding to any avid reader. Fisher seems to be remembered now only for "Mountain Man" from which the movie, "Jeremiah Johnson" was adapted. He wrote The Mothers", about the Donner Party tragedy & "Tale of Valor" that fills a proper niche now that the Lewis & Clark bicentennial is upon us.

From the beautiful Snake River as it wends it's way out of the Yellowstone, cutting through the black lava walls to the wild Idaho mountains beyond, Vardis Fisher brings his tale to life in a way of his own making. This is more than a paperback dime novel - it is a fine piece of work. It may be dated, but it's timeless, as are all novels from the pens of talented artists, and may be read by a new generation as new literature, since enjoyment of these classic authors defies the era from which they sprung as time marches on. I was elated to discover his collected works through Amazon, and have added it to my own library. For those with adventure in their souls, those who wish to touch the frontier as much of it actually was when it was young, Vardis Fisher is a must for the literary collection. Everyone who has a youth that has background in the ranch country will recognize the type of person Charlie Bridwell is; and whether they rubbed shoulders with his kind or not, all are aware of him; they were part and parcel of the West as we knew it then, and traces of them remain today.

Charlie Bridwell. Vardis Fisher hits on more than just a few uncomfortable truths that make up the fabric of human nature as he details the lives and psyches of the untamed people living on the fringes of a young pioneer society bent on developing itself beyond mouse-laden log cabins and raw frontier lifestyles. This primitive beginning was necessary, they knew, for those who would come before and blaze the trail; but they knew and accepted that they must do much more for their next generation, and that they must sacrifice their own lives entire - in establishing the foundation to make this happen. A thirst for education for their children, a life's dogged goal for improving their farms and ranches into comfortable living areas, self sufficient and productive - all of this is lost upon the people who take center stage of Charlie Bridwell's isolated corner of the same world. He rejects this all as nonsense.

Charlie is content to live for the day; for the bright sunshine and dappled shade; the beauty and splendor of the mountains; serenity of a stress-less being - and one can entirely empathize with him for a moment, without doubt. There is a stark truth in his desire to live life that way - which of course never considers the fact that people grow old. Then, within the next scene laid forth, Mr. Fisher demonstrates what this man's will means to the others around him, and the idea changes dramatically when laid side by side with, for example, his wife, who must live with this shiftless though amiable man; his deliberate manipulation of her mind to create the illusion that she must never leave him because she cannot make it on her own; his children, who see another side of him altogether which includes violence; his stealthy, steady, psychologial working of everyone around him until at last, the tide turns and he can no longer manage any of them - he has lost his control. It, in turn, breaks him - as he felt he had created an invincible lifestyle of dependence on him, preposterous though it is for those of us looking in through the flow of Mr. Fisher's visual pen.

As the story ends, Charlie leaves his mountain sanctuary as he has done everything else, casting it aside because no stable roots were established - in keeping with his philosophy - so in this epilogue that has been long in coming, he has no where to go and no one to go with him, yet it is hard to feel sympathy; Charlie has done it to himself. He has lived solely for his "day" and now that day is done.

Salud, Vardis Fisher - a literary masterpiece emerges in many solitaire forms.

An intense story of the family in the Idaho Mountains. Very intense and memorable,with the most wonderful descriptions of who they are and where they are. Even better if it is true that it is about the childhood of Vardis Fisher & his family. I read this along with as many of Fisher's other books as I can get my hands on.

At the time that I read it, it was a book that you didn't want to put down. It was a story of a family on the Salmon river in the wilds of Idaho that covered about 6 to 10 years of their life, and kept your attention from cover to cover.Bi