The Gates of the Mountains [Hardcover]

Will Henry (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Random House; First Edition edition (1963)
• ASIN: B000NXJ302
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,345,941 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Epic tale of Continental exploration, September 11, 2003

By 

F. J. Harvey "Cricket ,country music and a go... (Birmingham England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gates of the Mountains (Mass Market Paperback)

This is packaged as a Western but is set in an earlier era than that normally associated with the genre-namely the early 1800's and in particular the Lewis-Clark expedition to explore and chart the new lands obtained by the fledgling Republic with the purchase of the Louisiana territory by Thomas Jefferson in 1803.
Events are narrated by Francois Rivette a 20 year old mixed race youth (part Pawnee and part French )who stows away on one of the pirogues going up the Missouri river .Rivette has mixed reasons for his action -he is moved partly by a thirst for adventure ;partly by a desire to locate his father who is reputedly a captive of the Shoshone tribe and part by a need to prove himself an American ,part of the new republic rather than a man belonging to a marginal group within the society of the new state.
The first part of the journey is arduous but uneventful (Henry is good on the sheer physical toil involved in the venture).We trace the journey through encounters with indigenous tribes and the first contact between them and the agents of Washington ,through harsh plains and mountain winters and guerilla warfare with the more hostile tribes.Along the way Rivette falls in love with the Indian woman Sacajewa and comes to an understanding of the new lands and his place within them.

Told in a somewhat mannered and slightly old fashioned prose this is a book which gathers momentum as it goes along .The opening part of the book is really ratrher hard going but it picks up pace and the last 50 or so pages are lively and in places moving.The descriptive passages -always a strength of this writer-are excellent and evoke the scenery strikingly.
The political background and in particular the competition with the British for trade routes is economically but clearly laid out.
Worthwhile reading for those with an interest in the era and a good historical epic which perhaps took too long to get going and which leaves the figures of the expedition leaders not as well developed as I would have liked.