Customer Reviews

The Last Cowboys at the End of the World: The Story of the Gauchos of Patagonia

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is simply the best book I've read all year. It's the story of a guy who goes to Chile to work as a fishing guide and stumbles on an entire culture of people that history has overlooked--the Chilean gauchos. Most people would have thought, "Wow, that's pretty cool" and left it at that. It's a good thing for us that Nick Reding is a writer with an incredibly sharp and curious mind.

Reding returns to live among the gauchos (a cattle-herding people) in remote Chile, where he is exposed to their unique language, culture, and way of life. He stays with a family of five who come to represent many of the different stresses that the modern world places on a poor, rural people--depression, alcoholism, loneliness, desire for material comfort, etc. But Reding gets underneath a lot of this stuff to reveal the spirit of these people who have lived solitary lives in harmony with the stunning landscape for hundreds of years.

But don't think for a second that this is some dry sociological account. Reding is first and foremost a writer, and he focuses on the characters he meets and the many tiny plots that connect people and make up the narrative of a whole culture. He does an amazing job of drawing you in, making you care about the people in the book. He goes on harrowing cattle drives, travels to the mountain hideaways of a known criminal, and documents the way that the modern world is changing the gauchos' way of life.

This really is a remarkable book, a close examination of isolated lives, with considerable risks taken by the author. The austerities of gaucho life are amazingly offset by the lavish inventions of their language, herewith captured by a fine writer. The pompous locutions by the nincompoop from Bethesda, Maryland should not mislead prospective readers.

The seven year old daughter of the two main characters describes a boy who's pestering her at school as relentless as a "red-dicked dog," and her 5-year-old sister says that the same boy " has the whore's tongue, " meaning he stutters because "he can't get the first word out before he's thinking of the second."
Perhaps because theirs is an oral culture, the gauchos are quite inventive when it comes to creating metaphors. They are amazing storytellers, and Reding allows the story to be told through their own words.
While this book is a compassionate account of a culture in transition, and a wonderful story, as other reviews have stated, for me it is the language and the dialogue that make The Last Cowboys memorable.

Nick Reding's The Last Cowboys at the End of the World is an amazingly written portrayal of the lives of a group of individuals whose life situations are completely intangible to most of us. He makes you feel like you have met and gotten to know each and everyone one of the characters from Duck to his daughters to a night club owner in a bar at the beginning of the book. The connection he makes with the gauchos results in such an honest story that can't help but touch you again and again in every new chapter. Reading this story was a wonderful and easy way to learn about the most southern part of South America and the history of the people down there. . .

This is an incredible book. It is a true story based on the author's (Nick Reding) time in Chilean Padagonia, where he encounters gauchos who live a life all but extinct elsewhere (riding with herds, slaughtering sheep for sustenance, cattle rustlers, people with visions of the devil). Reding saw this was all about to change because the government built the first road into the area. So Reding set out to document, and in a real sense to preserve, the life of these gauchos. He documents the lives, stories, and customs of the gauchos in incredible detail. This is contrasted with the changes brought about by the truck traffic. While the trucks bring goods and can take the kids to school, they also signal the end of the gaucho life (how can cowboys on horses compete with trucks for speed in getting herds to market?) For the main family Reding focuses on, this leads to a very sad ending for the man (named Duck) who confronts the difficult truth about the future. This is really an exceptional book -- the story, the writing, and the lessons it teaches.

This is an exceptional study of the Patagonian gauchos and their life style and habitat before it is extinguished forever by western values, money and culture. As a tourist in Patagonia it should be required reading, especially if you are attempting a riding trip there as we were, across the Andes. For a moment you can understand what you are seeing and experiencing, for a second you are part of the scenary, not just watching it voyeuristically unfold before you. I don't think I understood travel until I read this book.I will never travel again with my eyes open and my mind closed.

If you have been to Cisnes,Patagonia (or want to go there) this is a must book to read. I spent 10 days in this area in February, 2002 and saw some of the people that Nick writes about. In reading the book Nick made me feel that I was back there as I could visualize where the events were taking place. The changes to Coyhaique have continued since 1999 as I found it to be a very modern town. After reading this book I would like to make a return trip.

If you cherish the ways in which John McPhee and Barry Lopez make meaning out of landscape, if you appreciate a writer with an observant heart and a feel for language, and if you wonder how people manage to live--for well and for ill--in a world turned inside out, this is the book for you. By turns harrowing, hilarious, and touching, "The Last Cowboys" will command your attention and remain in your thoughts long after you have read the last page.

This book is a must read for anyone who has an interest in the Chilean Patagonia and the unique people that live there. Nick has captured exactly the feeling of the area and the people who are a fast disappearing race. I have been travelling and living in the area around Coyhaique for the last ten years. I never thought that I would read an english book about Aysen written with such emotion, insight, and love for these people who are unknown to their fellow Chileans.

Good interesting book. Makes you want to go to Patagonia (or mabe also stay at home). Read it and find out.