Customer Reviews

Mountain Man

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

 

 

This novel is a lifelong passion for me. I read Mountain Man as a project with my father when I was 11, some 22 years ago. I associate this work with wide-eyed boyhood and love of nature. It rings of a time when America was still a wild frontier of hard men, bent on survival and self government. I refuse to apply 90s political correctness to this novel. Such intellectual revisionism had no place in Sam Minard's world, and therefore it has no place in the assessment of the work itself after the fact. I have read this novel at least 25 times, and find new and more rapturous moments in it each successive time. The love that Sam had for Lotus and the regard he had for Kate are two of the most shining examples of literary love I have ever encountered. This book is a glorious orchestration of a seldom taught period of American history and an Old West adventure tale of the first order. It recounts a time of great courage and brutality, portrayed fairly and with much class and distinction. It would have been easy to make it sappy and formulaic, but Fisher deftly avoids such tactics. Instead, he is as detached from this novel as "The Almighty" was from the characters of Sam, Lotus, Kate and the Big Sky wilderness: He created, then set free his creation to fend for itself. Waugh! This is as solid a novel as there is on this subject, if not the finest ever.

MOUNTAIN MAN continues to be a classic in American Western literature. The major foundation for the movie, Jeremiah Johnson, MOUNTAIN MAN tells the story of Samuel John Minard, a mountain man known for his physical prowess and for his quick and educated intellect. A renaissance man who has chosen the life of the great American West.

In his adventures Sam meets up with Indians of various tribes, other mountain men and a crazy pilgrim woman. HIs marriage to an Indian maiden leads him into a one-man war with sweeping consequences for himself and for his enemies.

MOUNTAIN MAN, as is the case with most books upon which movies are based, considerably outshines JEREMIAH JOHNSON in its story and characterizations. But, hey, I love the movie as well. I guess that says a lot about what I think of the book.

THE HORSEMAN

A WELL WRITTEN, brutally graphic tale based on the brief era of the mountain men. Though published several decades ago, the writing is fresh and excitingly paced. A keen and unbiased insight into the harsh realities of mountain men and Indian life during the early to mid 1800's. I've also enjoyed the Jeremiah Johnson movie, but similarities to this novel are remote. This is one of those books I found myself reading well past normal bedtime. The material quality of this paperback edition is superb. I highly recommend!

The story of Sam Minard, based on the life of the 'Crow Killer,' the real Jeremiah Johnson, is a beautiful tale that combines the reality of the life of the mountain men in its most brutal form and the myth of the mountain man as we would like him to be. Sam Minard is the most accomplished of the mountain men, the best trapper, the best fighting man and absolutely ruthless as he applies his craft, but not far beneath the rugged exterior is a man of enormous sensitivity able to describe the beauty of the wilderness in detail that allows the reader to be there. In Chapter 18, Minard, still mourning the death of his wife, spends the winter in what is today Yellowstone Park. Minard's (Fisher's) description of the winter in the magical land of Yellowstone is one that has remained with me all my life and inspired me to perform my own explorations of wild country. If you have any interest in the mountain men, the west before it became the 'Old West,' or just like a damn well told story, this book will not disappoint.

Mountain Man

Interestingly Larry McMurtry has written three books of late that invite the reader back to the time of the Mountain Men. I've read all of them and while I love McMurtry's writing and the stories presented in Boone's Lick and in volumes 1 and 2 of the new Berry bender series, there is nothing like going back to the source for the real experience.

I first read Mountain Man by Vardis Fisher as a teenager. I read it in conjunction with the release of Jeremiah Johnson upon which the book is loosely based. At that time I was captured by this genre and have made a regular reading of Mountain Man a part of my program.

While I can enthusiastically recommend the newer editions to the Mountain Man genre, I would encourage interested parties in taking a look at Mountain Man first. While you're at it, rent or buy Jeremiah Johnson starring Robert Redford. The experience will be one that you don't regret.

I didn't read this book until after I had seen 'Jeremiah Johnson', and was pleased that the movie and book were so different. I enjoyed the movie very much, but with Fisher's story I felt as though I had put on my huntin' clothes, laced up my boots, grabbed my Hawken Rifle, and joined in on the adventure. Coming from a family of outdoorsmen, some of us certainly fantasized about leaving it all behind from time to time, and making our way in the remote wilderness. In fact my two brothers moved to the Pacific Northwest after college and still spend much of their free time wandering the Cascades. Anyone who loves the wild west will find this one to be a real gem, and simply by reading it, will be richly rewarded. It is a diamond in the rough, but not one to be missed, and has inspired much of my own writing. This one comes highly recommended.

James Hart Isley
Author of The Bear Hunter

I read this book many years ago, and believe it will be my next, again. It is a book one dare not discard,as the second and third readings get better. Vardis Fisher captures the essence of the mountains,streams, and one can smell the camp fire and relate to the colorful fractured kings english. The movie With Redford was good but the book is better.

Vardis Fisher wrote better novels than this but not very many. I can only echo the comments of others. From the first scenes, the author shows a country that is breath-takingly beautiful yet harsh and cruel. But Fisher is humane if honest. He is not racist, but his characters are. "Sam Minard hated the Blackfeet. ... Most of the mountain men hated all Indians." (page 14) "The contempt, on both sides, had its beginning in the earliest association of redmen and white.... Each thought the other fantastically stupid, and his low opinion of the other's mind and values gave zest to slaughter and scalping." (page 25) It might also be noted that Fisher, who was an atheist, has his characters speak frequently of "the Almighty," but it would be a mistake to construe from this that Fisher was religious.

If you happen to be a fan of Bob Redfords 'Jeremiah Johnson'or a lesser known work by Richard Harris called 'A Man in the Wilderness', or of just a good tale of the early, open west then this book by Vardis Fisher is one you must read at least once.This is one of an extremely small number of books that truly transported me into another place and time and made me wish I was right there along side them.Beautifully written it is the story of one, Sam Minnard.An educated man who gave it all up to live little better than a civilized savage on the open ranges and endless plains of the northern midwest territories.It encompasses and incorporates music,art,flora and fauna,survivalist skills and the truly hard but satisfying life these men had.These men did exist and they helped to tame and open the west to others who would follow much to their disgust and saddness of just what that meant to their way of life.Loners who belonged to a very select club mostly knew each other and would come together to aid Sam in one final showdown against the Indian nation.The book focuses on his life but opens up his inner self and emotional makeup and does maintain a rather negative viewpoint toward the redman which was widely held by many mountain men at that time.The encroaching westward movement of civilization and the day to day hardships and joys of living free are examined with subtle yet powerful story telling.The need and enjoyment of no taxes,free food provided by the land itself, no bills,mortgages,laws,police or government control were gladly accepted by these men who lived off the land and knew how to survive in a sometimes hostile but glorious landscape that was the untouched west.The American Indian was there first, lest we forget, and we were trespassing but the number of men were so small that their presence was barely felt. That is until the rest of us came along and mucked up the works for everybody.Sam's happiness is abruptly and violently ended setting him on the path of vengence both sealing his fate and securing his legend.This book is remarkable and will not let you down.If you tire of the crap written today and long for something you can sink your teeth into,something that will stay in your head for a while with its crystal clear clarity and descriptive beauty, then read it.True, it is only a work of fiction but it is based on the lives of real men and women for that matter in real situations during the early to mid 19th century American west.For mountain men, life was probably very much like this, it had to be and Fisher nailed it right on the head.That alone will allow you to safely observe a life story of survival without the benefit of civilization all around you.A situation that could be upon us again if our world turns upside down.Would any one of us today live as good as Sam Minnard did with just a gun, a knife and a horse,I truly doubt it.There is something to be learned from this book. Read and learn.

From the opening lines of this story, you feel like you're traveling with Sam Minard (renamed Jeremiah Johnson in the Robert Redford film) in the old west. Vardis Fisher weaves a tale that you can touch, smell, taste and see. I first read this book in 1980, and several times since then... and it always brings me back to a renewed appreciation for the American wilds. The movie was good, but doesn't begin to give you the flavor of the book.