Customer Reviews

Shoot the Buffalo

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Early in "Shoot the Buffalo," a little girl dies due to parental neglect, but her brother blames himself. As a result, his childhood is also stolen from him. Without trustworthy parents to shelter him, Aldous searches for meaning in highly structured groups like the Boy Scouts and eventually, the Army. His story reminded me of the autobiographical struggles of author Tobias Woolf as told in "This Boy's Life" and "The Barracks Thief." In both cases the highly regimented, uniform-wearing organizations are just as stressful for the narrator as the bad parenting of earlier years. The spirit struggles to survive in unfriendly conditions. "Shoot the Buffalo" also made me think of another novel set in Washington state, Marilynne Robinson's "Housekeeping." That novel is also narrated by a child who has unconventional parenting and is haunted by the memory of a beloved sibling. Both Briggs and Robinson evoke the green, damp, forested Washington landscape and see it as a place of dread as well as a place of beauty. Briggs' writing explores physical and psychological landscapes with equal intensity.

Shoot the Buffalo is my kind of fiction. A coming of age story set in the dark woods of the Pacific Northwest, it features some of the saddest, yet oddly compelling characters I've read in a long while. I loved it. You will, too! Read this book!

I gave this book a shot because I thought the author might have matured after this first book, which was pretentious and fairly boring. I was wrong. For one thing, he's right back to the same old autobiographical material--poor kid being raised by his irresponsible stoner parents. This one may be even more autobiographical since, hoping to find the structure his parents never gave him, the main character joins the Army (as did Briggs himself). But once again, the writing is thin although it hopes desperately to be mistaken for writing with depth. And once again the characters are weakly drawn. There's a little more plot this time, but not nearly enough to salvage the book. The cover is unwittingly apropos: it is flat, dimensionless, cartoonish, and overall unappealing--very much like the writing in this book. I suppose I shouldn't count him out as an author just yet, but after two one-star books, I have serious doubts.

What can you say about Matt Briggs? This book is fantastic. It reminds one of Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Hansel and Gretyl. What happens in the woods? Does the little girl meet a wolf or an uncle? She doesn't meet a mother. Read this book to find out more.