Customer Reviews

I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company: A Novel of Lewis and Clark

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

THIS BOOK IS A SHEER JOY!
The adventures of William Clark and Merriweather Lewis have long been ample fodder for historical prose. Their expedition is probably the most memorable story of "See America First" type travel, and their triumph in exploring an unknown America has been well documented since the Jefferson era. But never has the story been so personal, nor as involving, as Brian Hall's take on their trek.
"I Should Be..." gets its title from Lewis's actual invitation to Clark to join the Corps of Discovery in exploring an uncharted Western America. The novel imagines the dialogue between the men, along with their native guide Sacagawea and Sacagewea's husband Toussaint Charbonneau, and uses the words of the foursome to propel the story from Washington DC to St. Louis, and then through the great Northwest. It removes the tale from the traditional dry narrative type of historical novel, and gives the characters rich, imagined lives that make the expedition almost personal to the reader.
All books of this type rise and fall on the strength of the cast, and Hall has populated his players with the necessary hopes, despairs and neuroses that would go hand in hand with creating a legendary tale. Lewis's grandeur in his mission and Clark's seeming envy at playing #2 in what was described to him as a mission led by equals are among the many plot devices used by Hall to make allready known charecters take on human form. A hysterical and well imagined portion of the book describing the naming of rivers after Lewis and Clark (where Clark gets the short end of the stick) is only one example of how well this story plays out.
Since the book is told in dialogue form, the chapters were Sacagawea describes the journey are difficult (Hall uses a device that blends English and Shoshone that is slightly confusing) but essential to the plot. This is a minor gripe for a book that is revolutionary in its retelling of history.
While everyone is familiar with how the story plays out and ends, there is a coda to the novel that describes Lewis and Clark's lives following the expedition that was new to me. Lewis's post-expedition live was tragic, while Clark became a mainstay of St. Louis society. Taking the book through their post-expedition lives gives Hall a great opportunity to expand on the price of fame and the fall of legends. He hits the mark with eloquence and sincerity.
I had never read anything by Hall prior to this book, so I don't know if the richness of this story could have been foreseen, or if he just got lucky. I will be looking forward to reading some of his other works now, for his talent in bringing character and emotion to one of history's greatest duo was incredibly impressive.

Though not necessarily an "easy read," I found this novel rich and rewarding, contrary to the experience of some reviewers here. Author Hall imaginatively recasts the amazing, nation-building "expedition of exploration" of Merriweather Lewis and William Clark. In an adventurous literary conceit, he weaves four voices through the narrative: co-captains Lewis and Clark, native American Sacagawea, and French Trader, Toussaint Charbonneau, finding a unique voice, eyes, and ears, for each guide along our journey. The least compelling, in my opinion, is Charbonneau; perhaps the most is Sacagawea, who probably deserved her own novel. Her passages are sometimes difficult to get through, with their lack of "Western" grammar, capitalized proper nouns, and strange punctuation, but they effectively give voice to the voiceless-despite Sacagawea's profile on the new, gold, one-dollar U.S. coin, little is truly known about her nor many other native Americans who figure in our history.
Lewis' and Clark's narrative voices are more straightforward, though no less compelling. Lewis is a tragic figure, who eventually commits suicide. Hall implies, though does not directly state, a latent homosexuality in Lewis, an unrequited love toward Clark that seems to go beyond the "brotherly" love of soldiers in arms. Clark is more confident and assured and seems to bind the voyage together. As I read the novel, I found myself on the voyage, alongside Hall's quartet, imagined much more effectively than any nonfiction account. It helps to be familiar with the story, as many of the voyage's details are left out or implied.
At the beginning of the bicentennial of this phenomenal voyage, "I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company" makes a great bookmark with Stephen Ambrose's classic nonfiction account, "Undaunted Courage."

I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company is a fine novel and, though it is not intended to be a history text, it is a successful effort to portray humans coping with a rough and unpredictable world during Thomas Jefferson's administration. The use of multiple points of view and multiple styles is a bit surprising when you first encounter it, but the chapters are separate and are clearly labeled. The contrast between fussy-speller Lewis and extrovert Clark is amusing and insightful. I'm not sure American Indians, or Shoshones in particular, talked and thought just the way Hall portrays Sacagawea's inner monologue, but I'm pretty sure they didn't speak or think like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm either, and I give Hall credit for a creative try. We even get some insight into Lewis's faithful dog, though luckily Hall doesn't attempt a doggy stream of consciousness. Near the end, there is a hilarious send-up of Washington Irving that tells us a good deal about America as it was, and America as it would become with the closing of the frontier. I learned a great deal from this book, because it immersed me in a long-gone time. Our country has a rough, brutal, foul-mouthed and heroic history, and you'll end this book with sympathy, insight, sorrow, and admiration for its people. What more do you want?

Sometimes I realize at the outset that I'm going to enjoy reading a particular novel. When that happens I like to take my time finishing the book, because I want to savor it; I don't want it to end. In the case of "I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company," I took a very long time to reach the final page.

My knowledge about Lewis and Clark - and the people they encountered before, during and after their epic journey - was broad, but not deep. Certainly I learned much about Lewis and Clark, Sacajawea (Tsakakawia), York, and "Charbono." But this book is so much more than a recitation of events and dates. It is a book that both illuminates and speculates about the lives of extraordinary people.

One complaint from other reviews on amazon.com is about the vulgar nature of some of the language used by Sacajawea and and Charbonneau. I can understand some readers' distate of the words Hall puts in the mouths of these charaters. But I think these words are a completely appropriate way to get under the skin of people whose sensibilities were undoubtedly far different than our own. The somewhat non-linear path the book takes it in telling its stories means squeamish readers can skip those chapters that offend them without doing terrible violence to the flow of the book. But that, in my opinion, would be a silly and sad thing to do.

Others have apparently not enjoyed they way Hall allows Sacajawea to describe her world, a way without using standard rules of English grammer or punctuation. For my part, I found this to be one of the joys of the book, because it was, frankly, novel. It took a little work to catch on to the way Sacajawea used language, and then it became an intriguing, unfolding revelation.

I received far more than I bargined for when I purchased this book (which I first heard about during an interview with the author on National Public Radio, more than a year ago). As Lewis and Clark did for the young United States in filling in blank spaces on a map, so does Hall do to fill in historical spaces left blank about these extraordinary people.

For me, this book was about about many journeys, not just into the interior of North America, but of course into the depths of the human mind, including my own. So there was no choice for me with this book. The farther I traveled with the people in this book, the more time I gave myself to finish the trip. Even so, the journey ended all too soon for me.

This beautifully written historical novel about Lewis and Clark and their extraordinary expedition conveys not just the historical facts of the tale, but also an artist's sense of the emotional and psychological workings of the minds of the main participants in this astounding journey. The author made me realize how a fine novelist is somewhat like an actor who is able to inhabit the mind of a character and convey that character's essence to his audience. To read this book is therefore like making the journey as if the reader were each of the main participants in it. An additional pleasure for me was learning a great deal about the history of this country in this well researched book.

If you are looking for "stream of consciousness" writing and some very poetic passages, this book could be five stars. I was looking for adventure and found this book to be outside this domain, hence, the three stars. As a Native American, I did appreciate the chapters on Sacajawea. This has to be one of the best attempts I have ever encountered to capture the differences in culture between the Europeans and Native Americans. It adds a dimension to this account that makes it decidedly different from the usual L&C fare. It still amazes me how little we know about any of the people who were a part of this expedition that took place just a couple of hundred years ago. What is known with certainty about Sacajawea and Drouilliard, for instance, could probably be written on the back of an envelope. This novel is so rich in characterization that it stands in sharp contrast to what we really know. With a few exceptions, we are basically an ahistorical society.

As a lover of historical fiction, I was excited when I found this book. It was slow going at first but I trudged through dealing with the author's jumping around in time with no warning. I became increasingly frustrated with the book as I went on. I eventually became accustomed to the native American dialog but found the trader's dialog inane and annoying. What frustrated me most about the book was the absence of those elements which is why I read historical fiction. There was very little expression of the "wonder" of this trip - particularly the natural wonder. There was little sense of the laboriousness of the trip and the interactions and relationships between the men making the journey (with the exception of Lewis' curious preoccupation with Clark.) The book provided little context of where they were in their journey. At one point they're in the Rockies, and it seems in 10 pages, they're at the Pacific Ocean. I am an avid reader and have not been so disappointed in a long time. I don't know what the author's intent was - it was completely lost on me. This was a major, frustrating, time-consuming disappointment.

Several people here seem upset by the use of "four-letter" words. For your information, dear readers, the f- and c-words are as old as the English language (their etymologies go back to Old French). The point is that these words were NOT shocking to a people totally comfortable with their own bodies, in which little was taboo.

The lyrical language and descriptions in this novel are very good, and heighten the familiar story. I probably wouldn't recommend this as a first novel for anyone who hasn't read about L&C before, but if you feel you already know these people, then this novel provides some good twists.

It IS a bit slower than it needs to be, and I was shocked that some things which should be highly climactic (i.e., meeting Sacagewea's people, seeing the Pacific) are given almost as parenthetical asides and/or in brief flashbacks. Still, it's less romantic and more accurate than many L&C novels out there, which is always welcome.

My biggest complaint is in the title of this review. Any book about the Corps of Discovery should have a map of their journey, for God's sake.

Brian Hall shows great skill in immersing the reader in the inner life of his characters. Fans of "The Saskiad" will find more of the same intensity and insight in "I Should be Extremly Happy," but this time the story is told intimately from the point of view of several different characters.

The main characters are thoroughly explored, inside and out. Each is a product of his society and upbringing. Through the eyes of other characters we see their virtues and faults, and their internal voices explore their own blind spots and vanities, and their harsh self-assesments.

Lewis in particular has many facets: rugged explorer, tender and loyal friend, aspiring intellectual, procrastinator, shrewd leader, and manic-depressive. I found myself identifying with Lewis as though we were kindred souls. Surely not every reader will have the same strong reaction, but I hope that everyone can enjoy a character who is so alive on the page as to elicit such sympathies in at least this one reader.

With the character of Sakagewea, Hall has made an ambitious attempt to protray the mental landscape of someone from a very alien society. She has a different viewpoint and different priorities in everything she does, from telling time, to interacting with her infant son, to navigating the world around her. (Prepare to learn new ways of thinking about north, south, east, west, and left and right). And of course her narrative voice is completely unique. While her role in the expedition has suffered its ups and downs in different accounts, here she is neither deemphasized nor lionized.

A thought-provoking and absorbing book, this is not a straightfoward historical novel, or a kid's book, or a light read, by any stretch of the imagination. Many times I had to flip back and reread a passages to understand what had happened, and I was constantly scampering for the dictionary, but it was well worth the effort. I'm not a Lewis & Clark enthusiast, so I can't say how well the historical narrative holds together, but taking this novel on its own, I think Hall has succeeded brilliantly in exploring a well-known story in American history though imaginative characterizations.

I loved this book!
It tells the famous expedition of Lewis and Clark from the perspectives of the participants, particularly Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea. Their voices form competing versions of the expedition; together they weave a narrative like glimpses of a river seen through branches. I was left with the sense that I had explored much more than just the blank space of the unknown on the map.
The mysteries in the hearts and minds of the characters unfolded inside of me. By the end of the book they had filled in a map of memories and desires that kept speaking to me long after I had closed the book.
This is a lyrical and rewarding book that will change the way you view the opening of the west and the history of America in general, along with what it means to explore the unknown, both up a river and through someone's heart.