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5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing story of courage, August 28, 2005
This review is from: Song of Three Friends and the Song of Hugh Glass (Textbook Binding)
I'll admit it: "Three Friends" was a hard read. But "Hugh Glass" might just make you want to speak in iambic pentameter with rhymed couplets. We forget that the form was originally designed for poetry of great heroes. Well, Glass was an ordinary person who rose to heroic stature both physically and spiritually. While on a trapping expedition, mauled by a bear, he is abandoned by his close friend and another companion (Glass just refuses to die, and the companion doesn't want to stay any longer). Amazingly, Glass recovers enough strength to realize his situation and then crawl over a hundred miles across what is now South Dakota in order to seek revenge on those that abandoned him. Unbelievable, but a true story of the very Old West, and one which has never been corrupted by film.
Neihardt takes this story and raises it to high art. A form that seems native to the Elizabethans carries all the punch of a Western story (and don't forget: many Plains people of the 1900's knew their Shakespeare). The descriptions just leap from the landscape; the solitude of his crawl and the moral agony of seeking vengeance against someone he loved made my body and my heart both ache. And the end,... Well, no spoilers here, but the end truly does make Glass a hero.
Sure, this is an obscure book. But "The Song of Hugh Glass" is an unrecognized American classic. It is definitely worth your while.
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