Customer Reviews

Tales of the Mountain Men: Seventeen Stories of Survival, Exploration, and Frontier Spirit

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

 

 

Tales of the Mountain Men is a collection of writings about the first white men to intrude on the world of the Native Americans in the mountainous west. The writings are from diverse sources and are in greatly varied styles. To Mr. Underwood's credit, he did not clean up the writings, so some are written in a vernacular that is difficult for 21st century eyes to understand. But that simply makes the writing more genuine.

The culture that is portrayed is one that preceded the cowboy culture and was overwhelmingly male. The hardships and dangers that were taken for granted by the mountain men are unbelievable, but they are very real too. The portrayal of Native Americans is very negative and cruel.

I gave this book 4 stars because I found its organization difficult. The excerpts are in many cases too short and, in spite of introductory paragraphs, difficult to place. But the writings are fascinating and opened my eyes to a new society that is discussed in a realistic and unromanticized way.

If you are interested in either history of the west or early 19th century culture, this book is highly recommended.

I purchased this book because survival, frontier life and exploration has always been right up my alley.

This book is a quick read and features a collection of excerpts from other "Mountain Man-type" stories.

After reading this book, I came back to Amazon and purchased 2 other books, because I enjoyed the excerpts so much.

A great way to get a feel for an author's style of writing. Just enough plot to wet your whistle and get you interested in purchasing one of the excerpts full novels.

I went back and purchased "Mountain Man" and "Big Sky", both are wonderful stories.

The text in this book is easy to read and excerpts were well chosen.

This is a very interesting book on the lives and times of the mountain men. It captures the sayings and language of the people of those times and also the many hardships that they faced in their day to day lives--GREAT BOOK !!!

The verdict is not in yet for this book because I am still reading it. But I do feel that the author spent too much time (about a 1/4) of the book documenting the day-to-day events as recorded in the dairies of Lewis and Clark. They were great explorers and they played a significant role in westward exploration, but they did not live the life as a mountain man as we know today through recorded history. Now, there are hundreds of books written on Lewis and Clark and their contributions to history, but in a book that should be solely dedicated to the preservation of the mountain man, an author should focus on that. So far, there have been some very good and interesting stories of survival, but I don't know if they will continue. If I have to judge this book right now, then I must say that it is not as good as the book titled, "Give Your Heart to the Hawks" which is another book on the mountain man.

I hesitated before giving it four stars, and would probably rather give it 3.5 for no other reason than it's just a haphazard collection of excerpts from other books. Still, if you're interested in a sampler of fiction and non-fiction on the subject of mountain men, it's a pretty good choice. The editor does offer some context and explanation, which is helpful, as well as a list of mountain man terms defined in the back. Of course by the time you read the book you'll already have figured them all out.

You'll notice a theme, especially in the fiction portions - Native Americans are portrayed as soulless devils. Since it was such a prevalent theme, it left me wondering if all mountain man fiction is so viciously biased or if the editor's opinion of "the best" happens to be those that take this viewpoint.

After reading I purchased several other books, some featured in this collection and others to shed some light on how much truth is contained within the fictional accounts.

Great stories...but the use of the original language made it difficult to read at a normal rate...took longer to get through the book.