Customer Reviews

THE YOUNG FORESTER.

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

 

 

Oh, my, how the prolific Mr. Grey could dash out these pulp westerns. This one, published 100 years ago in 1910, is a tidy little morality tale introducing Mr. Grey's contemporaries to the wonders of this new concept: "government forestry."

Here's the plot summary (spoiler alert)(sort of): insanely naive boy has summer free after high school and before college; boy volunteers to be junior forester in Arizona; boy stumbles upon illegal sawmill in national forest; multiple kidnappings; wildlife encounters; gunshots; whoa, forest fire!; boy saves the day; boy goes home, remarkably, just as naive as when he arrived.

Sample character names include Hal, Ken, Dick, Ward, Smith, Jim, and an unscrupulous for-hire Latino generally referred to as "the Greaser." Lovely, just lovely.

Societally-acceptable racism aside, it's a quick and engaging, if moderately insulting, read (for, among other things, the suspension of disbelief required at frequent intervals, mostly corresponding to the practically metaphysical knowledge of forestry and government regulations that escapes our teen-aged hero's lips during long rides in the saddle in-between plot twists). And yet, it's an entertaining romp in the finest pulp tradition. Plus, I was referred to this fictionalized account of a zealous "Pinchot progressive" in the highly recommended telling of the 1910 Bitterroot Mountains fire "The Big Burn" by Timothy Egan. Yes, go read that fine book first, and then come back to consume this one.

The Kindle Edition is worth about as much as you pay for it (assuming that was $0.00), with an incomplete, but linked, table of contents and a number of typos (poor OCR of scanned text, judging by the number of words that should have begun with the letter "h" that erroneously started off with the letter "b"). Also, there are no chapter markers to help you gauge the next convenient stopping point, which is kind of pointless in any case since Mr. Grey tends to end every chapter with a cliff-hanger --- one can easily imagine the swirling organ music that is supposed to occupy one's mind between chapters. Come to think of it, does anybody know if Mr. Grey originally wrote these little novelas as radio plays?

This was my grandpas book, and is copyrighted over 100 years ago. Thick pages, and damaged binding aside, this is a quick, run read! It goes well with those semi-cheesy western novels I have grown to love from Louis L'amour. Less cowboy and indian shootout action, and more of the roaming around in the mountains type of story telling.

My mind continually visualized backpacking trips I have been on, especially when they were talking about streams, fishing, trails, rivers, etc. It was a fun read for sure.