Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion
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The Way West
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The Way West Buddy Read (expanded to include The Big Sky; Fair Land, Fair Land and These Thousand Hills)
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Lynn, New School Classics
(last edited Apr 04, 2021 12:24PM)
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Apr 04, 2021 12:23PM
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Thank you, Lynn! I'm looking forward to reading this with some of our members.
Thanks, Lynn! I am also looking forward to this.
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As this is a multi book thread, here are links to the sections where the discussion changes. There are not perfect divisions in the discussion where the books change, but this will give you a general idea.
The Way West
The Big Sky
Fair Land
These Thousand Hills
I just realized that I purchased a fiction book called The Way West. The cover is very similar! Urgh. There are no used copies in good enough condition or at the price I want to pay but I was able to order from the library loan program. Hopefully, it will come in time to start it in Mid May.
Sue wrote: "I just realized that I purchased a fiction book called The Way West...."The Way West IS a fiction book. Do you mean you bought a different book that has the same title?
Sue wrote: "I just realized that I purchased a fiction book called The Way West. The cover is very similar! Urgh. There are no used copies in good enough condition or at the price I want to pay but I was able ..."Hi, Sue! The Way West by A.B. Guthrie Jr. is indeed fiction. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1950. You may have the correct book. I got my copy from my local library.
Katy wrote: "Hard to believe that this one is not already on our shelf."I agree, Katy. With so many people reading through the Pulitzer Prizes, this one doesn’t seem to garner much interest in the polls. I’m really looking forward to starting (May 1).
I meant to type nonfiction. Sorry for the confusion. It's this book The Way West: True Stories of the American Frontier In my edition it has the "True Stories of the American frontier" part at the bottom and I didn't even notice when I ordered it
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The fiction book by A. B. Guthrie, which is a sequel The Big Sky, and which won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction with an original copyright of 1949.
Luckily I was able to get the right book via the library loan program. I'll still be starting mid-May.
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Can this be read as a stand alone without having read the first book?
Lori wrote: "Can this be read as a stand alone without having read the first book?"Yes. The first book The Big Sky introduces the character of Dick Summers who also plays a part in this book. But either book can easily by read as a stand-alone. I highly recommend The Big Sky by the way for those who have not read it.
RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "Lori wrote: "Can this be read as a stand alone without having read the first book?"Yes. The first book The Big Sky introduces the character of Dick Summers who also plays a part in ..."
Thank you RJ. I found this for $2 today so I may try to join!
Great, Lori, Glad you are joining us.
Has anyone started reading The Way West yet? I've only read around 30 pages, but I am enjoying it so much! I don't know A. B. Guthrie's background, but he has me going back into my memory bank and pulling out American History I learned in college (as in the slogan "Fifty-four-forty or fight"). His writing is so authentic, and he brings in little details that are mostly lost to history now -- thankfully, I have read a lot of American history the past five years with my local history book club group, so most of it is familiar to me.I hope everyone will enjoy Guthrie's style as well.
Shirley, I am about to start the book. It is next up on my list.
Terry wrote: "Shirley, I am about to start the book. It is next up on my list."Great! I can't wait to hear what you think of it, Terry.
I have read 38 pages now, and, yes, he has a very readable and believable writing style. You can easily picture his characters and their language and dialog see very authentic. I am ready to read more about the journey.
Terry wrote: "I have read 38 pages now, and, yes, he has a very readable and believable writing style. You can easily picture his characters and their language and dialog see very authentic. I am ready to read more about the journey."I am also looking forward to reading about the journey. I never get tired of reading books of pioneers blazing the Oregon Trail.
I'm getting ready to start this tomorrow or Saturday.
Wonderful, Sue! Can’t wait to hear your thoughts.
The book makes me think about all the pioneering my ancestors went through. My maternal grandmother was born in 1895, which is 50 years later than this story, but as a young girl she rode in a covered wagon from Arkansas to Oklahoma. She told me that she bounced so hard that she hit her head and it knocked her out. From Oklahoma they somehow trained to Eastern Washington, and later the family went down to Oregon and then California. There were previous migrations of that family line leading back to 1690 from Philadelphia, through North Carolina and Tennessee to Arkansas. With all my extended family making their ways to California where my mother and I were born, there are similar migration stories, with one line traveling from Massachusetts, through Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arizona and California. How did they get there and what did they go through? And then there were the previous voyages across the Atlantic, leaving all they knew behind to face a wild country ahead.
When you think of all the hardships of migrations of our ancestors, some much more perilous than we can imagine, it is amazing to think about how we all ended up in the place we are. Wars, famine, epidemics or pandemics may have been motivators, or maybe just the dream of a better life.
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I am really looking forward to starting this book. Maybe this weekend.
Terry: That is so interesting about the family migrations on your mother's side. Did your grandmother preserve her history? I hope so. Did she collect the other stories dating back to 1690? I find this so very fascinating.As you and Sara stated, I can't imagine leaving everything I know (including all the amenities and services) and just take off into the unknown. What courage that must have taken, and what a dream they must have had.
This book, Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, started my fascination with the Oregon Trail. I've read it three times and never get enough of reading the stories. What courage these women had, and what grief they must have endured! Sara: As you said, it's already hard to make a move with the modern conveniences; I can't imagine a primitive move!
Ten years ago, my husband and I followed the Oregon Trail across Nebraska, visiting all of the landmarks that guided the pioneers (such as the North Platte River, Chimney Rock, Scott's Bluff, Independence Rock,...), seeing the remnants of wagon ruts and the carved signatures in Independence Rock. That trip really made this migration along the Great Plains come to life.
Even though The Way West is a fictionalized account, Guthrie is doing a wonderful job of bringing the pioneers to life.
Shirley, I am the genealogist in my family. I started about 1975 taping a conversation with my maternal grandmother and branched out from there. When personal computers came along, I bought a Family Tree Maker program and started to really keep track systematically. I’ve traced lots of relations and extended family at this point, discovered cousins I didn’t know I had, and even visited some places where these ancestors have lived. My biggest brick wall was finding my biological father, but at age 68, I finally tracked him down through DNA testing, and luckily he is still alive. Your trip to trace the Oregon Trail sounds like fun. Last summer, my husband and I drove from Chicago to Colorado Springs and back again, so we saw quite a bit of Nebraska on the way, and I think a portion of the Platte, and I have driven along the Columbia East of Portland over to Spokane. It is always fun for me to see the geography of the places I am researching or just reading about.
Also, I put the book you mentioned on my TBR. Thanks for the tip.
I am quite enjoying this book, more than The Big Sky which I read last year. Thinking about that book, though, I revised up my star rating and wrote a postscript to my previous review.
Sara, Sue, Lori and others who may be joining us: I look forward to hearing your reactions as you get into the book. One thing about these books by AB Guthrie, Jr., they seem to me like good companion books to Lonesome Dove, which I know some of our GR Classics group members have just read.
message 30:
by
Sara, Old School Classics
(last edited May 06, 2021 08:21PM)
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rated it 5 stars
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Shirley Your trip sounds wonderful. It would be so interesting to actually travel the ground they covered. Seeing the wagon ruts must have given you a true sense of how difficult the trip would have been.
Terry I am also the family genealogist, and, like you, started gathering info into a very early Family Tree Maker program. I have been surprised at some of the things I have discovered along the way. I have visited many of the states where my ancestors originated, but what I would really love to do is visit England, since my ancestral background is primarily English. Lovely that you have the tapes of your grandmother.
I started on this and I'm loving it so far. I can tell it will be much more up my alley than The Big Sky was. I'm loving that this has a large cast of characters including men, women & children and people who are of different backgrounds. It's so cool that you know all that family history Terry.
I agree with Sara about how arduous moving can be even with movers and I've only moved within the same city! I like to dream about moving into a tiny house (or two side by side one for me, one for my husband heehee) or getting an RV and traveling around the U.S. continually in retirement. In reality, though, I probably couldn't even handle that! I'm still determined to try it by renting an RV sometime.
I love your idea of tracing the Oregon trail Shirley. That sounds wonderful. I'm surprised that there are still wagon ruts! Things like that really transport me back to the time and make me feel connected to our history.
Sue, yes, I like this book much better than The Big Sky. I have been searching place images on the internet as I have been reading, so as to get a fuller picture of the geography.
When I was a teen in the Sierra’s, we lived fairly close to the path of the Donner Party, and further east Donner Summit. Two things struck me then, which would still strike anyone driving from Reno to Truckee. One, how in hell would wagons get over and through all those giant granite boulders? Hard to imagine how they even got the road through, but that probably involved dynamite. And the railroad seems to just hang on the sides of the mountains. Secondly, once over the pass, that wilderness is very pretty, but dense with pines, firs and cedars, and has no edible obvious food unless you were lucky enough to find and kill a deer or possibly catch a trout if you were lucky enough to come across a river. Maybe eat the nuts from a pine cone? No wonder they starved. And of course it was a snowy winter for that crossing.
The Native Americans who lived in the Sierra foothills half starved, but made a porridge of acorns. I tried following a “recipe” which required leaching out the tannins. I can tell that what was left was not very satisfying.
Shirley, I am almost through and don’t want to put it down, yet don’t want it to end. Are you feeling the same?
Terry wrote: "Sue, yes, I like this book much better than The Big Sky. I have been searching place images on the internet as I have been reading, so as to get a fuller picture of the geography.
When I was a ..."
That's how I felt while reading Angle of Repose earlier this year. It's amazing that anyone ever tried to make a road in mountains, but I'm sure glad they did.
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I am getting excited reading through everyone's comments and ready to start. I'm trying to finish my last 100 pages of Angle of Repose.I don't think I have any ancestors who went west that I know of. We are primary in the Appalachian regions of Kentucky. What a wonderful personal connection you have to this novel, Terry.
I'll be catching up soon and look forward to coming back!
Lori, if your ancestors were in Kentucky, you might find that they got there with hazardous journeys of their own, for example, down the Great Wagon Road and then out the Cumberland. It might depend on when they got to Kentucky and where and when they entered the US.I just finished The Way West. I am saving my comments until more have caught up with me. But I gave it five stars.
Terry, yes, I have Scottish heritage for sure. I don't know dates off the top of my head. My mom has been huge in keeping our genealogy together.
I am SO enjoying the discussion on genealogy and how so many of you are doing in-depth family research. Terry: How wonderful that you were able to locate your biological father. I can't even begin to imagine how exciting that must have been for you. Because of several adoptions in my own family, I know how strong the need to know "who I am" is in these situations, so I'm thankful that open adoptions, the Internet, and DNA testing have helped people reconnect.For the past 25 years, I have been preserving photos/stories of our family, but only as far back as my grandparents who were born at the turn of the 20th century. The grandkids love to go through my albums and find stories about themselves. It really gives me pleasure to preserve these memories for them.
Oh, I envy you, Terry, for having lived so close to where the Donner Party met their fate. This story has always intrigued and saddened me. They were so close to their destination, and yet so far away. I can't imagine trying to get over that treacherous terrain in that kind of weather. Our ancestors sure were daring and hardy people, that's for sure. I can't see myself doing that!
My son discovered that my father's family actually came from Scotland, not England. He even visited the Castle Fraser, which was their ancestral home. So cool! That explained our auburn colored hair, which I had never connected with Scotland before.
Terry: Before we went on our Oregon Trail trip, I bought several books to prepare myself. There were two which were incredibly useful:
Traveling the Oregon Trail by Julie Fanselow, andBoth are richly illustrated and present the material in the order the pioneers traveled the trail.
National Historic Trails, Auto Tour Route Interpretive Guide: Nebraska and Northeastern Colorado by U.S. National Park Service
Observations through Chapter 11: This is a spoiler alert for those who have not read this far yet.One thing this book has made me think about for the first time is the diversity of people who were traveling together and how hard it must have been to lead a group of people who had no prior knowledge of one another and had little in common before this very arduous trip. There were so many different personalities to meld into one cohesive unit. Guthrie really captured this dilemma well.
To me, a funny part of the journey was when the men were discussing having to use buffalo chips to cook with. The men thought the women were too delicate to have to cook with this unseemly product, yet when they finally decided there was no way around it, who did they send to collect it? Women and children! So much for the male sensitivity. 😄
Shirley, your comments about Buffalo chips made me laugh!My genealogical research opened up to me the entire history of the United States, and Canada, by the way. Before I started, I was interested in the people stories. But the further back your research takes you, you have to rely on the collective experience embodied in the local history and geography of the place your ancestors were. Since I was researching multiple lines of extended family, male and female lines, with other adoptions I found, who had all been in the States since the 1600|1700s, their journeys took me to amazing places, north, south, east and west.
Finding my bio-dad was amazing in ways that I cannot express in words — for both of us. (This is not to take anything away from my adoptive father whom I loved with my whole heart.) But there was always this mystery looming and an emotional component that was very deep, deeper than I even realized. It was 40+ years of searching, with one really false turn, and some brick walls. It was finally made possible with DNA testing and the generosity of other related DNA donors on both Ancestry and 23 and Me. Amazingly, he is still alive, while both my mother and my adoptive dad have passed away. And, by the way, I have also found half siblings and other cousins, nieces and nephews, in the process. And they found me.
But I digress! I thought the mix of characters was quite realistic and revealing. This “melting pot” wasn’t quite melted back then, if it even is now! And I was worried about some characters from the start sensing some of what was coming later on. Even so, the book had me interested to the final pages, and now I want to continue the series (in time).
Mod
I finished the book today and I'm mulling over what I want to say in my review. I enjoyed this immensely and I might want to back track to The Big Sky, because I loved the character of Dick Summers and I think he might figure very large in the earlier book. Does he, Sue, Terry? The saddest part of this book (for me) was Rock.
Yes, Sara, Dick Summers figures in the Big Sky. I revised upwards my original review of that book.
I've read to chapter 11 and finding it to be very full of interesting ways of life. One thing was the mention of Dick's wife who he won't see "looking at the sun mark on the kitchen floor to tell what time it was." I am in love with Dick though. He is such a matter-of-fact man who knows a lot about living and is not selfish. I love how he has great comebacks when the conversations get heated and he just lays it out like his word is the last word and the right word.
When he tells Mack who thinks Indians are "damn nuisances" that Indians see us a big nuisances and they got their ways like we got ours I was smiling and internally cheering! He's just a sensible man. I hate that he's alone.
Sara - I should be finishing tonight. I've been loving this too and the saddest parts for me were Rock and Todd? Fairman. I appreciate The Big Sky so much more after reading this, but I won't up my review because I was bored through the middle and hated the ending. There is this storyline with an Indian girl (later woman) called Teal Eye that I found unrealistic. I also didn't like the main character, Boone Caudill. It's a very highly rated book on GR so obviously many others feel differently.
I loved the 1st 100-150 pages of The Big Sky, but got bored somewhere in the middle and found myself skimming parts. The parts with Dick Summers and Jim Deakins and the descriptions of the landscape were what I loved. I think I'd have liked the whole book better if I'd have read it after this rather than before. I have a much better appreciation for those who paved the way so that women and children could follow (even if they weren't doing it for that reason!)
I love Dick Summers too Lori. He was my favorite in The Big Sky and remains so here. The whole Evans family unit are my second favorite.
Mod
Becky is another strong character. She isn't really enthusiastic about going to Oregon. She would rather stay in her home. But, she loves Lije and she does what he needs her to. The other women come to depend upon her, much as the men depend upon him. BTW, the idea of washing clothes in that cold stream and hand wringing them made me shiver, and regardless of whether I had wood or buffalo chips for my fire, I cannot imagine having to make dinner that way after walking all day.
Shirley - one of my favorite aspects was the diversity and all the different storylines and thoughts coming from people with different experiences. I loved the contrast in the leadership styles between Summers, Evans and Tadlock.
Summers leads by example. He's an expert and his knowledge garners respect. He's not necessarily a people person but he knows how to work with others to get things done. He's even able to gain the respect of many of the Indians.
Tadlock is an opportunist with little relevant experience who thinks he can just make speeches and demand compliance. He doesn't have a lot of respect for others.
Then there is Evans who likes to build consensus. He is a people person and cares how others feel. He's pretty astute, getting others to promote his suggestions so as to not really seem to be bossing people around. He's uncomfortable with leading but is pretty good at it.
I like Lijie a lot but if you could only have one person from the crowd on your journey, Dick would be the man.
Mod
Sara - That conversation with Brownie was so touching! I agree that you need both the Dick type and the Lije type to be most successful. They made for a good team.
I’m getting all the notifications, but I don’t want to stumble on any surprises (I’m only about 1/3 of the way through), so I’m holding off reading the comments. But I can’t wait to see what y’all thought of the book!
Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)
Books mentioned in this topic
A Confederacy of Dunces (other topics)These Thousand Hills (other topics)
The Town (31) (other topics)
The Trees (29) (other topics)
The Fields (30) (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Conrad Richter (other topics)Ken Kesey (other topics)
Julie Fanselow (other topics)
U.S. National Park Service (other topics)
A.B. Guthrie Jr. (other topics)
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