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Title: Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas (50th Anniversary Edition) by Mari Sandoz ISBN: 0-8032-9211-2 Publisher: University of Nebraska Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.78 (23 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: One of the best biographies ever written
Comment: For two years in college, I studied with Stephen B. Oates, who wrote the Foreword to this edition. An award-winning biographer of Lincoln, King, Nat Turner, John Brown, and others, Oates often told his classes that in his opinion, Mari Sandoz's Crazy Horse was the best biography ever written. His chief reason was Ms. Sandoz's ability to make the reader feel as though he or she is in the actual time and place where Crazy Horse lived, and the quality and style of her language, which has the feel of an oral history told by an Oglala elder at a ritual ceremony. I first read the book in Oates' class in 1985 then recently bought the newer edition with his contribution and read it again. Oates is a very wise man (and an extraordinary writer himself!).
Rating: 4
Summary: Strange Book about a Strange Man
Comment: This book is interesting because of the way it's told. It reads much like a novel would read. It's related from an Indian omniscient point of view. In other words you feel as if a Native American were sitting down recounting the tale. During the story we see Crazy Horse grow from a young boy called Curly hanging around his warrior friend Hump to a mighty warrior brave in battle. Sadly as most people know his people endured many hardships and many broken promises made by soldiers representing the Great Father. Reading this you can't help but be somewhat moved and have compassion for the eventual demise of the Oglalas that was well underway during Crazy Horse's life. Towards the latter part of the book emotions run deep as you see how jealousy, anger, and greed ripped apart what could have been good relations among the different Native American peoples. Of course, Crazy Horse the man we come to know in this book undergoes many of the hardships of the people himself. Almost as if he is the embodiment of the transition from the Indians to the white man's world at any cost.
I did have a couple of problems with this book though. Namely, I found the writer's sentences to be ambiguous a lot of the time. There are no complicated words here as she is trying to write in the plain-spoken Indian style but many times I felt she was unclear so you would find yourself reading passages several times over to try and get sure her meaning. After a while this can become tedious. I also felt the prose could have been more lucid. Just because you're telling a story in a plain-spoken style doesn't mean you have to forsake any intellctual-sounding prose altogether. For these reasons it can be a taxing read which made what could have been a great book into just a good book. I still do recommend this work for a good perspective on the Native American view of history (even though some of the historical events in the book are no doubt dubious) if you are prepared to put in some effort and time reading it.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Beautiful and Compelling Biography
Comment: This is a highly unique biography and is a well-deserved classic in the world of literature. Sandoz did not write the standard Native American story from the point of view of the outsider (that is, the white conquerors), but created a book that feels as if it was written by the Indians from their own world view. Sandoz had the great advantage, in the 1930s, of interviewing still-living oldtimers who really knew Crazy Horse, and her combination of first-hand Indian accounts and meticulously well-crafted prose makes for an extremely compelling story of the last years of Indian freedom. In fact, this is not so much a biography of Crazy Horse, but a much larger story of the Lakota (Sioux) people in which he is the central character. The book does not include much historical detail, as that would be the white man's method of writing, so for such information on late Sioux history you would have to look elsewhere (such as *Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee* by Dee Brown).
However, we do get a book full of beautiful and poetic prose such as "there was a star with a long white tail to speak of good things," and consistent use of Indian terminology such as "burning cup" for whiskey or "soldier chief" for army officers. This style of writing does make the reading of this book stiff and long-winded in places, but Sandoz must be commended for her very unique and moving methods. In the end, Crazy Horse himself comes across as a troubled loner among his people, a bit manic-depressive but a strong leader and warrior, and he remains as dark and mysterious to us as he was to his friends and enemies. And as usual for Native American histories from this period, the end of the story gives us the depressing loss of the people's freedom and the noble but hopeless efforts of a great leader to save his people. Concerning the special 50th anniversary edition of the book, you can ignore the rather sycophantic introduction by Stephen B. Oates, but the stunning cover painting by Ed Lindlof is almost worth the price of admission alone. [~doomsdayer520~]
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Title: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Alexander Brown, Dee Brown ISBN: 0805066691 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company Pub. Date: 01 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull by Robert Utley, Robert M. Utley ISBN: 0345389387 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1994 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux by Black Elk, John Gneisenau Neihardt ISBN: 0803261705 Publisher: University of Nebraska Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Cheyenne Autumn by Mari Sandoz ISBN: 0803292120 Publisher: University of Nebraska Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Trail of Tears by GLORIA JAHODA ISBN: 0517146770 Publisher: Wings Pub. Date: 06 August, 1995 List Price(USD): $9.99 |
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