Seize Your Copy I Should Be Extremely Happy In Your Company: A Novel Of Lewis And Clark Crafted By Brian Hall Released As EText
purports to tell the story of the major participants of the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition oftothat explored the vast lands newly acquired from the French that trailblazed the American West.
From the beginning, which focused on Meriweather Lewis I found the writing graceless, with lots of awkward phrasing with literary pretensions.
So much of the prose is close to unintelligiblewhen it's not crude, Here's a paragraph of the writing early on from the point of view of Sacagawea:
A sandbar, a shoal.
She jumped. She ran through the water, Behind her, water drummed. Water glittered, bright white. This one died.
Definitely not the kind of novel I wanted to spend hundred of pages immersed in, Not happy in its company, I don't read a ton of fiction and tend not to like advante garde styles, This is both and I thought it was a masterpiece, If the subject the Lewis and Clark expedition interests you zoom out and get it if you have a taste for fictional treatments of family dynamics it's a good choice the Native American sections of the book are stylistically interesting but discontinuous with the rest of the book and not, in my opinion, interesting enough to make them functionally necessary to the book.
It gets three and was sent to live with the Lord like so many others before it, Interesting but only if you have the background information on the Lewis and Clark expedition, Stick to Undaunted Courage, which Brian hall also used as a base and I'm sorry to say that his fictional invention adds very little to the understanding of the historical events.
first book in a long time which makes me want to leave the company of people i care deeply about to get home and read Wanted so much to love this book but just couldnt get through it.
This book about the Lewis and Clark expedition put me in a trance, Gorgeous writing, characters more real than many people I actually know, Some things that will stick with me:
, Heartbreaking, flawed, earnest, beautiful Lewis,
. Lewis and Clark's relationship, filled with so much respect and uncertainty
, Sacagawea's dreamlike prose unlike any narrative voice I've read, The way she makes sense of this voyage she is accompanying:
"Gives black weapon Lewis had a dream, and the others are following it.
They are following Sun. They have vowed to take a hard way from where the Sun is born to where it enters, Some of the baskets are filled with heavy things to make the way harder, Others have gifts for strangeeaters, And gives black weapon chooses his dream plants and birds to fill other baskets, . . "
. Clark's "mistakes of genius" in his writing, and Lewis's delight in them: "Reading Clark's journal at night, delighting in his friend's artless neologisms: atmispeer for atmosphere ball hill for bald hill.
Here and there, mistakes of genius, Lewis would love to eat one of Clark's watermelons he writes them watermillions,
. What a huge burden it was on Lewis and Clark: their entire nation counting on them to record every plant, river, tribal vocabulary, and feeling of this "undiscovered country.
" And not only to record it, but to do so with the hearts of poets,
When Lewis comes across a great falls: "And in any case, was that his real thought Or was it Here! Was it Roar! Was it all a tumult, and did thought only begin when he thought, How to describe it Which came all too soon.
His duty to posterity, a literary effort, And with that thought, the falls were cruelly reduced to a scene before him a subject for his pen, "
. I'm so glad Hall decided to continue the story past the expedition, and what really hit me was how it must have been to come back from three years in the wilderness and have to deal with endless bills, paperwork, bureaucracy, demands on one's time, disappointment, denouement.
The hero's welcome didn't last long,
Poor Lewis unravels: "Would his nights have been better if he hadn't drunk A sterile question he had to.
It was a vice, yes a weakness, But hadn't he, all day, exhibited greater strength than anyone could know, by gaining the evening shore without once having overturned a table, or stood naked in the square and spoken in tongues"
Hall makes much use of original documents, letters, and journals, and integrates them seamlessly.
It really is a work of art, The narrative isn't always in proper english! sacajawea's husband is the most irritating to read becuase he is both a tool and difficult to understand.
Der Schreibstil von dem Buch ist toll, aber nicht ganz so einfach zu lesen, Ich habe gefühlt ewig gebraucht, um das Buch zu beenden, Es war durchaus interessant, aber gleichzeitig hat es sich auch gezogen
/Sterne Though the writing was lovely, the subject and narrative form of this book made it a real challenge for me to get into.
I appreciate what Hall was trying to do, and I appreciated the very strange Sacajawea chapters more with other context for what she was referring to, but those were hard parts of character development to wade through.
The story mostly focuses on Mr Lewis, but there are other characters interspersed through out this one, I dont know who I would recommend to read this one, This was not really my cup of tea and challenged me as a reader to plod through it as it was read for a book club.
Beautifully written fictional account of the Lewis amp Clark and company, How the author creates a different voice for each character allows the reader to experience different aspects of the complex journey.
Overall, its a humbling, poignant book and reflexion on life and death and how we destroy each other and ourselves I think this is probably a better book than my rating would lead one to believe.
Like most historical fiction, it paints between the rough outlines of the historical record to create a landscape which is both plausible and one hopes interesting, but this novel goes above and beyond and crosses over from simply intriguing storytelling into a realm that brushes against poetry.
The expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark up the Missouri River and through the northwest to the Pacific Ocean is pretty well documented, but Hall's writing
brought the era to life in several different perspectives we have the cultured, tormented voice of Lewis, the straightforward voice of Clark, even occasionally the weasely brokenEnglish voice of Charbonneau.
Each of these perspectives is distinctive, demonstrating an elasticity that is impressive in its own right, And then there is the voice of Tsakakawia, the teenaged Shoshone girl who, infant son in arms, operates as guide and translator for the party through the later part of their journey.
Her passages are like nothing I have encountered before, and I am not remotely knowledgeable enough about Native cultures or language to know whether Hall's work here approaches accuracy or appropriateness.
It is clear that it was handled with great respect, which I admire,
The writing is lyrical, and the pace of the story especially a story in which so many of the plot points are fairly known was slow for me.
It was not a pageturner there was no urgency hurrying me on to the next destination, Rather, like a slow journey upstream, it took its time, and even when the journey's tale was done, the final eighth of the book concerned itself with following the characters farther, winding their lives down and allowing musing on the nature of legacy, of character, of how various choices at various times shaped the nature of America's frontier and the ripples that appear even in our own day from the interactions between these various peoples in a place far from established 'civilization.
'
I don't think I will ever want to read this book again, Nevertheless, there are scenes and passages that will stick with me, Bearhunting across the Missouri. Every pang of subtext directed from Lewis to Clark, Tsakakawia's death passage, in which she pines over her lost culture and the loss of her son JeanBaptiste, left me chilled.
I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company by Brian Hall
Ive always been interested in the Lewis and Clark expedition so when I spotted this book I was intrigued.
As my ancestors are slightly related to the French trapper interpreter Toussaint Charbonneau, husband of Sacagawea, I was pleased to see the author gave both of these individuals many pages in the story.
While details of this major journey are clearly represented, the story is historical fiction so fact and the authors imagination need separation.
While the Native American life style descriptions were at times graphic, I found the details very interesting,
The jumping among the four primary characters was at times confusing and the writing in general was far from excellent.
My main complaint was the strong voice he gave the characters, based mostly on his opinion, not the known history.
While I finished the book, I dont feel comfortable recommending it to others interested in the true history of this classic expedition.
I believe in the great line that says, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” George Santayana,:.
However, in order to avoid condemnation, the past remembered must be true, Furthermore, in order to apply history in your own way, to your own life, the understanding of history must be based upon your own interpretation of the facts.
At best, this book is sugarcoated history, At worst, this work is filled with untruths and prose meant to fill in the gaps of history such that the reader is relieved of the burden that good works of history require interpretation.
At the end of this book, the reader is left with a story, which is entirely the authors interpretation of events of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Thus, the real tragedy that this book may affect in others is that others may accept this interpretation as their own and without question.
Definitely not for those who read primarily for plot, but this was fantastic for language and character fans, Hall tells the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition from multiple first person perspectives, each written in a completely different style.
Theres all sorts of fun little style details, from the way that Lewis and Clark spell Charbonneaus name Charbono, mostly, but not always to the way that Sacajaweas narratives shift as she learns names and English words.
Thomas Jefferson was kind of a giant tool, but in a way that was almost so over the top it became horrifyingly entertaining.
He plans to “civilize” the Indians through interracial marriage, among other fantastic plans,
But! The last third of the book is about what happens after they come back from the expedition, and Lewis becomes governor of Louisiana Territory and is a terrible bureaucrat, and Clark immediately runs off and gets married to a sixteen year old and Lewis life pretty much spirals out of control, and he spends most of his time drinking and wishing Clark was still there, and he buys a house for Clark, and this is why I love multiple points of view the difference between how Clark interpreted the house and what Lewis was planning was fantastic.
And horrible, and sad, and, well, spoilers for American history, but it doesnt end well for poor Meriwether, Which is why hes my favorite,
Is there Lewis and Clark fanfic Because if there is, I would probably read it now,
DNFl I thought I might like this book based on the title alone what a joy, then, to discover that there's so much more to love: the fourpronged POV, each a different take on Lewis and Clark's mad, beautiful journey up the Missouri the bits and pieces from their actual journals, sandwiched between plausible speculation about what might have happened and, as in the very best historical fiction, a cleareyed revision of the past, here of life on the Plains and in the Northwest in the earlys.
I really, really wanted to like this book, Really. As a former history major, I should welcome such wellwritten firstperson historical fiction about the Lewis and Clark Expedition, But I didn't like this book, I didn't like itpages in and I didn't like it after readingpages, Hall wonderfully creates his characters: Lewis, Clark, Sacajawea and eventuallySacajawea's husband, though I didn't get that far, The language painted vivid pictures in my mind, The plot pacing was good, I just did not like it, I tried, but I didn't, A great historical novel about Lewis and Clark, The book is told through multiple points of view: Lewis, Clark, Charbonneau, Sacajawea and others, He attempts to give each its own voice, but it makes Sacajawea's chapters very difficult to read, and exoticizes her in a way.
It is a character driven book rather than a plot driven one, as many of the climaxes of the story are not focused on, for example the expedition reaching the Pacific Ocean.
A somewhat spoilery warning for those with depression or those who have considered suicide Overall, a great emotional, character driven historical novel, Fascinating look at the expedition through the eyes of its three main characters, Lewis, Clark, and Sacajawea, Historically accurate while filling out the characters through three novelization, It worked. I didn't realize Lewis was beset by mental illness, The glimpses of native culture and life were also interesting, An accessible way to learn about an important but little known episode in American history, .