REVIEW: The Revenant by Michael Punke
Publishing Information: Paperback; 272pages
Publisher: Picador; 6 Jan 2002
ISBN: 9781250066626
Standalone
Copy: Out of pocket
Reviewer: Tyson
Amazon
Synopsis: "The year is 1823, and the trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company live a brutal frontier life. Trapping beaver, they contend daily with the threat of Indian tribes turned warlike over the white men's encroachment on their land, and other prairie foes—like the unforgiving landscape and its creatures. Hugh Glass is among the Company's finest men, an experienced frontiersman and an expert tracker. But when a scouting mission puts him face-to-face with a grizzly bear, he is viciously mauled and not expected to survive.
The Company's captain dispatches two of his men to stay behind and tend to Glass before he dies, and to give him the respect of a proper burial. When the two men abandon him instead, taking his only means of protecting himself—including his precious gun and hatchet— with them, Glass is driven to survive by one desire: revenge.
With shocking grit and determination, Glass sets out crawling inch by inch across more than three thousand miles of uncharted American frontier, negotiating predators both human and not, the threat of starvation, and the agony of his horrific wounds. In Michael Punke's hauntingly spare and gripping prose, The Revenant is a remarkable tale of obsession, the human will stretched to its limits, and the lengths that one man will go to for retribution."
I am one of those people that likes to read the book before I go and see a movie. I know that the movie will not be as good as the book but I also realize that they need to make the story work for 120 minutes and so some plots and storylines won't make it into the movie. With that said, I picked up The Revenant, the latest movie featuring Leonardo DiCaprio as I enjoy his movies and performances. The fact that it is based on a true story makes it even more appealing as I am a history professor and it takes place in the untamed west.
While the movie deviates from the script, the overall story is the same. A man hell bent on revenge. Hugh Glass is scouting ahead for his fur company when he finds himself between a mama bear and her cubs. The bear attacks and leaves Glass on the edge of death. The Fur company can't afford to waste time waiting for Glass to either recover or die and leaves two men to take care of him until he expires or becomes healthy enough to meet back up with the company. It doesn't look good for Glass and when hostile indians enter the picture, the two men decide to beat feet and strip Glass of his survival tools and weapons. What the two men don't know is that Glass is recovering albeit slowly. The fact that the two men left him for dead and without any means to survive places them squarely in the sights of Glass as he recovers and finds himself with one objective in mind, revenge.
What happens next is the stuff of legend as Glass crawls many miles towards a "local" fort (50+ miles) over dangerous terrain and hostile frontier in order to seek retribution. Punke does an amazing job of getting inside of Glass's head as life continues to throw everything at him. He also switches to the two men's prospectives as they wrestle with their decision to leave Glass for dead. My one complaint is that Jim Bridger is said to be one of the men who left Glass to die and anyone who knows about the American frontier knows the name of Jim Bridger knows that he is a man of legend himself and I often found myself thinking as I read the story if Bridger would have done this. However, it does tie Glass's life with some of the most famous men of the time as there are quite a few individuals named in the story. I know a few people will have trouble with the ending but I felt that it is the way it most likely went down and historically accurate.
While the movie was quite powerful, the book (as always) gives you so much more rich detail. There are a lot of books that deal with revenge but The Revenant is well done and tells the true story or one of the most famous frontiersmen of them all. A rare book that deserves praise. Recommended.
Overall 7.5/10
Comments
Post a Comment