The Big Sky

The big sky a look into the life of the old west and the mountain man

It is a hard book to review. This is as much a story of the passing of the mountain man and the taming of the west as anything else, and as such, the author did the subject justice. The main character, Boone Coddle, starts in a violent confrontation with his drunken father and laying him out with a piece of stove wood, and stealing his prize rifle, and heading to the west to be a mountain man. He seems to be about ten years too late. The beaver are thinning out, and the age of the buffalo hunter (course fur) hasn't come yet. Boone's life is a hard one, he lives the life of a mountain man, free, but hard. Ironically, the decline of his own life parallels the decline of the wild west.

There was a word used repeatedly that normally is thought to be a racial slur, but wasn't used that way. So, it was confusing.

The end was sorrowful,uneventful, sad, but I guess the author wanted to leave you feeling a loss for the wild men and wild places.

I tried to read this novel at least once when a boy, and failed, largely because it wasn't the action/adventure novel I was looking for as a teenager. Instead, it's more of an episodic tale of the life of a boy who runs away from home after getting in a fight with his father, and winds up in the wilderness West in the 1830s. That's interesting, but where the author takes the story from there gets more and more depressing and just annoying. The prose is well-done and the characters are more or less interesting, but by the time I got to the end of the novel, the conclusion was upsetting and anti-climactic at the same time. Frankly I don't know if I would read another book by the same author. The only reason it's getting more than one star is that getting to the ending is very entertaining, the prose is well-written and the descriptions are fascinating.

Take the plunge and read the whole series. I found this book by accident and was drawn in by its lonely main character, Boone, from the start. The language is a little odd to get used to at first, as Guthrie's characters talk in the syle of men of their ilk and era. It transports the reader to a time when Indians and trappers lived freely. I think if you stay with it you will be richly rewarded. To me, Guthrie's characters are like characters in many McMurtry books I have loved; I remember them as if they were real people I have known. Also I found Guthrie's plots to be surprising and moving. After finishing this book I continued with four more, reading them in order. Guthrie chronicles the West, returning to Montana after The Way West, a wagontrain journey to Oregon, from the early unsettled times of The Big Sky to post World War II. Some characters, or their decendents, thread their way through each novel. This was an extremely rich reading experience that left me with a deeper understanding of the "progress" we have made.

This is historical fiction as it should be. All the main characters are fictional, and actual people (like Jim Bridger and Jedediah Smith) are either only mentioned in passing or play a small enough role so as to not conflict with actual history. In fact, the whole story is fictitious, and only the setting and some of the main events are real. But that is what gives this story its power--the ability to see, through the eyes of the characters, the American west as it would have looked through the eyes of a mountain man.
The novel centers on Boone Caudill, a young Kentuckian who sets out for the west and becomes a true mountain man. The story follows Boone through thirteen years of Indian fights, beaver trapping, and winters of near-starvation. Boone, along with his companions, lives a life that is representative of the one many true mountain men actually led, and there is very little attempt made by Guthrie to romanticize it. The life was a hard one, a cruel one, and Guthrie does not make it seem more glamorous than it actually would have been. Despite this, however, we can still feel Boone's pull toward the West, and we are able to feel longing for the solitude of the mountains through his eyes.
This novel is, for the most part, pretty historically accurate. The Rendezvous of 1837, the smallpox epidemic among the Blackfeet that same year, the greenhorns swarming to Oregon--all these are things that are very real. These events are woven nicely within the narrative, giving the reader a true feel of the disappearing west such as could scarcely be gleaned from a history text.
Granted, this book should be taken with a grain of salt. It is not a romanticized view of the west, but then it is not a historical text either. It would be wrong to see it as anything more than one man's interpretation of how it was to be a mountain man. Still, for all that, it is a wonderful and compelling story, very well-told. And don't be surprised if you learn a little bit of history while reading it.

As I have been known to do in the past, this is my early review after reading about 50 pages --
Have you ever seen a painting that was so real to life that you thought for sure it was a photograph? That's how I feel about this book. It just can't be a novel based on one man's imagination. It just "feels" real, too real. It's so good that after two days of reading I ordered the two books that follow this one: The Way West and Fair Land, Fair Land (this last one was written out of sequence but is the book that rightly follows The Way West). Just check out the other great reviews here for The Big Sky, they don't lie. In the last several months I have read some really great novels on the West, including Brules by Harry Combs and The Last Hunt by Milton Lott. And now this. My final thoughts when I finish...

May 23 -- Upon completion this morning, I have to say that this book is a masterpiece of the genre, and I'm looking forward to reading the next two in the series (mentioned above). I could write more about the story itself, but why ruin it for others. Read and experience it for yourself. A big thanks to Guthrie for his creativity and story telling skills.

Update January 4, 2014:
In my original review above I wrote that this book seemed so real to life that it just couldn't be one man's imagination. To be clear, I don't believe that some sky-daddy had a hand in the book, but that Guthrie was somehow tuned into the universe. Heck, I'm not even sure that that is accurate. In any event, I just came across this statement about Guthrie and his writing of The Big Sky. As you will see, it fits in perfectly with what I said above:

Though to [Guthrie's] knowledge he had never seen or heard the name Deakins, for instance, he gave that name to a main character in The Big Sky. Two years later, exploring Independence Rock in Wyoming, Guthrie found in the register of names inscribed there--carved years before--the single surname Deakins. The recurrence of these events made him feel at last "almost superstitious."

Pretty cool!

For the past few years, i've been riveted by all sorts of books on the old West. I just love a good tale that has cowboys and indians, and western frontier, and mountain men. Man - what am i doing living in New Jersey? Anyway - I got hooked on the Western genre ever since finishing the best novel ever written - Lonesome Dove -and have never looked back. Unfortunately, nothing i've read since Lonesome Dove has been quite as engaging, for obvious reasons. But after finishing the Lonesome Dove prequels, and a passel of Louis L'Amour books, as well as some non-fiction tales of the West, i finally got a hold of The Big Sky, by Guthrie. The description is second to none - the author really paints a picture. It's like you're really there. The book is a far cry from Lonesome Dove, and totally different, but it has it's positives. The characters are gritty, but don't show much emotion, nor is there much dialogue. But the realistic portrayal of those times in our history is riveting and powerful. It does not hold back, and stays true to the times. This is a must-read for all lovers of the splendor of the West.

Fleeing an unhappy home life, young Boone Caudill heads west and meets up with Jim Deakins, an easy-going wanderer. In the company of seasoned trapper Dick Summers, they become mountain men, living a hard, cruel life that suits them because of their need for freedom and appreciation of nature's beauty. A.B. Guthrie, Jr. evokes the landscapes of the Old West so well that I could see them clearly as I read; he is equally skilled at evoking a sense of loss as we see this world disappearing before the pressure of the Westward Expansion.

But lest this description make the novel seem too romanticized, let me add that this is primarily the story of Boone's slide into savagery, a state in which he is unfit for human society. He emerges as a truly tragic figure, mourning his sins but prevented by his nature from acting in any other way.

Guthrie's incredible characters, Dick, Boone, and Jim, personify the near-mythical mountain man we later see stereotyped as Jeremiah Johnson, Grizzly Adams, and countless others. Guthrie defines these simple and compelling wanderers of the verdant yet unforgiving West at a time when wild animals and Indians still ruled.
The Big Sky is an American history lesson. It is a preservation in beautiful prose of a rich landscape now largely gone. It is the dictation of the dream shared by many a young male (and plenty in mid-life-crisis) to roam free, shed all societal complications, live off the land, and to face all fears. It is one of my favorite books, matched only by The Frontiersman by Alan Eckert.
The writing contains a great balance of scene, plot, characterization, and action. It's readable by all from age twelve on up. You just can't go wrong with this one. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.

The Big Sky is the first in a series of great Western novels by A.B. Guthrie. The story begins in 1830 as young Boone Caudill escapes his Kentucky home for the plains and mountains of the west. He meets up with Jim Deakins, a pleasant country philosopher, early on his journey and finally the experienced mountain man Dick Summers on the keelboat trip up the Missouri.

I enjoyed Deakins' theological disquisitions. "You can't beat God for bein' picky. No, sir. If he catches you playin' cards or sayin' one swear word...it's to hell with you forever and ever...Even thinkin' is mighty dangerous. As a man thinketh, that's how he is, and to hell with him ag'in. Why you reckon he gave us a thinker then?...God is some busybody."

Guthrie takes us up the Missouri, a slow fight all the way, across the plains, into the mountains and back. He creates for the reader the palpable sense of the openness and wildness of the West. Yet the book steps back from fully romanticizing the end of the mountain man era. The story is often disturbing, not the least in Boone Caudill's quick and often brutal ways.

Highest recommendation for anyone interested in the American West.

Not many books can claim to have named a state. Everything in Montana is colored with the the work of A B Guthrie Jr. The Big Sky rules. My father's birthplace was only a few miles from Mr. Guthrie's Montana home so I am biased, but go ahead and read James Joyce's Ulysses and read The Big Sky. We now have a new number one novel.

Hi folks, my name's James Drury. I played The Virginian for nine years, as some of you may remember, and I had occasion to read many Western and to enjoy many of them come to life on the screen. None of them were much better than this book by A.B. Guthrie. This man writes with a power that is seldom seen anymore, a power and a flowing poetry that would be hard to beat. If you haven't read this book, please do yourself the favor. I promise you will not regret it. This one is not to be missed. A.B. Guthrie, with this book, has produced a story as ruggedly poetic as the best of Elmer Kelton, Kirby Jonas or Elmore Leonard--even Jack Schaefer.

The Big Sky is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. In my opinion it is better-written than its sequel, The Way West, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Both books are really great! The characters in the Big Sky are well-developed. The descriptions of both the people and the country in which they live are very well done. Guthrie has a real knack for pulling the reader into the story. This book was extremely hard to put down. Boone Caudill, Dick Summers, and Jim Deakins are the stuff of which legends are made. I am so glad there are 6 Big Sky novels. I am currently reading the 3rd one, Fair Land, Fair Land, and so far it is every bit as good as the first two. If you enjoy reading about the early West you will definitely go for The Big Sky and its sequels. Enjoy!!

What a good book--A.B. Guthrie paints a vivid picture of what it was like to be an independent mountain man through his use of descriptive passages and colorful, authentic language. It is easy reading, suitable for all ages. There is also a good cast of characters--readers learn about various Indian tribes, mindsets of that era and the different personalities that result.

The Big Sky, by A.B Guthrie,tells the too-real-to-be-fiction story of Boone Caudill, Jim Deakins, and Dick Summers. The great description of the area, Northwestern Montana, is 100% accuate, from the indian tribes found in the region, to the local dialects of the men. Guthrie wrote this story as if he were actually in the place of the men, and if everything actually took place in the story. Boone is the stereotypical "mountain man" of the story, the rough, rugged, hard nosed hero. His best friend, Jim Deakins, is the anti-Boone character. Jim can also be considered a mountain man, but his personality is completly different then Boone's. Throughout the book, the characters come to life, where the reader becomes concerned and scared for Boone, Jim, and Dick through their trials. The tone almost throughout the entire story is Paranoia. Thsi is true, because Boone and Jim start to realize their paradise in Montana is becoming new stomping ground for people coming west to settle. Boone then becomes paranoid of people around him, where he finally isolates himself in the woods, with no human contact beside a few blackfeet indians. Boone also becomes weary of staying inside a house, or any space where he is not outside in the free land. He becomes depresed if he is taken out of his habitat for a great period of time, perhaps because he is paranoid that he won't be able to stay in nature any longer if he is stuck outside it. This becomes clear when his father dies, and he travels back to Kentucky. He describes his feelings of Kentucky as follows "He had felt at home outdoors. It was as if the land and sky and wind were friendly, and no need for a pack of people about to make him easy. The wind had a voice to it, and the land lay ready for him, and the sky gave room for his eye and mind. But now he felt different, cramped by the forest that rose thick as grass over him, shutting out the sun and letting him see only a piece of sky now and then, and it faded and closed down like a roof. THe wind was dead here, not even the leaves of the grat poplars, rising high over all the rest, so much as trembled. It was a still, closed-in, broody world, and a man in it went empty and lost inside, as if all that he had counted on was taken away, and he without a friend or an aim or a proper place anywhere."(page 357) Overall, this book is a great book if you love reading a passionate story about a man and his one true love, nature. Boone represents the man with the call of the wild in his soul, and his struggle to keep what he has while he can. Living in Montana, this book is also an interesting story that depicts the lives of people living where I now call home in the 1830's.

Story about the American frontier and the strong and compelling characters that bring the era to life on the page. A.B. Guthrie Jr. is a master storyteller using simple yet effective narrative and superb dialogue. Young Boone Caudill's journey through the high plains country, mountains, and Indian territory to escape an abusive father is one of the oldest American myths - the civilized man changed by the American wilderness, and in this case never told better. As he goes deeper into the wild country and away from civilization making him stronger and more self-reliant with each challenge, Boone Caudill's fatal weakness emerges.
Dennis McKay
Author of Fallow's Field and Once Upon Wisconsin

As an adolescent--a very long time ago!--I was fascinated by _Men to Match My Mountains_. I thought my interest in mountain-men was extinguished long ago, and even as I read and admired _The Big Sky_, I maintained a large psychological distance. However, it has continued to percolate in my memory and I now see how well it applies to later rapers of the West who see themselves as its lovers. The book is a formidable achievment with resonances beyond the vivid, tragic characters.

I really enjoyed this work. Didnt know this guy won a Pulitzer but it figures. I was swept away by the imagery created by this master. It was evocative of Cooper (although he surpasses Cooper), and McMurtry and the guy who wrote "all the pretty horses". The "master" can always create the world to drown the reader in - this guy is great - I plan to read the whole series...

I was reading Undaunted Courage while on a flight from LA to Seattle when the guy in the seat next to me struck up a conversation. Turns out he was from Montana and he highly recommended The Big Sky. Several months later I picked it up and was blown away. What a great adventure story and what wonderful characters. I am about to begin the sequel "The Way West" . Much obliged ,stranger for the advice.

I waited many years to read The Big Sky. In the end I settled for listening to it on audio. The reader, Kevin Foley was very good, better than the story, actually. But early on I decided it was not what I had expected in all those years of waiting. Anything overdone is, frankly, overdone, and tiring. So it was with the blasphemous language, which ushers out of every character except poor Mr. Peabody. Guthrie has a grasp of the country, and when he sticks to the landscape, free of his perpetual profanity and racial slurs, it did manage to give a feel of beauty.
However, I at least like to find some redeeming qualities in my main characters. In The Big Sky, Boone Caudill is nothing more than a bore...a sullen bore. And a fool, as it turns out. I'll stick with Alan LeMay and The Searchers, or, for giving life to the beauty of lost places, Zane Grey cannot be matched. I'll pass on Guthrie, honored or not.

I am so lucky picking out books sometimes. This
is / was a great surprise. Fantastic, wonderful, well-
written, very very vivid descriptions. Annnddd the author
left the ending open for a continuance of the story-line.
Too bad I could only give it 5 stars.

For anyone who has read and enjoyed a fair cross-section of the mountain man adventure novel genre, reading "The Big Sky" will let you know where many of the major plot elements that drive these works originated. (Well, maybe not originated, but Guthrie used them earlier than many.) For one, fans of Terry Johnston's Titus Bass will see an uncanny resemblance between Bass and Guthrie's Boone Caudill. Guthrie writes in a slightly more literary style than his latter-day imitators, and he displays a particular talent with dialogue and imagery. Perhaps the only reason I wasn't overly impressed was that I'd read it all before--in novels written 30-40 years after Guthrie penned "The Big Sky."

Some of the terms in the book are not PC now, and a little hokey when he tries to write about "romance".
But I still remember how "un-Hollywood" Gutherie's writing was when I first read it in the 50,s. The film sort of sucks, Kirk Douglas was too old for the roll, but Arthur Lee Hunnicut the actor who tells the story just sounds like the salt of the earth, although I think he was trained on the east coast Then there is the black and white, the film crew goes on location in a great place and shoots in back & white.
If you go to upper Montana, along the Missouri, (where the tourists don't go), you'll find a little town with the original boat on display in the park. Read the book, then see the movie if you must.

If you like this kind of book you may be interested in "The Revenant" by Michael Punke, "based" on a true story.

In 1830 a 17-year-old guy from Kentucky gets into a fight at the General Store. He comes home and his drunken dad tells him the law is after the boy. The dad takes a swing at the boy so he hits the dad, takes the dad's gun, his mom gives him a chicken she is cooking and the guy heads West looking to make a life for himself based upon what he has heard his Uncle talk about.

He and a friend work on a boat that goes up river.

He eventually gets a squaw and is asked to be a guide for upcoming development. That goes badly.

Swearing.

Really Good Classic that captures the mood and times of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Era, including some tidbits about the "Rivermen" and their way of life.
Reading this book will inspire you to read more of "Guthries" works, he writes in
an appealing and easy going style that makes the pages fly by, you will not be disappointed if you like this "era" of history.

This is the single best novel of the Mountain Man era and the opening of the Far West. Guthrie elevates the action beyond cowboys and Indians and creates a timeless novel of jealousy and passion. (Probably inspired by Othello).

Guthrie's story of the 1830s-1840s American northwest frontier, while drawing the reader in with excellent descriptions and characterizations may disappoint some readers.

The main character, while no doubt a faithful representation of a man driven by a need to be free developing into a rugged mountain man, becomes an unlikeable and unsympathetic character as the story progresses. In fact, he finally becomes downright despicable by the novel's end. Of course, that may have been part of Guthrie's goal; to describe a man surviving in the wild places turning into a selfish human being with the ethics of an animal.

The story is completely told from the point of view of men from that era, so the contemporary female reader may be offended by the lack of substantive, strong willed or independendent-minded female characters. In fact, one gets the impression that, to the men in this novel, the sole purpose of a woman is to provide sexual gratification.

In spite of these subjectively perceived "flaws," the story is well told and worth reading. It is refreshing in the sense that finding contemporary, quality authors who can write historical fiction as well as Guthrie is difficult.

I rate a book by whether I would read it more than once. That is why I gave this one only a 3. I have always heard tell of this book ever since when I lived in Choteau, Montana in the 50's as a child, my parents would run into Guthrie at the local bar. He gave them an autographed copy of this book which my mother kept until her death. So I decided it was time I read it. I am a western history fan and read lots of Elmer Kelton, T.T. Flynn and others. This book is huge in its panorama of the country, and could be called an epic. The main character, Boone Caudill, is a tragically flawed character who never seems to get hold of what he really wants out of his life. He leaves home at age 17 after cold-cocking a brutal father with a piece of fire wood and fortunately meets the kind and friendly Jim Deakins almost immediately. The story flows from there as these two make their way west along with the third character, Dick Summers, a mountain man/hunter. For thirteen years they live and fight and suffer along with the Indians they live amongst. I found the most important parts of the book for me to be the description of the land and the ways of the Indian tribes. I have lived in the west in Montana, Wyoming and Utah for 50 years and the descriptions are so true to nature and to the Indians that still live there. What you see in the big plains, the valleys and the high mountains are well-described. I did not much enjoy seeing Boone Caudill deteriorate into a sociopath. Men that make decisions in their lives that isolate them from others pay a huge price and Boone did. He seems very self-centered and immature in his relationships with everyone. He does not fit in anywhere. He may be the kind of man that broke ground in new territory but he did not contribute to the development of this great nation in a lasting way. I felt pity for him and did not feel compelled to hope he had a good ending to his life. I did not like the representation of women as either housekeepers or tent warmers. I know the theme has been used often, but from what I know of my own ancestors who struggled to live and settle this country, women had a huge contribution to their men's success. Also, I do not think the theme of settlers coming like locust to spoil a pristine paradise is a good one. Settlers turned this wild country into a land of opportunity for the whole world. Some things are no longer around because of the changing nature of the land as it was settled, but that happened everywhere and in all periods of time. Maybe after I read the sequel books I will be more favorably disposed to this one. I am glad I read it, but think there are other books that have a more lasting impression on the reader, such as the Leatherstockings Tales.

Especially for the Western genre, I don't think you'll find a better-written book on this time and place. The description of the land as well as the psyche of each character is so subtle and true-to-life.

This fictional novel truely is worth the Pulitzer Prize that was awarded to the novel. Though it is not a book of historical events, it truley conveys the sense of comradery and respect of personal decisions that are now for the most part lacking in the modern day society. And of course there is a girl.

Sadly this book is rated very high. It seemed like the story line was good, but the author uses a lot of bad language. The name of God is blasphemed on just about on every other page. It totally ruined the book for me.

The Big Sky is without a doubt one of the top 3 greatest novels that I have ever read. This, Quo Vadis, and Victor Hugo's Ninety-Three are my all around favorites.

I really don't have anything more to say beyond that...

If you don't mind reading about a man who scalped in Indian, dried the scalp, and used the skin to make a strap, then you'll like this book. I read it when I was in high school in the 1950s and loved it -- guess I didn't have the good sense of history I now have.