Thirteen Moons |
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Author:
Charles Frazier
By Sceptre
Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780340826621
ISBN: 0340826622
Label: Sceptre
Manufacturer: Sceptre
Number Of Pages: 422
Publication Date: 2006-12-15
Publisher: Sceptre
Studio: Sceptre |
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An American Saga, 2007-12-15
An American saga. Will Cooper looks back on his life and reflects on his reluctance to accept "modern ways". Will, an orphan at 12, becomes "bound" to a store owner and is sent off from his home to run a trading post in a remote community of Indians (with a few rag-tag white folks) He wins a girl at a card game - and he continually longs for her to be his. Chief Bear adopts him as a member of the Cherokee tribe, he takes part in the Civil War and eventually becomes a member of the senate.
Some brilliant evocative scenes, such as his time in the wilderness trying to survive and find his way to the store and the actual running of the store. His description of how the Indian tribes were forced out of their homelands is particularly harrowing.
The language is a bit flowery in parts but the whole story is told with warmth and affection for a lost world.
a little bit of editing would not have gone amiss, 2008-09-07
This lacks the emotional depth of Cold Mountain but it is a story well told of Will Cooper, whose own life story he relates while waiting for the trains to go by his house. Will Cooper's tale is extraordinary and through him we get to understand the ethnic cleansing of the native American Indian. His rise to prominence and fall from grace are well depicted and Charles Frazier paints a vivid picture of the countryside steadily being stripped of its wildlife in the name of progress and of the local people being stripped of their own identity and status. A book which contains much to brood over even when it is finished.
beautifully written, but . . ., 2007-12-06
I couldn't get into this at all. It is beautifully written and certain descriptive passages are sublime, but it didn't seem to have any direction and I lost interest in it about a third of the way through (before that really, but I read on in the hope that things would improve). A great disappointment because I loved Cold Mountain.
Lost in another time, 2008-01-05
I loved it. I felt I was inside Will's head - I liked his rambles, and I longed for Claire to come back to him, but it wasn't to be and I cried at his loneliness. But most of all I loved the vision it gave of the last of the Cherokee and his and Bear's struggle to keep them in their own country. I've just ordered the biography of the real Will Thomas on whom I presume this is based so let's see how much of it is true.
Transformational, 2007-11-27
Must be the only person who hated Cold Mountain and loved Thirteen Moons which is down as my book of this year. It is a transformational story of a lonely outcast boy to a chieftain of Indians, Senator, bankrupt and lover. He has only three friends, and one is a horse; he has to betray friends for the greater good of the many; he has to learn to work with the media; he has to give up his love, or does he. The country is transforming at the same time, losing buffalo and elk, the indians losing their own identity, the government increasingly corrupt and self absorbed. The character and place are so magnificently drawn you could read it for ever. As an old man reflecting on his life, the only thing that remains is desire, desire never dies according to Will. I absolutely loved the close out of the old man taking pot shots at passing trains, the very latest in technology which brings about a revival of fortunes, by formal prearrangement. Excellent read, highly recommended.
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