Why this Book:  My son suggested that everyone in the family read this book before our family reunion, and discuss it when we get together.

Summary in 3 Sentences:  Based on the real story of mountain man Hugh Glass being mauled by a bear, then robbed and abandoned by two men who were charged with taking care of him. He recovers and the book describes his survival and subsequent effort to exact revenge.  Beyond the mauling and a bit of the survival, it is actually a much different story than the movie – and much better.

My Impressions:  I enjoyed this book much more than I expected to.  I thought the movie was rather overdone, one unlikely dramatic scene after another, and typically of Hollywood, it had to have the climactic, tension-resolving ending, that was of course, not real life.  The book was much more interesting.

The most interesting character was Captain Hardy, who struggled with the moral dilemma of his obligation to Glass which he rightly saw as in conflict with his obligation to the  other men on his expedition, to his employer, and to his mission.  We visit Captain Hardy several times throughout the book and partly empathize with his sense of being a magnet for misfortune.  We also got to know Hugh Glass and his journey that led him to being on that expedition and up to that fateful encounter with the bear.  And of course, we struggle with him as he barely survives after being abandoned, and his epic journey to find the men who had abandoned him.  At one point, I was reminded of the book (and movie) The Martian, also about a man abandoned in what seemed like a hopeless situation.  In both books, it seemed that as soon as things started looking up, our protagonist would suffer another setback that would seem the final blow, only to bounce back with grit and ingenuity, to live to fight another day.

The book give us a fascinating look at early 19th century America, juxtaposing the well organized and civilized society on the East Coast, with the primal world west of St Louis with the pirate infested waters and the hazards of shipping in the Caribbean.  We learn of the world of the fur speculators and the mountain men who they were and how they lived. The mountain men were the fur companies’ agents, living weeks away from civilization, trapping mostly beaver, while trading trinkets, iron goods and alcohol with the natives – for more pelts.   We also get see the uneasy alliance between the mountain men, and the Native Americans Indians who develop an anxious relationship with the bearded men, who provided weapons, tools, horses, in exchange for what for them were easy to obtain furs, but whose increasing presence and very different values threatened their way of life.  The Indian tried to use the whites to provide goods and as allies against their enemies, but it was a doomed alliance.

With the help of Indians who befriended him, he does reconnect with the expedition which abandoned him, but the resolution of his revenge is not as satisfying as it was in the movie -but more realistic.  The book concludes with a fascinating historical note in which the author shares his struggles in researching the historical basis for the story, the mixing of fact and legend, and he openly shares where he used literary license to put meat on the bones of the story.

Where the story fell short I believed was that we didn’t get to know Glass as well as I would have liked.  Understanding that when he was focused on survival, that was all that was going on with him. After he was returned to the company of his fellows (I won’t say civilization, since it was merely a small outpost on a river) and was no longer struggling to get through each day, Glass became a cardboard figure.  We are treated to descriptions of what happened, but not to his internal life -what he was thinking, feeling, reflecting upon.  I sensed that Glass had more depth than simply a surviving vengeance machine, but I would like to have gotten to know him better. He was an impressive man.