Rating: 
Summary: Fine Meditation on a Life
Review: This is the third Penguin Lives volume I've read and I find the series is holding up to positive first impressions. The Lives books are short, averaging around 200 pages each, but are saved from being mere outlines by creative matchmaking of subject with author. In CRAZY HORSE, Larry McMurtry, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Lonesome Dove, takes on one of the legendary Indians of the 19th century American west. Like the as yet unfinished monument of him that is being carved out of the Black Hills of the Dakotas, Crazy Horse looms large in oral tradition and is the subject of some weighty tomes, including a biography by controversial historian Stephen Ambrose. Despite the heft of the Crazy Horse canon, McMurtry says that the actual facts of his life are wispy and he chooses to devote his book to sorting the man from the fiction. In doing so, he offers up a lucid picture of the changing state of Indian culture as Manifest Destiny chewed its way across the plains. What facts do come to light reveal Crazy Horse as better suited to his culture's past, a reluctant though dutiful leader who preferred wandering alone in the hills. At one point, McMurtry makes a quiet observation of dust kicked up on a latterday trail ride, an image that becomes a central metaphor expressing the problem of retrieving a truth that has been filtered through so many biases. Some readers may be at a slight disadvantage because McMurtry assumes the reader possesses a certain amount of familiarity with the facts of Little Big Horn and the legends. Some may be disappointed that this book offers less about the man then about politics, both Indian and white, and the process of historical investigation and perspective. I think it is a fine meditation on all subjects. McMurtry is unafraid to express a controversial opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Fine Meditation on a Life
Review: This is the third Penguin Lives volume I've read and I find the series is holding up to positive first impressions. The Lives books are short, averaging around 200 pages each, but are saved from being mere outlines by creative matchmaking of subject with author. In CRAZY HORSE, Larry McMurtry, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Lonesome Dove, takes on one of the legendary Indians of the 19th century American west. Like the as yet unfinished monument of him that is being carved out of the Black Hills of the Dakotas, Crazy Horse looms large in oral tradition and is the subject of some weighty tomes, including a biography by controversial historian Stephen Ambrose. Despite the heft of the Crazy Horse canon, McMurtry says that the actual facts of his life are wispy and he chooses to devote his book to sorting the man from the fiction. In doing so, he offers up a lucid picture of the changing state of Indian culture as Manifest Destiny chewed its way across the plains. What facts do come to light reveal Crazy Horse as better suited to his culture's past, a reluctant though dutiful leader who preferred wandering alone in the hills. At one point, McMurtry makes a quiet observation of dust kicked up on a latterday trail ride, an image that becomes a central metaphor expressing the problem of retrieving a truth that has been filtered through so many biases. Some readers may be at a slight disadvantage because McMurtry assumes the reader possesses a certain amount of familiarity with the facts of Little Big Horn and the legends. Some may be disappointed that this book offers less about the man then about politics, both Indian and white, and the process of historical investigation and perspective. I think it is a fine meditation on all subjects. McMurtry is unafraid to express a controversial opinion.
Rating:
Summary: A case of less is better.
Review: This was the first of the exceptional Penguin Lives series of short form biographies. What differentiates this book from the others in the series is that very little information about its subject exists outside of legend. As such, this is one of the Penguin short biography books that a lengthier story is not likely necessary. Karen Armstrong�s book on Buddha had a similar limitation, but she used the opportunity to lecture on the development and meaning of the Buddhist religion. Several years ago, I read and enjoyed Mari Sandoz�s biography on C.H., but the book left me to wonder how much of the story was truth versus fiction. The novelist, Larry McMurtry, authored this Penguin Lives version and convincingly separated the C.H. facts from fiction. Far from diminishing the character, the author gives a more appealing portrait of the man who will always be an enigmatic historical figure. I, for one, appreciate the author�s honesty and the �grayness� of the character�s story. I think it is more a sign of weakness for a biographer to invent facts to enhance the story. It is certainly disingenuous and non-academic. McMurtry gives more than one example of this form of literary excess especially when mentioning Stephen Ambrose�s biography on C.H. Interestingly, the latter�s excesses seem to now have caught up with him as shown in the plagiarism charges that have followed his more recent works. The quality of this book, though, is in the warmth and dignity that the author gives to his subject. Crazy Horse was a solitary and misunderstood figure to even his own people. His is also a story of how greed and jealousy by his people led to his early death. McMurtry does not try to make the man more than what he was or would have been. The book gives the reader the opportunity to appreciate the simplicity of Crazy Horse. By not engaging in pseudo psychoanalysis, and literary commercialism, the author gives his subject what C.H. seemed to have always wanted when alive, his privacy.
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