Crazy Horse

Rating:
Summary: A Good Beginning Book About Crazy Horse, the Man
Review: Crazy Horse has been puzzled over by genertions of historians. Larry McMurtry gives a sensitive portrait of the great Sioux warrior who became a reluctant leader at the battle of the Little Big Horn. It is a short biography with a wonderful story teller's touch! It's worth the read.
Evelyn Horan - teacher/counselor/author
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl Books One - Three

Rating:
Summary: A little balance perhaps
Review: I am a fan of the Pengin Lives books. I'll say that up front. But Mr. McMurtry's book on Crazy Horse falls short of the standard the series sets with other works like the book on Rosa Parks. The author has clearly done a great deal of reading and researching to prepare for his task, however, through that he seems to have become bitter about the amount of speculation there has been to fill in the unknown holes of Crazy Horse's story. So he sets out to write a book with just the facts. Nothin' but the facts. And he clings to his effort by breezing past events of the day that were influencing Crazy Horse's life both directly and indirectly. He drops names and dates and places as if we had all done the research with him. In the end the writing and tone of McMurtry's work culminates in a dud of a biography that is lacking in richness. I won't go so far as to say that there is nothing to be learned from reading this book (as some other reviewers have said); I learned a thing or two. I am just left with the feeling that Mr. McMurtry has squandered a great opportunity by pinning himself to flimsy rules out of seeming contempt for other authors on the subject. For shame.

Rating:
Summary: A novelist's literary take on history.
Review: The Sioux Christ

Crazy Horse was perhaps the most enigmatic - and celebrated - Indian leader. He was neither a chief nor a frequent combatant in the wars that emptied the West for white settlement. He was a loner and even a bit of an oddball. In the end, his own people despised him - and took part in his murder. Yet among Indians today, Crazy Horse is considered the greatest of warriors, a man who defiantly resisted white intrusion, who was so charitable he earned the nickname "Sioux Christ." Larry McMurtry embraces the unenviable task of distilling this man in "Crazy Horse," part of the Penguin Lives series. It's a rather interesting project, in which famed authors study the great figures of our past. (Jane Smiley, for example, will soon publish a biography of Charles Dickens.) McMurtry ("Lonesome Dove," "Terms of Endearment") isn't a historian. That's what makes this book compelling. Instead of the trudging prose of academia, we're treated to a more literary take on Crazy Horse - part storytelling, part analysis. This wasn't an easy job. Crazy Horse spent much of his life shunning whites. He also shunned most of his tribe, preferring to be alone. Hence, there's little documentation on his life. And most of what's been written since is wracked by speculation. Where McMurtry excels in dissecting the many myths. Unlike many Indian biographers, he doesn't fall for the idyllic "noble savage" viewpoint. He condenses Crazy Horse down to a good man, perhaps a great man, confused by an era of rapid change. McMurtry doesn't have a historian's zeal. He spends much of the book dissecting the work of others instead of producing his own. At 140 pages, this is something of a Cliff Notes biography - not commensurate with the $19.95 retail price.

Rating:
Summary: An exciting book on the life of Crazy Horse
Review: This is a very interesting biography of Crazy Horse, a Native American who had great love for his people and defending their honor during the American-Indian War. He was also loved by his people the Sioux for fighting the Americanss with great courage. He was involved in the Battle of Little Bighorn where Custer and his army was slaughtered by thousands of Native Americans. Wherever the major fights would be, Crazy Horse would be there. The author, Larry McMurtry, explained the life of Crazy Horse in great detail. He would use words like Picassoesque to desribe the scenery out West. He used facts in his book and some hearsay, but reckognized it for being hearsay and not facts. It was very hard for him to put the book together because Crazy Horse was a very solitary man and the few that knew him well died in battle. But there was a few that survived and died of natural causes in the thirties. It was hard for their documented words to be translated. He described Crazy Horse's life from many points of view, though. Crazy Horse, toward the end of the wars was killed by his own people which is quite ironic because so many whites were out for his blood. The indians that killed him were jealous of him because he was looked up to by some whites for his courage in war.

Rating:
Summary: Very nice quick overview of the whole thing
Review: This is my first run at Crazy Horse, so I have nothing to compare it to. While McMurchy does an excellent job of giving only the facts, this book was more about the Sioux then of Crazy Horse.

This book is a great overview, but that's it. I would recommend this book as a primer, then maybe some other historical account of his life

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.