Cheyenne Autumn

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Summary: Cheyenne Autumn Review
Review: Cheyenne Autumn is a very educational book. I learned many new things about the Cheyenne and their way of life. It was so very disturbing for me to have to learn the actual hell these people were put through. I would have enjoyed this story much more if the author had not have introduced the characters in the novel before the story actually started. When the time came for a character to be introduced, I had already forgotten who they were. The only other major problem I found was that I was very confused with the transitions of paragraphs. This novel jumped between paragraphs quit frequently. I am the type of reader who prefers to know exactly what is going on and with who. When so many things are going on that I cannot comprehend them all and understand them completely, I get frustrated. This story takes a lot of time to read because you have to always be paying attention to every small detail. In order to read this book all of the way through, you have to want to read it and you have got to be patient. This is not the type of book someone should read because they have to. Read this book because you want to be educated on the Cheyenne and their way of life. If this is your desire in reading this book, then you will enjoy it very much.

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Summary: Jamie's Cheyenne Auntumn Reviem
Review: Cheyenne Autumn is a very educational book. I learned many new things about the Cheyenne and their way of life. It was so very disturbing for me to have to learn the actual hell these people were put through. I would have enjoyed this story much more if the author had not have introduced the characters in the novel before the story actually started. When the time came for a character to be introduced, I had already forgot who they were. The only other major problem I found was that I was very confused with the transitions of paragraphs. This novel jumped time periods between paragraphs quit frequently. I am the type of reader who prefers to know exactly what is going on and with who. When so many things are going on that I can't comprehend them all and understand them completely, I get frustrated. This story takes a lot of time to read because you have to read it slow. In order to read this book all of the way through, you have to want to read it and you have got to be patient. This is not the type of book someone should read because they have to. Read this book because you wanted to be educated on the Cheyenne and their way of life. If this is your desire in reading this book, then you will enjoy it very much.

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Summary: Cheyenne Autumn
Review: Documents the flight of the Cheyenne from the Indian Territory in Oklahoma back to their home in the north. The Cheyenne were promised that they could leave and then chased like escaped prisoners when they did leave. Time after time they survived seemingly insurmountable odds, but not without loss. I believe that the Cheyenne who lived this story -- Little Wolf and others -- would be happy to know that they were remembered with this book.

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Summary: Unlike anything else I've read
Review: I began reading this book expecting to plod through it but it was so compelling that I stayed up until dawn to get to the end. It is a sensitive, thought-provoking portrayal of the Cheyennes as they doggedly tried to resume their way of life after being carted of to a reservation in the Oklahoma territory. The book recounts how a group of them trekked 1,600 MILES to get back to their homeland in the northern plains. It is an exciting, intelligent and heart-breaking read. Looking at historical maps after reading this will never be the same. Forget Westerns and read this instead!

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Summary: Another powerfully moving story
Review: I have tried to analyze how it is that Sandoz manages to take a story, the mere facts of which I have read many times, and make it so powerfully moving that you find it haunting you long after the book is finished. Besides her expert ability to write in the language of her subjects, she develops all characters to their fullest. We follow them through their every day lives, through their hopes and fears, and most of all through their relationships to each other, until we feel we have become a part of it all. When lives end, usually tragically, we not only feel the loss ourselves, but we grieve for the pain of those left behind. When I read Sandoz's biography of Crazy Horse, I felt each loss he felt, from the death of his brother, to the agony of the decision to bring his followers into the agency. In this book, when the Cheyenne died in their last stand, I felt as their survivors must have felt, both grieved at the loss, but proud that they had died fighting in the tradition of their people, Also, once again as with Crazy Horse, I felt, as no simple telling of the facts could get across, what a great mistake it was not to let these cultures survive, and how foolish and arrogant the whites were to spend lives, money and ammunition to keep a few hundred impoverished people from returning to their homeland.

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Summary: Heartbreaking, yet uplifting.
Review: Mari Sandoz, one of the greatest American writers, amazed me once again in Cheyenne Autumn. A heartbreaking story of injustice and cruelty, Sandoz brings out the heart of the people through vivid imagery and insights that will make you feel you are on the trail with the Cheyenne.

Sandoz sees through the heart, and in this remarkable book takes the reader back in time. The book does not simply recount a tragic story, but rather reveals a people's life and their struggle to regain it. I highly recommend this book to anyone concerned with the human condition.

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Summary: A Different Historical Perspective
Review: Much Western history comes in the form of dry military accounts, victor's history, academic hackwork, or interpretations of myths dressed up with impressive bibliographies.

Cheyenne Autumn provides a superb counterpoint to the above approaches. Mari Sandoz combines the speculative, the emotional, the cultural, the prejudicial, the factual, and the personal into a work that sheds bright light on one facet of the final genocide perpetrated against the Plains Indians.

Her book reads well, and if you've visited the historic sites in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming where this great epic flight takes place, you will appreciate her perceptive treatment of the landscapes and wildlife that inhabited it.

History is a mirror in which the writer sees and describes herself, and Cheyenne Autumn says much about Mari Sandoz, and about people who share her sensibilities.

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Summary: Moving tragedy
Review: One cannot recommend this book too highly which has been written with a true feeling for the Cheyenne Nation. As I read the book I felt that I was part of those unfortunate people, whose only crime was that they wanted to live their own way on their own land. Any student of Native American History must add this to their library.

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Summary: What a fabuous, transporting read!
Review: Sandoz does in this book what a hundred modern authors bound by Political Correctness could never accomplish. She puts forth a well written and never-flinching story about the terrible final moments of the Northern Cheyenne. Excellent book. See also: Crazy Horse: Strange One of the Oglallas, another feat.