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In his National Book Awardâ??winning novel Augustus, John Williams uncovered the secrets of ancient Rome. With Butcher's Crossing, his fiercely intelligent, beautifully written western, Williams dismantles the myths of modern America.
It is the 1870s, and Will Andrews, fired up by Emerson to seek "an original relation to nature," drops out of Harvard and heads west. He washes up in Butcher's Crossing, a small Kansas town on the outskirts of nowhere. Butcher's Crossing is full of restless men looking for ways to make money and ways to waste it. Before long Andrews strikes up a friendship with one of them, a man who regales Andrews with tales of immense herds of buffalo, ready for the taking, hidden away in a beautiful valley deep in the Colorado Rockies. He convinces Andrews to join in an expedition to track the animals down. The journey out is grueling, but at the end is a place of paradisiacal richness. Once there, however, the three men abandon themselves to an orgy of slaughter, so caught up in killing buffalo that they lose all sense of time. Winter soon overtakes them: they are snowed in. Next spring, half-insane with cabin fever, cold, and hunger, they stagger back to Butcher's Crossing to find a world as irremediably changed as they have been.… (mais)
In this book, Williams presents a young man on a quest for self discovery through the old west. He faces winter of brutal hardship and unbearable boredom. His return to civilzation finds him unable to truly connect with others. ( )
A young Harvard graduate searches for meaning in the white, white snow of the Colorado mountains in 1873. He is joined by three seasoned - in buffalo hunting or whiskey - men who are each also searching (for God, for money, for power). But in the end, only the search for meaning allows for any hope of salvation...
The writing is fluid and vivid, the characters are well drawn and the plot pulls you along while allowing plenty of wide open spaces of meditation. ( )
By the author of Stoner, a completely different story about the myth of the West as experienced by a Harvard drop-out who traveled west in search of an authentic encounter with nature. ( )
Really good read, slow and methodical, yet just as it should be! Will Anderson, young and looking for adventure, travels out from Boston and Harvard, to the West, to end up in the town of Butcher's Crossing. He puts up money for a buffalo hunt, and he and three others set off. All three end up getting more than just the hunt! It's a nice ol' western story, full of descriptive details and scenery. At times, I felt saddle sore and dust covered as I read along. Could almost smell the gunpowder too! Strong sense of place on each and every page.
Good last line too! "He rode forward without hurry, and felt behind him the sun slowly rise and harden the air." Ahh... ( )
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em alemão.Edite para a localizar na sua lÃngua.
»Es giebt Tage …, wo jedes Ding, welches Leben in sich hat, ein Zeichen der Zufriedenheit von sich giebt, und das Vieh, das hingestreckt liegt, große und ruhige Gedanken zu haben scheint. Nach diesem Halcyon kann man mit ziemlicher Gewißheit bei jenem reinen October-Wetter aussehen, welches wir mit dem Namen des indischen Sommers bezeichnen. Der unendlich lange Tag ruht schlafend auf den breiten Hügeln und den warmen weiten Feldern. Alle seine sonnigen Stunden durchlebt zu haben, scheint langes Leben genug. Die einsamen Orte scheinen nicht ganz einsam. Beim Eintritt in den Wald ist der erstaunte Weltling gezwungen, seine großen und kleinen, weisen und thörichten Dinge, auf die er Werth in der Stadt legte, dahinten zu lassen. Der Knappsack der Gewohnheit fällt von seinem Rücken mit dem ersten Schritt, den er in diesen Bereich hinein thut. Hier ist ein Gottesfurcht, die unsere Religion beschämt, und Realität, die unsere Helden in Mißcredit setzt. Hier finden wir, daß die Natur der Umstand ist, der jeden andern Umstand klein für uns macht, und daß sie einem Gotte gleich alle Menschen richtet, die zu ihr kommen.« Ralph Waldo Emerson, ›Nature‹, in: Essays, Second Series. Boston 1845, a.d. Amerikanischen von G. Fabricius, Hannover 1858
»Ja, und die Dichter schicken das kranke Gemüt auf die grünen Auen, wie man lahme Pferde unbeschlagen auf den Rasen schickt, damit ihre Hufe nachwachsen. Die Dichter, die auf ihre Art auch so was wie Kräuterdoktors sind, die meinen ja, die Natur ist die große Heilerin von Herzeleid und Lungenweh. Und wer hat meinen Fuhrmann in der Prärie zu Tode erfroren? Und wer hat den Wilden Peter zum Idioten gemacht?« Herman Melville, Maskeraden oder Vertrauen gegen Vertrauen, a.d. Amerikanischen von Christa Schuenke, Berlin 1999
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Informação do Conhecimento Comum em Holandês.Edite para a localizar na sua lÃngua.
De postkoets van Ellsworth naar Butcher's Crossing was een oude manschappenwagen, zo aangepast dat hij behalve passagiers ook vracht kon vervoeren.
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Informação do Conhecimento Comum em Holandês.Edite para a localizar na sua lÃngua.
Hij reed verder zonder haast, en voelde achter zich de zon langzaam opkomen en de lucht tastbaar worden.
In his National Book Awardâ??winning novel Augustus, John Williams uncovered the secrets of ancient Rome. With Butcher's Crossing, his fiercely intelligent, beautifully written western, Williams dismantles the myths of modern America.
It is the 1870s, and Will Andrews, fired up by Emerson to seek "an original relation to nature," drops out of Harvard and heads west. He washes up in Butcher's Crossing, a small Kansas town on the outskirts of nowhere. Butcher's Crossing is full of restless men looking for ways to make money and ways to waste it. Before long Andrews strikes up a friendship with one of them, a man who regales Andrews with tales of immense herds of buffalo, ready for the taking, hidden away in a beautiful valley deep in the Colorado Rockies. He convinces Andrews to join in an expedition to track the animals down. The journey out is grueling, but at the end is a place of paradisiacal richness. Once there, however, the three men abandon themselves to an orgy of slaughter, so caught up in killing buffalo that they lose all sense of time. Winter soon overtakes them: they are snowed in. Next spring, half-insane with cabin fever, cold, and hunger, they stagger back to Butcher's Crossing to find a world as irremediably changed as they have been.
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In this book, Williams presents a young man on a quest for self discovery through the old west. He faces winter of brutal hardship and unbearable boredom.
His return to civilzation finds him unable to truly connect with others.
(