Charbonneau: Man of Two Dreams - Brossura

Blevins, Win

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0692203796 ISBN 13: 9780692203798

Casa editrice: WordWorx Publishing, 2015

Riassunto

"Beautiful. Blevins brings it all alive.” – The Los Angeles Times

This is the enthralling story of an authentic adventurer, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. He lived his dream in clashing cultures—that of Native American vitality and that of high European society. He mastered both worlds, but was ultimately forced to choose between them. The son of Sacajawea, guide for Lewis and Clark, Charbonneau was born on the adventure, and born to explore.

As an infant, he infant traveled from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean and back, carried along in the expedition's boats or upon his mother's back. As a child, Sacajawea sent her son to William Clark. There Charbonneau was raised in Clark’s posh society, had Jesuit schooling in St. Louis, and was later educated in Europe—he became the welcome guest of kings.

Throughout his life, Charbonneau and Clark maintained an extraordinary relationship. Charbonneau became a cultured man, at ease in the gentile civilization of European courts. But he was a man of two dreams, and the Western wilderness pulled at his heart.

Charbonneau became an American explorer, guide, fur trapper-trader, military scout during the Mexican-American War, alcalde (mayor) of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, and a gold prospector and hotel operator in Northern California. He spoke French and English, and learned German and Spanish during his six years in Europe. He also spoke Shoshone and other western Native American languages, which he learned first from his family and then during his years of trapping and guiding.

CHARBONNEAU is a novel of epic scope and lyric intensity, of vivid human drama and vigorous adventure!

REVIEWS

“A gripping historical novel . . . Blevins weaves authentic and documented material with the fruits of an impressive empathy. The characters live not only as recognizable people in their times and places, but as figures is an allegory of the West. There is some beautiful writing here. Blevins beings it all alive!” – Los Angeles Times

“Blevins captures both Charbonneau’s unique character and the full flavor of the American era in which he lived. From frontier hardships and the raw vigor of Native American life to the sensual and intellectual pleasures of high European society, ‘Charbonneau’ is a must-read novel of American resilience and intellect.” The Denver Post

Su questo libro

Product Description

As the son of the fur trapper and the Shoshone woman, Sacajawea, who were guides for the Lewis and Clark expedition, Charbonneau was a man divided between worlds. As a result, his life took a series of astonishing turns and left him painfully torn between opposing cultures. He lived with a prince in a castle in Germany and a tipi with the Rocky Mountain fur trappers. At one time he wore a stylish frock coat and top hat, at another times, dirty buckskins. He conversed as easily with a marquise as a Crow Indian chief. And at the age of only thirty-eight, he had to make an irreversible choice between lives. Set in one of the most dramatic periods in American history, Charbonneau is a moving novel based upon the fundamental conflict in the American West during the first half of the nineteenth century-the clashes of value between the white man and the red man. Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, son of Sacajawea and Baptiste Charbonneau, is a figure who embodies that clash. Now, in the great story telling tradition, Win Blevins creates a magnificent set of characters, imaginatively reconstructs events that are beyond historical recovery, and bring Charbonneau and the ear in which he lived superbly to life. From this rich material Win Blevins has spun a story of epic scope and lyrical eloquence.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: WordWorx Publishing
• Data di pubblicazione: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0692203796
• ISBN 13: 9780692203798
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 374