Bendigo Shafter

Because Perry says the MC carries Montaigne in his saddlebags....

... which turned out to be wrong. He read Montaigne, but not as thoroughly as many other books. He carried Blackstone for a while.

A good enough book for a teen boy who needs a role model. The philosophy is mainly good advice, and I liked how Shafter loves both the rough wild land and the ideals & learnings he gets from Plutarch, Locke, etc. He does respect everyone as people, even the Indians and the women, but he tends to feel a bit like an Ayn Rand character... he's a bit more compassionate than that, but not very respectful of anyone not as godlike as himself. (He does express humility, but it never rings as sincere.)

It's my first, and probably last, L'Amour. It reads show more to me like either a debut novel, or an author's swan song... interestingly, it's neither. Another interesting thing is that Shafter was advised to show more in his writing, but L'Amour did an awful lot of telling....

Samples of the kind of ideas you'll read again & again, should you pick this up:

"Much as I loved reading I was wary of it, for I soon saw that much that passed for thinking was simply a good memory, and many an educated man was merely repeating what he had learned, not what he had thought out for himself."

And about the Indians: "Whenever two cultures collide, the one with the most efficient way of living will survive." show less

B

This is the story of a young man coming of age in the wilds of Wyoming. He helps found a new town, finds love and wealth. Of course it isn't easy and he must fight for these things.

I do enjoy Louis L'Amour and this is one of his better books in my opinion. Granted part of that is that I have been down some of the trails and been to some of the locations from the book.

Not your typical good guy vs bad buy shoot 'em up western from L'Amour. This is a little more thoughtful & told in the first person, from our hero's POV. Bendigo journey's west with his older brother & his family. They set up a new town in the wilderness. L'Amour hits some of the high points of what that entails & makes you think a bit about how hard it was for them.Bendigo is a little to good to be true (typical hero) but it's a fun read. There's plenty of action, but not a lot of slap-leather, get-out-of-town-by-noon stuff. Hunting for lost people in the snow, hunting for food, keeping out some riff-raff & even a glimpse of NYC during that time.The only downside to the book is the philosophizing that Bendigo constantly shares with us. show more It actually wasn't bad reading as a teenager since it is idealistic & appealed to me at the time. Now, it's a little too trite & too much. Still, a very good book. show less

Travelers headed west with a wagon train stop and form a tiny settlement on the plains. A teenager, but a man grown, Bendigo Shafter recounts his experience in helping create a town with a solid foundation. From its roots to the end of the trail, weak and strong stand together against through blizzards, outlaw raids and invasions of hell-fire and brimstone spouting preachers.

One of my favorite L'Amour books, I always find something new to take away.

One of L'Amour's more sprawling epics. The founding of a town, the development of a man, the fruition of dreams (or the dieing thereof), the growing of "men to match my mountains." Larger cast of characters than usual, well developed.

One of the best of his works, Bendigo Shafter not only has a great storyline (that of a boy growing to manhood, shouldering responsibility, and becoming a well-respected member of his community), but also is extremely informative. This novel contains enough information to teach any reasonably intelligent individual to survive in the wild with little more than a knife and ax. Even includes techniques for cold-weather survival, house building, and tree harvesting.