What do you think?
Rate this book
The Big Sky #2
الطريق إلى الغرب
An enormously entertaining classic, THE WAY WEST brings to life the adventure of the western passage and the pioneer spirit. The sequel to THE BIG SKY, this celebrated novel charts a frontiersman's return to the untamed West in 1846. Dick Summers, as pilot of a wagon train, guides a group of settlers on the difficult journey from Missouri to Oregon. In sensitive but unsentimental prose, Guthrie illuminates the harsh trials and resounding triumphs of pioneer life. With THE WAY WEST, he pays homage to the grandeur of the western wilderness, its stark and beautiful scenery, and its extraordinary people.
543 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1949
48 people are currently reading
9433 people want to read
About the author
A.B. Guthrie Jr.
52 books114 followersAlfred Bertram Guthrie, Jr. was an American novelist, screenwriter, historian, and literary historian who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction during 1950 for his novel The Way West.
After working 22 years as a news reporter and editor for the Lexington Leader, Guthrie wrote his first novel.
Ηe was able to quit his reporting job after the publication of the novels The Big Sky and The Way West (1950 Pulitzer Prize).
Guthrie died during 1991, at age 90, at his ranch near Choteau.
(Source - Wikipedia)
After working 22 years as a news reporter and editor for the Lexington Leader, Guthrie wrote his first novel.
Ηe was able to quit his reporting job after the publication of the novels The Big Sky and The Way West (1950 Pulitzer Prize).
Guthrie died during 1991, at age 90, at his ranch near Choteau.
(Source - Wikipedia)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 369 reviews
May 11, 2021
This book might be as close as you will ever come to knowing what it was like to leave Independence, Missouri in 1836 and make your way by wagon along the Oregon Trail to the wilderness that was Oregon. Lije Evans, his wife Rebecca, and his son Brownie are one of a group of families who sign on with a wagon train to make the journey, and they represent, in my eyes, the perfect depiction of the kind of strong individuals who carved out this new land into civilization. During the journey, Lije discovers himself as a leader and we discover that a good man can be a strong man; that a quiet man can make all the noise that is needed.
There is one more member of the Evans family that I have not mentioned, but for whom I developed a great attachment, the dog, Rock. At the outset of the story, there is a move to kill all the dogs, many thinking they would be a nuisance on such a long trip. Evans figured he would have some business with the man who came to shoot Rock. That was the moment I knew I was going to love Lije, no going back.
My favorite character, by far, however, was Dick Summers. A seasoned mountain man who has been farming in Missouri, he signs on to pilot the group as far as the Dalles. I recognized right away that without men like Dick, none of the others would have ever survived to do the settling. In fact, they would hardly have known how to get where they were going. What I loved the most about him, however, was his open mind; never thinking the world should be like him or give him any particular homage.
He didn’t blame the Oregoners as he had known old mountain men to do. Everybody had his life to make, and every time its way, one different from another. The fur hunter didn’t have title to the mountain no matter if he did say finders keepers. By that system the country belonged to the Indians, or maybe someone before them or someone before them. No use to stand against the stream of change and time.
I felt I got to know Dick Summers in a way that I could strangely relate to. Of course, his lost youth was danger and mountains and the capability to survive, but wasn’t he longing for what most of us older people long for?
At the nub of it did he just want his youth back? Beaver, streams, squaws, danger--were they just names for his young time?
When I went back to review the passages I had marked while reading, almost all of them were Dick. His was the voice that spoke to me.
Guthrie shows us the physical hardships of the journey, which would surely be enough to defeat most of us, but which we could all fairly well imagine; but he also shows us the emotional toll that such a choice entails. Makes you wonder how anyone ever had the courage to set out, particularly with children in tow. The thought of the women, visibly pregnant, prodding the oxen while walking the trail, wore me to a bone. Guthrie’s men are both strong and weak, as are the women, and he seems to know both sexes well...what makes them the same and what makes them different, and how much both were needed to make such an undertaking work at all.
She wondered if he felt the same as she did. Did any two people ever feel the same? Did ever one soul know another, though they talked at night, though sometimes in hunger and in isolation they sought to make their bodies one, the all-mother in her loneliness trying to take back home the lost child-man?
I could picture these people, a mix of quite different backgrounds and incomes, growing closer and more understanding or more leery and wiser as the migration became a way of life. I could feel how tired and weary they felt at the end of even a good day. I could see the young faces becoming withered and crusted by exposure to wind and sun, and the older faces becoming hardened and set. At the same time, I could feel the yearning they all shared to start a new life, find a new adventure, see something they had never seen before. If they were still heading trains West, and if I were thirty years younger, I could see myself being convinced by Guthrie that the travails would be worth it; that Oregon could be home, and that a sturdy wagon and a good man might be all you would need.
There is one more member of the Evans family that I have not mentioned, but for whom I developed a great attachment, the dog, Rock. At the outset of the story, there is a move to kill all the dogs, many thinking they would be a nuisance on such a long trip. Evans figured he would have some business with the man who came to shoot Rock. That was the moment I knew I was going to love Lije, no going back.
My favorite character, by far, however, was Dick Summers. A seasoned mountain man who has been farming in Missouri, he signs on to pilot the group as far as the Dalles. I recognized right away that without men like Dick, none of the others would have ever survived to do the settling. In fact, they would hardly have known how to get where they were going. What I loved the most about him, however, was his open mind; never thinking the world should be like him or give him any particular homage.
He didn’t blame the Oregoners as he had known old mountain men to do. Everybody had his life to make, and every time its way, one different from another. The fur hunter didn’t have title to the mountain no matter if he did say finders keepers. By that system the country belonged to the Indians, or maybe someone before them or someone before them. No use to stand against the stream of change and time.
I felt I got to know Dick Summers in a way that I could strangely relate to. Of course, his lost youth was danger and mountains and the capability to survive, but wasn’t he longing for what most of us older people long for?
At the nub of it did he just want his youth back? Beaver, streams, squaws, danger--were they just names for his young time?
When I went back to review the passages I had marked while reading, almost all of them were Dick. His was the voice that spoke to me.
Guthrie shows us the physical hardships of the journey, which would surely be enough to defeat most of us, but which we could all fairly well imagine; but he also shows us the emotional toll that such a choice entails. Makes you wonder how anyone ever had the courage to set out, particularly with children in tow. The thought of the women, visibly pregnant, prodding the oxen while walking the trail, wore me to a bone. Guthrie’s men are both strong and weak, as are the women, and he seems to know both sexes well...what makes them the same and what makes them different, and how much both were needed to make such an undertaking work at all.
She wondered if he felt the same as she did. Did any two people ever feel the same? Did ever one soul know another, though they talked at night, though sometimes in hunger and in isolation they sought to make their bodies one, the all-mother in her loneliness trying to take back home the lost child-man?
I could picture these people, a mix of quite different backgrounds and incomes, growing closer and more understanding or more leery and wiser as the migration became a way of life. I could feel how tired and weary they felt at the end of even a good day. I could see the young faces becoming withered and crusted by exposure to wind and sun, and the older faces becoming hardened and set. At the same time, I could feel the yearning they all shared to start a new life, find a new adventure, see something they had never seen before. If they were still heading trains West, and if I were thirty years younger, I could see myself being convinced by Guthrie that the travails would be worth it; that Oregon could be home, and that a sturdy wagon and a good man might be all you would need.
March 29, 2024
This isn't Lonesome Dove, but it is still a great novel.
It is an American story, imaginative fiction about travelers on The Oregon Trail, but appealing to all people, as it is about all people. The "humble, hurtful, anxious, hoping," as Mr. Guthrie says.
As a former lit teacher, I could go nuts here, telling you how brilliant the writing, how subtle the metaphors, how well crafted the characters. . . but I will instead just advise you to discover it yourself.
I don't know what competition Mr. Guthrie's novel had when it was short listed for the Pulitzer in 1950, but I do know that the people at Pulitzer make mistakes. It's hard to believe they made one that year.
I found myself studying his sentences, his twists and turns. Mr. Guthrie has an entirely unique style that I haven't encountered before, and I felt quite mesmerized and humbled by it all.
By the final pages, I was completely overwhelmed with the emotion and the language.
What a stunning story, one of the first entries on my new shelf, "Westward Ho!"
It is an American story, imaginative fiction about travelers on The Oregon Trail, but appealing to all people, as it is about all people. The "humble, hurtful, anxious, hoping," as Mr. Guthrie says.
As a former lit teacher, I could go nuts here, telling you how brilliant the writing, how subtle the metaphors, how well crafted the characters. . . but I will instead just advise you to discover it yourself.
I don't know what competition Mr. Guthrie's novel had when it was short listed for the Pulitzer in 1950, but I do know that the people at Pulitzer make mistakes. It's hard to believe they made one that year.
I found myself studying his sentences, his twists and turns. Mr. Guthrie has an entirely unique style that I haven't encountered before, and I felt quite mesmerized and humbled by it all.
By the final pages, I was completely overwhelmed with the emotion and the language.
What a stunning story, one of the first entries on my new shelf, "Westward Ho!"
April 26, 2020
A group of farmers desire to pack up and move from Missouri to Oregon. Sounds like a good idea, because Missouri has chiggers that keep you scratching and itching for weeks. Then it has the blasting heat and humidity that makes life just miserable. But for whatever reason they didn't talk about leaving for those reasons. They just wanted to go. Maybe they were tired of farming and thought that fishing in the ocean off the Oregon coast was a better idea. Okay, maybe it is a better idea, but they don’t talk about going fishing. They just talk about leaving. As for my own opinion, I really think they just wanted an adventure. Men like adventures, and well, so do some women, but these women really didn't want to go. I would have wanted to go as I am adventurous. I would have wanted to get away from the chiggers and the humidity, for you see, I lived in Oklahoma near Missouri, and I know all about chiggers and humidity. I want to live on the west coast, but I can't afford it anymore. Retirement wages do that to some people. Now back to the story:
So they packed up their reluctant wives, their cattle, excited dogs, and the weevils that live in their flour and take off down the road.
Soon after leaving, maybe a month into the trip, some begin having second thoughts, wouldn’t you if you had been fighting Indians, dealing with rain storms that leave your wagons stuck deep in mud, and running out of wood that causes you to have to pick up buffalo chips to use for heat and cooking? I know about buffalo chips as well, but I was using cow chips when I built a fire in Creston, CA. I just wanted to see how they burned. I will tell you, they burn hot and fast. You would need a lot of cow chips to keep you warm. Ah, I digressed again. So what more could go wrong? Well, further on down the road in the flatlands of Kansas or Nebraska, they have a mutiny, then illness and death. Some want to turn around—too dangerous someone says.
About this time some wives may be wishing that they had divorced their husbands and stayed home or maybe some had wished that there had been a war somewhere that their husbands would have wanted to join just for the adventure. But no matter how you look at it I don’t see the women and children having fun. They are tired (but not too tired to be bored), they are hurting, and one of them wants to stay at Ft. Laramie when the wagon train gets there. What happened to the pioneer spirit I always heard about? Well, don’t look to the women for it; instead look to the men and their mongrel dogs.
Quotes in order of their travels:
"He couldn't believe that flat could be so flat or that distance ran so far or that the sky lifted so dizzy--deep or that the world stood so empty." They must be into the plains.
“No wood.”
“How about buffalo chips?”
“Plenty. We are coming into buffler country.”
“Mightin’s they be scarce, too? Mightin’ they have been used up?”
“They grow fast.”
"She signed inside thinking it would be good to stay at the fort for the rest of her life and so be done with the dirt and hard travel and eyes teary with camp smoke...There she wouldn't have the grainy feel of sand forever in her shoes."
“She thought backwards to Missouri and the old springhouse and the fresh coolness of it and the milk creaming there in it pans. She thought of the oak shade and trees fruiting and cupboards for dishes and victuals and chests for clothes and cookies baking and the smell of then following her around.”
“Little-man’s face! Snake’s face! Rattlesnake’s face, the coil behind showing dusty on the dusty rock, the tail blurred with shaking!”
“It was a long hard night. Outside, things were quiet except for wolf howls far off and now and then a breeze that found the tent and whispered death.”
Wow! This was a great book. I should read it again.
So they packed up their reluctant wives, their cattle, excited dogs, and the weevils that live in their flour and take off down the road.
Soon after leaving, maybe a month into the trip, some begin having second thoughts, wouldn’t you if you had been fighting Indians, dealing with rain storms that leave your wagons stuck deep in mud, and running out of wood that causes you to have to pick up buffalo chips to use for heat and cooking? I know about buffalo chips as well, but I was using cow chips when I built a fire in Creston, CA. I just wanted to see how they burned. I will tell you, they burn hot and fast. You would need a lot of cow chips to keep you warm. Ah, I digressed again. So what more could go wrong? Well, further on down the road in the flatlands of Kansas or Nebraska, they have a mutiny, then illness and death. Some want to turn around—too dangerous someone says.
About this time some wives may be wishing that they had divorced their husbands and stayed home or maybe some had wished that there had been a war somewhere that their husbands would have wanted to join just for the adventure. But no matter how you look at it I don’t see the women and children having fun. They are tired (but not too tired to be bored), they are hurting, and one of them wants to stay at Ft. Laramie when the wagon train gets there. What happened to the pioneer spirit I always heard about? Well, don’t look to the women for it; instead look to the men and their mongrel dogs.
Quotes in order of their travels:
"He couldn't believe that flat could be so flat or that distance ran so far or that the sky lifted so dizzy--deep or that the world stood so empty." They must be into the plains.
“No wood.”
“How about buffalo chips?”
“Plenty. We are coming into buffler country.”
“Mightin’s they be scarce, too? Mightin’ they have been used up?”
“They grow fast.”
"She signed inside thinking it would be good to stay at the fort for the rest of her life and so be done with the dirt and hard travel and eyes teary with camp smoke...There she wouldn't have the grainy feel of sand forever in her shoes."
“She thought backwards to Missouri and the old springhouse and the fresh coolness of it and the milk creaming there in it pans. She thought of the oak shade and trees fruiting and cupboards for dishes and victuals and chests for clothes and cookies baking and the smell of then following her around.”
“Little-man’s face! Snake’s face! Rattlesnake’s face, the coil behind showing dusty on the dusty rock, the tail blurred with shaking!”
“It was a long hard night. Outside, things were quiet except for wolf howls far off and now and then a breeze that found the tent and whispered death.”
Wow! This was a great book. I should read it again.
May 17, 2021
This book was such a surprise for me! It is many-layered and satisfying from beginning to end. It contains many components that I look for in an excellent read. I am always drawn to historical novels especially ones that are accurate and authentically written. My love for well-crafted characters comes before any plot-centered storyline. I need to be invested in their plights and feel as if I am experiencing everything along with them. To be immersed into a vivid setting that stimulates my senses as well as dialogue and interactions through descriptive and genuine prose make an absolutely stunning novel, in my opinion. The Way West by A. B. Guthrie meets all of these qualities and more and has found its way onto my favorites list.
Set in the 1840’s when the Oregon Territory is not yet part of the United States, a group of folks set out to settle in the Willamette Valley of Oregon and plan to leave everything they know and are familiar with behind and will never see again. These families begin their trek from Independence, Missouri with everything they think they’ll need to survive the journey and not knowing how long it will take or if they’ll even make it alive. Sounds like an adventure I’m not sure I’d take willingly. However, Lije Evans, along with his wife, Rebecca and son, Brownie intend to make the journey along with many other families who make up the diverse group that sign up for the uncertain trip. They decide to go with no assurances of success, just their faith and trust in their own strength and perseverance to see it through.
Nothing ahead of them was known; none of it was warmed by memories.
Lije Evans is the sort of man with a quiet strength, big and stout on the exterior but not one to think ill of other people. His journey is not only physically demanding but internally revealing. He finds within himself an ability to lead that surprises only himself.
What he needed was to find out what he amounted to. A slow-going, extra-easy-tempered man, said people, not understanding it was his self-belittlement that made him so, not knowing that, without it, there wasn’t much he couldn’t do.
Dick Summers has to be the most capable and physically able man and serves as the pilot of the wagon train. A buckskin wearing mountain man turned farmer, who never gave thought to soil and timber and tricks to pile up money but went along day by day taking what came, each morning being good in itself, and tomorrow was time enough to think about tomorrow. His experience with the territories and with Indians provide the knowledge needed to make the journey through some extremely tough terrain. He is a no-nonsense kind of guy who doesn’t put up with ignorance or selfishness.
Tall, silver-haired, strong-looking in arm and leg and body, he was a man to catch the eye, different from anyone Evans knew, different from those who traveled the Santa Fe trail, from the Mexicans who dressed to show off. There wasn’t any show-off in Dick. He was just himself.
What I loved about this novel was the vividness and imagery of the writing and how Guthrie puts you right there traveling with this assorted group. The way he presents the hardships and trials comes through in such a realistic way. I could feel the tired bones of women who set up and tear down the camps every day they stop for rest. They cook and wash the clothes after driving a wagon for hours on end just to get 6 or 10 miles further.
It took time to get started in the mornings - critters to drive up, oxen to hitch, a horse to saddle, beds to roll, tents to stow away, breakfast to cook and eat and clean up after. Around him while he worked he heard and saw and felt the bustle of other wagons. Later a man would just wish for miles to pass.
By the end of the novel, I was rooting for each and every one of these pioneering people who experienced heartbreaking fears coming true and having to make some excruciating decisions that would alter the rest of their lives. I felt their doubts and their anxieties. I fought their fights and cried their tears.
No prize came easy. Free land still had its price. A chance at better living had somehow to be earned. A nation couldn’t grow unless somebody dared. The price was high, but who would say it was too high - except for those who paid so dear?
Set in the 1840’s when the Oregon Territory is not yet part of the United States, a group of folks set out to settle in the Willamette Valley of Oregon and plan to leave everything they know and are familiar with behind and will never see again. These families begin their trek from Independence, Missouri with everything they think they’ll need to survive the journey and not knowing how long it will take or if they’ll even make it alive. Sounds like an adventure I’m not sure I’d take willingly. However, Lije Evans, along with his wife, Rebecca and son, Brownie intend to make the journey along with many other families who make up the diverse group that sign up for the uncertain trip. They decide to go with no assurances of success, just their faith and trust in their own strength and perseverance to see it through.
Nothing ahead of them was known; none of it was warmed by memories.
Lije Evans is the sort of man with a quiet strength, big and stout on the exterior but not one to think ill of other people. His journey is not only physically demanding but internally revealing. He finds within himself an ability to lead that surprises only himself.
What he needed was to find out what he amounted to. A slow-going, extra-easy-tempered man, said people, not understanding it was his self-belittlement that made him so, not knowing that, without it, there wasn’t much he couldn’t do.
Dick Summers has to be the most capable and physically able man and serves as the pilot of the wagon train. A buckskin wearing mountain man turned farmer, who never gave thought to soil and timber and tricks to pile up money but went along day by day taking what came, each morning being good in itself, and tomorrow was time enough to think about tomorrow. His experience with the territories and with Indians provide the knowledge needed to make the journey through some extremely tough terrain. He is a no-nonsense kind of guy who doesn’t put up with ignorance or selfishness.
Tall, silver-haired, strong-looking in arm and leg and body, he was a man to catch the eye, different from anyone Evans knew, different from those who traveled the Santa Fe trail, from the Mexicans who dressed to show off. There wasn’t any show-off in Dick. He was just himself.
What I loved about this novel was the vividness and imagery of the writing and how Guthrie puts you right there traveling with this assorted group. The way he presents the hardships and trials comes through in such a realistic way. I could feel the tired bones of women who set up and tear down the camps every day they stop for rest. They cook and wash the clothes after driving a wagon for hours on end just to get 6 or 10 miles further.
It took time to get started in the mornings - critters to drive up, oxen to hitch, a horse to saddle, beds to roll, tents to stow away, breakfast to cook and eat and clean up after. Around him while he worked he heard and saw and felt the bustle of other wagons. Later a man would just wish for miles to pass.
By the end of the novel, I was rooting for each and every one of these pioneering people who experienced heartbreaking fears coming true and having to make some excruciating decisions that would alter the rest of their lives. I felt their doubts and their anxieties. I fought their fights and cried their tears.
No prize came easy. Free land still had its price. A chance at better living had somehow to be earned. A nation couldn’t grow unless somebody dared. The price was high, but who would say it was too high - except for those who paid so dear?
November 21, 2021
A GR friend of mine read this 1951 Pulitzer Prize Winner and his review intrigued me enough to put it on my TBR list. I got a copy from the library and have been reading it for the last 3 days.
It hooked me from the very beginning in which one of the main characters, Lije Evans, who lived in Missouri was worrying about fever. People would catch it and just die. It was not uncommon. Would that be scarlet fever? I don’t think the author of this book, A.B. Guthrie, Jr., explicitly called it that. Of course, he wrote it as if he was back in the 1845, so people wouldn’t know what it was at that time I suppose. That was part of the impetus for Evans to pull up stakes with this family and head out to Oregon on the Oregon trial with several other families. Somebody who had been out west in Montana and who was described as a mountain man, Dick Summers, served as their guide.
So that was the gist of the book. Their trek across the country by covered wagon from spring to late fall — a bunch of ordinary people all with flaws and most of them with good qualities too. The characters to a large extent were believable. What happened during the journey was believable.
I think it made me appreciate what I have. Modern conveniences galore. A home with a heating system that won’t end up burning down the house. (One of the characters grew up in a house that had a stick-and-mud chimney that caught fire and burned the house down to the ground.) A bathroom with a toilet and a door so I can do things in private. 😮😊 A sink so I can wash dishes clean after supper. Water. When was the last time YOU were thankful for this sort of stuff??? You should read this book. And hug your toilet while you’re at it. 🤪
Reviews
• This reviewer captured how I felt about the book! https://www.frontierlife.net/blog/201...
• http://pulitzerproject.blogspot.com/2...
• https://meadowparty.com/blog/2015/11/...
It hooked me from the very beginning in which one of the main characters, Lije Evans, who lived in Missouri was worrying about fever. People would catch it and just die. It was not uncommon. Would that be scarlet fever? I don’t think the author of this book, A.B. Guthrie, Jr., explicitly called it that. Of course, he wrote it as if he was back in the 1845, so people wouldn’t know what it was at that time I suppose. That was part of the impetus for Evans to pull up stakes with this family and head out to Oregon on the Oregon trial with several other families. Somebody who had been out west in Montana and who was described as a mountain man, Dick Summers, served as their guide.
So that was the gist of the book. Their trek across the country by covered wagon from spring to late fall — a bunch of ordinary people all with flaws and most of them with good qualities too. The characters to a large extent were believable. What happened during the journey was believable.
I think it made me appreciate what I have. Modern conveniences galore. A home with a heating system that won’t end up burning down the house. (One of the characters grew up in a house that had a stick-and-mud chimney that caught fire and burned the house down to the ground.) A bathroom with a toilet and a door so I can do things in private. 😮😊 A sink so I can wash dishes clean after supper. Water. When was the last time YOU were thankful for this sort of stuff??? You should read this book. And hug your toilet while you’re at it. 🤪
Reviews
• This reviewer captured how I felt about the book! https://www.frontierlife.net/blog/201...
• http://pulitzerproject.blogspot.com/2...
• https://meadowparty.com/blog/2015/11/...
April 25, 2020
No prize came easy. Free land still had its price. A chance at better living had somehow to be earned. A nation couldn't grow unless somebody dared. The price was high, but who would say it was too high - except for those who'd paid so dear?
This is the second book in A.B. Guthrie Jr.'s Big Sky series. In this adventure, skilled frontiersman Dick Summers, one of my favorite characters from the first book, must guide a group of "soft" farmers from Missouri to the promised land of Oregon.
They were family men, settled with their women and easy with their children, the hard edges worn smooth, the wildness in them broke to harness.
It's an unusual western in that the problems the settlers encounter stem as much from personality clashes within the group as they do from external forces. Guthrie's lovely writing, and thoughtful, deliberate characters earned him 1950's Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
In no way is it necessary to have read the first book to fully enjoy this one. Highly recommended.
This is the second book in A.B. Guthrie Jr.'s Big Sky series. In this adventure, skilled frontiersman Dick Summers, one of my favorite characters from the first book, must guide a group of "soft" farmers from Missouri to the promised land of Oregon.
They were family men, settled with their women and easy with their children, the hard edges worn smooth, the wildness in them broke to harness.
It's an unusual western in that the problems the settlers encounter stem as much from personality clashes within the group as they do from external forces. Guthrie's lovely writing, and thoughtful, deliberate characters earned him 1950's Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
In no way is it necessary to have read the first book to fully enjoy this one. Highly recommended.
December 8, 2020
"The sun was sliding down the western sky, showing through the tail of a cloud. Likely it would be fair tomorrow and he would have to dig and grub and split and bend and lift and jolt as if his life depended on it, which it did. A man didn't make history, staying close to home."
Guthrie's Pulitzer-Prize winner follows mountain man Dick Summers, a character from The Big Sky, as he leads settlers west from Missouri along what would become the Oregon Trail. The hardscrabble life of a pioneer is bluntly described through the POV of many of the characters and we bear witness to the fights and loves and even the lonely deaths along the road, never losing the hopefulness of a better world to be found at the end of the journey. The prose is more polished this time out, but the countryside and the wild west also seems tamer when compared with the bigger and rawer The Big Sky. NOTE: The "n-word" appears in mountain man dialogue in what appears to be a historically accurate, often self-referential usage, yet might be surprising and oft-putting to the unprepared reader.
Guthrie's Pulitzer-Prize winner follows mountain man Dick Summers, a character from The Big Sky, as he leads settlers west from Missouri along what would become the Oregon Trail. The hardscrabble life of a pioneer is bluntly described through the POV of many of the characters and we bear witness to the fights and loves and even the lonely deaths along the road, never losing the hopefulness of a better world to be found at the end of the journey. The prose is more polished this time out, but the countryside and the wild west also seems tamer when compared with the bigger and rawer The Big Sky. NOTE: The "n-word" appears in mountain man dialogue in what appears to be a historically accurate, often self-referential usage, yet might be surprising and oft-putting to the unprepared reader.
May 25, 2021
The Way West was a Buddy Read for the Goodreads group Catching Up with the Classics. I have been waiting to write this review after most of the group has finished the novel.
First, I have to say that all of my criticisms of The Big Sky (also by this author) pretty much disappeared with this book. I loved it.
Simply put, the characters were fully fleshed and believable — even surprisingly soulful —, the action of the plot had me truly engaged throughout and to the very end, the dialogue worked, the writing did not leave me wondering what the heck was going on, the landscape was beautifully though sparingly described — more incidental to the people and their thoughts —, and the history of the wagon train migration came alive in its pages as it traversed the land from Missouri to Oregon.
I am from the west coast and my ancestors have been in the US since the 1600s. They made voyages across the Atlantic. Some travelled down the wagon road from Pennsylvania to the South. Others landed in Massachusetts and got to Ohio and Illinois. An adoptive branch went from Massachusetts to Canada. All of the branches were undoubtedly on some kind of a wagon train that crossed hills and rivers before the railroads were built. Eventually, they came together in California. It was fascinating to read about what those migrations may have been like.
If you want to read about the settling of the Western United States, this would be a great place to start. The only other book I might put ahead of this one in this regard is Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. That is a long book that is hard to put down. The Way West is shorter. It took me only four days to read it, because I also didn’t want to walk away from the story. It is one of the best books I have read this year. The two books would be great companion novels.
First, I have to say that all of my criticisms of The Big Sky (also by this author) pretty much disappeared with this book. I loved it.
Simply put, the characters were fully fleshed and believable — even surprisingly soulful —, the action of the plot had me truly engaged throughout and to the very end, the dialogue worked, the writing did not leave me wondering what the heck was going on, the landscape was beautifully though sparingly described — more incidental to the people and their thoughts —, and the history of the wagon train migration came alive in its pages as it traversed the land from Missouri to Oregon.
I am from the west coast and my ancestors have been in the US since the 1600s. They made voyages across the Atlantic. Some travelled down the wagon road from Pennsylvania to the South. Others landed in Massachusetts and got to Ohio and Illinois. An adoptive branch went from Massachusetts to Canada. All of the branches were undoubtedly on some kind of a wagon train that crossed hills and rivers before the railroads were built. Eventually, they came together in California. It was fascinating to read about what those migrations may have been like.
If you want to read about the settling of the Western United States, this would be a great place to start. The only other book I might put ahead of this one in this regard is Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. That is a long book that is hard to put down. The Way West is shorter. It took me only four days to read it, because I also didn’t want to walk away from the story. It is one of the best books I have read this year. The two books would be great companion novels.
April 29, 2021
An introspective approach to what may seem, to many readers nowadays, a tired genre. This thing won the Pulitzer way back in the day, and I can see why. This is a tale of adventure, but Guthrie has taken a muted approach. The reader gets exposed to the suffering and hardships these travelers experience, but those difficulties are experienced mostly through the thoughts and reflections of the characters. There are very few 'action' sequences. There is no gun play; and this was a positive. Lots of memorable characters: Summers, Evans, Becky, and definitely ol' Rock. This would be a great read for those of you interested in trying out the genre, but don't love the typical approach used by many western writers. I'd call it frontier literature, and it's excellent.
May 14, 2021
The Way West is a brilliantly crafted story of the hardscrabble wagon train trek from Independence Missouri to Oregon in the mid-1800s. The wagon train consists of a large group of people with disparate backgrounds and varying motivations for making the trip. Whether they came from Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, or Missouri, they all looked forward to a better life.
One family hoped for drier air to stave off illness in their son, another wants to revive a damaged political career, others want to seek fortune and some just want to see more of the world. Most of them have little in common but soon become close by circumstance. In their traveling small town, they face leadership battles, birth, death, romance, scandal, community, friendship, outside conflict, people turning back, and a faction splitting off.
This book felt so real at every step. Interactions amongst the men and women, husband and wife, children and adults, animal and man were all believable. Each character was so well drawn and masterfully woven into their plot points, even Rock, the Evans' dog. Besides the struggles unique to the journey, they encounter the same ordinary life struggles that people still face today. My favorite character was Dick Summers as it was in The Big Sky.
Dick Summers is still cool calm and collected and knows how to get things done. He's not a people person per se but he is the one people look to for guidance whether it's the best path forward, how to deal with Indians, what to do for a rattlesnake bite, how to treat a fever, or how to resolve a personal matter.
I also especially loved the whole Evans family with the consensus building Lijie, his strong wife Rebecca, their starry-eyed son Brownie and of course their dog Rock. They made such a good family unit and their strong family foundation made them able to help others physically and emotionally.
Besides the excellent character development and small-town-like drama, there was also descriptive prose that was mesmerizing whether it was describing the landscapes or the psychological thoughts of the characters. Even characters I disliked were softened some by their inner thoughts.
This book was so good that it gave me more respect for its prequel, The Big Sky which I had found disappointing. The biggest difference between these was that this one had the realistic perspective of women whereas I found the character development of Teal-eye in The Big Sky severely lacking and her storyline not well-formed. I don't care if she spoke a different language, we could have known more of her thoughts. If I'd read The Big Sky after this, I'd likely have liked it a lot more knowing how those men forged the way to make this wagon train possible.
The Way West needs no prequel or sequel, it completely stands on its own but A.B. Gutherie's writing certainly makes your want to read more. You can't help but think of Lonesome Dove with this and The Big Sky . The Way West is like the interesting contemplative parent of the ornery and driven Big Sky and the wildly fun, fast-paced, and emotional Lonesome Dove.
One family hoped for drier air to stave off illness in their son, another wants to revive a damaged political career, others want to seek fortune and some just want to see more of the world. Most of them have little in common but soon become close by circumstance. In their traveling small town, they face leadership battles, birth, death, romance, scandal, community, friendship, outside conflict, people turning back, and a faction splitting off.
This book felt so real at every step. Interactions amongst the men and women, husband and wife, children and adults, animal and man were all believable. Each character was so well drawn and masterfully woven into their plot points, even Rock, the Evans' dog. Besides the struggles unique to the journey, they encounter the same ordinary life struggles that people still face today. My favorite character was Dick Summers as it was in The Big Sky.
Dick Summers is still cool calm and collected and knows how to get things done. He's not a people person per se but he is the one people look to for guidance whether it's the best path forward, how to deal with Indians, what to do for a rattlesnake bite, how to treat a fever, or how to resolve a personal matter.
I also especially loved the whole Evans family with the consensus building Lijie, his strong wife Rebecca, their starry-eyed son Brownie and of course their dog Rock. They made such a good family unit and their strong family foundation made them able to help others physically and emotionally.
Besides the excellent character development and small-town-like drama, there was also descriptive prose that was mesmerizing whether it was describing the landscapes or the psychological thoughts of the characters. Even characters I disliked were softened some by their inner thoughts.
This book was so good that it gave me more respect for its prequel, The Big Sky which I had found disappointing. The biggest difference between these was that this one had the realistic perspective of women whereas I found the character development of Teal-eye in The Big Sky severely lacking and her storyline not well-formed. I don't care if she spoke a different language, we could have known more of her thoughts. If I'd read The Big Sky after this, I'd likely have liked it a lot more knowing how those men forged the way to make this wagon train possible.
The Way West needs no prequel or sequel, it completely stands on its own but A.B. Gutherie's writing certainly makes your want to read more. You can't help but think of Lonesome Dove with this and The Big Sky . The Way West is like the interesting contemplative parent of the ornery and driven Big Sky and the wildly fun, fast-paced, and emotional Lonesome Dove.
December 18, 2020
4 1/2 Stars.
March 17, 2024
In this 1950 Pulitzer winner, a group of 30 armed men set off from Missouri with their families and 22 wagons, embarking on a long, hard trip to Oregon. Along for the trip are a Methodist preacher, who means well but is poor as dirt, and a drifter who is funny, insightful, music-playing, and hardworking: “What’s your purpose in going?” “I dunno. Jest to get where I ain’t.” Guiding the group is a mountain man, Dick Summers, who is reminiscent of Clint Eastwood’s character in The Outlaw Josey Wales:
“I’ll be the war party. You all watch the wagons.”
“He could travel from hell to breakfast with no more than a gun and a horse, and would get there in time for dinner without the horse … ‘I traveled many a mile, and nothin’ to eat except what powder and ball would catch.’”
The novel is a first-rate western and I would put it in the same league as Lonesome Dove. It checks all the boxes: it is rugged, action-packed, and beautifully written. It is also honest about the human condition, accurately depicting people’s deep imperfections and the struggles that happen in interpersonal relationships and marriages, especially under stress.
“Did ever one soul know another, though they shared bed and fortune, though they talked at night, though sometimes in hunger and in isolation they sought to make their bodies one, the all-mother in her loneliness trying to take back home the lost child-man?”
“Better to be toiling on the trail, better to be pushing the footloose stock, better to wear the body out than to corrupt the soul.”
The “On-to-Oregon Outfit” crosses rivers, collects buffalo chips for fires, smokes and trades with Native Americans, argues and fights with each other, experiences “blood-hunger,” commits sins, and deals with the deaths that inevitably happen on any such grand adventure.
“It was a lost grave as soon as left, and [his] bones would lie in it till kingdom come, and buffalo would gallop over the spot and wolves trot across and wagon trains track it, and none would know that here lay what was left of a man—a dull-eyed man with bowed shoulders but with hankerings and troubles and rights of his own, who had set out for Oregon and got sick and cried out to Jesus and died.”
“Buffalo and wolves … and grasshoppers with no grass to hop on and rib bones and skulls lying around, picked clean as a clean platter, and, here and there where the rocks broke through, a rattlesnake looped, his tail aquiver … And, seeing the train winding behind him, he thought with pride of it, of the onwardness of its people, of their stubborn, unthought-out yondering.”
Other Memorable Quotes::
“Half of satyin’ alive is pickin’ your pardner.”
“Later they might look back, some of them might, and wonder how it happened that things had slid by them. They would remember, maybe, a morning and the camp smoke rising and the sun rolling up in the early mist and the air sharp and heady as a drink, and they would hanker back for the day and wish they had got the good out of it.”
“The more miles they made the better-spirited he was, as if there wasn’t any aim to life but to leave tracks, no time in it but for go. He didn’t mind eating mush with blown sand in it.”
“Preachers could talk about morals, as if all men were born and situated similarly, but morals were particular to every man, dependent on his stuff and state.”
“You couldn’t tell a boy how few were the things that mattered and how little was their mattering. You couldn’t say that the rest washed off in the wash of years so that, looking back, a man wanted to laugh except he couldn’t quite laugh yet. The dreams dreamed and the hopes hoped and the hurt felt and the jolts suffered, they all got covered by the years. They buried themselves in memory.”
“No … a man didn’t like to take less than he had hoped, but he had to take it. Maybe that was the big lesson, maybe that was all he’d learned and all that anyone could learn—always settle for half.”
“The part of good sense was to forget. Soon enough, he thought wryly, a man made new regrets that crowded out the old.”
“I’ll be the war party. You all watch the wagons.”
“He could travel from hell to breakfast with no more than a gun and a horse, and would get there in time for dinner without the horse … ‘I traveled many a mile, and nothin’ to eat except what powder and ball would catch.’”
The novel is a first-rate western and I would put it in the same league as Lonesome Dove. It checks all the boxes: it is rugged, action-packed, and beautifully written. It is also honest about the human condition, accurately depicting people’s deep imperfections and the struggles that happen in interpersonal relationships and marriages, especially under stress.
“Did ever one soul know another, though they shared bed and fortune, though they talked at night, though sometimes in hunger and in isolation they sought to make their bodies one, the all-mother in her loneliness trying to take back home the lost child-man?”
“Better to be toiling on the trail, better to be pushing the footloose stock, better to wear the body out than to corrupt the soul.”
The “On-to-Oregon Outfit” crosses rivers, collects buffalo chips for fires, smokes and trades with Native Americans, argues and fights with each other, experiences “blood-hunger,” commits sins, and deals with the deaths that inevitably happen on any such grand adventure.
“It was a lost grave as soon as left, and [his] bones would lie in it till kingdom come, and buffalo would gallop over the spot and wolves trot across and wagon trains track it, and none would know that here lay what was left of a man—a dull-eyed man with bowed shoulders but with hankerings and troubles and rights of his own, who had set out for Oregon and got sick and cried out to Jesus and died.”
“Buffalo and wolves … and grasshoppers with no grass to hop on and rib bones and skulls lying around, picked clean as a clean platter, and, here and there where the rocks broke through, a rattlesnake looped, his tail aquiver … And, seeing the train winding behind him, he thought with pride of it, of the onwardness of its people, of their stubborn, unthought-out yondering.”
Other Memorable Quotes::
“Half of satyin’ alive is pickin’ your pardner.”
“Later they might look back, some of them might, and wonder how it happened that things had slid by them. They would remember, maybe, a morning and the camp smoke rising and the sun rolling up in the early mist and the air sharp and heady as a drink, and they would hanker back for the day and wish they had got the good out of it.”
“The more miles they made the better-spirited he was, as if there wasn’t any aim to life but to leave tracks, no time in it but for go. He didn’t mind eating mush with blown sand in it.”
“Preachers could talk about morals, as if all men were born and situated similarly, but morals were particular to every man, dependent on his stuff and state.”
“You couldn’t tell a boy how few were the things that mattered and how little was their mattering. You couldn’t say that the rest washed off in the wash of years so that, looking back, a man wanted to laugh except he couldn’t quite laugh yet. The dreams dreamed and the hopes hoped and the hurt felt and the jolts suffered, they all got covered by the years. They buried themselves in memory.”
“No … a man didn’t like to take less than he had hoped, but he had to take it. Maybe that was the big lesson, maybe that was all he’d learned and all that anyone could learn—always settle for half.”
“The part of good sense was to forget. Soon enough, he thought wryly, a man made new regrets that crowded out the old.”
September 10, 2017
Like the wagon train it describes, I thought this was a little slow to get started and it suffered in comparison to the masterpiece that is The Big Sky. But then it gathered momentum and the characters came into their own. By the end, it put me in mind of The Grapes of Wrath - with its emphasis on the foibles on humanity in the face of such awesome obstacles and the trials of life.
December 8, 2022
Outstanding!!
September 18, 2021
This award-winning novel journeys with a wagon train made up of a group of families making their way from Missouri to Oregon in 1845. Along the way they deal with all the perils of a 19th century cross country trip: wild animals and aggressive Indians, fierce storms and treacherous mountain paths, illness and arguments. The use of dialect and many exacting details gives the reader a wonderful sense of a moment in history. And it was exactly these many details that made this feel more like a history lesson than a compelling story with vivid characters. We got one of every difficulty encountered by the many wagon trains that crossed the continent: one case of wagon fever, one near drowning, one rattle snake bite, one buffalo stampede, etc. The characters never became individuals whose survival I worried about, but were stand-ins for all the adventurous Americans who settled the West.
May 30, 2021
I recall reading "The Big Sky" back in 1980 as part of the Time-Life Reading Program. I remember loving it and ranking it up there with "True Grit" and "Lonesome Dove" as one of my favorite Western novels. I learned only recently that Mr. Guthrie wrote a sequel and said sequel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950. "The Way West" is every bit as good as its prequel. It has the same air of authenticity and quiet respect for its characters and the land they traverse. Be forewarned, there are some passages that might seem politically incorrect by contemporary standards but one has to remember that this novel was written in the late 1940s and the characters reflect the vernacular and prejudices of their time and place. Cheers!
December 9, 2025
Sfrondato dall'epos, questo romanzo racconta l'avventura che portava tante famiglie americane verso l'ovest selvaggio, verso la speranza di una vita diversa e migliore, verso le terre prosperose e fertili della frontiera inesplorata
November 7, 2021
The Way West
Popular and even genre novels have won the Pulitzer Prize when they have met the criteria of literary excellence and depiction of American experience. Thus, in 1950, A.B. Guthrie, Jr. received the Pulitzer for “The Way West” (1949). The second in a sequence of six westerns that Guthrie wrote between 1947 and 1982, “The Way West” and its predecessor, “The Big Sky” (1947), are the best known.
Guthrie (1901 – 1991) wrote “The Way West” while working as a reporter in Lexington, Kentucky but spent most of his life in Montana. In addition to the six novels in his western sequence, Guthrie wrote the screenplay for the famous western “Shane” (1953), starring Alan Ladd. In 1967, “The Way West” was itself made into a film directed by Andrew McLaglen and starring Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark, and Sally Field in her first major film role.
During the presidential administration of James K. Polk, the United States and Great Britain were engaged in a serious dispute, over the boundaries of the Oregon territory in the Pacific Northwest. To bolster the claim to the territory that the United States ultimately acquired by treaty in 1848, many intrepid Americans journeyed by wagon to the Oregon territory over the Oregon Trail, a difficult route that extended over 2000 miles northwest from Independence, Missouri, to western Oregon. The United States and Britain settled their boundary dispute by an 1846 treaty, which worked a compromise and awarded the United States the territory that Americans already predominantly occupied.
“The Way West” describes an 1845 journey over the Oregon Trail by a small band of settlers from Independence. It follows the story from the initial decision to undertake the journey through the travails of the long journey west to the band’s ultimate arrival in Oregon where the settlers disburse and go their own ways in their new home. Guthrie tells the story in an omniscient third-person narrative voice, but the perspective frequently shifts among the characters as they meditate on their own experiences and thoughts.
Guthrie introduces his three primary characters, Lije Evans, Dick Summers, and William Tadlock early in the novel and fleshes them out as the story progresses. Evans, 35, is a small farmer leading a quiet, modestly successful life. He embarks on the journey with his beloved wife, Rebecca, and their son, Brownie, who is about to turn eighteen. Evans develops his latent potential for leadership in the course of the journey while Brownie under bittersweet circumstances finds a wife.
Summers,49, is an elusive character and a former mountain man who appeared in “The Big Sky”. He has settled in Independence where he struggles to adopt the sedentary life of a farmer. After the death of Summers’ wife, Evans and other members of the party prevail upon him to act as the pilot for the group and to navigate the Oregon Trail.
Tadlock is an ambitious former politician from Illinois. He organizes the journey from Independence and is elected to serve as the band’s first leader. As a result of his preemptory, abrasive leadership style, Tadlock is voted out of office early in the journey and a reluctant Evans is elected as his successor. Evans gradually develops the confidence and wisdom that come with maturity. With the tension that develops with Evans, Tadlock and a small group of followers abandon the party and the journey to Oregon late in the book at a dividing point on the Oregon Trail to head for a safer, more routine life in California.
As befitting a long journey by wagon train, the writing in this book varies. At times the book is exhilarating while at other times it drags and barely creeps along. At its best, the novel has an epic sweep. Guthrie describes, in lyrically charged language the rigors of the trail and the rugged, changing terrain that ranges from desert, rocks, grass, and sand, to steep nearly impassable mountains, forests, and raging rivers. Illness and death, from starvation, stampedes, and hostile Indians are constant threats. Several of the pioneers die along the way. One young boy, the only son of a pioneer couple, is bitten by a rattlesnake and meets a particularly tragic death.
In its focus on the motivations of the characters for undertaking an uncertain, life-changing journey, the novel goes well beyond the conventions of a genre, action-based western. The search for a better life, the allure of free land, a sense of opportunity and freedom, patriotism, and a simple love of adventure all were important in undertaking a journey which offered no guarantees. At several stages in the book, Evans reflects upon the journey. At the outset, before reaching his decision to join the party, Evans thinks:
“It was a time to think of moving, a time when all the fields and trees, for all their raw and naked look, showed they knew spring was coming. The blood flowed quick in the body, and ideas came to a man. Once when his pa’s house burned, catching fire in the stick-and-mud chimney, he had felt a little the same way, as if all the things he had been doing as a boy didn’t need to be done any more and he could strike out fresh and build his life as he wanted it.”
Near the mid-point of the journey, Evans meditates again on his motivations for the journey and those of his companions:
"Again he felt greatness, smallness and greatness both among such wild riches. And, seeing the train winding behind him, he thought with pride of it, of the onwardness of its people, of their stubborn, unthought-out yondering. It wasn't a thing for reason, this yondering, but for the heart, where secrets lay deep and mixed. Money? Land? New chances? Patriotism? All together they weren't enough. In the beginning, that is, they weren't enough, but as a man went on it came to him how wide and wealthy was his country, and the pride he had talked about at first became so real he lost the words for it."
Towards the end of the journey, with success in reach, Evans reflects again on the gritty persistence required to undertake the trip and to reach the goal:
"Now when they were about to come to it again, to lower down the bluff and try the ford, Evans told himself that if any train could get to Oregon, this one could. It had the best pilot that he knew of, best man and pilot both. Its stock was poor but no poorer than would come behind. Its wagons were as good as others would be by the time they reached the ford. But it was the men he counted on, the men and women and spirit of the company. They had their faults, he knew. They had their differences and sometimes spoke severe, what with sand in their teeth and worries in their heads, but they wished well for one another and they hung together. There where sometimes he heard the trains split up, old On-to-Oregon stayed one."
Women receive a large, highly sympathetic portrayal in the book for their efforts on the trail, for their fortitude, and for their patience with their men. The book also portrays an ever-present sexuality and its many difficulties along the way. Guthrie shows markedly conflicting approaches to religion among the pioneers as an aging Methodist minister, Weatherby plays a large role in the story. The book describes the tortured relationship between the settlers and the many different Indian tribes en route and at the destination in Oregon. Much of the language in the novel reflects the racist stereotypes of mid-Nineteenth Century America.
"The Way West" should be viewed as part of a long American tradition of "road" novels that extends from "Huckleberry Finn" through "On the Road". Many contemporary readers do not know a great deal about the westward expansion of the United States or, if they do, regard it with cynicism. Guthrie’s novel offers a positive, largely heroic vision of this aspect of America, as befitting a winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Although the characters are frequently flawed and selfish, their collective story and vision are inspiring. "The Way West" is a moving novel that will encourage reflection on character, the settlement of the American west, and the American experience.
Robin Friedman
Popular and even genre novels have won the Pulitzer Prize when they have met the criteria of literary excellence and depiction of American experience. Thus, in 1950, A.B. Guthrie, Jr. received the Pulitzer for “The Way West” (1949). The second in a sequence of six westerns that Guthrie wrote between 1947 and 1982, “The Way West” and its predecessor, “The Big Sky” (1947), are the best known.
Guthrie (1901 – 1991) wrote “The Way West” while working as a reporter in Lexington, Kentucky but spent most of his life in Montana. In addition to the six novels in his western sequence, Guthrie wrote the screenplay for the famous western “Shane” (1953), starring Alan Ladd. In 1967, “The Way West” was itself made into a film directed by Andrew McLaglen and starring Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark, and Sally Field in her first major film role.
During the presidential administration of James K. Polk, the United States and Great Britain were engaged in a serious dispute, over the boundaries of the Oregon territory in the Pacific Northwest. To bolster the claim to the territory that the United States ultimately acquired by treaty in 1848, many intrepid Americans journeyed by wagon to the Oregon territory over the Oregon Trail, a difficult route that extended over 2000 miles northwest from Independence, Missouri, to western Oregon. The United States and Britain settled their boundary dispute by an 1846 treaty, which worked a compromise and awarded the United States the territory that Americans already predominantly occupied.
“The Way West” describes an 1845 journey over the Oregon Trail by a small band of settlers from Independence. It follows the story from the initial decision to undertake the journey through the travails of the long journey west to the band’s ultimate arrival in Oregon where the settlers disburse and go their own ways in their new home. Guthrie tells the story in an omniscient third-person narrative voice, but the perspective frequently shifts among the characters as they meditate on their own experiences and thoughts.
Guthrie introduces his three primary characters, Lije Evans, Dick Summers, and William Tadlock early in the novel and fleshes them out as the story progresses. Evans, 35, is a small farmer leading a quiet, modestly successful life. He embarks on the journey with his beloved wife, Rebecca, and their son, Brownie, who is about to turn eighteen. Evans develops his latent potential for leadership in the course of the journey while Brownie under bittersweet circumstances finds a wife.
Summers,49, is an elusive character and a former mountain man who appeared in “The Big Sky”. He has settled in Independence where he struggles to adopt the sedentary life of a farmer. After the death of Summers’ wife, Evans and other members of the party prevail upon him to act as the pilot for the group and to navigate the Oregon Trail.
Tadlock is an ambitious former politician from Illinois. He organizes the journey from Independence and is elected to serve as the band’s first leader. As a result of his preemptory, abrasive leadership style, Tadlock is voted out of office early in the journey and a reluctant Evans is elected as his successor. Evans gradually develops the confidence and wisdom that come with maturity. With the tension that develops with Evans, Tadlock and a small group of followers abandon the party and the journey to Oregon late in the book at a dividing point on the Oregon Trail to head for a safer, more routine life in California.
As befitting a long journey by wagon train, the writing in this book varies. At times the book is exhilarating while at other times it drags and barely creeps along. At its best, the novel has an epic sweep. Guthrie describes, in lyrically charged language the rigors of the trail and the rugged, changing terrain that ranges from desert, rocks, grass, and sand, to steep nearly impassable mountains, forests, and raging rivers. Illness and death, from starvation, stampedes, and hostile Indians are constant threats. Several of the pioneers die along the way. One young boy, the only son of a pioneer couple, is bitten by a rattlesnake and meets a particularly tragic death.
In its focus on the motivations of the characters for undertaking an uncertain, life-changing journey, the novel goes well beyond the conventions of a genre, action-based western. The search for a better life, the allure of free land, a sense of opportunity and freedom, patriotism, and a simple love of adventure all were important in undertaking a journey which offered no guarantees. At several stages in the book, Evans reflects upon the journey. At the outset, before reaching his decision to join the party, Evans thinks:
“It was a time to think of moving, a time when all the fields and trees, for all their raw and naked look, showed they knew spring was coming. The blood flowed quick in the body, and ideas came to a man. Once when his pa’s house burned, catching fire in the stick-and-mud chimney, he had felt a little the same way, as if all the things he had been doing as a boy didn’t need to be done any more and he could strike out fresh and build his life as he wanted it.”
Near the mid-point of the journey, Evans meditates again on his motivations for the journey and those of his companions:
"Again he felt greatness, smallness and greatness both among such wild riches. And, seeing the train winding behind him, he thought with pride of it, of the onwardness of its people, of their stubborn, unthought-out yondering. It wasn't a thing for reason, this yondering, but for the heart, where secrets lay deep and mixed. Money? Land? New chances? Patriotism? All together they weren't enough. In the beginning, that is, they weren't enough, but as a man went on it came to him how wide and wealthy was his country, and the pride he had talked about at first became so real he lost the words for it."
Towards the end of the journey, with success in reach, Evans reflects again on the gritty persistence required to undertake the trip and to reach the goal:
"Now when they were about to come to it again, to lower down the bluff and try the ford, Evans told himself that if any train could get to Oregon, this one could. It had the best pilot that he knew of, best man and pilot both. Its stock was poor but no poorer than would come behind. Its wagons were as good as others would be by the time they reached the ford. But it was the men he counted on, the men and women and spirit of the company. They had their faults, he knew. They had their differences and sometimes spoke severe, what with sand in their teeth and worries in their heads, but they wished well for one another and they hung together. There where sometimes he heard the trains split up, old On-to-Oregon stayed one."
Women receive a large, highly sympathetic portrayal in the book for their efforts on the trail, for their fortitude, and for their patience with their men. The book also portrays an ever-present sexuality and its many difficulties along the way. Guthrie shows markedly conflicting approaches to religion among the pioneers as an aging Methodist minister, Weatherby plays a large role in the story. The book describes the tortured relationship between the settlers and the many different Indian tribes en route and at the destination in Oregon. Much of the language in the novel reflects the racist stereotypes of mid-Nineteenth Century America.
"The Way West" should be viewed as part of a long American tradition of "road" novels that extends from "Huckleberry Finn" through "On the Road". Many contemporary readers do not know a great deal about the westward expansion of the United States or, if they do, regard it with cynicism. Guthrie’s novel offers a positive, largely heroic vision of this aspect of America, as befitting a winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Although the characters are frequently flawed and selfish, their collective story and vision are inspiring. "The Way West" is a moving novel that will encourage reflection on character, the settlement of the American west, and the American experience.
Robin Friedman
July 12, 2024
L'opera piu "letteraria" tra quelle lette fino ad ora sul tema western e affini.
Ogni pagina trasmette il senso di muta grandezza, di fatica e di determinazione di questo gruppo di coloni che decidono di credere che la dove andranno, allora la vita sarà sicuramente migliore e più degna di essere vissuta e dunque tutto deve essere superato e sopportato.
Indimenticabile il personaggio di Dick Summers, autentico "mountain man" che _alla fine del viaggio e consapevole del mondo che sta cambiando rapidamente intorno a loro_ decide di continuare a vivere DENTRO la frontiera finché ce ne sarà una.
È bellissimo.
Ogni pagina trasmette il senso di muta grandezza, di fatica e di determinazione di questo gruppo di coloni che decidono di credere che la dove andranno, allora la vita sarà sicuramente migliore e più degna di essere vissuta e dunque tutto deve essere superato e sopportato.
Indimenticabile il personaggio di Dick Summers, autentico "mountain man" che _alla fine del viaggio e consapevole del mondo che sta cambiando rapidamente intorno a loro_ decide di continuare a vivere DENTRO la frontiera finché ce ne sarà una.
È bellissimo.
July 23, 2017
This book, a Pulitzer Winner, has 724 ratings and 57 reviews, as of this review. Let's start a campaign, my friends! This book is WONDERFUL! What's everyone waiting for?
The Way West is the story of a wagon train travelling from Missouri to Oregon in the 1840's.
Different from A. B. Guthrie Jr.'s earlier novel, The Big Sky, which was about mountain men travelling in the same general area, this one has a train filled with families. Life on the trail, with womenfolk, is both harder and less harsh that in that earlier novel. This isn't just about men on horseback seeking the riches of beaver and buffalo hides and fighting Injuns. It's about families with all their plunder and cattle, moving heavy wagons with teams of oxen and mules. It is, thankfully, less brutal than The Big Sky, but no less heart-wrenching.
One character from the earlier novel is here: Dick Summers, with whom I fell in literary love the first time around. He is just as manly and brilliant and perfect as he was before. But then I fell in love with a different man, too! And in that other man, I see my own husband, and I'm feeling very lucky.
This book has so much - heroic men, strong women, scandal, young love, big storms, stampedes, snakes, scenery, movement - something for every reader. I highly recommend it.
The Way West is the story of a wagon train travelling from Missouri to Oregon in the 1840's.
Different from A. B. Guthrie Jr.'s earlier novel, The Big Sky, which was about mountain men travelling in the same general area, this one has a train filled with families. Life on the trail, with womenfolk, is both harder and less harsh that in that earlier novel. This isn't just about men on horseback seeking the riches of beaver and buffalo hides and fighting Injuns. It's about families with all their plunder and cattle, moving heavy wagons with teams of oxen and mules. It is, thankfully, less brutal than The Big Sky, but no less heart-wrenching.
One character from the earlier novel is here: Dick Summers, with whom I fell in literary love the first time around. He is just as manly and brilliant and perfect as he was before. But then I fell in love with a different man, too! And in that other man, I see my own husband, and I'm feeling very lucky.
This book has so much - heroic men, strong women, scandal, young love, big storms, stampedes, snakes, scenery, movement - something for every reader. I highly recommend it.
October 27, 2024
I love a good western and this is up there with the best of them.
December 18, 2021
This was the second of a trilogy by Guthrie about the Oregon Trail featuring two of the primary protagonists from the first book, The Big Sky. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950, but I felt it was less compelling than its predecessor. Looking at the competition from 1949, there are two intriguing books which I have not read, The Oasis and Like Lesser Gods that look like they might have been better choices. The treatment of the Indian tribes does not fully humanize them, but it does show some fleeting sympathy for the genocide which is ongoing during the narrative. There is a feeling of nostalgia that pervades the book, and there are some thrilling moments, but I just could never get much feeling for Lije or for Dick, as the most interesting of Guthrie's protagonists in this series, Caudill was absent.
I would say this was a so-so western, but that the similar but more entertaining The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters about the same Oregon trail, but this time for folks headed to the California goldrush rather than settlers, is arguably a more interesting read.
My list of Pulitzer winners (nearly finished all of them!):
here
I would say this was a so-so western, but that the similar but more entertaining The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters about the same Oregon trail, but this time for folks headed to the California goldrush rather than settlers, is arguably a more interesting read.
My list of Pulitzer winners (nearly finished all of them!):
here
February 12, 2013
I first read about this book in John Unruh's The Plains Across, which I would boldly call the seminal work of serious Oregon Trail history. His review is glowing, but the thing that really sums it up is; "...the author captured the quintessence of the entire experience..."
Couldn't say it better myself.
The Way West isn't for everyone. It's a human drama first, and historical fiction second; there's no historical figures acting anachronistically, no gunfights, and no lurid descriptions of sexual encounters. But it's a story about human beings. When Brownie is thinking of ways to get Mercy McBee to fall in love with him, we are reminded of all the stupid things we did at his age to get the attention of the other sex. When Mercy ends up pregnant (by a married man, no less), we feel her pain, and, yes, panic. When Lije kicks the stuffing out of Tadlock over an attempt at mob justice...well, that's as good as "fill your hand, you son of a b---h!", even if it is much less violent and satisfying.
It's a story about people, good, bad, and downright ugly. It's about choices and the journey of a lifetime. Maybe it isn't exciting, but our lives usually don't resemble a Quentin Tarentino film. It plods, but so do oxen and people...all 2,000 miles to Oregon.
Couldn't say it better myself.
The Way West isn't for everyone. It's a human drama first, and historical fiction second; there's no historical figures acting anachronistically, no gunfights, and no lurid descriptions of sexual encounters. But it's a story about human beings. When Brownie is thinking of ways to get Mercy McBee to fall in love with him, we are reminded of all the stupid things we did at his age to get the attention of the other sex. When Mercy ends up pregnant (by a married man, no less), we feel her pain, and, yes, panic. When Lije kicks the stuffing out of Tadlock over an attempt at mob justice...well, that's as good as "fill your hand, you son of a b---h!", even if it is much less violent and satisfying.
It's a story about people, good, bad, and downright ugly. It's about choices and the journey of a lifetime. Maybe it isn't exciting, but our lives usually don't resemble a Quentin Tarentino film. It plods, but so do oxen and people...all 2,000 miles to Oregon.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 23, 2016
2.5 stars. I've been obsessed with The Oregon Trail since I first saw Independence! and nine of its sequels on my mom's bookshelf when I was 7. Because of my obsession, I would never have thought that my predominant emotion over a Pulitzer Prize winning novel about the Oregon Trail would be boredom. They're were things to like in the characters and their interactions but this ultimately felt like a series of interactions between people, and they're was far too little about the actual wagon train. For the most part they could have been sitting still twiddling their thumbs the whole time.
Still, it was probably worth it for the convo among the men when they were trying to figure out if the women should be asked to cook with buffalo chips. Can't have them women knowing that a buffalo has an ass, ya know?
Still, it was probably worth it for the convo among the men when they were trying to figure out if the women should be asked to cook with buffalo chips. Can't have them women knowing that a buffalo has an ass, ya know?
April 21, 2025
I left a detailed review of the prequel, The Big Sky, recently. I anticipated, based on the clotted, dense, and gnarled style of its evocation of thirteen years starting in 1830 across the frontier, that The Way West would mark my terminus with Guthrie's series (even if Fair Land set in his native Montana in the 1880s eventually followed, and three other novels set later than that, apparently with lesser verve, completed the entire saga, over a century of settlement). Dick Summers, the mountain man guide, has returned to helm a wagon train, 1845. He's by far the standout character, of an open era already over.
His poignant recollections as he confronts mortality jibed wiih my present melancholy mood, so he's the reason to persevere. But the future Oregonians come off staid despite Guthrie's skill in conveying their own introspection, as younger men and women, this rarely swept me up. He's capable of, in this 1950 prize-winning epic, of delving into sexual dynamics, doubt and belief, and existential awe. Given a more civilized cast of figures, their collective sangfroid, domesticated and stoic, doesn't excite me.
Tamed, the prairie, desert, even the harrowing Snake River gorge look like backdrops. What in Big Sky loomed as terrifying, immense, or dangerous shrinks, like what a studio lab might add in production, to project on greenscreen (or matte painting mid-20th c.). The decorous exchanges between these Methodist-harried, prepped Midwestern transplants transpire as if politely well rehearsed. I reckon Guthrie's intent may lie in precisely this scaling down from the grand conflicts of Big Sky, as he's too talented for accidental neglect of his structure and method. Still, it feels a letdown from past dramas.
And the natives rarely appear, as their numbers diminish, their reticence increases, and their presence turns marginal. Therefore, the action which energized Big Sky's dissipated. This proves verisimilitude.
Yet it doesn't make for a page turner. Far easier to comprehend, as the prose straightened out from the convoluted, creole, compressed lingo of its predecessor, so that may've contributed to its success.
However, the humdrum events without the violence, lust, torment, and outbursts of part one mean it's a straightforward tale. Accessible, but respectable rather than rowdy. Less "racialized" as they say in academia 75 years after its publication, but without the haunting, conflicted, or chaotic chronicles of Big Sky. So, if those pair were the peaks of Guthrie's career, I'll take my exit, nodding to Summers.
His poignant recollections as he confronts mortality jibed wiih my present melancholy mood, so he's the reason to persevere. But the future Oregonians come off staid despite Guthrie's skill in conveying their own introspection, as younger men and women, this rarely swept me up. He's capable of, in this 1950 prize-winning epic, of delving into sexual dynamics, doubt and belief, and existential awe. Given a more civilized cast of figures, their collective sangfroid, domesticated and stoic, doesn't excite me.
Tamed, the prairie, desert, even the harrowing Snake River gorge look like backdrops. What in Big Sky loomed as terrifying, immense, or dangerous shrinks, like what a studio lab might add in production, to project on greenscreen (or matte painting mid-20th c.). The decorous exchanges between these Methodist-harried, prepped Midwestern transplants transpire as if politely well rehearsed. I reckon Guthrie's intent may lie in precisely this scaling down from the grand conflicts of Big Sky, as he's too talented for accidental neglect of his structure and method. Still, it feels a letdown from past dramas.
And the natives rarely appear, as their numbers diminish, their reticence increases, and their presence turns marginal. Therefore, the action which energized Big Sky's dissipated. This proves verisimilitude.
Yet it doesn't make for a page turner. Far easier to comprehend, as the prose straightened out from the convoluted, creole, compressed lingo of its predecessor, so that may've contributed to its success.
However, the humdrum events without the violence, lust, torment, and outbursts of part one mean it's a straightforward tale. Accessible, but respectable rather than rowdy. Less "racialized" as they say in academia 75 years after its publication, but without the haunting, conflicted, or chaotic chronicles of Big Sky. So, if those pair were the peaks of Guthrie's career, I'll take my exit, nodding to Summers.
October 3, 2025
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Published in 1949, The Way West won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1950 and was made into a movie starring Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum and Richard Widmark in 1967. I listened to the audio version ably narrated by Kevin Foley, produced by Dreamworks in 2013. There were background sound effects that added to the audio version (horses galloping, a buffalo stampede, river sounds).
Set in the 1840’s, the basic plot is a group of settlers who join up to travel by wagon train from Independence, Missouri to resettle in Oregon, where the land is free, a gift from the US government. The trip was 1900 arduous miles. All the thought and planning are the first few chapters, and then the adventures begin. There are accidents and deaths, wagons that break, run-ins with Injuns, good ones, bad ones, dirty ones, clean ones, misunderstandings between the men in the group. In fact, Tadlock, the leader, gets ousted and Lije Evans takes over. A little boy gets bit by a rattlesnake.
One thing that bothered me was the use of the N-word. Apparently it was a derogatory term used to describe anyone who wasn’t white, not just people of African descent. Historically accurate or not, it was quite jarring to hear.
This book is actually the second in a trilogy. I read The Big Sky a long, long time ago. With so many other books I want to read, I’m passing on the next.
Goodread 2025 Challenge - Book #90 of 125
Published in 1949, The Way West won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1950 and was made into a movie starring Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum and Richard Widmark in 1967. I listened to the audio version ably narrated by Kevin Foley, produced by Dreamworks in 2013. There were background sound effects that added to the audio version (horses galloping, a buffalo stampede, river sounds).
Set in the 1840’s, the basic plot is a group of settlers who join up to travel by wagon train from Independence, Missouri to resettle in Oregon, where the land is free, a gift from the US government. The trip was 1900 arduous miles. All the thought and planning are the first few chapters, and then the adventures begin. There are accidents and deaths, wagons that break, run-ins with Injuns, good ones, bad ones, dirty ones, clean ones, misunderstandings between the men in the group. In fact, Tadlock, the leader, gets ousted and Lije Evans takes over. A little boy gets bit by a rattlesnake.
One thing that bothered me was the use of the N-word. Apparently it was a derogatory term used to describe anyone who wasn’t white, not just people of African descent. Historically accurate or not, it was quite jarring to hear.
This book is actually the second in a trilogy. I read The Big Sky a long, long time ago. With so many other books I want to read, I’m passing on the next.
Goodread 2025 Challenge - Book #90 of 125
June 1, 2021
The Way West
Sara told me after my disappointing review of, ‘The Big Sky’, that I’d have no disappointment in reading ‘The Way West’.
Sara was so right. I LOVED this book!! No wonder it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1950. Beautifully written, excellent character development and captivating story line. I’m hoping to read more about the Evans family in more of the Big Sky series.
The Way West begins on the Missouri frontier in the 1840’s with a series of characters looking to take that great leap across the country called The Oregon Trail. A collection of farmers and fame seekers wants to claim the land for America, but they need a guide to take them across the plains. Guthrie reunites readers with Dick Summers as he grudgingly agrees to hire on as the guide of the company. During their journey, the wagon train struggles against the challenges of the trail, and Guthrie paints a vivid picture of what that toil would have been like.
Sara told me after my disappointing review of, ‘The Big Sky’, that I’d have no disappointment in reading ‘The Way West’.
Sara was so right. I LOVED this book!! No wonder it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1950. Beautifully written, excellent character development and captivating story line. I’m hoping to read more about the Evans family in more of the Big Sky series.
The Way West begins on the Missouri frontier in the 1840’s with a series of characters looking to take that great leap across the country called The Oregon Trail. A collection of farmers and fame seekers wants to claim the land for America, but they need a guide to take them across the plains. Guthrie reunites readers with Dick Summers as he grudgingly agrees to hire on as the guide of the company. During their journey, the wagon train struggles against the challenges of the trail, and Guthrie paints a vivid picture of what that toil would have been like.
October 15, 2013
Let's be clear! I love Westerns as a genre-movies, books and even TV. I had a positive outlook as I began this book, since I enjoy a good "oater", and the author, A.B. Guthrie won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1950. The novel did not disappoint.
A group of farmers in Missouri decide to make the perilous journey from their homesteads to the wilds of Oregon. Some of the train members have come from further east, seeking a new start. To call this adventure perilous is certainly an understatement. All of the dangers one might expect to find, if you have been exposed to any western media form, are present-changeable and fierce weather, heat, wind, lack of water, rattlesnakes, wolves, raging rivers, deep gorges, desert-like terrain-all to be crossed on foot, (since most members of the wagon train walked). Everything you might need must be transported with you, from flour to sewing needles-all transported in covered wagons or on the backs of pack mules or, if necessary, carried by hand.
Why would anyone undertake such an intimidating endeavour? Guthrie gives us many reasons, including the desire to help Oregon as a territory become part of America, and out of the hands of the British. The primary reason was the desire to own land that was thought to be so rich in its flora, fauna, and potential for successful homesteading, that the idea of "Oregon", became almost mythic in its dreamed-of state.
Guthrie does "the pioneer spirit" proud! Living in a time when we have difficulty imagining daily life without electricity, running water, the internet, and almost any kind of food imaginable at our fingertips, the circumstances overcome by this relatively small group of ordinary folk, is quite extraordinary. His characters are likeable, except for the controlling Tadlock and some of his cronies.
After the first couple of chapters, I realized that my perceptions of the characters were being indirectly influenced by my visualization of Dick Summers, the wagon train pilot, in the form of a buckskin clad Jimmy Stuart, and Lige Evens, the other main male character, as an embodiment of Gary Cooper. Those images remained with me throughout the novel, and are a tribute to Mr. Guthrie's characterizations, and two Hollywood greats who epitomize integrity and "the good guy", in just about any type of environment.
Stuart, whom I adore, made many westerns, some darker that others, and Cooper is the sheriff abandoned by those he has sworn to protect, in the classic High Noon.
Guthrie's novel was made into a 1967 film of the same name, starring three Hollywood big ticket stars: Richard Widmark, Robert Mitchum, and Kirk Douglas. The film includes many of the physical challenges faced by the train's members, but I was not happy with the casting, nor their portrayals of Guthrie's characters.
Guthrie is also known as the writer of the screenplay for the famous western, Shane, and received an Oscar Nomination.
The Way West is actually a sequel to
The Big Sky, in which Dick Summers is a mountain man, with a deeply felt attachment to the mountains of Oregon, thus making him an ideal candidate to pilot the train in the sequel. He appears again in Guthrie's third book, Fair Land, Fair Land, as Summers with a conservationist-type character slant, from the mid nineteenth century. I intend to read both of these volumes, along with These Thousand Hills, a separate novel about the world of cattle ranchers in the 1880's.
If you enjoy beautifully constructed descriptions of the land, weather, and characters from a time and place gone by, who seem real enough to step out of the page, The Way West is for you.
A group of farmers in Missouri decide to make the perilous journey from their homesteads to the wilds of Oregon. Some of the train members have come from further east, seeking a new start. To call this adventure perilous is certainly an understatement. All of the dangers one might expect to find, if you have been exposed to any western media form, are present-changeable and fierce weather, heat, wind, lack of water, rattlesnakes, wolves, raging rivers, deep gorges, desert-like terrain-all to be crossed on foot, (since most members of the wagon train walked). Everything you might need must be transported with you, from flour to sewing needles-all transported in covered wagons or on the backs of pack mules or, if necessary, carried by hand.
Why would anyone undertake such an intimidating endeavour? Guthrie gives us many reasons, including the desire to help Oregon as a territory become part of America, and out of the hands of the British. The primary reason was the desire to own land that was thought to be so rich in its flora, fauna, and potential for successful homesteading, that the idea of "Oregon", became almost mythic in its dreamed-of state.
Guthrie does "the pioneer spirit" proud! Living in a time when we have difficulty imagining daily life without electricity, running water, the internet, and almost any kind of food imaginable at our fingertips, the circumstances overcome by this relatively small group of ordinary folk, is quite extraordinary. His characters are likeable, except for the controlling Tadlock and some of his cronies.
After the first couple of chapters, I realized that my perceptions of the characters were being indirectly influenced by my visualization of Dick Summers, the wagon train pilot, in the form of a buckskin clad Jimmy Stuart, and Lige Evens, the other main male character, as an embodiment of Gary Cooper. Those images remained with me throughout the novel, and are a tribute to Mr. Guthrie's characterizations, and two Hollywood greats who epitomize integrity and "the good guy", in just about any type of environment.
Stuart, whom I adore, made many westerns, some darker that others, and Cooper is the sheriff abandoned by those he has sworn to protect, in the classic High Noon.
Guthrie's novel was made into a 1967 film of the same name, starring three Hollywood big ticket stars: Richard Widmark, Robert Mitchum, and Kirk Douglas. The film includes many of the physical challenges faced by the train's members, but I was not happy with the casting, nor their portrayals of Guthrie's characters.
Guthrie is also known as the writer of the screenplay for the famous western, Shane, and received an Oscar Nomination.
The Way West is actually a sequel to
The Big Sky, in which Dick Summers is a mountain man, with a deeply felt attachment to the mountains of Oregon, thus making him an ideal candidate to pilot the train in the sequel. He appears again in Guthrie's third book, Fair Land, Fair Land, as Summers with a conservationist-type character slant, from the mid nineteenth century. I intend to read both of these volumes, along with These Thousand Hills, a separate novel about the world of cattle ranchers in the 1880's.If you enjoy beautifully constructed descriptions of the land, weather, and characters from a time and place gone by, who seem real enough to step out of the page, The Way West is for you.
September 27, 2021
While he answered, Summer thought it was only the earth that didn’t change. It was just the mountains, watching others flower and seed, watching men come and go, the Indian first and after him the trapper, pushing up the unspoiled rivers, pleased with risk and loneliness, and now the waters of new homes, the hunters of fortune, the would-be makers of a bigger nation, spelling the end to a time that was ended anyway.
He didn’t blame the Oregoners as he had known old mountain men to do. Everybody had his life to make, and every time its way, one different from another. The fur hunter didn’t have title to the mountains no matter if he did say finders’ keepers. By that system the country belonged to the Indians, or maybe someone before them or someone before them. No use to stand against the stream of change and time.
I remember studying this time period of ‘Manifest Destiny’ in American history, and even at the time thinking it was such a peculiar arrogance to believe that spreading American democracy, capitalism and agriculture was some ‘favour’ to the vast wilderness so loosely and delicately held by Native Americans.
The story begins in Independence, Missouri in the 1840s when a group of farmers and adventurers band together in a wagon train to head west to Oregon. The book is dominated by a few themes: first, a description of the trail; second, the jockeying for leadership; and third, the different forms of strength necessary to successfully complete the journey.
There is a large group of characters, many of them secondary and not particularly memorable. The main characters are Lije and his wife Rebecca, their son Brownie, and their friend Dick Summers, who has been a ‘mountain man’ in the west and leads the group through the various hazards of the trail.
The story isn’t as predictable as one imagines, and several points of possible conflict are actually just red herrings. The book has a lot of human interest, but it’s not nearly as dramatic as I expected it to be - or as it could have been. It suffers, perhaps, from not having a strong enough emotional focus. It’s a nice enough read, but I found it easy to put down. I might not have even finished it if I hadn’t been reading it for The Pulitzer Project. (It was the 1950 winner for that prize.)
May 17, 2012
I hadn’t read, indeed hadn’t thought of, a Guthrie since The Big Sky, lo, these many years past. A buddy got hooked on him recently and has read all six of the Guthrie settling-of-the-west series in the last year or so. I finally decided to join him for at least part of the trip. The Way West, an Oregon Trail wagon train tale, is a sequel to The Big Sky, which is a mountain man saga. It received the 1950 Pulitzer and became a big film in 1967 starring Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas, so it has definitely carved a place for itself in American popular lit. Guthrie has some impressive screen credits outside his novels, including the classic, Shane.
Someone once told me that there are two kinds of stories--1) Someone goes on a journey; 2) A stranger comes to town. Sane is the archetypal #2. But back to The Way West.
Beaver trapping and mountain men are history in the spring of 1845 Missouri when the Way West wagon train germinates. Guthrie lets the journey structure his story. He begins with the formation of a group containing men and women who seek, variously, land, adventure, American domination of the continent, et al, and follows them and across what was to become a well-worn trail before leaving them in sight of Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River in early September.
We get a nice collection of characters--an overbearing Captain, a mountain man who’s tried to settle down but can’t quite (especially since his wife’s death) a preacher trying to convert the heathen, a few men of weak and/or vengeful character, a couple of 17-year-olds feeling their oats, and a bunch of strong, stoic Victorian-era women. Guthrie gives us plentiful details of the preparations. Everyone required to bring certain provisions, to obey certain rules, a provisional government. He establishes a language that probably never exactly existed in history, but serves to help create a world for the book:
Up the Sweetwater and over the Southern Pass and down the Sandy to the Green he was seeing the wild goats, or antelopes as people were calling them now, and the young ones running with them, light and skittery as thistle bloom. And it came on toward night, and the sun was down and the fire of its setting dead, and the coyotes were beginning to yip in the hills and the stars to light up, and there was the good smell of aspen smoke in his nose.
***
People wouldn’t let a man with a grief do anything for himself. They brought him meat and bread and cake . . . and they tidied up his place and build a walnut box and dug a grave and the women laid the body out. And all of them stayed around--the men smoking and chewing and talking pigs and crops and the women talking women’s talk--until the body was in the ground and the earth thrown on top.
As such journeys go both in history and literature, the train suffers no horrendous disasters. There are deaths, disease, Indians, calamities--tests of character and proving grounds for concepts of justice and right--but no massacres, no incinerating wildfires, no marauding hordes (though there are hostile Indians). Guthrie’s emphasis is not on catastrophe, but on character. He spends many pages inside the hearts and heads of key actors in the drama, exploring the motivations behind the many acts of courage and betrayal that occur as individuals create and react to each crisis. Thrown together in circumstances where they can’t easily escape one another, character flaws hidden in gentler environments get thrown into relief, and the resulting actions have consequences they never would in a context like a town or city where they might be absorbed or even ignored. Secrets will out, and how people react when they are revealed is in turn a test of that character. Guthrie is masterful at exploring the psyche this way.
Still, I have a hard time with the writing when his language gets excessive and he starts with his exclamation marks:
He held tight as the mountains fell away. He said not yet, not yet, while in his gaze a softer country swam. Not yet, not yet, and then ahead, beyond a grass-green prairie, mellow in the sun, the lines of Fort Vancouver with a great ship standing by! Across from it, unseen in the wooded flow of land, the waters of Willamette!
For all my objections, though, I think no one has done this as well. And if you have a hunger to learn some history of America’s western frontier, and would rather have a story than a textbook, A.B. Guthrie’s your man.
Someone once told me that there are two kinds of stories--1) Someone goes on a journey; 2) A stranger comes to town. Sane is the archetypal #2. But back to The Way West.
Beaver trapping and mountain men are history in the spring of 1845 Missouri when the Way West wagon train germinates. Guthrie lets the journey structure his story. He begins with the formation of a group containing men and women who seek, variously, land, adventure, American domination of the continent, et al, and follows them and across what was to become a well-worn trail before leaving them in sight of Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River in early September.
We get a nice collection of characters--an overbearing Captain, a mountain man who’s tried to settle down but can’t quite (especially since his wife’s death) a preacher trying to convert the heathen, a few men of weak and/or vengeful character, a couple of 17-year-olds feeling their oats, and a bunch of strong, stoic Victorian-era women. Guthrie gives us plentiful details of the preparations. Everyone required to bring certain provisions, to obey certain rules, a provisional government. He establishes a language that probably never exactly existed in history, but serves to help create a world for the book:
Up the Sweetwater and over the Southern Pass and down the Sandy to the Green he was seeing the wild goats, or antelopes as people were calling them now, and the young ones running with them, light and skittery as thistle bloom. And it came on toward night, and the sun was down and the fire of its setting dead, and the coyotes were beginning to yip in the hills and the stars to light up, and there was the good smell of aspen smoke in his nose.
***
People wouldn’t let a man with a grief do anything for himself. They brought him meat and bread and cake . . . and they tidied up his place and build a walnut box and dug a grave and the women laid the body out. And all of them stayed around--the men smoking and chewing and talking pigs and crops and the women talking women’s talk--until the body was in the ground and the earth thrown on top.
As such journeys go both in history and literature, the train suffers no horrendous disasters. There are deaths, disease, Indians, calamities--tests of character and proving grounds for concepts of justice and right--but no massacres, no incinerating wildfires, no marauding hordes (though there are hostile Indians). Guthrie’s emphasis is not on catastrophe, but on character. He spends many pages inside the hearts and heads of key actors in the drama, exploring the motivations behind the many acts of courage and betrayal that occur as individuals create and react to each crisis. Thrown together in circumstances where they can’t easily escape one another, character flaws hidden in gentler environments get thrown into relief, and the resulting actions have consequences they never would in a context like a town or city where they might be absorbed or even ignored. Secrets will out, and how people react when they are revealed is in turn a test of that character. Guthrie is masterful at exploring the psyche this way.
Still, I have a hard time with the writing when his language gets excessive and he starts with his exclamation marks:
He held tight as the mountains fell away. He said not yet, not yet, while in his gaze a softer country swam. Not yet, not yet, and then ahead, beyond a grass-green prairie, mellow in the sun, the lines of Fort Vancouver with a great ship standing by! Across from it, unseen in the wooded flow of land, the waters of Willamette!
For all my objections, though, I think no one has done this as well. And if you have a hunger to learn some history of America’s western frontier, and would rather have a story than a textbook, A.B. Guthrie’s your man.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 369 reviews