Lord Grizzly (Bison Classic Editions)

Very interesting book -- I had no idea why the attack happened at the beginning of the movie or after reading a different account of the story -- but this book tells all. It is recommended by the South Dakota travel site. It was published in 1954. Now I have an entirely different opinion of the movie and Hugh Glass.The author, Frederick Manfred, spent 10 years researching the story and even crawling areas with his leg tied up with sticks and vines. He went to South Dakota to gather gravel, plants, and other natural things along the path Hugh Glass traveled. He crawled through his yard in Bloomington, MN, as well, as his family watched. He ate ants and grubs.Really interesting account and I feel like I understood little of the real story before reading this book.

I read Lord Grizzly instead of The Revenant after I researched the Hugh Glass legend. I'm happy I did. While not comparing Manfred's work to The Killer Angels directly, it is of similar style - historical fiction putting meat on the bones of fact (or 'agreed upon legend' perhaps in this case). I found it highly readable, medium-paced and detailed without going overboard. I believe the book's Introduction - that Manfred really studied the claims of the Glass story, walking the ground, dragiing himself, eating flora and fauna. You can see Manfred's effort paying off in the descriptions of he assumes is happening to Glass throughout the misadventure. Not on the level of Bernard DeVoto for historical content but much easier to read.

When I was a kid, my parents used to drop me off at Blue Mounds State Park in Luverne, Minnesota, near the confluence of that state, South Dakota, and Iowa. Not only were the park's pink, quartzite cliffs spectacular, but in the distance I could see buffalo grazing, and nearby was the futuristic-looking (this was the 1960s) home of a real curiosity: a man who wrote books for a living, name of Frederick Manfred.So it was with a mix of nostalgia and intrigue that I recently picked up Manfred's "Lord Grizzly," a National Book Award finalist in 1955 and the story of Hugh Glass, a real-life mountain man who survived a bear attack and subsequent abandonment in 1820s South Dakota - not far from my Blue Mounds stomping ground."Lord Grizzly" invokes that long-ago land of Indians, grizzlies, mountain lions and buzzards, but Manfred recreates it to a fault. The book reminded me of Charles Frazier's "Cold Mountain" with its endless depictions of wilderness flora and fauna - nirvana for naturalists and American West fans, I'm sure - but not my cup of tea. Old Hugh's cumbersome crawl across the Midwestern Plains had nothing on my tedious trek through 100 pages of riverbeds, sunsets, and prairie-dog villages.The plot is about Glass's quest for revenge on the men who left him for dead, but the theme is man's struggle between his desire for freedom and the bonds of society. Manfred seemed to prefer the former; for me, those daylong prowls in his Blue Mounds backyard were wilderness enough.

There is a lot of controversy over the story of Hugh Glass. I read the book not for historical accuracy, but the basic story of Glass surviving a near fatal grizzly attack and getting back to Fort Kiowa some 200 mile journey. The story "drags" until Glass is attacked by the grizzly, after that the story moves quickly. Reading information on Wikipedia about Hugh Glass you would think he make the whole journey crawling, however much of the journey was in a dugout boat that Glass constructed. The book is entertaining if not totally historically accurate.

I loved this story very much. I read the Revenant and didn't want it to end so I took this book up next and I have to say I couldn't put the book down. You get used to Manfred's writing style as you read along. I love the part where they feast on buffalo, felt like I was right there feasting with em. Manfred describes it so you feel like you are there. I didn't want this book to end, I am definitely gonna purchase more books written by Frederick Manfred. Get this book, you won't be disappointed.

Several reviewers of The Revenant said this book was better and they are right. This is told from a very close third person - we are inside Hugh Glass' head much of the time - and he is a much more well rounded character. The book appears to be truer to the actual story and while Manfred fails to convincingly convey the thirst for revenge that drove Glass, this is a good read overall, especially considering I'd just read The Revenant.

This book wouldn't be for everyone but I found it to be fascinating. I love that it is written with a definite flavor for the time period it covers. It takes a bit to get used to how they talked but it really grows on you. I think Hugh Glass was absolutely fascinating and I believe the author did a pretty good job. Obviously, the author had to fill in a lot blanks since there isn't much actual documentation about what happened in the time covered in this book but I believe he did a good job.

I'm not sure if the word "plot" is one I would use when describing a non-fiction work.After seeing the movie, The Revenant, I wanted to read the book because I have hunted in some of the areas described and none were depicted accurately in the movie. There are NO mountains in North Dakota or north central South Dakota.As I read the book, I felt a bit exhausted with the ever, physical challenge of covering long distances while crawling on one's belly. It is an amazing story and one that I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

One of the best books I've read.

Great book

A true description of the Sioux region, history, native population. It comes combined with a breathtaking story of survival.

crap,not a page turner like other hugh glass books I have read,I should have looked it up on good reads before buying

quelle beau récit! aventure hallucinante!mais mieux vaut parler bien anglais, car l'américain des trappeurs du 19e siècle n’est pas toujours facile a comprendre...