Book Review: Little Big Man

 

© 1964 by Thomas Berger

 

According to the date I etched into the inside front page cover, I’ve had this book in my possession since May 18, 2013. Eighth years and three months. Don’t even remember the circumstances in which I bought it. I seem to recall being well into my first Civil War phase back then, so perhaps the Wild West / Indian theme appealed to me. Also, author Thomas Berger (1924-2014) has been on my Acquisitions List for the longest time. As an aside, he also wrote the novel Neighbors, which was made into a 1981 film starring John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd, and that book, too, is on my List.

 

Why so long without being read? To be honest, it probably stayed off the On Deck Circle all those 99 months because I was afraid of it. Afraid of the investment in time – it does clock in at a hefty 445 pages – and afraid of the investment in emotions – I thought it would be an exercise in deconstruction and snarkiness. And as a fairly dyed-in-the-wool Platonist, especially with my literature, I don’t like deconstruction.

 

Well, I breezed through it in ten days, despite all the action going on here getting settled in our new homestead. And it wasn’t an exercise in deconstruction and snarkiness. No; as a matter of fact, it was kinda funny. Occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, but more of a type of witty, wish-I-wrote-like-that funny. Scratch that: more of a how-can-I-ever-write-this-well type of funny.

 

Where to begin?

Little Big Man is a Western tale covering a good chunk of American history. From the 1840s, pioneering with the Westward Expansion, through the Civil War, through the linking of East and West coasts through the great intercontinental railroads, up to the Indian Wars of the late 1870s. Our “hero” is a crusty old hoss name of Jack Crabb, 111-years old at the start of the tale, which is basically him regaling a stuffy academic with his life story. What is true? What is exaggeration? What do we make of a tale where we can’t decide the answers the either question? Well, sit back and enjoy, I suppose.

 

You don’t have to be into Westerns to appreciate the novel. Me, I’ve read about 300 science fiction novels, about 100 horror novels, and about 10 Westerns, yet I loved it. Crabb, despite his lack of book smarts, is complicated and contradictory: smarmy, a hustler, a simple straightforward man, a man of honor, a man on a trail of revenge who ultimately sets it aside, a man thrust into greatness several times in his long lived life but never one who could hold on to it. Crude, rude, and lewd. A man truly a “half-breed” – raised by Cheyenne at the age of 10 through his teenage years, then thrust back into “civilization” – proselytizing preachers, the U.S. Army, scouting, working on the Union Pacific, and, ultimately, fighting with General Custer at Little Big Horn. A man unapologetically of his time. A man who’d drive thousands of Liberal Arts majors screaming into safe spaces.

 

Along with Custer, Crabb has several run-ins with famous figures of history. Most predominantly, Wild Bill Hickok. Wyatt Earp makes a cameo, and Walt Whitman is mentioned in passing. Some of the funniest writing of the book revolves around Jack’s sister Caroline, who herself is mistaken for Calamity Jane.

 

The climax of the novel occurs as Jack stands side-by-side with Custer at Little Big Horn. Eight years earlier Jack was present – living as a Cheyenne at the time – at the Battle of the Washita, in which Custer’s men slaughtered several hundred Indians, including Jack’s Cheyenne family. After vowing revenge and tracking Custer’s movements, only to be sidetracked by the nagging requirement of having to work to keep one’s belly somewhat full, Crabb ultimately winds up trying to dissuade the highly conceited General from walking into the Indians’ trap.

 

The battle on the bluffs in which Custer and his men are wiped out to a man seemed historically accurate to me, at least from what I retained from my three-book study of the event back in May of 2019. Oh, and if Custer and his men of the Seventh Cavalry were wiped out to a man, what happened to Jack? Well, I won’t spoil that, but will only say that a chapter on Little Big Man leads to one of the most touching scenes I’ve read in recent years, and it has something to do with Jack and his foster-father, Cheyenne chieftain, Old Lodge Skins. Well done, Mr. Berger.

 

Grade: Recommended; solid A.

 

PS. In the 60s the rights to the book were purchased by Marlon Brando, but nothing came of it until it was sold and was later made into a 1970 movie starring Dustin Hoffmann. You may have seen it or seen it referenced. Hoffmann is wearing prosthetic makeup to age him to 120 years; state-of-the-art then but dated now. I’ve not seen the movie, and I’m not sure I have any desire to. I feel perhaps Hoffmann may have been miscast, but I could be mistaken.