[Pet Health Admin]

Customer Review: Crazy about the book.
A thoroughly enjoyable, beautifully written and informative true story. This book opened my eyes to the life and times of not only the Lakota Indians but to the hardships of the Native Americans in general. A worthy first book by Kingsley Bray and I patiently wait for his next.
Customer Review: Not what I expected
As of this writing I have completed the first four chapters but wanted to put down my initial impressions. Sadly, I am somewhat disappointed. I was expecting the text to contain an analytical study of the life and times of Crazy Horse in which the author presented multiple views and reminiscences relating to Crazy Horse and tried to arrive at a reasonable conclusion. However, what the author has done is present unsubstantiated details as facts in the text and even tries to tell us what Crazy Horse was thinking during certain events. How can he know this? This is really what Mari Sandoz did, but updated with a lot more details added to the story. Another example is in chapter 4. Bray supplies a quote and declares the speaker to be Man Afraid of His Horse. But in the footnote at the end of the book, he states that the quote came from an unidentified speaker, but in his opinion, it was Man Afraid. My opinion is, he should have written the words "perhaps spoken by Man Afraid of His Horse" in the text of the book. As it is, others will now quote Bray and follow his lead, until the speaker becomes Man Afraid in future books, with the "perhaps" being all but forgotten. Maybe I'm too sensitive to this, but it irks me. Overall, this book is fun to read, but has not, at this point, met my expectations. Update-- I have now finished the first 8 chapters. At the close of chapter 6 Bray makes it clear he is suffering from hero worship when he writes: The career of the Lakota people's greatest warrior had begun. Perhaps "one of the greatest" would have been more realistic. On page 77 he states that the Lakota declared "open war" on the Americans [1864]. He goes on to state that it was a "major offensive." Further down the page we find that this "open war" and "major offensive" never amounted too much more than stealing stock and killing an occasional straggler. He should have put this entire episode into better perspective and pointed out that despite the big talk, their initiative was rather lacking and uncoordinated. On p. 78 he states that the emigrants and militia were "trigger-happy." Well, after reading the preceding pages and understanding the danger then existing, this "negative" [as the author presents it] comes across as perfectly understandable. You'd have been "trigger-happy" too, under the same conditions, not knowing who was friend and who was foe. Based on the above examples, Mr. Bray appears to be losing all objectivity. And considering the amount of work that he put into this book it is really too bad. I don't mean to sound too harsh. But this manuscript could have used some more editing and critiquing. 01-16-07 I have now finished the first 10 chapters. Bray likes to write things like "Crazy Horse's warriors," without explaining how he knows this. On pp. 113-114 he provides a quote by Louis Simonin (The Rocky Mountain West in 1867) and CREATES a scenario that involves Crazy Horse and Man Afraid of His Horse. He is certainly reading into it, as the original mentions neither man. This is called creative writing and there is LOTS OF IT in this book. Another MAJOR complaint about this book is the author's failure to provide a chart to help the reader keep track of all the bands, leaders, and their relation to one another. It is almost impossible to follow unless you start writing it down yourself at the beginning. This is a major distraction. He just keeps throwing names (both bands and people) at the reader like it was nothing. This book could have been a masterpiece and the last word on Crazy Horse. I think Bray should go back and rework the book. A more appropriate title for this book is "Speculations on the Life of Crazy Horse." 2-1-07 I am not commenting on every detail of this book. But I frequently spot-check footnotes for accuracy. This exmaple is typical of this book and why this book crosses the line of history and novel (which is not how it is marketed): On p. 220 Bray quotes John G. Bourke (author of On the Border with Crook). Bourke, p. 415 (Bison Book edition), relates a very brief story about Crazy Horse and his participation in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Bray takes this story and places it at a precise point in the battle and even supplies the scenario in which it occurred. None of this is alluded to in Bourke's account. Bray takes constant liberties with his source material. Creative, sure...but is it history or one man's imagination? This is very dangerous from an historical perspective. If this book was presented as a novel, it would be a great one and get 5 stars. But as it is, I can only give it 2.5 to 3. And the book is not user friendly. I don't like having to keep flipping to the back to read the footnotes. And I find all the Lakota political goings on quite impossible to follow. It actually comes off as rather snobbish. 3-1-07 It took a long time, but I finally finished this book. Bray is consistently overly wordy and this book could have been 100 pages shorter. Many of his paragraphs could have been condensed. Overall, it was a lousy editing job, assuming the book was read/edited at all. Also, for some reason Bray fails to speak about why Crazy Horse was so obessesed with going on a buffalo hunt once on the reservation, as if this would set everything right in his life. It wasn't so important for the other leaders and headmen, but for Crazy Horse this was of MAJOR importance. Everything was riding on it. Bray fails to attempt to analyze this very obvious topic. Also, towards the end of the book there is a footnote where he says to see an old Chicago newspaper account for alternative details to Crazy Horse's death, as if this is such a simple thing to do. In a book that is already too long with repetitive sentence structure that only serves to bog down the reader, would it have mattered to include this bit of useful information? Having said all that, this is the best book currently available on Crazy Horse, it's just not the best book that could have been written. Unfortunately, it will probably be a long time, if ever, that someone attempts to do this again.


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