I ADORE historical fiction! Probably has a lot to do with having a mother who loved history and getting a history minor in college (most memorable class was Mexican History where Professor suddenly pulls out large gun and aims it across students. Yeah us military kids hit the floor-everybody else sat stunned! He had a dramatic flair like that....scary but entertaining....)Anywho, when I get offered a chance to read what sounds like an interesting historical fiction novel I jump in with both feet!
Across the Endless River is a fictional historical novel about Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, the son of Sacagawea, and his intriguing sojourn as a young man in 1820s Paris.
Born in 1805 on the Lewis and Clark expedition, Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, known affectionately as “Pompy” to his mother’s tribe, was the son of the expedition’s translators, Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau. Carried on a cradle board as an infant, Baptiste crossed the Rocky Mountains on Sacagawea’s back, a now legendary image. Charbonneau's image can even be found on the Sacagawea dollar coin. He is the only child ever depicted on US Currency!Across the Endless River imagines Baptiste's amazing boyhood in Missouri, among the Mandan tribe and his time as William Clark’s ward in St. Louis. With his ability to slip between and co-exist within two very different worlds, Baptiste proves indispensable to the explorers and scientists he meets through Clark, including the young Duke Paul of Württemberg, who is on a missin to accumulate as many 'specimens' of the wild American west as he can.
Then 1823, eighteen-year-old Baptiste is invited to cross the Atlantic with the young Duke Paul of Württemberg, to help him catalogue all the specimens he has collected (A number of Indian tribal pieces collected by Duke Paul have found a home in the Linden Museum in Stuttgart. His collection at the time of his death in 1860 was considered the largest assemblage of specimens, and tribal artifacts, in private hands. Only a tiny percentage of those holdings survive in Stuttgart, per Carhart's website) . During their travels throughout Europe, Paul introduces Baptiste to a world he never imagined, one of increasing wealth, culture and aimlessness. Increasingly, Baptiste senses the limitations of life as an outsider; only Paul’s older cousin, Princess Theresa, understands the richness of his heritage. Their affair is both passionate and tender, but Theresa’s clear-eyed notions of love, marriage, and the need to fashion one’s own future, push Baptiste to consider what he truly needs.
In Paris, he meets Maura Hennesy, the beautiful and independent daughter of a French-Irish wine merchant. Baptiste describes his life on the fast-changing frontier to Maura, and she begins to imagine a different destiny with this enigmatic American. Baptiste ultimately faces a choice: whether to stay in Europe or to return to the wilds of North America. His decision will resonate strongly with those who today find themselves at the intersection of cultures, languages, and customs.
Then 1823, eighteen-year-old Baptiste is invited to cross the Atlantic with the young Duke Paul of Württemberg, to help him catalogue all the specimens he has collected (A number of Indian tribal pieces collected by Duke Paul have found a home in the Linden Museum in Stuttgart. His collection at the time of his death in 1860 was considered the largest assemblage of specimens, and tribal artifacts, in private hands. Only a tiny percentage of those holdings survive in Stuttgart, per Carhart's website) . During their travels throughout Europe, Paul introduces Baptiste to a world he never imagined, one of increasing wealth, culture and aimlessness. Increasingly, Baptiste senses the limitations of life as an outsider; only Paul’s older cousin, Princess Theresa, understands the richness of his heritage. Their affair is both passionate and tender, but Theresa’s clear-eyed notions of love, marriage, and the need to fashion one’s own future, push Baptiste to consider what he truly needs.
In Paris, he meets Maura Hennesy, the beautiful and independent daughter of a French-Irish wine merchant. Baptiste describes his life on the fast-changing frontier to Maura, and she begins to imagine a different destiny with this enigmatic American. Baptiste ultimately faces a choice: whether to stay in Europe or to return to the wilds of North America. His decision will resonate strongly with those who today find themselves at the intersection of cultures, languages, and customs.
The story is very interesting and keeps you hooked, wanting to know more about Duke Paul and his collections' future and Baptiste's. It is a quick read and I think it would be very interesting for pre=teen/teenagers to read as well! It would definitely gie a more human side the the study of the Lewis & Clark expedition!
The story ends with Baptiste returning to America and leaves his, and Maura's future unknown. BUT I did some research (I had a need to know the end of the story). According to Wikipedia- Baptiste continues to be a trapper and Army scout. His fluency in numerous European and Native American languages made him well qualified, and he eventually led the Mormon Batillion from NM to San Diego. After his arrival there he came the Alcade of Mission San Luis Rey. He was eventually forced to resign from that post, after his repeated attempts to improve the condition of the local Native American tribes caused political trouble for him.
Baptiste then got caught up in the California Gold Rush and lived in Northern California for years. Baptiste died of pneumonia near Danner, Oregon, at age 61. There is even a National Monument to him in Danner!
Comments from author Thad Carhart on why he wrote the book:
The interest in those who live where disparate languages and customs overlap, sparked my enthusiasm for the story of Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau / Pompy. I have always been an enthusiastic reader of history, and the American frontier holds a special fascination. When I first learned that Sacagawea’s son had spent five years in Europe as a young man, I was both astounded and intrigued. I then found that very little was known about his time there, and I began to imagine telling his story in a historical novel. My principal interest is how he saw Europe in the mid-1820’s—a world as different from that of the frontier as another planet might be from our own—and how he then fashioned his own path, his own choices. That is something we all have to do to some extent, but the nature of the cultural dissonance that Baptiste faced is phenomenal, and his way of making sense of it compelling. This uncertain and inviting terrain, at the intersection of dissimilar ways of life, continues to inform my writing, both fiction and nonfiction.
In conclussion: I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in historical fiction!
Comments
Post a Comment