The Big Sky Critical Essay | Critical Essay by John R. Milton

Critical Essay by John R. Milton

[In The Big Sky] Guthrie's mountain men are entirely fictional, and because there are three of them interacting with each other as well as with the wilderness it is possible for Guthrie to include all of the characteristics which, taken together, could make up the typical or representative mountain man, "that mixture of hardihood, dissipation, heroism, brute action, innocence and sin." Guthrie shuns romanticism, preferring a kind of dramatic reportage told in language which is clean, informal, and direct. His mountain man is not Leatherstocking, but "the engaging, rude, admirable, odious, thoughtless, resourceful, loyal, sinful, smart, stupid, courageous character that he was and had to be." Although some of the adjectives would seem to indicate that Guthrie was opinionated, and although he is not above eulogizing the land occasionally, The Big Sky is a remarkably objective novel with a judicious mixture of imagination and historical sources…. (pp. 165-66)

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