• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

SON OF THE MORNING STAR PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Evan S. Connell | 441 pages | 30 Oct 1997 | North Point Press | 9780865475106 | English | Berkeley, California, United States Why are both Jesus and Satan referred to as the morning star? | Custer could be a counterpart to Emma Bovary, both of them raised on sentimental fiction, both carrying Romantic literary myth into collision with an unaccommodating reality. Emma dies laughing. Connell quarries his prose from Anglo-American modernism. It made me think of Eliot, Pound, Williams. Connell arranges extracts from primary sources into collages that feel so vivid. The soldiers take down the bundle, unwrap it and examine the items coiled in with the desiccated corpse. She had been abducted from a wagon train and had taken every opportunity to seed their path with little messages identifying herself and telling how she might be found and ransomed. From there Connell takes up her story for a couple of pages. And later he braids her story back into the main narrative, using her notes and the captivity narrative she wrote after being freed to illustrate the plight of another captive settler woman who Custer failed to rescue. No other book on American history has made me feel so transported. In one of the big questions was whether the government should get behind public opinion and finally wipe out the Indians still refusing the give up their land and way of life. This book can be so scary because Connell— what with his collages of newspaper editorials that openly advocate genocide and tales of festive exhibitions of Indian scalps at public theaters—is good at recreating that American moment, when Indians, settlers and soldiers were busy scalping, shooting, stabbing, skinning, bludgeoning, raping and mutilating each other up and down the Great Plains. She might have had his child in January She might have given him and his brother Tom venereal disease. To this Kate Bighead testifies. She was among the Cheyenne women picking over the dead soldiers after the battle. Oh, and another thing. Custer planned to run for president. Connell mentions the rumor that Custer plunged so rapidly ahead of the other columns on the Little Big Horn campaign because word of his quick sole victory could be telegraphed to St. Louis, where the Democrats were to hold their convention and where they would soon start nominating candidates for the presidential election. Libbie Custer would certainly have made a great political wife. According to Capt. Benteen, she was as cold-blooded as Custer and as wholeheartedly convinced as he of his personal greatness and huge destiny. Shortly after their marriage, Libbie was introduced to Abraham Lincoln, who told her that he hoped Custer would make fewer suicidal charges, now that he had a wife. Google it. President Custer, striding into the White House with his bodyguard of half-domesticated wolves, trailing black and Indian concubines—- the mind reels. View all 16 comments. Jun 15, Chrissie rated it really liked it Shelves: usa , audible , bio , read , history , native-am. I really, really enjoyed this book, despite that the beginning gave me trouble. At the start I was confused. Stiles because Connells book was said to be well researched and told both with historical accuracy and with passion. All turned out to be true. Also, having read the author before, I knew I liked Connells manner of writing. Authors have a unique writing style which you come to recognize and appreciate, I really, really enjoyed this book, despite that the beginning gave me trouble. Authors have a unique writing style which you come to recognize and appreciate, if good. The battle goes by all three names. He and the American troops were defeated. Much said of this battle is incorrect. Connell goes far in uncovering what is and is not true. Secondly, the book provides an in-depth portrait of General Custer. We learn of his wife and liaisons with Native American women. Thirdly, the book provides fascinating information about Native American nomenclature, beliefs traditions and ways. The research is extensive. Truly impressive. An interview with the author concludes the audiobook. The author visited the battle fields numerous times. He searched all to be found archived in libraries and at museum sites. Three and one half years of intensive study was devoted to the task. He does not merely present the facts but analyzes the validity of the statements made. The book has a unique style. Some might say it is unorganized. It has no introduction nor a conclusion. It does not even have chapters. At the beginning I was terribly confused. I mistakenly drew the conclusion that what I was reading was an introductory, explanatory who-is-who chart of battle participants. This was not so. The book grew from essays on battle participants. These were then later collected, fused, amalgamated into one book. Peripheral character portraits are first drawn, only later does the focus zoom in on central figures. The flow from subject to subject is meandering, and yet at the same time, each subject leads naturally to the next. It feels as though the author is sitting by you, talking to you, chatting with you, telling you about a subject which enthuses him. That perceived as confusing at the beginning takes shape and form. What you ae being told becomes comprehensible and interesting. You want to know more and more and more. By the end, the flow has come to feel natural, interesting and delightful. I will give you an example to illustrate what I have said. Two thirds through, the book focuses upon hair, the significance both Native Americans and Whites gave to it then, in the latter s. The value, admiration and respect given to ti today is less. Custer had long, golden, flowing locks. The theme then shifts to how Custer came to have such hair, which is to say his patrimony. From whom did he inherit such locks? Humor is threaded throughout. Discussion of his birth leads naturally to how he died and who saw him die. His death leads to what was written about Custer at his death. How he was eulogized and praised, glorified as a hero. We move form biographies written about him to poetry and paintings of him. Much of what is said about Custer is however not true. This is brought to the fore by the author through sarcasm and wit. At the battle, witnesses have testified to he skillful usage of sabers and yet this, as so much else is totally false. I cannot think of another book written like this! All the way through I stayed curious, interested and amused. Adrian Cronauer reads the audiobook. He reads clearly and at a good pace, only occasionally reading too quickly. The narration is not hard to follow. Being good, I have given the performance rating three stars. This book is chockfull of interesting information. I love how the author debunks and critically analyzes the many errors that have been woven into the myth around Custer and the Battle of Little Big Horn. I highly recommend this book for its wit and accurate content. I like its style. Connell Mrs. Bridge 5 star Mr. View all 23 comments. Oct 13, robin friedman rated it it was amazing. Connell's "Son of the Morning Star" prompted me to read the book. Connell's book is difficult to classify because it is a broad meditation on Custer, the Battle of Little Bighorn, and the American West. The book is too digressive, introspective, and meditative to be considered a historical narrative. The description of the event at the focus of the book -- the massacre of Custer's Seventh Cavalry at Little Bighorn -- on June 25, , is hazy indeed. Connell largely talks around the famous battle. The book lacks an index to allow the reader to track the specifics of the discussion and to return easily to particular topics and I think this is deliberate rather than an oversight. Apart from this book, Connell is most famous as the author of the novel "Mrs. Bridge" which I read many years ago. In understated, eloquent writing, Connell's novel tells the story of an upper middle-class American family with its characters limited in their outlook on life, overly cautious, lonely, unfulfilled, bored, and sexually frustrated. The subject of Connell's history could not be more different than that of his novel. Whatever else it may be, in Connell's West we have vigorous, passionate, free-wheeling, and romantic individuals, both Indian and non-Indian. At one point, a character in the history remarks in impeccable French to the effect that "here we are all savages. Describing its excesses, brutality, cruelty, and stupidity, Connell seems to me a romantic, preferring the vigor and eccentricities of these days and people to the quiet conformity of the Bridges. The title of the book, "Son of the Morning Star" bears comparison with the prosaic title "Mrs. The Indians bestowed this poetic nickname on Custer. He was a man of notoriety during his short life and of many nicknames, including "Long Hair" or "Yellow Hair" and the cruder sobriquet, "Iron Butt". Literary works are made by style. Connell's organization of his material and his apparent prolixity can create a sense of frustration and disjointedness in reading; but it makes his tale. Without an introduction or other preliminaries, Connell begins in the middle of his story with the fate of Custer's subordinates, Reno and Benteen, at Little Big Horn. Custer's own fate is indirectly described, through their eyes. The author presupposes, as he may for this event, that the reader already knows the outlines of the famous story.

Load more

  10

Copy Link