The revenant
2015
- trappers
- fiction
- revenge
- wilderness survival
- fiction, biographical
- fiction, westerns
- fiction, historical
- west (u.s.), fiction
- nyt:trade-fiction-paperback=2016-01-10
- fiction, historical, general
The story
In this story of survival, Hugh Glass is an expert trapper and frontiersman. After being viciously mauled by a massive grizzly bear and abandoned and left for dead by his fellow trappers, Hugh is pushed to survive by one thing--revenge.
What it’s like
Cold, unsentimental prose that stays close to the body: the 1820s American frontier rendered in long, plain sentences full of mud, river water, frost, and the grinding physical arithmetic of hunger and pain. Its landscape is vast and indifferent, wide prairies under grey skies, mountain passes choked with snow, and the sensory world lands hard, with raw meat, fire smoke, and the sting of wind. The vibe is bleak, austere, and relentless, a survival story where every stretch of ground is a test. Pacing is steady and propulsive, with long stretches of slow trudging broken by sudden violent set-pieces, and the emotional register stays grim and watchful rather than warm. Intensity is high: the opening mauling and later scenes of injury, starvation, and killing are graphic and physically detailed, with brutal violence and blood throughout, though the cruelty is depicted without gratuitous relish. Suits readers who want a hard, immersive historical adventure on a long winter night or a long journey, and who are comfortable with sustained grit. Not gentle; it suits people drawn to endurance narratives, frontier history, and the slow, stubborn pull of a grudge.
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