American Buffalo American Buffalo American Buffalo (2008) - Plot & Excerpts
I was predisposed to not wanting to like this book. I mean, come on, a guy that finds a buffalo skull and travels to Oxford to find out more and pulls a winning lottery to hunt a wild buffalo.... boring. But no! I gave this book to my son (seventeen years) to read and he loved it!The book is very earthy, the author talks about the hunt, about the Indians treatment of the buffalo, about the white man's treatment of the buffalo, about eating and using every bit of the buffalo and it is good. I was surprised. Steven Rinella shifts from his hunt for his wild buffalo to a lot of very interesting information about buffalo.It is a sad story too, the number of buffalo slaughtered in the 1870's is staggering; "In a few months a hunting outfit could have upwards of four to five thousand hides." And by 1881, "word spread that the last of the core of the last great herd had been tapped." The bones of the buffalo slaughtered and left on the prairie became a marketable item. Again the numbers are staggering, "In Kansas, bone pickers accumulated a pile of bones... ten feet high, twenty feet wide and a quarter of a mile long."This is a book that is more than a single man's hunt for a buffalo. It is a book full of the history of the buffalo AND a single man's hunt for a wild buffalo. I once saw Steven Rinella interviewed. He told a story about how, one Christmas shortly after he was married, he preceded his wife home to his parents' house for the holidays, leaving her to follow along behind, bearing the Christmas gifts for the family, and a cooler packed with game that Steven had shot on hunting trips and carefully laid aside for the holidays. When his wife got to the airport, she discovered that the flight she was taking was overcrowded, and she had to make a decision: either to bring the meat-packed cooler or the Christmas gifts along. She chose the gifts. When she arrived at her destination and Steve found out that she'd left the meat behind, he claims he nearly divorced her. He read her the riot act about the ethics of wasting the meat after he'd taken the lives of the animals represented by those carefully-wrapped packages in the cooler. That's the kind of guy you're dealing with here - and that's the kind of book. Not for the squeamish, but if you're interested in history, ecology and the environment, the ethics of hunting, and reading a writer who's a standup, no bullshit guy, you'll enjoy it.
What do You think about American Buffalo American Buffalo American Buffalo (2008)?
didn't like it. felt like i was on a horrible blind date with a buffalo freak
—Lauuren
Just got this. Read first chapter. Loved it.BooRah.
—ThatSoKari
