Old Jules

This is a book about a despicable person in a hard time in this country. It is however well written. You would do well to read her books about the western culture and long history of the early economic factors about the west.BEAVER, BUFFALO(BISON), CATTLE. If you read those first you will have a much better understanding of her story about her father. “OLD JULES” is not a feel good book it is about a most despicable man.

Excellent read.

Old Jules is a fascinating look at life on the northern Great Plains and provides a great counter to the sanitized versions of America's frontier, for those of us that learned about it through media like "Little House on the Prairie" and "Bonanza" style depictions. For that, it is a great book.But it is up to each reader to decide if Jules was a great guy who succeeded despite the tribulations and hardships of his place and time, or if he was an abusive husband/father who fled his prior home and simply did as he pleased for the rest of his life. This is the enigma...My own opinion is that Jules was somewhat mentally unstable. His leaving Switzerland is understandable, despite the vast majority of immigrants from Europe having been from lower class families than his who had rather more limited opportunities in the 'old country'. By that I mean the West had plenty of cultured people who were attracted to the openess of the frontier (both societal and geo-physical); we just don't hear so much about them. This story indicates he was educated and may have been a medical student, although it's left speculative. He apparently consulted frontier doctors, and performed rude medicinal and sanitary practices that don't square with what one could safely assume he ought to know if he had medical training (even for those times). Although both author/daughter Mari Sandoz and her younger brother (who wrote "Son of Old Jules") later dismissed the idea that their childhoods were unusual for that place and time, they clearly were extreme. Possible explanations for his lack of concern for his family never really come out inthe book.I highly recommend the book. It begins immediately after the "Indian Wars" period but before society with its laws and structure had really taken hold. One thing I was unaware of is the prevalence of suicide in those days: it seems to have been fairly common among settlers who reached the end of their endurance (this occurs in another famous book "My Antonia" by Willa Cather. Though technically fiction, Cather's book is the same timeframe and is based on real people and events she knew as a child). There is also mention of several cases of people being sent East to asylums. They just couldn't take the hardship of their ordeals.For me, the biggest problem in understanding Jules the man is trying to square his upbringing (young Swiss priveleged playboy/student) with what he became (a greasy old man who disdained government - despite the letters he wrote and his advocacy of the farmers versus cattlemen in the stuggle to control western Nebraska - and who had minimal concern for his own family).I wonder if some sort of movie could be made of the story. It tells a lot about the REAL frontier and its hardships, rather than the "log cabin" or "cowboy" themes we're all used to. This era is almost forgotten today. Notice that you can today buy homes modeled on log cabins, of which there are any number of restored examples - but there are almost no old sod houses left. Its almost like there's no nostalgia for that epoch of American history, which is telling by itself.

I enjoyed reading the book of Jules' life. Many of my ancestors settled in that part of Nebraska and, who knows, may have known him or of him. I highly recommend the book to anyone who is interested in seeing how many of our ancestors lived and fought many obstacles.

Wording is sometimes clumsy--except in describing the landscape, when Sandoz soars. Enjoyable for its character studies and descriptions of hard work on the frontier.

Easy to enjoy.

there was nothing not to like

I found this book to be very interesting. I have ready only one other book by Mari Sandoz - but recognized many of the titles listed inside. It's a tough thing to write about your father - and capture the uniqueness. She was able to describe him and keep herself as a "bystander" when much of his disciplinary methods were directed at herself and her siblings. She was also able to give the reader a preview of what the Nebraska panhandle was like as it opened up to settlement and beyond. I have lived in the Black Hills about 30 years ago - and I could picture her descriptions of the land very well. This is a book that supplements historical accounts - a "looking glass" view into the life of one man and how he viewed his corner of that world. I especially liked the end where she listed all the people who came to his sickbed. He was a force - and the reader should decide a "force for what?"