Concluida la guerra de Secesión, el capitán Jefferson Kyle Kidd se dedica a viajar por el norte de Texas leyendo artículos de prensa a un público ávido por conocer las noticias del mundo. Les habla de presidentes y reinas, de luchas gloriosas, devastadoras catástrofes y apasionantes aventuras que tienen lugar en cualquier rincón del orbe. El capitán Kidd, un viudo entrado en años que ha vivido tres guerras y combatido en dos, disfruta de su solitaria y desarraigada existencia cuando le ofrecen una moneda de oro por devolver a una niña huérfana que había sido capturada por los kiowas a sus parientes en San Antonio. El viaje al sur a través de cuatrocientas millas de inhóspito territorio va a ser difícil y peligroso. Johanna, que ha olvidado incluso su lengua, piensa en escapar apenas se le presente oportunidad y elude comportarse de modo «civilizado». No obstante, a medida que progresan en su travesía, los dos extraños supervivientes comienzan poco a poco a confiar el uno en el otro, forjando un vínculo entre ellos que, en tierra hostil, supone la diferencia entre la vida y la muerte.… (más)
sturlington: These are both historical novels about the relationship that forms between an orphan and an adult. Both seem like old-fashioned stories, in a good way, and will warm your heart.
It was good, not necessarily great. I saw the film first, so I was picturing the actors when I read about the characters. I don't like when authors don't used quotation marks, so that was distracting for me. I also had trouble deciphering some of Johanna's words, when she was trying to relearn the Engllish language. And when using Kiowa words I had to Google them. Anyway, Joanna's family is killed by Kiowa, and she is taken captive by the tribe. Eventually she is "rescued" and Captain Kidd, someone who travels and reads newspaper articles to paying customers, agrees to return her to her aunt and uncle. The relationship between Captain and Joanna, and the softening of an old man's heart, are the best parts of the book. Joanna's re-entry into the white world is slow and painful, yet toward the end it seems like some of it was a bit unbelievable. Without giving too much away, I thought it wrapped up a bit too neatly at the end. A good read. A fast read. ( )
At Wichita Falls in 1870 Captain( late of the CSA) Jefferson Kane Kidd was paid $50 by two freedmen to transport 10 year old Johanna Leonberger to her relatives at Castorville TX. Johanna was taken captive when she was 4 by the Kiowa after her parents and sister were brutally killed. Kidd agrees, buys a wagon and together the two start off on a perilous journery of over 400 miles of the untamed Texas frontier. To earn money Kidd buys papers from across the country and abroad to read at small towns along the way. In this was he spreads news of the world to people who otherwise had no knowledge of. To make matters more difficult, Johanna no longer speaks English but only Kiowa. Jiles paints with words the harshness of not only the land but the people Kidd and Johanna encountered. After reading this novel, I understand why it was made into a major motion picture. My only complaint is there are no quotations use with the characters dialogue. Having said that, this is a book not to be missed. ( )
Good book, fairly quick read. The story involves an older man in the 1860s after the war, making a living by travelling from town to town in Texas reading the news to the local people. He accepts a job of transporting a young girl who had been captured by the Kiowa four years ago to her relatives in San Antonio. The story unfolds from there, the difficulties of the journey, how the girl learned to trust him, and how in some ways she changed from Kiowa to her former self, but never completely. ( )
Interesting story made dull by the author's writing style. There were a lot of good events and history tied together by the undercurrent of Johanna's "adjustment" and whether it was possible or made sense. But altogether I found the book predictable, tiresome, boring, and poorly paced - particularly rushed near the end. Also, there seemed to be a big jump in the middle where she was this quasi feral child who wanted to escape and understood no English to all of a sudden being social and rapidly acquiring or learning English. Didn’t enjoy the character development of the other characters. Just too shallow.
PS: I never did figure out what the word "Kontah" means. ( )
Britt's own wife and two children had been taken captive six years ago, in 1864, and he had gone out and got them back. Nobody knew quite how he had done it. He seemed to have some celestial protection about him when he rode out alone on the Red Rolling Plains, a place which seemed to invite both death and dangers. Britt had taken on the task of rescuing others, a dark man, cunning and strong and fast like a nightjar in the midnight air.
Long bright crawls of water slid across the livery stable floor and took up the light of the lantern like a luminous stain and the roof shook with the percussion of drops as big as nickels.
A light drizzle drifted through the landscape of cranky post oak trees whose limbs did not have six inches of straight any of in them.
Then she seemed to struggle with a tangled thing inside her head, something knotted that would not unknot.
Above and behind them the Dipper turned on its great handle as if to pour night itself out onto the dreaming continent and each of its seven stars gleamed from between the fitful passing clouds.
Some people were born unsupplied with a human conscience and those people needed killing.
Well speak up, then, said the Captain. Stop your goddamn dithering. I hate dithering.
No. Absolutely not. No. No scalping. He lifted her up and swung her over the ledges of stone and then followed. He said, It is considered very impolite.
Captain Kidd looked up and enviously considered the chickens—so daft, so stupid, so uninformed.
Leaf shadows like laughter ran over their faces.
Cultures were mine fields.
He said, Old people cry easily, my dear. One of the afflictions of age.
Whatever woman had raised these five boys must now be in the county asylum, if Lampasas County had one, and if they did not, they had best build one soon.
He looked as if he had combed his stiff yellow hair with a skillet.
He had decided to avoid the Horrell brothers at all cost, but the Horrell brothers found them.
The hills fell away behind them until they were nothing more than an uneven blue line on the horizon.
Somewhere ahead were strange white people she could only remember as if in poorly lit lantern slides called aunt and uncle and that they were going to them.
Springtime birds shot up out of the tall grass and to his right lay that long blue serrated line of the hills they had just left, distant and somehow safe.
The girl had become blank again, blank as bone.
He handed over the papers and stood in silence as if in a winter blizzard.
His hands looked as bony and wrinkled as those of a catacomb mummy.
Concluida la guerra de Secesión, el capitán Jefferson Kyle Kidd se dedica a viajar por el norte de Texas leyendo artículos de prensa a un público ávido por conocer las noticias del mundo. Les habla de presidentes y reinas, de luchas gloriosas, devastadoras catástrofes y apasionantes aventuras que tienen lugar en cualquier rincón del orbe. El capitán Kidd, un viudo entrado en años que ha vivido tres guerras y combatido en dos, disfruta de su solitaria y desarraigada existencia cuando le ofrecen una moneda de oro por devolver a una niña huérfana que había sido capturada por los kiowas a sus parientes en San Antonio. El viaje al sur a través de cuatrocientas millas de inhóspito territorio va a ser difícil y peligroso. Johanna, que ha olvidado incluso su lengua, piensa en escapar apenas se le presente oportunidad y elude comportarse de modo «civilizado». No obstante, a medida que progresan en su travesía, los dos extraños supervivientes comienzan poco a poco a confiar el uno en el otro, forjando un vínculo entre ellos que, en tierra hostil, supone la diferencia entre la vida y la muerte.
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Anyway, Joanna's family is killed by Kiowa, and she is taken captive by the tribe. Eventually she is "rescued" and Captain Kidd, someone who travels and reads newspaper articles to paying customers, agrees to return her to her aunt and uncle.
The relationship between Captain and Joanna, and the softening of an old man's heart, are the best parts of the book. Joanna's re-entry into the white world is slow and painful, yet toward the end it seems like some of it was a bit unbelievable. Without giving too much away, I thought it wrapped up a bit too neatly at the end.
A good read. A fast read. (