Historical Fiction

Having not yet seen the movie, I only had an inkling of an idea of what I was in for. The story is unbelievable, yet apparently it's largely true. It's an incredible tale of survival and it's important to read some of the notes at the book's conclusion because the rest is nearly as crazy. ( )

was a good book overall, someone going thru being left for dead and the path out. The biggest problem is that it's either slow or OMG HOLD ON TO YOUR HAT.THe lulls in action can be too much/long and the survival portions as much as I liked them turned into too much a lull. I found myself loving the book more and more as time went on. I don't really have much more to say on the book because at the end of the day, I found that the book really didn't hold me as tight as I hoped it would have ( )

Having very conflicted and interesting feelings about this one. I went into the novel expecting to experience a narrative that was hands-down improved upon with the translation to film--Inarritu's masterpiece holds the record (8) for the number of times I've seen something in theaters. And while Punke's novel is solid and a fine western in its own right, the narrative divergence between film and novel has left me ponderous.

Inarritu's film strips Punke's material to its bare essentials (pun intended): Hugh Glass somehow survives a grizzly attack and is left for dead by Bridger and Fitzgerald; Glass tracks down these men, Fitzgerald in particular, as well as the remainder of his fellow fur trappers. Aside from various encounters with a number of native populations, these are the sole elements shared by the two fictional treatments of Hugh Glass's legendary narrative.

Inarritu's Glass is the father of a biracial son (Native & non-Native), Hawk--whom Fitzgerald kills--and journeys from near-death to revenge almost exclusively by himself (he is saved/helped on occasion by Native peoples). Punke's Glass is alone at the outset of his hellbent seeking for revenge, but not long after is accompanied by various motley crues of trappers and frontiersmen. Inarritu provides the viewer and Glass with the wish fulfillment of a final encounter with Fitzgerald--a beautifully savage and visceral confrontation between DiCaprio and Hardy, respectively.

The closest Punke allows Glass to get is a misfired pistol shot in the shoulder at the end of a court martial hearing (Fitzgerald absconded from the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, as he does in the film, but runs into trouble with the US Army and chooses enlistment over imprisonment after stabbing a major in the hand when a game of poker turns sour). A fellow trapper advises Glass that not all loose ends are tied up, that revenge is not a desire usually fulfilled, a sentiment that could easily be directed towards the reader, as well. Fitzgerald is forced to return Glass's Anstadt rifle, relinquish pay for the next two months, and continue his tenure as a member of the United States Army; Glass is left with figuring out what to do next (death doesn't come to him until nearly 10 years after the events of the novel). Inarritu's Revenant ends with the viewer uncertain of Glass's wounds being fatal or not after his final battle with Fitzgerald--the film enters one of its surreal moments and the authenticity of Glass's reality is questionable as the screen fades to black.

Thankful for a read that offered unexpected events in a narrative I considered myself more than intimate with, completion of the novel left me with the curious moments of reflection and introspection as to my feelings towards the wildly different endings to what is arguably the same narrative. Avoiding the pitfall that comes to those not familiar with adaptation studies, this wasn't a question of which narrative/ending was "better," but a question of how do the mediums of literature and film depict the same source material, how are they effective, and how do they make me feel about the concerns at hand?

You can tell someone all the gruesome details about a man being mauled by a bear, but nothing compares to witnessing the event for what feels like an eternity. In this regard--this being the matter of conveying the punishment inflicted upon the body, the body as a site of sensation and reaction, and the filmic mastery of capturing the event--the film delivers an experience that only film can.

I had to fight the natural instinct that comes with reading something after it's already been seen, that the text is meant not for side-by-side comparison with its filmic counterpart, but consideration on its own grounds, worthy from its own merit. And then it occurred to me that, given the nature of the factual history behind Hugh Glass's narrative, I was in the midst of something different from the traditional experience that comes with adaptation. Aside from being a legendary encounter with a grizzly, Glass's story is also entrenched in legend itself. Some is known about what occurred, mostly about the event itself, but not all--perfect for an artist wishing to instill their own imagination to flesh out the narrative. Here is a case of two artists in two different mediums delivering their own creative interpretations of Glass's story.

It is a matter of the ending that concerns me most. What do I do with such vastly different emotions regarding Glass's hellacious path to enact his revenge on those who left him for dead? The differing endings provide two distinct experiences. The film gratifies the viewer/Glass's desire to see Fitzgerald dead as what is more than likely his final act on Earth, while presenting us with the moral dilemma that comes with seeking vengeance: after you get it, what next? Was it all worth it?

Inarritu's film gives Glass much more incentive than just being robbed of his equipment and left for dead--his son is murdered and the same man is guilty of both crimes. With no other force to lawfully punish Fitzgerald, it is Glass's sole raison d'etre, the fuel that pushes him to crawl from his grave and trek across the American midwest in the dead of winter.

Punke seems to frame this motivation as almost a matter of principle: it's one thing that they left me for dead, but did they have to take my gun and tools of survival? Fitzgerald's greatest crime, according to a court of law, is being a gun thief, something he doesn't deny when faced with a court martial. That their showdown is set in a makeshift courthouse suggests that even in the wilderness, Law, too, exists. Punke seems to offer a notion with even greater implications: Revenge is not for man to enact, a claim supported by the novel's epigraph, a quote from Romans 12:19,

"Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."

What I'm left with, in a strange way, is two simultaneously occurring realities: one in which I get to see the river run red with Fitzgerald's blood; another where he walks away with nothing more than a bullet lodged in his shoulder, robbed of two months pay for heartless service to the US Army.

I'm not sure which fate is worse for Fitzgerald. But I do know that as I type this, Sakamoto and Noto's hauntingly masterful score playing in the background, there is at least certainty in knowing that Hugh Glass did what should be impossible. And no matter what you think when comparing/contrasting The Revenant in both literary and filmic forms, only one of them won Leonardo "My Heart and Soul" DiCaprio an Oscar. ( )

Good historical novel about Hugh Glass, a mountain man, who had to crawl many miles to survive after a grizzly bear attack. ( )