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Trask

by Don Berry
Trask

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  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9780870710230
ISBN10: 0870710230



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From Powells.com

25 Books to Read Before You Die: Pacific Northwest Edition

A consummate selection of books written by Pacific Northwest authors.


Staff Pick

Set along the northern Oregon coast range in the late 1840s, Don Berry’s 1960 landmark novel, Trask, was inspired by the life of settler, mountain man, and fur trapper Elbridge Trask (for whom both a river and a mountain are named here in the Beaver State). Compelling and adventurous, the story follows the titular character as he tries to become the first white man to settle in Tillamook Bay. Along the arduous journey, he and his guide — a friendly Clatsop Indian and spiritual leader named Charley Kehwa — must endure tragedy, torrential weather, rugged climate, and the seemingly bellicose Killamook Indians. Trask is far more than mere historical fiction; it is an insightful and beautifully crafted novel that captures the great uncertainty and promise which the region’s settlers undoubtedly knew all too well. Berry's portrayal of Native culture is compassionate and well-rounded, far from the shallow caricatures that often plague the genre. Trask is the first novel in a remarkable trilogy that includes Moontrap and To Build a Ship. Recommended By Jeremy G., Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Set in 1848 on the wild edge of the continent, in the rainforests and rugged headlands of the Oregon coast, Trask follows a mountain man's quest for new opportunities and new land to settle. Elbridge Trask is a restless man, a gambler with God, nature, and life itself. Yearning for change, he sets out with Wakila, a young Clatsop Indian, and Charley Kehwa, a tamanawis man or spiritual leader of the tribe, on an extraordinary journey of discovery.

Trask is at once a gripping tale of adventure and a portrayal of one man's return to the naked simplicity of life. Inspired by his belief in the transcendent power of nature, his fascination with Eastern philosophy, and the lives of historical men and women, Don Berry created a story that is strongly imagined and powerfully rendered-a landmark work. This new edition of Berry's celebrated first novel includes an introduction by Jeff Baker, book critic for The Oregonian.

Review

"In Trask and Charley, Don Berry creates two of the finest imaginable men from their respective cultures. The result is an Indian/Euro encounter that feels absolutely fateful, and resonates all the way into the heart." David James Duncan

Review

"This is the most exciting book I have read in years." Saturday Review

About the Author

Don Berry (1932–2001) considered himself a native Oregonian, despite the fact that he was born in Minnesota, with a lineage from Fox Indians. After attending Reed College, where his housemates included poet Gary Snyder, who shared his interest in Eastern metaphysics, Berry began a lifetime of pursuing his many passions: playing down-home blues and composing synthesizer music, sumi drawing and painting, sculpting in bronze, exploring theoretical mathematics, and writing for prize-winning films.

In addition to his three novels about the Oregon Territory (Trask, Moontrap, and To Build a Ship) published in the early 1960s, Berry wrote A Majority of Scoundrels, a history of the Rocky Mountain fur trade. An early Internet pioneer, he also created a remarkable body of literature that exists now only in cyberspace.

4.2 4

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Average customer rating 4.2 (4 comments)

`
fishgirl , January 02, 2013
This book is the best I've read in a long time the detail is beautiful with out bogging down the story line. Takes place on the North Coast of Oregon as the firrt white man to cross into Tillamook Indian territory. Descriptions of the landscape are fantastic and best of all when its all done, there are two more book in a loose trilogy,

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nlerud , January 27, 2009 (view all comments by nlerud)
This might be the great (largely unread) Oregon novel. It takes me back to Sophomore English, where we were taught (a bit simplistically - did anybody else get this hammered into them?) that all of literature can be divvied up into about four stories: man versus man, man versus nature, man versus God and man versus himself. I think those were the four. "Trask" has 'em all - and, just like the uber-masculine pattern outlined, women have basically nothing to do with this story (there is the long-suffering wife, but she disappears after the first third of the book.) "Trask" is a quest narrative, a buddy novel, a pretty fascinating first encounter story, and finally the death-grips struggle of one guy alone in the wilderness, and that last act (which, honestly, is not a subject that particularly interests me on paper) is absolutely riveting. The scene where Trask makes fire is one of the best things I've read in a long time, and the first time I've cried while reading a book since I was ten years old. I can't say enough about this book, even though it represents things I find totally suspect: all-male worlds, rugged individualism, and white guys writing about Native American spirituality (nearly always a bad idea). "Trask" makes it all work, somehow, with grace and beauty and a razor-sharp sense of place. I haven't loved a book like this in a while - it's nice to know there's still writing out there that can do this to you.

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rsb97229 , March 20, 2008 (view all comments by rsb97229)
I have never written one of these reviews before, but this book is a true masterpiece and someone needs to say so. The story is based at least loosely in historical fact, and those familiar with the Oregon coast will recognize many of the landmarks of the story. The landscape itself plays an important role in this novel, though you need not know the land to appreciate it. The book is about Trask, a former mountain man who has married and settled in Northwest Oregon, west and south of Astoria. For reasons not fully explainable, he becomes restless and feels compelled to explore the Coast not far from his home by miles (maybe 25-50), but quite distant in other ways. He hires as his guide an Indian who knows the territory and also happens to have spirtual powers, but not in any unbelievable or new-age hokey sense. The new territory is inhabited by a tribe that has never lived with white men. Its chief is, like Trask and his guide, another remarkable character named Kilches, a large black Indian who is one of the most memorable ny fictional character in any genre. . Trask's encounter with the tribe heralds the beginning of the end of their largely untouched native civilization, and Kilches profoundly understands this from the get go. Trask is drawn to the new territory and asks permission to settle there, and in the course of being permitted to do so, ends up on a vision quest in the wilderness that is mystical in a way that is believable (even to a skeptic like myself). The culminating event is shocking and then very moving. Berry is (was) a very gifted writer. This is a novel of characters, ideas, and a suspensful plot line. Mr. Berry was a true master and I cannot wait to begin Moonstruck, the second book of the series. The new edition reveals that he attended Reed College with Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen, and had an interest in poetry and sculpting He was a young man when he wrote this book. I marvelled over the story, the language, the humor. It is one of the best books of fiction I have read in many years. It is a shame that Berry did not get the recognition that he deserved during his life. Hopefully, it will come posthumously.

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shiral5 , June 11, 2007
I thought it was a very good descriptiion of the people who settled the wilds of the west,those that were aready here and the land they loved and lived in. I did find the need of a map of the land would have improved my understanding of the terrain .

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780870710230
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
05/01/2004
Publisher:
OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Pages:
1
Height:
.82IN
Width:
6.16IN
Thickness:
.8 in.
Number of Units:
1
Copyright Year:
2004
Series Volume:
no. 5
UPC Code:
2800870710232
Author:
Don Berry
Subject:
Historical fiction
Subject:
Fur trade
Subject:
Oregon
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Subject:
Trappers.
Subject:
Authors, American

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