Northwest Passage

Historic fictional account of 'Rogers Rangers' raid on an Indian village during the French-Indian wars of the 18th century. Adapted to a 1950s movie of the same name starring Spencer Tracy. Very well written, unforgettable scenes, highly visual and nearly non-stop action. The novel is composed of

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two books of about 350 pages each, I did not read the second book as it has less stellar reviews and is essentially a long postscript to the first book. Book 1 is Roberts most well known work and a classic of American historical fiction. It also covers similar territory as "Last of the Mohican's" (which was an American knock-off of Ivanho and is generally considered Americas first historical novel).

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Roberts' retelling of the story of a controversial figure from American History. The book is divided in two parts, the early years during the 7 Years War and Robert Rogers' later years of decline in England.

Recommended great read as part of the early series of books that were written by KR in the 1940's. He was considered to be a very accurate historian and his books bring all that the revolutionaries suffered to make our country free.

During the French and Indian War, a New Englander desires to paint Indians and is met with derision. He stumbles upon Major Robert Rogers (of Rogers' Rangers) and inadvertently gives him the idea to discover the Northwest Passage. Accounts the historical deeds of the Major, through his glory and

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shame. I do believe I am falling in love with Kenneth Roberts.

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Sometimes I'm just in the mood for a good, long, old fashioned historical novel, and Northwest Passage certainly filled this bill for me. Young Langdon Towne just growing into adulthood in 1750s Maine, wants to be an artist. He wants to go west and paint Indians. This ambition runs him afoul of his

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straight-laced father and, especially, of his beloved Elizabeth's father, a hell and brimstone, status seeking minister. When Towne further gains the enmity of the town's petty tyrant, he hightails it out of town with a friend with an aim to join the army, thinking it fairly safe, as the major battles of the English and their American colonists against the French and their Indian allies (i.e., the French and Indian War) seem to be mostly over. Running into the charismatic figure of Sergeant McNott in a nearby pub, however, Towne and his friend soon find themselves joining the famed Rogers Rangers, led by the larger than life Major Robert Rogers. Adventure ensues, you'll not be surprised to learn, 709 pages of adventure, to be precise, along with romance and political intrigue. Towne's superior abilities as an artist stand him in good stead throughout. This novel is a lot of fun, and even, in some places thought-provoking. The descriptions of the hardships endured by the Rangers, and the countryside they travel through, are vivid (descriptions of nature and weather are a strength throughout), as is the violence of the massacre they perpetrate an Indian village, a retaliation, we are told, for the outrages these Indians themselves have perpetrated on nearby English homesteaders. Our hero at first tells us of his opinions that Indians are, when push comes to shove, basically "savages." But as the book moves along and Towne matures, and he learns more about the Indians and about the villainy that Europeans perpetrate on the natives, so do his perspectives and his sympathies. Which is not to say this is an even-handed treatment, narratively. The book is a product of its time, for sure. Jews don't come off too well, either. That said, the plotting and characterizations in this novel turned out to be more nuanced and complex that I was expecting. Heroes turn out to be flawed, sometimes gravely so, expectations regarding stereotypical romantic historical fiction plotting are often subverted, as well. So while there are parts of this long novel that move along less briskly than we would wish, overall I found this to be a very entertaining reading experience.

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A good novel, but with a major break in the middle, as Robert Rogers passed from being a simple guerilla war leader to the upper levels of colonial policy. The first half is a description of Rogers' famous raid to the Quebec Huron settlement of St. Francis, and the hardships of the return trip. The

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last half of the book is a study of Rogers' further career, highlighting his bad treatment by Jeffery Amherst and Thomas Gage and his failure to discover a land route to the Pacific. We get a limited view of Rogers' attempt to alter the British treatment of the North American natives, and the difficuties it raised. Rogers' later career ended badly, and we are treated to the narrator's conventional love story and its resolution. So the whole book is uneven, but well worth the read.

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