Robert Bausch (1945–2018)

Union veteran Bobby Hale-sometime soldier; full time deserter; half-time Native American fighter. So what exactly drives Bobby Hale? Belief in his own destiny.

Hale's odyssey is poignant because it brings him across a plethora of people: good, bad; indigenous, intruders; soldiers, warriors. And all this in an era where America wars to tame the west. Bausch's prose is powerful, his narrative flowing. By the end, we truly flinch when Bobby witnesses the mutilation of one Native American by several others.

I thoroughly enjoyed 'Far as the Eye can See.' Not your typical classic western but neither is it irredeemable.… (meer)

A simple, meandering novel which takes you on one mans journey through western America in the 1870's. There isn't much plot to speak of and the story gets dry and slow at times but I also can't imagine cutting anything because it all serves the purpose of connecting the reader to Bobby Hale. I thought Bobby to be a somewhat lacklustre character until the last 100 or so pages when I realised how truly invested I was in his story. I wanted him to survive, to get a happy ending with Ink and Little Fox. And while I'm not fond of first person narration I thoroughly enjoyed its use here. Bobby isn't a hero or a villain and his inner thoughts as he tried to rationalise what he has done and seen was truly heartbreaking.

I imagine a better understanding of this period in American history could have helped paint a picture of what Hale was living through but all I had was Bausch's words. Ultimately, all I knew is what Bobby knew and that's that life for him and others like him was bleak, violent, corrupting, and quick. Seeing everything through his eyes meant the reader only saw snapshots of history with no bigger picture. This is brought home in the last paragraph when (**spoilers**) Bobby, in 1876, talks of going to Nez Perce and hopefully getting a happy life with Ink and Little Fox. As it turns out (learnt through the authors note and some googling) war hits the Nez Perce in 1877. I wonder if perhaps Bausch finished the novel this way in hope of writing a follow up or if he wanted to add one last moment of tension to clued in readers.… (meer)

Ben Jameson decides to take an English teaching position after finishing his undergraduate but before embarking on graduate school, or possibly law school. He’s never taught young people before, and there is every reason to think that he might not be especially good at it. Only the flexibility afforded a private school and the recent loss of its English teacher could make plausible his hiring. But, despite some early ups and downs, it begins to look like a smart move. Good for Ben, good for his students, and good for the school.

That it doesn’t necessarily end up there is, after all, what makes this an interesting read. Also a bit unsettling. Ben is both strangely naive and unappreciative of the consequences of his own actions or those of others. Indeed you might begin to suspect that something very curious might happen. Or that everything you are reading might turn out to be double-edged. That it doesn’t and isn’t is somewhat of a disappointment. Not that what we have here is weak at all. It’s just that it might have been so much more.

The writing, at least in the first half, might have you thinking along the lines of Nabokov. But mostly that is because the character of Ben is so peculiar. Alas his peculiarity is never mined for anything profound. And so we get the ins and outs of two years of teaching by an inexperienced but fitfully enthusiastic amateur who inappropriately meddles in the personal lives of his students, though sometimes with fortuitous effect. Maybe that’s enough.… (meer)