He belonged not to the age of the knight-errant and the saint, but to the modern world of practical study and practical action. He was the hero, not of a principle or a faith, but simply of a fixed idea and a determined purpose.
So, this is the third book in Parkman’s epic France & England in North America series and if you’re paying attentions to dates, you may note some shenanigans, with book one being published in 1865, book two in 1867 and then a big jump to 1879 for this third one. Well, here’s the story. This book was first published in 1869 under the title The Discovery of the Great West. In that book, La Salle the explorer was still a major character, but after the publication of the book, Parkman came into possession of a significant amount of papers by and about La Salle. With all this new information, he felt a revision/expansion was in order and so the book was expanded quite a bit with almost all of the new information focused on La Salle. So, when this new edition was published, Parkman felt La Salle’s expanded presence in the book warranted titular status and so the title was changed. It is the revised & expanded edition that I read, so that’s why I’m using the title and publication date I’m using.
And, just to be frank, there’s something a little off here and I can’t help but wonder if it has something to do with the heavy expansion. The book as it stands just isn’t as purposely crafted as the first two in this series; it was purposely crafted as it was and then a lot of new material was put in and, while I’m sure Parkman did some reshaping and restructuring, I can’t help but feel that it may have thrown things off a bit. Still, it’s quite enjoyable, if a bit long. Parkman has a bit of hero worship in his depiction of La Salle, but he’s not as bad as he was with Champlain; he explores La Salle’s flaws as well as his strengths and he seems to believe that La Salle’s somewhat tragic end was a result of those flaws that he simply refused to correct in himself. There are great adventure narratives here as usual; the best involves a couple of priests kidnapped and held prisoner by a Native tribe and the daring escape that followed. The larger narrative of the book follows the discovery of the Mississippi River and the efforts to travel down it into the middle parts of the continent and on down to the Gulf of Mexico. The book’s best section is as it nears the end and details La Salle’s final expedition; surely, since this all took place hundreds of years ago, it’s no spoiler to say that La Salle’s final expedition does . . . not end well, shall we say, and the story of the treachery and violence that took place on that expedition is pretty riveting and disturbing. Anyway, I found this one to get lost in the weeds a bit more than the last book in the series did and its focus on La Salle was occasionally to the detriment of the other characters and stories. This isn’t an ensemble piece in the way that The Jesuits in North America was and it suffers a bit from that. Still, entertaining, well written and an engaging character portrait. 3 stars.
tl;dr – heavily revised book doesn’t feel as well-crafted as Parkman’s books usually do & La Salle pulls the book slightly off balance; still, beautifully written, entertaining and engaging. 3 stars.