Indifferent Stars Above, The: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party (P.S.)

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We’d all like to say that there’s no way whatsoever that we’d ever eat a person, but given the right circumstances? Who knows what we’d do. Who Should Read The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party? When all is said and done I think the story tells us that hope is the heroes domain, not the fools. Because we dare to hope, even when doing so might undo us. We leave the worlds we create behind us, swirling in our wakes, eternal and effervescent with the beauty of our aspirations.” From the #1 bestselling author of The Boys in the Boatand Facing the Mountain comes an unforgettable epic of family, tragedy, and survival on the American frontier The author unfortunately seems to not consider Indigenous People human beings. The racism isn't at all subtle and it is grating. For those who have gone before, I bow down in appreciation of the hardships and suffering that they endured for our sakes and the sakes of future generations.

This book was fascinating, and I learned a lot. This book was extremely well written and informative. The research that went into the writing of this book is impressive. I can't even imagine what these people had to go through. I hope no one ever experiences such a tragedy. To not only be starving yourself but to watch your children starve and wither. To see your family and friends die, to have to bury them on the side of the road in an unmarked grave and then move on, to watch as your loved ones’ physical and mental health decline. To have to make choices no one should ever have to make. They were having a hard time walking normally now, staggering as if drunk at times and needing to stop to rest every quarter of a mile or so.” It reminds us that as ordinary as we might be, we can, if we choose, take the harder road, walk forth bravely under the indifferent stars. We can hazard the ravages of chance. We can choose to endure what seems unendurable, and thereby open up the possibility of prevailing. We can awaken to the world as it is, and, seeing it with eyes wide open, we can nevertheless embrace hope rather than despair. When all is said and done, I think the story tells us that hope is the hero’s domain, not the fool’s. Because we dare to hope—even when doing so might undo us—we leave the worlds we create behind us, swirling in our wakes, eternal and effervescent with the beauty of our aspirations.” In places they resorted to using a windlass to drag wagons… up steep slopes. At a place called Devils Gate, the rope hoisting one of the wagons broke near the windlass. Men rushed to support the wagon, grabbing at the spokes of the wheels and the planked sides, trying to hold it against the pull of gravity. But gravity won. The oxen bellowed and pawed frantically but futilely at the loose talus on the slope. They began to lose ground. The wagon accelerated, sliding down the slope, dragging the wide-eyed and still bellowing oxen with it. The men had to jump free of the rig to save their lives. Then it hurtled over a precipice at the bottom of the slope, pulling the oxen over the edge two by two.

The idea that physical belongings and characteristics only last a person for so long is an interesting idea; the speaker appears to be lamenting this fact, noting that beneath the boards (again, presumably referring to a coffin), the woman’s beauty will fade, and even if it did not, would never be seen again. It is also interesting that in the dreamscape, the speaker is only able to communicate this idea by carving it on the grave marker of the woman, as though he wants her to know about this message, as well as the rest of the world — or at least, the rest of the foreign world, the one who never knew her at all. In April of 1846, Sarah Graves was twenty-one and in love with a young man who played the violin. But she was torn. Her mother, father, and eight siblings were about to disappear over the western horizon forever, bound for California. Sarah could not bear to see them go out of her life, and so days before the planned departure she married the young man with the violin, and the two of them threw their lot in with the rest of Sarah's family. On April 12, they rolled out of the yard of their homestead in three ox-drawn wagons. I cannot stress enough that these books are about real life people. The Indifferent Stars Above reads in part like a horror novel. It gets to the point where the horror of their situation is so strong that it pushes the story into unreal territory. The human mind wasn’t made to handle events like this, it feels unreal. That said, it really did happen and the story is fascinating. I am so glad I finally read a book about the Donner Part. This book is well researched, superbly written and emotionally devastating. The Donner Party was made up mostly of family’s men, women, and children moving west to California looking for a better life and living. Misfortune left them stranded in the winter mountains, and they were forced to survive, by any means necessary. Half did not survive. This is their story. It reminds us that as ordinary as we might be, we can, if we choose, take the harder road, walk forth bravely under the indifferent stars.”

While it is reasonable to assume that the horror stories of the Donner Party’s journey were exaggerated over time, the truth behind their doomed expedition is much more chilling than one would ever expect. Whether we like to admit it or not, we as people have always been fascinated by stories that expose the darker side of human nature. While sensationalist claims of cannibalism draw people into the story of the Donner Party, they are not the reason the tale endures. At its very core, this story represents triumph against unimaginable adversity as well as the range of human suffering that exists in the world -- a fact that is remarkably illustrated by Daniel James Brown in his book, The Indifferent Stars Above.Daniel James Brown lives in the country east of Redmond, Washington, where he writes nonfiction books about compelling historical events.