This House of Sky
Selected Book Details
- Paperback
- Author: Ivan Doig
- Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
- Release Date: 1992
- ISBN-10: 0156899825
- ISBN-13: 9780156899826
- List Price: $14.00
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
SummaryThis work introduced a major modern author to the reading public. Doig’s life was formed among the sheepherders and other denizens of small-town saloons and valley ranches as he wandered beside his restless father. New Preface by the Author. |
Customer Reviews
This House of Sky
Rating: 
Excellent look at growing up in Montana in and about the 1940s & 50s. Life gets tough but strong hearts prevail.
The Power of Place, the Magic of Language, the Sacrifice of Family
Rating:
Ivan Doig grew up in Montana. In this book, he talks about his experience growing up there. He tells about the severity of life there in general, and, more specifically, about the severity of his life growing up. I am familiar with the terminology, big sky. His title --- this house of sky --- relates, I think, back to that.
I think Doig does a great job capturing the Montana countryside and the lifestyle of a great number of immigrants who settled Montana to live off the land by telling his story. It's about him and his parents --- mostly his dad, because his biological mother died when he was just a boy --- and his grandmother.
Of course, it gets cold in Montana and the land isn't as productive or as fertile as it is in the Plains states or in the interior valley of California. Montana is a demanding place to grow up in, and Ivan had a demanding family situation.
Let me quote from the book to give some flavor of it:
"Those first seasons of following the sheep, my parents kept with them in their daily sift through the forest a cat, an independent gray-and-white tom they had named Pete Olson. Somehow, amid the horses and dogs and sheep, and the coyotes and bobcats which ranged close to camp, Pete Olson rationed out his nine lives in nightly prowls of the mountain."
Hopefully, the quote above captures to some degree the ambience of the place and the color of the people involved in his life.
There are similes and metaphors galore with such color and texture that exceeds my ability to describe: "he grins like a jackass eating thistles", "parents behave down toward us as if they are tribal gods, as old and unarguable and almighty as thunder", "those sheep were so hungry they were eatin' the wool off each other".
Mostly though, the story is about the boy, Ivan Doig, growing up and learning to love his way of life, the land, and the people that sacrificed so much for his benefit: his grandmother and his father.Making Expression Less Taxing: A Freelancer's Tax Resource
This one is a keeper!
Rating:
Ivan Doug's charming memoir about growing up the son of an itinerant sheepherder in Montana is one of those rare volumes that has found a permanent place on my bookshelves. He captures a strong sense of place, the dialogue is exceptional, the characters quirky, but very real. "House of Sky" is hilarious one moment, wrenchingly sad the next. It opens with the death of Doig's mother when he was six. He describes his father's uncertainty about how to address his previously distant mother-in-law, who out of necessity he has suddenly persuaded to become mistress of his household. He finally settles on, "Lady," as in, "Godamighty, Lady, do ye realize it's been nineteen months since either of us had a day off?" This is my first book by Doig and it's not going to be my last. If you enjoy truly exceptional writing, you can't go wrong with "House of Sky."
A wonderful memoir of growing up in Montana
Rating:
Ivan Doig is one of the leading writers of the modern American West. I have read, and thoroughly enjoyed, at least four of his novels. THIS HOUSE OF SKY is a memoir of Doig's youth in the hard-scrabble high-country of central Montana in the 1940s and '50s. Despite the hardships Doig's parents encounter, the book is a heart-warming story of decent, hard-working people who personify the pioneer spirt and work ethic so central to our myth of the American West. THIS HOUSE OF SKY shows that in large measure that myth is grounded in reality, although it also betokens some of the places where reality trumps the myth.
As grand as Doig's story is, the telling of it is less so. THIS HOUSE OF SKY was one or Doig's first published works; so far as I can tell, it was his first book-length work other than edited anthologies. For my taste, in THIS HOUSE OF SKY Doig is too idiosyncratic in language, style, and syntax; ultimately, the book seems overly contrived. Especially grating is the frequent use of nouns in various verb forms: for example, "epitaphed", "prowing", "monumented", "embered", "croupiered", and those few are just the tip of the iceberg.
After reading THIS HOUSE OF SKY, I read "Heart Earth", which Doig wrote 15 years later as a sort of continuation of his memoir, a kind of appendix to THIS HOUSE OF SKY. "Heart Earth", too, has a distinctive style, but it is much more accomplished and less mannered. Likewise, Doig's novels, for the most part, are better written than SKY. So, to demark SKY as a less mature work of Doig's, I have given it but four stars, despite the richness and wonder of the story itself. But having said that, if you love the West and treasure stories (especially true stories) of plain, straightforward, hard-working folks who just lower their heads and do what has to be done, with wry humor and gumption, you undoubtedly will enjoy THIS HOUSE OF SKY.
An Incredible Classic Masterpiece
Rating:
This magnificent book is a must read for anyone who cares about humanity; who loves people and wants to ride with them. It is more than that. It is the feel of Montana, of the West, of the people who built this country and the hard, blistering work they did. Don't miss this book. You'll love it and hate when you must put it down.
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