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Dersu the Trapper (Recovered Classics)
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About Dersu The Trapper
Product Description Vladimir Klavdievich Arseniev (1872-1930) undertook twelve major scientific expeditions between 1902 and 1930 in the Siberian Far East, and authored some sixty works from the geographical, geological, botanical, and ethnographic data he amassed. Among these, Dersu the Trapper has earned a privileged place in Russian literature. In this Russian counterpart to The Journals of Lewis and Clark and the novels of James Fenimore Cooper, Arseniev combines the precise observations of a naturalist with an exciting narrative of real-life adventure. Arseniev describes three explorations in the Ussurian taiga along the Sea of Japan above Vladivostok, beginning with his first encounter of the solitary aboriginal hunter named Dersu, a member of the Gold tribe, who thereafter becomes his guide. Each expedition is beset with hardship and danger: through blizzard and flood and assorted deprivations, these two men forge an exceptional friendship in their mutual respect for the immense grandeur of the wilderness. But the bridges across language, race and culture also have limitations, and the incursion of civilization exacts its toll. Dersu the Trapper is at once a witnessing of Russia's last frontier and a poignant memoir of rare cross-cultural understanding. Originally published in 1941, this English translation is reprinted in its entirety now for the first time. Amazon.com Review The Russian explorer V. K. Arseniev received a hero's welcome when he returned to Moscow from the Far East in 1906, having mapped the unknown corner of Siberia just above what is now North Korea and just east of Manchuria. He could not have done this work alone, Arseniev protested, and the real hero was an indigene who befriended his party. Arseniev then wrote a remarkable memoir devoted to the Goldi trapper, Dersu, who saved his and his men's lives on more than one occasion while showing them the ways of the deep forest. An action-filled memoir of exploration and natural history, Arseniev's record of friendship with Dersu is one of the finest works of amateur ethnography. It is also the basis for 's prize-winning 1976 film . From Publishers Weekly Arseniev, a Russian geographer, ethnographer and geologist who surveyed the Taiga, the vast forest region of eastern Siberia, on three separate occasions between 1902 and 1907, knew the real Dersu Azala for some 19 months. The Dersu that appears here, is actually a composite character, combining the real Dersu with myths about the primitive lifestyle and heroic deeds of "noble savages" in the manner of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales. All three expeditions described in this memoir entailed life-threatening danger from blizzards, rainstorms, lack of food, wild animals or hostile natives?and all ended with Dersu's instinctive knowledge saving the day. In a stock ending to the meeting of civilized and savage, Arseniev persuaded Dersu to come with him, but his friend could not adapt to restrictions of life indoors, preferring the rigors of is old nomadic existence to the spurious comforts of city life. Burdened by an awkward, outdated translation, this somewhat repetitive memoir still sustains interest as it recounts the adventures of two exceptional friends. Film buffs will also recognize it as the basis for Kurosawa's 1975 Oscar-winning movie, Dersu Azala. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review Arseniev...the great explorer of Eastern Siberia...opens up a world of which we have hitherto had very little information. -- Fritjof Nansen Dersu the Trapper tells the true story of a turn-of-the-century encounter between a Russian expeditionary officer and a nomadic member of the Gold tribe in the taiga region of eastern Siberia, above Vladivostok along the Sea of Japan. The story concerns three expeditions which were filled with discovery and hardship, and required remarkable courage to survive harsh conditions as well as encounters with bears, wild boards, tigers, ba
