WEBVTT

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Somewhere in all novels.

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A novelist finds himself
at that moment when

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he must imbue a character
and he hopes the reader

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with a moment of recognition.

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A moment when a man begins
to understand something

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about himself, about
the people around him,

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and about the world
in which he lives.

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This evening, I should
like to read passages

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from three novels.

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The passages will be
moments of recognition

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in the novels on the part
of the various characters.

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The moment of recognition
[CLEARS THROAT]

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is not necessarily confined
to age or to youth,

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it comes as we all know
at unexpected moments,

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with unexpected unpremeditated
degrees of intensity.

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The first passage
is from a novel

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published almost 15 years ago.

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A novel titled
"Butcher's Crossing."

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I shall have to say a few
words about these novels

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in order to give some context
to these moments of recognition.

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Butcher's crossing
concerns itself

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with the last of the great
Buffalo hunts in the American

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West.

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The year is about 1873,
the young man Will Andrews

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has come from the East
from Harvard from Cambridge

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to the West.

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He is imbued with most of the
ideas of Emerson and Thoreau,

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ideas that were
particularly current

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in the middle and later part
of the 19th century in the East

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and in all of America.

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It is an idea about the
benevolence of nature.

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Nature is good and one
achieves grace or salvation

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by submission to nature.

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Will Andrews with
these ideas comes

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to the West engages himself on
an adventure in which he hopes

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to discover something about
himself and about the world,

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in terms of these
Amazonian ideas.

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It is a Buffalo hunt in a High
Mountain Valley in Colorado.

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Four men make the journey,
an old Buffalo Hunter

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named Miller, a Skinner
named Schneider,

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a man named Charlie Hogue,
who has only one hand,

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and will Andrews himself.

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The trip is financed in
part by a hired trader named

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MacDonald, who has
promised to buy

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the hides from this last hunt.

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The men stay too late in the
mountains, they are trapped,

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and must endure hardships over
a long winter that cannot escape

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from the mountains.

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They have killed
some 20,000 Buffalo

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and their skins will make them
their fortunes they think.

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After a winter of extreme
hardship starvation,

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they return in the spring
and in the return one man

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Schneider is killed
crossing a swollen river.

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They return to the city
of Butcher's crossing

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to discover that
the market is dead,

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the bottom has dropped
out of the hide market,

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and all of their misery,
all of their trouble,

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all of their toil
has been in vain.

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And MacDonald, the
man who is behind--

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financially behind
the expedition

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speaks to young Will Andrews
after he has returned.

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