Our Savage

The story of Danny Savage highlights the intensity that drove immigrants to this country a hundred years ago and is still driving them today. Danny's size sets him apart from birth. As he grows up his intelligence and determination set him apart once again. This is a robust story of the kind of guts and heart it took to make the journey to America and the pressures that drove many from Europe. The characters aren't all "pretty". In fact their descriptions sometimes leave them wanting in all but courage. All are seen striving for more than what they left. Life has given them a chance but not all of the gifts that have come to be expected in our times. This story is one of compassion, anger, determination, love and hardship. When I finished this book I felt I had been priviledged to see and to contemplate a type of life and experience that I hadn't known existed. This book is a great read for its grasp of history, culture and psycology. The characters, though flawed, show so much of humanity- that which we'd like to see and also that which we would prefer to have hidden, the secret darker side. This adds a meaningful chapter to our understanding of history and the forces that formed America.

Our Savage is an epic novel employing juxtaposition and counterpoint to explore ideas about hope, isolation, and success. Two continents, two centuries and four generations form the backdrop for a dissection of human motives and consequences. Our hero, Danilo Lazich, is born in 1865 in Serbia, into a Grimm fin de siecle world of empresses and monsters and migrates as a recently married young man to a brash America full of immigrants wheeling and dealing a new life for themselves. We meet Danilo as a child who is regarded as a freak of nature by his countrymen due to his gigantic size and obstinately self possessed nature; exceptionally precocious, he constantly challenges the assumptions of those about him, with an absolute indifference to social opinion or rules, in a strictly cadenced society. An arranged marriage permits him a ticket to the new world, where his traits are suddenly regarded as heroic, and simultaneously links him for life to his love and nemesis, Stoja, a woman who is both strong and industrious, but also ultimately perceives herself a helpless victim of her circumstances. Stoja is rigidly confined by her religious and social constructs of propriety which force her into an enduring perception that her marriage to Lazich is a cursed union with a child of Satan and blinds her to his better qualities. As she ages, her bitterness overwhelms her, trapping her into a nightmare cycle of forcing the family members she loves the most farther and farther away, until she is finally completely isolated. Her ferocious withering away is juxtaposed against the robust vitality of Danilo, who loves his family, but alienates them despite himself by his overwhelming energy, and a lack of insight and empathy into human weaknesses and limitations. These two forces of nature annihilate their daughter, who leaves them her son, Red. After he has lost his daughter to the vortex of her despair, Danilo is able to shift enough to parent his grandson with more gentleness. As Stoja gains in material success and loses any vestige of an ability to actually love, her husband loses every material good, but gains a pure loving bond with his grandson, Red, allowing him his frailties in a way that he was unable to do with his daughter Angeline. Stoja's ultimate bitter despair comes from her lack of any vision beyond a pedestrian acquisition of wealth that she permits herself to enjoy only in daydreams. In contrast, Danilo derives a lifelong joy from the abstract pursuits of intellect and exploration of the endless opportunities afforded by the technical advances of the early 20th century, however, his contemplative nature, while buffering him from the vicissitudes of daily life, also cost him the commonplace rewards available only by staying present in the moment, Danilo's success comes from finally achieving that fine balance between being a nonconformist visionary and an attentive human. The spare, lyrical, dialogue driven writing style of this novel

In Our Savage, Matt Pavelich creates a rich pastiche of characters, vividly describes landscapes both known and foreign, and turns manifest destiny on its head. Reminiscent of McCarthy's writing from the Blood Meridian/Suttree days, Pavelich is a keeper.

This stunningly well-written novel is a must-read for all fans of orignal American fiction. Haunting, witty, and laugh-out-loud funny, Our Savage spans a century, following the life of Danny Savage from Europe to the American West -- never fitting in, never giving up, Savage's superior natural intelligence and balance bring him through a life of what becomes our ideal American -- a true individual. Fans of Annie Proulx will enjoy this -- it is similar in its span of history with beautiful details. Also similar in the seemingly-effortless, beautiful prose.Our Savage is truly a great American novel and Pavelich is truly a great American writer.