Review: Dersu the Trapper

Dersu the Trapper Dersu the Trapper by Vladimir Arsenyev
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Years ago I watched Kurosawa's movie Dersu Uzala and it made a tremendous impression on me. It remains to this day one of my favorite movies. It was much later that I found out that the movie was based on a book and that the book is a true story. "Dersu the Trapper" is the story of a Russian military officer who befriends a native of the Taiga when he is out surveying the largely unmapped expanses of the Russian far East, around the year 1905.
The adventures described in the book are quite remarkable, but the author's matter of fact style makes them believable and approachable. The author does not try to create a literary masterpiece and only allows himself a few flourishes of the pen, but he describes his experiences with feeling and authenticity. He is not afraid to talk about his shortcomings and mistakes that he made during the expedition, and how Dersu helped him out of most of his predicaments, self-inflicted or otherwise. Dersu, the middle-aged hunter, is a Sherlock Holmes of the Taiga. By observing a track here, a bent branch there, he can divine the movements of an animal or human who passed by a trail hours ago. He can tell if they stopped, if they were in a hurry, if they are sick, young, or old. He is the ultimate survivalist, a man who can predict the weather by observing the birds, can smell pray from a distance, and can shoot without almost ever missing.
Whether or not this image is exaggerated, and I don't think it is, the story of Dersu is a tribute of the author to his dear friend, whose friendship overcame cultural and racial barriers that were difficult to cross at that time.


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