A Man of Destiny, A Boy Of Dispair
by Paul (1 Comments) 
The Last American Man
Elizabeth Gilbert
Penguin Books
Pages: 288
In ancient Jerusalem, during Yom Kippur the people would cast their sins and burden upon a ceremonial goat (a scapegoat) and sent it off to the wilderness to perish. A symbolic gesture -- a literal escape goat -- much like the confession of sins and doing the Rosary, the scapegoat has come to symbolize unjust treatment of someone innocent, when truly its someone whose sacrificed for the sake of others absolution. Eustace Conway was born to be a "Man of Destiny" and that destiny seems to be to carry the burden of his families sins and burdens to the wilderness.
In The Last American Man Elizabeth Gilbert explores the life of Eustace Conway, a North Carolina man whose life mission is bring people back to earth -- quite literally -- by teaching them the skills to live off the land and reconnect with how mankind is supposed interact with the earth. Eustace is no hippie, no fly by night environmentalist, no liberal tree-hugger -- he loathed the comparison, no Eustace is a frontier man, a modern Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett; a man that could build a cabin, kill a squirrel at 50 yards with a knife and travel across the country on a horse in under 4 months.
From a young age Eustace immersed himself in outdoors, raising hundreds of turtles and taking notes and writing journals, not just observing nature, but examining and learning from it. He could do anything he set his mind on; identify plants and trees, birds and fish, make clothing from leather (leather he tanned and made himself) and live off the land around him for weeks. He could escape.
Life was far from perfect. Eustace was ruled by a tyrannical father -- who belittled him daily, openly encouraging Eustace's brothers and sisters to mock and laugh at him. A father who cast his own disappointment and impossible expectations upon his first son. His mother was the daughter of frontier man, a near mirror of Eustace, a mother who could never please her or take her rightful calling (of taking his place at leader of the "Camp Sequoyah For Boys"). His mother tried her best to encourage him, to be diligent and to always believe he could do anything if he set his mind upon it. And he did just that -- always hoping that one day it would be enough to make his dad pleased and proud.
So Eustace left, and took the hurts and shame of the family with him off to the wilderness, where he managed to hike the Appalachian Trail, ride horseback across the country, kayak in Alaska, ride a wagon across the north, purchase hundreds of acres of land in Boone North Carolina (while living just off the land in a teepee) and founded Turtle Island Preserve while spreading his message to kids, classrooms, colleges, radio and TV. But never has he found satisfaction or contentment from the one place he needs it most -- a father who accepts him for who he is.
The Last American Man is a slap to our collective faces. We've lost what it means to a man, your even human in the purest sense of existence; to know our world, to make it thrive and continue the cycle of stewardship and care giving, of truly providing and reusing and releasing our dependence upon worthless things:
... in nature everything is connected, circular. The seasons are circular. The planet is circular, and so is its passage around the sun. The course of water over the earth is circular, coming down from the sky and circulating through the world to spread life and then evaporating up again. ... I live in a circular teepee and I build my fire in a circle, and when my loved ones visit me, we sit in a circle and talk. The life cycles of plants and animals are circular. ... but we modern people have lost sight of that ... They live in boxes. They wake up every morning in the box of their bedroom because a box next to them started making beeping noises to tell them it was time to get up. They eat their breakfast from a box where they throw that box away into another box. Then they leave the box where they live and get into a box with wheels and drive to work, which is just another big box broken up into lots of little cubicle boxes where a bunch of people spend their days sitting and staring at the computer boxes in front of them. ... Break out of the box ... You're not handcuffed to your culture!"
The Last American Man, Pages 18-19
That doesn't mean any of us will live in a teepee on our own land in the wilds of North Carolina, but we certainly learn more about how to grow our own foods, use our hands to make and build and exert some healthy energy, use less resources, care for what we have; without being a fanatic or spaced-out idealist. All the while the contrast of a man so full of energy and vigor and passion and knowledge -- so attune to life; finds himself alone, looking for approval from a father, a wife and companion, unable to lift the burdens put on his shoulders.
COMMENTS:
Nice review. I've had this one on my to-read list for a while. It's about time I got around to it.
Culla Holme
Jun 24, 2008