The Lost Wagon

Easy-reading, bland adventure

I grew up reading the adolescent 'coming of age in the wilderness' fiction of Jim Kjelgaard, and loved it. Now I am middle aged, and read this novel for the first time. From the ages of the main characters and focus on family relationships, it seems intended for adult readers, but fails to deliver adult attention-span suspense, and leaves a few loose ends. Each crisis is promptly averted by disarming grins, unwonted candor, or fortuitous meetings. No conflict spans more than a few pages, thus none of the characters undergoes significant enough transformation to be dynamic. Events seem to play out for the best in each chapter with little effort on the part of the innocuous little family, led by the mild, viceless patriarch, introspectively tortured with shallow, mundane and readily surmounted doubts. I would compare the tone and formulaic plot, to that of C.S. Forester's African Queen.