Little Big Man was my favorite movie western for about 20 years until Dances with Wolves joined it. Tell me about the sequel, Sig...I never heard of it. 
I saw "Little Big Man" when it came out in 1970, and not again since then. A few scenes stay in my mind, and I was sorry to find that a couple of those are not in the 1964 novel of LBM. But I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the novel. It kept me occupied a long time as it is nearly 500 pages long. I enjoyed the historical fiction and the humor. I also enjoyed recalling many scenes from the movie as I read. For what it's worth, I would watch LBM again if the circumstances were right.
Presumably Thomas Berger didn't anticipate writing a sequel to LBM considering how LBM (the novel) ended and how the sequel did not appear until thirty-five years after the original. Jack Crabb sounds weary this time around, but that isn't surprising considering how eventful his life is and continues to be.
This time around, Jack is recalling his life from the astonishing age of 112. Once again Mr. Berger weaves a deft fabric of history and fiction with humorous accents. Jack is present for Wild Bill Hickock's famous gun-slinging trick at the saloon in Deadwood; he witnesses the events at the O.K. Corral; he is there when his old friend, Sitting Bull, is murdered. Jack joins Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show, which not only takes him east for the first time, but takes him all the way to Great Britain to meet the royals and to perform (and to make merry) with some of them. He is befriended by Annie Oakley and her husband, and almost seems to have a crush from afar on General Custer's widow. He rejoins the Indians with whom he lived, at least for a time.
As an aside, there are figures on the number of buffalo which thundered across the prairies before settlers and the railroad arrived. This novel states that the buffalo would not cross the railroad tracks, which was part of the reason the Indians lost their means of living. In fact, the book illustrates vividly the differences between the native way of hunting these animals and the newcomers' way. I believe the figures in the book are correct when it states how the buffalos' numbers were slashed once they became valuable to the newcomers, and this real photo of the time backs that up:
Those are buffalo skulls. Astounding.
Jack Crabb finds a sweetheart in this book, a most unlikely one, in my view. Jack is barely educated yet finds a lady love who is well-educated. If you recall, in the movie Jack had a Scandinavian wife who was kidnapped by Indians, then ended up with an Indian wife plus her three sisters. And here he is with a new lady love quite different to the others, a proto-feminist (suffragette).
I enjoyed reading this book but not quite as much as the first one. However, I had hopes of a third book because Mr. Berger ended this novel in a way which could leave things be at two books or which could pick them up again as Jack walked through history up to the middle of the twentieth century. Of course, as we know, Mr. Berger passed away this year, and the second possibility was not to be.
So there you are, Sven. It would make a good movie, or - - better still - - a series.
Now, can you figure out why my favorite cowboy movie is "Escape From New York?" My second favorite is "Silverado," by the way.
