Set in the mid-twentieth century, this captivating tale documents efforts to resist Indian termination policies on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. Full of symbolism and magical realism, "The Night Watchman" is characterized as semi-fiction, but is largely inspired by the experiences of the author's grandfather.
"They both started laughing in that desperate high-pitched way people laugh when their hearts are broken."
"The sense of something there, with her, all around her, swirling and seething with energy. How intimately the trees seized the earth. How exquisitely she was included."
Louise Erdrich does an admirable job handling a sprawling cast of characters and plotlines, part of the reason this work won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Some readers may question why certain storylines just sort of end without resolution or why non-Indian characters are rendered so one-dimensionally, leading to a sense that this is a great story -- and a good novel.
I was fortunate to read this book during a vacation to the British Isles, which will always imbue it with fond memories for me. But no matter the reading experience, "The Night Watchman" is an important book that should be read and digested by anyone interested in developing a deeper understanding of the history and culture of Native Americans in the United States.
"You cannot feel time grind against you. Time is nothing but everything, not the seconds, minutes, hours, days, years. Yet this substanceless substance, this bending and shaping, this warping, this is the way we understand our world."
No comments:
Post a Comment