About Louise Erdrich Essay Research Paper Louise (стр. 2 из 2)

Erdrich published her first novel, Love Medicine, in 1984. "With this

impressive debut," stated New York Times Book Review contributor Marco

Portales, "Louise Erdrich enters the company of America’s better novelists." Love

Medicine was named for the belief in love potions which is a part of Chippewa

folklore. The novel explores the bonds of family and faith which preserve both the

Chippewa tribal community and the individuals that comprise it.

Reviewers responded positively to Erdrich’s debut novel, citing its lyrical qualities

as well asthe rich characters who inhabit it. New York Timescontributor D. J. R.

Bruckner was impressed with Erdrich’s "mastery of words," as well as the

"vividly drawn" characters who "will not leave the mind once they are let

in." Portales, who called Love Medicine "an engrossing book,"

applauded the unique narration technique which produces what he termed "a wondrous

prose song."

After the publication of Love Medicine, Erdrich told reviewers that her next

novel would focus less exclusively on her mother’s side, embracing the author’s mixed

heritage and the mixed community in which she grew up. Her 1986 novel, The Beet Queen,

deals with whites and half-breeds, as well as American Indians, and explores the

interactions between these worlds, tracing themes of separation and loss.

The Beet Queen was well-received by critics, some of whom found it even more

impressive than Love Medicine. Many noted the novel’s poetic language and

symbolism; Bly noted that Erdrich’s "genius is in metaphor," and that the

characters "show a convincing ability to feel an image with their whole bodies."

Josh Rubins, writing in New York Review of Books, called The Beet Queen

"a rare second novel, one that makes it seem as if the first, impressive as it was,

promised too little, not too much."

Other reviewers had problems with The Beet Queen, but they tended to dismiss the

novel’s flaws in light of its positive qualities. New Republic contributor Dorothy

Wickenden considered the characters unrealistic and the ending contrived, but she lauded The

Beet Queen’s "ringing clarity and lyricism," as well as the "assured,

polished quality" which she felt was missing in Love Medicine. Although

Michiko Kakutani found the ending artificial, the New York Times reviewer called

Erdrich "an immensely gifted young writer." "Even with its

weaknesses," proclaimed Linda Simon in Commonweal, " The Beet Queen

stands as a product of enormous talent."

After Erdrich completed The Beet Queen, she was uncertain as to what her next

project should be. The four-hundred-page manuscript that would eventually become Tracks

had remained untouched for ten years; the author referred to it as her "burden."

She and Dorris took a fresh look at it, and decided that they could relate it to Love

Medicine and The Beet Queen. While more political than her previous novels, Tracks,

Erdrich’s 1989 work, also deals with spiritual themes, exploring the tension between

the Native Americans’ ancient beliefs and the Christian notions of the Europeans. Tracks

takes place between 1912 and 1924, before the settings of Erdrich’s other novels, and

reveals the roots of Love Medicine’s characters and their hardships. At the center

of Tracks is Fleur, a character whom Los Angeles Times Book Review

contributor Terry Tempest Williams called "one of the most haunting presences in

contemporary American literature."

Reviewers found Tracks distinctly different from Erdrich’s earlier novels, and

some felt that her third novel lacked the characteristics that made Love Medicine

and The Beet Queen so outstanding. Washington Post Book World critic

Jonathan Yardley felt that, on account of its more political focus, the work has a

"labored quality." Robert Towers stated in New York Review of Books that

he found the characters too melodramatic and the tone too intense. Katherine Dieckmann,

writing in the Voice Literary Supplement, affirmed that she "missed

[Erdrich's] skilled multiplications of voice," and called the relationship between

Pauline and Nanapush "symptomatic of the overall lack of grand orchestration and

perspectival interplay that made Erdrich’s first two novels polyphonic masterpieces."

According to Commonweal contributor Christopher Vecsey, however,although "a

reviewer might find some of the prose overwrought, and the two narrative voices

indistinguishable … readers will appreciate and applaud the vigor and inventiveness of

the author."

Other reviewers enjoyed Tracks even more than the earlier novels. Williams

stated that Erdrich’s writing "has never appeared more polished and grounded,"

and added," Tracks may be the story of our time." Thomas M. Disch lauded

the novel’s plot, with its surprising twists and turns, in the Chicago Tribune. The

critic added, "Louise Erdrich is like one of those rumored drugs that are instantly

and forever addictive. Fortunately in her case you can just say yes."

Erdrich and Dorris’s jointly authored novel, The Crown of Columbus, explores

Native American issues from the standpoint of the authors’ current experience, rather than

the world of their ancestors. Marking the quincentennial anniversary of Spanish explorer

Christopher Columbus’s voyage in a not-so-celebratory fashion, Erdrich and Dorris raise

important questions about the meaning of that voyage for both Europeans and Native

Americans today.

Some reviewers found The Crown of Columbus unbelievable and inconsistent, and

considered it less praiseworthy than the individual authors’ earlier works. However, New

York Times Book Review contributor Robert Houston appreciated the work’s timely

political relevance. He also stated, "There are moments of genuine humor and

compassion, of real insight and sound satire." Other critics also considered Vivian

and Roger’s adventures amusing, vibrant, and charming.

Erdrich returned to the descendants of Nanapush with her 1994 novel, The Bingo

Palace. The fourth novel in the series which began with Love Medicine, The Bingo

Palace weaves together a story of spiritual pursuit with elements of modern

reservation life. Erdrich also provided continuity to the series by having the novel

primarily narrated by Lipsha Morrisey, the illegitimate son of June Kapshaw and Gerry

Nanapush from Love Medicine.

Reviewers’ comments on The Bingo Palace were generally positive. While Lawrence

Thornton in the New York Times Book Review found "some of the novel’s later

ventures into magic realism…contrived," his overall impression was more positive:

"Ms. Erdrich’s sympathy for her characters shines as luminously as Shawnee Ray’s

jingle dress." Pam Houston, writing for the Los Angeles Times Book Review, was

especially taken by the character of Lipsha Morrissey, finding in him "what makes

this her most exciting and satisfying book to date."

The Bingo Palace was also reviewed in the context of the series as a whole. Chicago

Tribune contributor Michael Upchurch concluded, "The Bingo Palace falls

somewhere between Tracks and The Beet Queen in its accomplishment." He

added, "The best chapters in The Bingo Palace rival, as Love Medicine

did, the work of Welty, Cheever, and Flannery O’Connor."

Erdrich turned to her own experience as mother of six for her next work, The Blue

Jay’s Dance. Her first book of nonfiction, The Blue Jay’s Dance chronicles

Erdrich’s pregnancy and the birth year of her child. The title refers to a blue jay’s

habit of defiantly "dancing" towards an attacking hawk, Erdrich’s metaphor for

"the sort of controlled recklessness that having children always is," noted Jane

Aspinall in Quill & Quire. Erdrich has been somewhat protective of her family’s

privacy and has stated the narrative actually describes a combination of her experience

with several of her children. Sue Halpern in the New York Times Book Review

remarked on this difficult balancing act between public and private lives but found

"Ms. Erdrich’s ambivalence inspires trust…and suggests that she is the kind of

mother whose story should be told."

Some reviewers averred that Erdrich’s description of the maternal relationship was a

powerful one: "the bond between mother and infant has rarely been captured so

well," commented a Kirkus Reviews contributor. While the subject of pregnancy

and motherhood is not a new one, Halpern noted that the book provided new insight into the

topic: "What makes The Blue Jay’s Dance worth reading is that it quietly

places a mother’s love and nurturance amid her love for the natural world and

suggests…how right that placement is." Although the Kirkus Reviews

contributor found The Blue Jay’s Dance to be "occasionally too self-conscious

about the importance of Erdrich’s role as Writer," others commented positively on the

book’s examination of the balance between the work of parenting and one’s vocation. A Los

Angeles Times reviewer remarked: "this book is really about working and having

children, staying alert and…focused through the first year of a child’s life."

Erdrich retained her focus on children with her first children’s book, Grandmother’s

Pigeon. Published in 1996, it is a fanciful tale of an adventurous grandmother who

heads to Greenland on the back of a porpoise, leaving behind grandchildren and three

bird’s eggs in her cluttered bedroom. The eggs hatch into passenger pigeons, thought to be

extinct, through which the children are able to send messages to their missing

grandmother. A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented, "As in her fiction for

adults…, Erdrich makes every word count in her bewitching debut children’s story."

Within the same year, Erdrich returned to the character of June Kasphaw of Love

Medicinein her sixth novel, Tales of Burning Love. More accurately, it is the

story of June’s husband, Jack Mauser, and his five (including June) ex-wives.

Reviewers continued to note Erdrich’s masterful descriptions and fine dialogue in this

work. According to Penelope Mesic in the Chicago Tribune, "Erdrich’s strength

is that she gives emotional states — as shifting and intangible, as indefinable as

wind — a visible form in metaphor." A Times Literary Supplement

contributor compared her to both Tobias Wolff — "(like him), she

is…particularly good at evoking American small-town life and the space that engulfs

it" — as well as Raymond Carver, noting her dialogues to be "small

exchanges that…map out the barely navigable distance between what’s heard, what’s meant,

and what’s said."

Tales of Burning Love also focuses Erdrich’s abilities on the relationship

between men and women. The Times Literary Supplement reviewer continued,

"Erdrich also shares Carver’s clear and sophisticated view of the more fundamental

distance between men and women, and how that, too, is negotiated." However, Mark

Childress in the New York Times Book Review commented that while "Jack’s wives

are vivid and fully realized…whenever (Jack’s) out of sight, he doesn’t seem as

interesting as the women who loved him."

While Erdrich covers familiar territory in Tales of Burning Love, she seems to

be expanding her focus slightly. Roxana Robinson in Washington Post Book World

remarked, "The landscape, instead of being somber and overcast…is vividly

illuminated by bolts of freewheeling lunacy: This is a mad Gothic comedy." Or as

Verlyn Klinkenborg noted in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, "this book

marks a shift in (Erdrich’s) career, a shift that is suggested rather than

fulfilled…there is new country coming into (her) sight, and this novel is her first

welcoming account of it."

WRITINGS

Novels

Love Medicine, Holt, 1984, expanded edition, 1993.

The Beet Queen, Holt, 1986.

Tracks, Harper, 1988.

(With husband, Michael Dorris) The Crown of Columbus, HarperCollins, 1991.

The Bingo Palace, HarperCollins, 1994.

Tales of Burning Love, HarperCollins, 1996.

Poetry

Jacklight, Holt, 1984.

Baptism of Desire, Harper, 1989.

Other

Imagination (textbook), C. E. Merrill, 1980.

(Author of preface) Michael Dorris, The Broken Cord: A Family’s Ongoing Struggle with

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Harper, 1989.

(Author of preface) Desmond Hogan, A Link with the River, Farrar, Straus,1989.

(With Allan Richard Chavkin and Nancy Feyl Chavkin) Conversations with Louise Erdrich

and Michael Dorris, University Press of Mississippi (Jackson), 1994.

The Falcon: A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, Penguin

(New York City), 1994.

The Blue Jay’s Dance: A Birth Year (memoir), HarperCollins (New York City), 1995.

Grandmother’s Pigeon (children’s book), illustrated by Jim LaMarche, Hyperion (New

York City), 1996.

Author of short story, The World’s Greatest Fisherman; contributor to

anthologies, including the Norton Anthology of Poetry; Best American Short

Stories of 1981-83, 1983, and 1988; and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, in

1985 and 1987. Contributor of stories, poems, essays, and book reviews to periodicals,

including The New Yorker, New England Review, Chicago, American Indian Quarterly,

Frontiers, Atlantic, Kenyon Review, North American Review, New York Times Book Review,

Ms., Redbook (with her sister Heidi, under the joint pseudonym Heidi Louise), and Woman

(with Dorris, under the joint pseudonym Milou North).