Erdrich keeps to her cast of rich Chippewa characters here -
Pillagers, Kashpawa, Lazarres: familiar to readers of both Love
Medicine and The Beet Queen - but has placed them chronologically
before the setting of those other novels. It's at a period
(1912-24) that sees the death knell of their most natural Indian
identity, thanks to famine and economic rapaciousness and the
pressures of missionary Christianity. Two narrators hold sway here:
one is Nanapush - an old but still sapid man, in touch with the
throngs of dead all around him in the woods near the sacred lake
Matchimanito (the most striking poetry of the ever-lyrically
inventive Erdrich is this book's frequent and moving invocation of
the spirits as milling within sight of the living - a seamlessness
of states), and desperately trying to hold on before the lumber
interests come and buy his land for nothing from him. Holding on is
all but impossible, though - for there is no food: the Chippewa are
dying like flies, and pittances matter. If Nanapush is the totem of
the book, his antipode is mixed-blooded Pauline, at book's end a
nun but until then ablaze with sexual jealousy and torment. Her
chief nettle is Fleur Pillager, widely believed to be a
water-witch, whose ease in love and revenge and self-confidence
makes her a frighteningly awesome presence to most men and women.
Erdrich's prose is rich, her imagination remarkably agile
(paragraphs take strange jerky turns, rarely going where you
thought they might), her sympathy and unsentimentality striking -
yet this is a diffuse book, one lacking a core - either of emblem,
as in Love Medicine, or screwy, heartbreaking story, as in The Beet
Queen. If you've read those others, you'll read this too - its
pages about the famine are unforgettable - but in a mood of
generality, of taking in characters we're told are extraordinary
but are rarely shown as such. Not the best Erdrich, in other words,
but a block nonetheless in her quite special ongoing oeuvre.
(Kirkus Reviews)
A New York Times Bestseller, 'Tracks' is a masterpiece from Louise
Erdrich, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction 2012 - a
story for our times, narrated by a uniquely twentieth century
figure. By turns reticent, garrulous, spiritual and profane,
Nanapush, like the Native American culture he belongs to, is a
living contradiction - alien, beguiling, strong and dying... Set in
North Dakota, at a time in the early twentieth century when Indian
tribes were struggling to keep what little remained of their lands,
'Tracks' is a tale of passion and deep unrest. Over the course of
ten crucial years, as tribal land and trust between people erode
ceaselessly, men and women are pushed to the brink of their
endurance - yet their pride and humour prohibit surrender. The
reader will experience shock and pleasure in encountering a group
of characters that are compelling and rich in their vigour,
clarity, and indomitable vitality.
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