You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
"For it shall be as it was, I think. The meek shall inherit the earth, the undone shall take it over, the backward shall take it back, the unformed and ancient shall form it anew." (p. 144)
Those are lovely lines on their own, but when the context is our world going biologically-backward? Totally arresting.
I saw this a few places online, read a friend's trusted opinion, and then some great public librarians featured it in a display- so I picked it up. The weekend came, and with it a daysss long headache; a quasi-gift that offered me excuse enough to ignore coursework and read this in two sittings. It has a dystopian plot that absorbs "literary fiction" worthy introspection, from a female narrator with depth. Erdrich handles the ol' religion/science debacle better than most, simultaneously reminding her readers of the historic blip that humanity is without cheapening the meaning that religion can foster. (The latter becomes a requisite for the protag's life, actually.)
I've seen two main complaints against this novel:
1) "It leaves too much of the wider world unobserved." My response is a quote from the book itself: "The first thing that happens at the end of the world is that we don't know what is happening" (93). I'm willing to trust that Erdrich knows what she's doing when it comes to world building, with the lack of information being additive to the novel overall.
2) "It's derivative from The Handmaid's Tale." Look, Atwood deserves all the love she's gotten recently. But one novel does not even begin to adequately address experiences of childbearing in dehumanizing society (and more broadly, life lived as female bodies - full stop).
I want more Atwood, Erdrich, Le Guin, and the like please.
"A work in progress. Still, this is our haven and our den, the place I can merely be the nameless being I am, a two-decade-plus collection of quirks and curiosities, the biochemical machine that examines its own mind, the searcher who believes equally in the laws of physics and the Holy Ghost..." (p.63-4)
"I don't know why it is given to us to be so mortal and to feel so much. It is a cruel trick, and glorious." (p. 102)
"No citing of precedents or principle. The only thing meaningful in the definition is the word made flesh. The body has the last and only word." (p. 191)
"I know the Word. It is the oldest word in any language, first utterance. Ma, ah, oh, mama. Mother. Not the word uttered by God to make life, but spoken by the baby who recognizes the being on whom life depends. I will hear that word. I will know that word. I will stay alive." (p. 263)
Those are lovely lines on their own, but when the context is our world going biologically-backward? Totally arresting.
I saw this a few places online, read a friend's trusted opinion, and then some great public librarians featured it in a display- so I picked it up. The weekend came, and with it a daysss long headache; a quasi-gift that offered me excuse enough to ignore coursework and read this in two sittings. It has a dystopian plot that absorbs "literary fiction" worthy introspection, from a female narrator with depth. Erdrich handles the ol' religion/science debacle better than most, simultaneously reminding her readers of the historic blip that humanity is without cheapening the meaning that religion can foster. (The latter becomes a requisite for the protag's life, actually.)
I've seen two main complaints against this novel:
1) "It leaves too much of the wider world unobserved." My response is a quote from the book itself: "The first thing that happens at the end of the world is that we don't know what is happening" (93). I'm willing to trust that Erdrich knows what she's doing when it comes to world building, with the lack of information being additive to the novel overall.
2) "It's derivative from The Handmaid's Tale." Look, Atwood deserves all the love she's gotten recently. But one novel does not even begin to adequately address experiences of childbearing in dehumanizing society (and more broadly, life lived as female bodies - full stop).
I want more Atwood, Erdrich, Le Guin, and the like please.
"A work in progress. Still, this is our haven and our den, the place I can merely be the nameless being I am, a two-decade-plus collection of quirks and curiosities, the biochemical machine that examines its own mind, the searcher who believes equally in the laws of physics and the Holy Ghost..." (p.63-4)
"I don't know why it is given to us to be so mortal and to feel so much. It is a cruel trick, and glorious." (p. 102)
"No citing of precedents or principle. The only thing meaningful in the definition is the word made flesh. The body has the last and only word." (p. 191)
"I know the Word. It is the oldest word in any language, first utterance. Ma, ah, oh, mama. Mother. Not the word uttered by God to make life, but spoken by the baby who recognizes the being on whom life depends. I will hear that word. I will know that word. I will stay alive." (p. 263)
I had to take a few days and recover from this book! Told as a letter written to her unborn child, this mother’s journey is heart wrenching in this dystopian drama. Great read but ***you will feel all the things****
I hadn't read good literary dystopian fiction since 1984 and Brave New World. This is in the league of those classics, and it has a wry, charming side to it at times too that makes it all the more chilling and heart-wrenching. Its setting in Minnesota is fascinating to me as well, as that's my home state. Very engaging.
dark
medium-paced
I didn't like this nearly as much as I wanted to. It might have been in part because the same concept has been done better by others. Where this one was different, and I think could have been great, would have been if it had focused more on the native experience. How great could have been to delve into their community experience? As a group, they pulled together. Instead of getting that story, something that I think (not sure) is unique, I got a story that was generic. Generic is the wrong word. Community could have been a new, refreshing character, but instead, we get the tribal community as a small bit player. The community that is the main character, is the white one.
Thought-provoking book about a dystopian near future where climate change has had a huge impact and evolution is starting to go back to earlier forms. Pregnant women become targets as they may be carrying earlier forms of the human species. Cedar, living in Minnesota with her adoptive parents becomes pregnant and must try to live in this new society while also trying to find her identity. Written as a journal she plans to give to the child she is carrying.
This book felt like a "less dark" twist on The Handmaiden's Tale.
Of course, I suppose it's hard to say that there is a "less dark" dystopia because this certainly is a dystopia. I simply felt like there was more time for meditation on the actual events taking place, perhaps because our narrator Cedar Songmaker is writing down the events taking place for her unborn child.
This story is the story of what happens when the world starts moving backward. Cedar is four-months pregnant with her first child, created with a lover from within her Catholic Church Phil when the world starts to fall apart.
Though the reader doesn't know it straight away, babies are being born less evolved than their parents. Animals and plants are following a similar pattern. In an attempt to save the human race, the government starts removing pregnant women from their homes, locking them away in hospitals to monitor their pregnancies.
Cedar is caught in the middle of this. After meeting her biological mother, Cedar goes into hiding and is helped by her lover. She is discovered and removed to a hospital. There she forms unlikely friendships and learns the exact depths she - a the child of two liberals turned Catholic - will go to protect her unborn and potentially unsavable child.
This is a beautifully written book that focuses on how far a mother will go for her child. There are rich themes of religion and evolution and how the two can exist side by side. While I say that this reminds me of The Handmaiden's tale, mainly because of its focus on reproductive rights, I didn't mean it as an insult. I meant it as praise. This book is unique in itself. Erdrich weaves a wonderful story of human emotion and love, both biological and adoptive, and explores exactly what humans will do when the beauty of the world is threatened.
Of course, I suppose it's hard to say that there is a "less dark" dystopia because this certainly is a dystopia. I simply felt like there was more time for meditation on the actual events taking place, perhaps because our narrator Cedar Songmaker is writing down the events taking place for her unborn child.
This story is the story of what happens when the world starts moving backward. Cedar is four-months pregnant with her first child, created with a lover from within her Catholic Church Phil when the world starts to fall apart.
Though the reader doesn't know it straight away, babies are being born less evolved than their parents. Animals and plants are following a similar pattern. In an attempt to save the human race, the government starts removing pregnant women from their homes, locking them away in hospitals to monitor their pregnancies.
Cedar is caught in the middle of this. After meeting her biological mother, Cedar goes into hiding and is helped by her lover. She is discovered and removed to a hospital. There she forms unlikely friendships and learns the exact depths she - a the child of two liberals turned Catholic - will go to protect her unborn and potentially unsavable child.
This is a beautifully written book that focuses on how far a mother will go for her child. There are rich themes of religion and evolution and how the two can exist side by side. While I say that this reminds me of The Handmaiden's tale, mainly because of its focus on reproductive rights, I didn't mean it as an insult. I meant it as praise. This book is unique in itself. Erdrich weaves a wonderful story of human emotion and love, both biological and adoptive, and explores exactly what humans will do when the beauty of the world is threatened.
How do you decide what books to read? I read reviews by reviewers whom I respect. I take recommendations from family and friends who know what I like to read. I look at the best sellers lists. I look at the magazine Bookmarks, which compiles reviews from various places and assigns a rating to books. And then I choose from all those sources the books that appeal to me and that I think I might enjoy reading. It's a system that works well for me. I rarely pick up a book to read that turns out to be a total stinker.
And then there are some favorite authors that I will read regardless of what the reviews say or whether anyone recommends them. Louise Erdrich falls in that category.
Her latest book, Future Home of the Living God, got very mixed reviews and, for the most part, they were not kind. Bookmarks' assessment, after compiling the reviews, was "Not recommended, even for Erdrich fans." But I was undeterred.
I thought the book had an interesting concept. It seems that the world as we know it is ending and evolution is reversing itself. The birds in the sky are becoming more dinosaur-like, reverting to Archaeopteryx type. Cougars are becoming more saber-tooth cat-like. And humans? Well, that is the question. Are they destined to go all the way back to Australopithicene form? And just how did this reversal of evolution come about? The answer to that question is, in fact, one of the many holes in the plot.
Erdrich tells her story through the character of Cedar Hawk Songmaker, an Ojibwe woman who was adopted as a child by a white liberal upper middle class Minneapolis couple. When we meet Cedar, she is four months pregnant and in hiding with the child's father, Phil. The narrative is told through a diary which Cedar is writing for her unborn child.
The United States has elected a repressive religious government that closely monitors pregnant women through a robot called "Mother" and all pregnant women are forced to report to a government birthing center. Cedar is trying to avoid that. But she feels compelled to go and meet and get to know her birth family on the reservation.
Soon she is discovered and imprisoned in one of the birthing centers. Her efforts to escape complete the main action of this (very) dystopian novel.
Erdrich started writing this novel in 2002 and abandoned it. Last year, after the election of 2016, she was inspired to pick it up and finish it. Unfortunately, I never really got the sense that Erdrich had committed herself to the story. It felt rushed and incomplete and there were holes in the plot that one could drive a truck through. I think she might have been well advised to leave it back in 2002.
Louise Erdrich is such a gifted writer and even here her brilliant way with words shines though and we get flashes of that imagination and wit which make reading her books a special experience, but in the end, this effort just fell flat and I have to concur with Bookmarks' assessment: "Not recommended, even for Erdrich fans."
I'll still read her next book though.
And then there are some favorite authors that I will read regardless of what the reviews say or whether anyone recommends them. Louise Erdrich falls in that category.
Her latest book, Future Home of the Living God, got very mixed reviews and, for the most part, they were not kind. Bookmarks' assessment, after compiling the reviews, was "Not recommended, even for Erdrich fans." But I was undeterred.
I thought the book had an interesting concept. It seems that the world as we know it is ending and evolution is reversing itself. The birds in the sky are becoming more dinosaur-like, reverting to Archaeopteryx type. Cougars are becoming more saber-tooth cat-like. And humans? Well, that is the question. Are they destined to go all the way back to Australopithicene form? And just how did this reversal of evolution come about? The answer to that question is, in fact, one of the many holes in the plot.
Erdrich tells her story through the character of Cedar Hawk Songmaker, an Ojibwe woman who was adopted as a child by a white liberal upper middle class Minneapolis couple. When we meet Cedar, she is four months pregnant and in hiding with the child's father, Phil. The narrative is told through a diary which Cedar is writing for her unborn child.
The United States has elected a repressive religious government that closely monitors pregnant women through a robot called "Mother" and all pregnant women are forced to report to a government birthing center. Cedar is trying to avoid that. But she feels compelled to go and meet and get to know her birth family on the reservation.
Soon she is discovered and imprisoned in one of the birthing centers. Her efforts to escape complete the main action of this (very) dystopian novel.
Erdrich started writing this novel in 2002 and abandoned it. Last year, after the election of 2016, she was inspired to pick it up and finish it. Unfortunately, I never really got the sense that Erdrich had committed herself to the story. It felt rushed and incomplete and there were holes in the plot that one could drive a truck through. I think she might have been well advised to leave it back in 2002.
Louise Erdrich is such a gifted writer and even here her brilliant way with words shines though and we get flashes of that imagination and wit which make reading her books a special experience, but in the end, this effort just fell flat and I have to concur with Bookmarks' assessment: "Not recommended, even for Erdrich fans."
I'll still read her next book though.
I’ve been sitting on this book for twenty four hours. I finished it and I just needed some time for it to settle. I read some reviews of the work that were... lacklustre, to say the least, but that didn’t accord with my own response to the book. Drawing on themes commonly found in contemporary dystopian fiction - environmental disasters, socio-political conservatism, the oppressive regulation of fertile bodies coded as feminine - Erdrich crafts an engaging epistolic narrative. It doesn’t answer all the reader’s questions, the characters read as underdeveloped, but this is part of the conceit of the narrative style: journals, diaries, life-writing in general (even as a conceit of literary fiction), are always fragments of the person, a glimpse in the mirror, a carefully framed selfie. And Erdrich complicates this glimpse by reminding the reader that First Nations people, their bodies and their cultures, have already survived apocalypses. They live through and in the dystopia. They know survival is the only option. This book implicates hope in despair. It is uncomfortable but it is engaging. Sit with it.
Louise Erdrich is an amazing author and is usually an amazing storyteller. This book was so disjointed, it didn't feel anything like her other work.
Cedar was not likable, very immature. I had to keep reminding myself that she was 26, she seemed like a teenager.
There were other characters that didn't make sense and seemed thrown in, almost as filler. "Mother"and "Papa" we just bizarre. Phil could have been either the baby's father or the pastor, he really didn't need to be both. Little Mary was not necessary and didn't really do much for the plot, nor did Glen.
I listened to the audio, Erdrich narrated. Her voice and intonations were annoying, and that was really disappointing. I usually love when an author reads their own work.
Dystopian books have been all the rage in the last few years, and there are many good ones out there. This just isn't one of them.