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sushai's review
4.0
This is one of several books where Erdrich writes about the same characters. This one focuses mostly on Fleur, told alternately from the point of view of two other characters. I really liked this book more than the others, but I'm not sure if it's a better book or because as I've been reading, the holes are being filled in more and I understand the characters better. I believe all of the books are stand-alones, but maybe the reader is meant to go in a certain order.
elena_maria's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
e_l_bee's review
good stuff about names and revenge but a little ablest/transphobic
rhyspurtill's review
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
oumeima_intobooks's review
5.0
I started off reading Four Souls back in May and it took me almost a month or so to finish it. This was not only because I happened to be very busy but also because the book, despite its being quite short, is a very dense read as far as themes and style are concerned. I've always loved Louise Erdrich and expressed my interest in her works and devotion to giving voice to her people but now I am so sure she's a new favorite author.
Four Souls is part of Erdrich's Love Medicine series and is narrated by three different point of views while tackling key themes and issues in the lives of the native people. The book does not follow any particular chronological order and the narratives are full of implicit flashbacks and memories. Sometimes, I get surprised in a positive way when I fid out the speaker is telling a story within the original story, it's no longer that confusing to me but rather fascinating how Erdrich makes use of the native custom of storytelling even within her original plot!
What I absolutely loved is how the stories have come to be interconnected creating a whole image of the native life and experience. One full of grief, mourning, and resilience. Grief over land loss and the undying desire for revenge are a central theme in the book along with alcoholism, I just can't appreciate Erdrich's bold take on the drinking issue and think she's made use of it really well while exposing the aftermaths of white colonial oppression and hostility.
Finally, I have to mention that the spiritual side of the characters especially Margaret was phenomenal, so well written and so well conveyed, you literally see things the way the characters do. The medicine dress has become my own obsession too, and when it has actually worked its magic on Fleur (aka Four Souls) I felt the connection in my bones and the importance of one's culture and beliefs in one's survival against all external menacing powers.
Overall, this book deserves all the stars and I can't stress enough how painful it's been to read it but in the sense that it made so self-conscious about the characters, their agonies, and their struggles to keep on going. This might not be an easy book to pick and if you're reading a book by and about native people this may be too difficult a start for you but also really worth the try because the prose and the characters are just so beautiful. Louise Erdrich has her own way with words that would lure you into her stories, you might leave exhausted but also very satisfied.
Four Souls is part of Erdrich's Love Medicine series and is narrated by three different point of views while tackling key themes and issues in the lives of the native people. The book does not follow any particular chronological order and the narratives are full of implicit flashbacks and memories. Sometimes, I get surprised in a positive way when I fid out the speaker is telling a story within the original story, it's no longer that confusing to me but rather fascinating how Erdrich makes use of the native custom of storytelling even within her original plot!
What I absolutely loved is how the stories have come to be interconnected creating a whole image of the native life and experience. One full of grief, mourning, and resilience. Grief over land loss and the undying desire for revenge are a central theme in the book along with alcoholism, I just can't appreciate Erdrich's bold take on the drinking issue and think she's made use of it really well while exposing the aftermaths of white colonial oppression and hostility.
Finally, I have to mention that the spiritual side of the characters especially Margaret was phenomenal, so well written and so well conveyed, you literally see things the way the characters do. The medicine dress has become my own obsession too, and when it has actually worked its magic on Fleur (aka Four Souls) I felt the connection in my bones and the importance of one's culture and beliefs in one's survival against all external menacing powers.
Overall, this book deserves all the stars and I can't stress enough how painful it's been to read it but in the sense that it made so self-conscious about the characters, their agonies, and their struggles to keep on going. This might not be an easy book to pick and if you're reading a book by and about native people this may be too difficult a start for you but also really worth the try because the prose and the characters are just so beautiful. Louise Erdrich has her own way with words that would lure you into her stories, you might leave exhausted but also very satisfied.
nealadolph's review
3.0
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of finishing another novel by Louise Erdrich. Sadly, I am only just now getting a chance to sit down and work through the wizardry of her work. As expected, I am coming away with a good deal more admiration for her work. Erdrich, I think I have said elsewhere, is one of my favourite writers, and the collection of personalities and timelines and events that she has made in her large number of interconnecting works is nothing short of incredibly impressive.
This book, though, falls a little short of the standard that I have come to expect from her. It isn’t easy for me to explain why. On display are all of the things I like about her. Strong, lyrical writing. An impressive mixing of all sorts of different cultural traditions, each of which handled honourably. Unexpected romances and storylines which each bring to mind old storylines from older books and open up new ones for future books. A not too heavy moral hand, but a good awareness of morality. A great sense of humour.
And we even get to see more of two or three of my favourite characters. Fleur, that mysterious and powerful figure who survives in the universe with an inexplicable and unique strength, honour, and motivation. Nanapush, who is a source of incredible wisdom and remarkable hilarity coming out of his unusual worldview. And his not-quite-wife, Margaret, who, when we finally gets the chance to narrate a chapter narrates it beautifully. For what it is worth Fleur and Nanapush might be among the best characters I have ever had the pleasure to read about, and the best narrators I have ever had the chance to read from; Margaret isn’t far behind and I look forward to reading more from her in whichever book by Erdrich I decide to tackle next.
For what it is worth, Fleur has never, to my knowledge, been one of Erdrich’s numerous narrators. Only a central character. We have no sense of how she actually sees the world, only how others see her and her interactions with the world. And the way they understand her is not in the way that we would expect somebody to be understood in literature - a paragraph or two of descriptions which try to capture this very-human figure into a few simple words. No, this is a person we only get to understand, almost understand, by a bundle of stories about her past and her present. Nobody really tries to describe her in any comprehensive way. She, like all humans, is beyond that kind of explanation.
In this book it is particularly interesting that Fleur doesn’t get to narrate any portion of this story. She is, without a doubt, the central figure and the driving force for the plotline. Literary folks would call her the antagonist. The book follows her move from the reserve where she has lived her life and watched the forest of her people be destroyed by greedy white men to the nearby and bustling little city of St. Paul/Minneapolis, where she becomes a servant in the home of the man who cut down the trees which had covered the land parcelled out to her family. She went with the intention of killing him and, in time, heals him from an ailment, marries him, and then has a child with him. It is a puzzling switch in her motives, and it isn’t ever clearly explained. But, again, we don’t really need an explanation of her motives so much as we need to just watch her move through the world. It is a mesmerizing dance that she does, and it ends with a beautiful bundle of moments - the sort that we read Erdrich for.
But something here is quite full or complete or right, and more than either of the other two books I have read of Erdrich’s I came away feeling as though this one was incomplete as a standalone title. That could in part be blamed on its length - it is shorter by a good couple hundred pages - but it is definitely crutching on some of the other books that she had already written. Most notably Tracks, as far as I know, but perhaps others. This means that some things aren’t as well explained as I often hoped for, with the idea of the title never being particularly well-explained. That isn’t the end of the world. I know this book will make more sense as I read more of her work. Nonetheless, it was a bit of a letdown.
It is also worth noting that the writing isn’t quite as strong as it almost always is with Erdrich - every now and then I felt like one more edit would have perfected a sentence or a paragraph. It isn’t weak enough or frequently enough to ruin anything about the book, but it does noticeably reduce some of its power. For what it is worth, you also see something of her best writing here, with her prose adding to the mystical and inexplicable nature of her plots and ideas. This is an idea I’m developing as I read more of her work and admire more of her writing. Ask me about it if you are interested at all, because I would love to have a discussion about this part of her work.
Speaking of her work more generally, not long after finishing Four Souls and marvelling in those last 50 glorious pages (thank you Margaret), I think I have come to the conclusion that the central theme of her book is reconciliation with the self, renewal, rebirth. Which is lovely to read and watch, in this book as much as anywhere else. If only the journal to that point was a bit more developed.
Recommended, but not as your first step into Erdrich. She is better and more complete elsewhere. But that doesn’t take away from what is on display here, which is nothing less than a mature, focused, and marvelous writer using all sorts of impressive tools to conjure up original stories and fantastic characters.
This book, though, falls a little short of the standard that I have come to expect from her. It isn’t easy for me to explain why. On display are all of the things I like about her. Strong, lyrical writing. An impressive mixing of all sorts of different cultural traditions, each of which handled honourably. Unexpected romances and storylines which each bring to mind old storylines from older books and open up new ones for future books. A not too heavy moral hand, but a good awareness of morality. A great sense of humour.
And we even get to see more of two or three of my favourite characters. Fleur, that mysterious and powerful figure who survives in the universe with an inexplicable and unique strength, honour, and motivation. Nanapush, who is a source of incredible wisdom and remarkable hilarity coming out of his unusual worldview. And his not-quite-wife, Margaret, who, when we finally gets the chance to narrate a chapter narrates it beautifully. For what it is worth Fleur and Nanapush might be among the best characters I have ever had the pleasure to read about, and the best narrators I have ever had the chance to read from; Margaret isn’t far behind and I look forward to reading more from her in whichever book by Erdrich I decide to tackle next.
For what it is worth, Fleur has never, to my knowledge, been one of Erdrich’s numerous narrators. Only a central character. We have no sense of how she actually sees the world, only how others see her and her interactions with the world. And the way they understand her is not in the way that we would expect somebody to be understood in literature - a paragraph or two of descriptions which try to capture this very-human figure into a few simple words. No, this is a person we only get to understand, almost understand, by a bundle of stories about her past and her present. Nobody really tries to describe her in any comprehensive way. She, like all humans, is beyond that kind of explanation.
In this book it is particularly interesting that Fleur doesn’t get to narrate any portion of this story. She is, without a doubt, the central figure and the driving force for the plotline. Literary folks would call her the antagonist. The book follows her move from the reserve where she has lived her life and watched the forest of her people be destroyed by greedy white men to the nearby and bustling little city of St. Paul/Minneapolis, where she becomes a servant in the home of the man who cut down the trees which had covered the land parcelled out to her family. She went with the intention of killing him and, in time, heals him from an ailment, marries him, and then has a child with him. It is a puzzling switch in her motives, and it isn’t ever clearly explained. But, again, we don’t really need an explanation of her motives so much as we need to just watch her move through the world. It is a mesmerizing dance that she does, and it ends with a beautiful bundle of moments - the sort that we read Erdrich for.
But something here is quite full or complete or right, and more than either of the other two books I have read of Erdrich’s I came away feeling as though this one was incomplete as a standalone title. That could in part be blamed on its length - it is shorter by a good couple hundred pages - but it is definitely crutching on some of the other books that she had already written. Most notably Tracks, as far as I know, but perhaps others. This means that some things aren’t as well explained as I often hoped for, with the idea of the title never being particularly well-explained. That isn’t the end of the world. I know this book will make more sense as I read more of her work. Nonetheless, it was a bit of a letdown.
It is also worth noting that the writing isn’t quite as strong as it almost always is with Erdrich - every now and then I felt like one more edit would have perfected a sentence or a paragraph. It isn’t weak enough or frequently enough to ruin anything about the book, but it does noticeably reduce some of its power. For what it is worth, you also see something of her best writing here, with her prose adding to the mystical and inexplicable nature of her plots and ideas. This is an idea I’m developing as I read more of her work and admire more of her writing. Ask me about it if you are interested at all, because I would love to have a discussion about this part of her work.
Speaking of her work more generally, not long after finishing Four Souls and marvelling in those last 50 glorious pages (thank you Margaret), I think I have come to the conclusion that the central theme of her book is reconciliation with the self, renewal, rebirth. Which is lovely to read and watch, in this book as much as anywhere else. If only the journal to that point was a bit more developed.
Recommended, but not as your first step into Erdrich. She is better and more complete elsewhere. But that doesn’t take away from what is on display here, which is nothing less than a mature, focused, and marvelous writer using all sorts of impressive tools to conjure up original stories and fantastic characters.
sramlerolson's review
I enjoyed the book like I always do with Erdrich, however I was lost halfway through and no longer bought into the narrative. It's beautiful writing but yet somehow unconvincing.
kimnlove56's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
tonitrap's review
4.0
A few pages into this book and I was asking myself, "Why has it been so long since I have caught up with Louise Erdrich?" Years ago, I devoured Love Medicine and Tracks and then, strangely, didn't pick anything of hers up again until this reading of Four Souls. What a shame. I had forgotten how utterly unique and engaging is Erdrich's storytelling; rich and unsentimental and little crazy. Four Souls revisits the life of Fleur Pillager, the main character in her previous novel Tracks. There is a lot packed into these few pages - it feels almost Shakespearean at times - revenge, love, loss, land, family, and all tied up in a not-so-neat bow in the end. A thoroughly enjoyable read that has reminded me to get back into Erdrich's canon asap.