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A review by michaelacabus
The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich
5.0
On the national news, many people "speak out", even surrounding obscure stories that seem to want to be shocking.
"Speaking out" is a modern form of storytelling, perhaps a reflection of the love of a personal confessional. However, storytelling can be this sacred, powerful act, something even bigger than the personal...a story can (and should) be communal, the sharing of which facilitates change, or healing, or social functions that it is impossible to get from elsewhere.
Erdrich understands this deeper meaning of storytelling, and one reads her with a sense of having some shared experience. Much of the novel centers around the concept of rescue, of reclaiming things that are lost, and even inventing placeholders to make up for loss. What is healing about this is the notion that living with myth can be a bridge space; our scientific minds may miss the benefit of myth psychologically and socially, and may become ignorant to how we all create personal myths, stories that border on truth and falsehood, without even noticing. These movements can heal us more than acts of putting things back together as they once were, help us make a transition into finding new meaning.
This is lost on some of the characters in the novel; who seem to collect physical objects (and stories, and memories), and forget of their existence, piling them all together (that the drum is rescued from such a collectors trove of Native American artifacts, without individual meaning, means that when its gone the owner hardly notices, and is an apt metaphor for how we can lose the most important things without recognizing it).
Erdrich conveys these ideas within a story that also has humor; with complex characters you grow attached to. It's a perfect novel to the very end, one you are sad to part with.
A+
"Speaking out" is a modern form of storytelling, perhaps a reflection of the love of a personal confessional. However, storytelling can be this sacred, powerful act, something even bigger than the personal...a story can (and should) be communal, the sharing of which facilitates change, or healing, or social functions that it is impossible to get from elsewhere.
Erdrich understands this deeper meaning of storytelling, and one reads her with a sense of having some shared experience. Much of the novel centers around the concept of rescue, of reclaiming things that are lost, and even inventing placeholders to make up for loss. What is healing about this is the notion that living with myth can be a bridge space; our scientific minds may miss the benefit of myth psychologically and socially, and may become ignorant to how we all create personal myths, stories that border on truth and falsehood, without even noticing. These movements can heal us more than acts of putting things back together as they once were, help us make a transition into finding new meaning.
This is lost on some of the characters in the novel; who seem to collect physical objects (and stories, and memories), and forget of their existence, piling them all together (that the drum is rescued from such a collectors trove of Native American artifacts, without individual meaning, means that when its gone the owner hardly notices, and is an apt metaphor for how we can lose the most important things without recognizing it).
Erdrich conveys these ideas within a story that also has humor; with complex characters you grow attached to. It's a perfect novel to the very end, one you are sad to part with.
A+