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A review by monkeelino
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich
4.0
Erdrich has managed to stay on the periphery of my reading experience for some time now, but thanks to a GR group, I finally got around to reading her---what a delight! She's one of those writers whose prose elicits joy by its sheer lyricism:
It's a fantastical tale covering Father Damien's long life as a Christian priest converting and serving the Ojibwe people. But it's far from that straightforward. Told between the past and present, it uses countless anecdotes and shorter dramatic episodes, packed with a wonderful cast of colorful characters. It comes off as mythical, ridiculous, funny, and rather touching. The twists and turns are like riding a rollercoaster blindfolded. At heart, it's a story about the heart---how we love (physically, spiritually, communally). Christian theology and practice blend with Native American Indian beliefs, identities and personal histories shapeshift, and idealism/ideology give way to reality and survival.
Other than feeling a tad on the long side to me, I found this quite a wry and delightful ride. Erdrich's humor and deft use of language have created a new fan.
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A HANDFUL OF WORD DISCOVERIES
houseled | floribunda | humunculation | appoggiatura | mazurka | caissons | Onaabani-giizis | chimookoman | bacarolle | ligulate | Nanabozho | dominickers
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I cannot tell you exactly why, but somehow the AI-generated images of the pope that began appearing online while I was reading this felt very much in the spirit of this novel...
There was stillness, the whisper of snow grains driven along the surface of the world. It was the silence of before creation, the comfort of pure nothing, and she let herself go into it until, in that quiet, she was caught hold of by a dazzling sweetness."Just as Faulkner utilizes the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha, it's my understanding that Erdrich sets her books in a fictional reservation called Ozhibi'iganan (a kind of amalgamation of actual Ojibwe reservations). Readers familiar with her work and her recurring characters will no doubt get much more out of this story, but given my complete unfamiliarity with her narrative landscape, I can hardly comprehend this tale being any more layered and richer than it is.
It's a fantastical tale covering Father Damien's long life as a Christian priest converting and serving the Ojibwe people. But it's far from that straightforward. Told between the past and present, it uses countless anecdotes and shorter dramatic episodes, packed with a wonderful cast of colorful characters. It comes off as mythical, ridiculous, funny, and rather touching. The twists and turns are like riding a rollercoaster blindfolded. At heart, it's a story about the heart---how we love (physically, spiritually, communally). Christian theology and practice blend with Native American Indian beliefs, identities and personal histories shapeshift, and idealism/ideology give way to reality and survival.
Other than feeling a tad on the long side to me, I found this quite a wry and delightful ride. Erdrich's humor and deft use of language have created a new fan.
----------------------
A HANDFUL OF WORD DISCOVERIES
houseled | floribunda | humunculation | appoggiatura | mazurka | caissons | Onaabani-giizis | chimookoman | bacarolle | ligulate | Nanabozho | dominickers
----------------------
I cannot tell you exactly why, but somehow the AI-generated images of the pope that began appearing online while I was reading this felt very much in the spirit of this novel...