A review by courts
Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story by Oliver La Farge

adventurous emotional reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

I came across this little novel while searching for something to read on my vacation in Arizona!  On the trip, we were lucky enough to visit Monument Valley, which is protected and cared for by the Navajo Nation.  I was in absolute awe that the view outside our hotel window was the exact landscape on the cover of my book!  My subsequent read was even more of an immersive experience, because I had the chance to visit the actual location of the story.  Published in 1929, Laughing Boy is actually set in 1915 - chronicling the love story of young Navajo man, and his relationship with a young Navajo woman who grew up into forced assimilation of American culture at a religious school.  The story is a fascinating look into the struggles of stolen identity, the beauty of the Navajo culture, and the resiliency of reclaiming personal destiny.  Written by anthropologist Oliver La Farge, under a modern eye, the book can be seen as a white man’s attempt to portray a culture he can never fully understand.  However, my own conclusion is that the author wrote from a position of respect and admiration for the Navajo nation, and did the best he could to share a story that was authentic.  The fact that the book won a Pulitzer Prize in 1930, shows the positive impact it had on readers whose previous exposure to indigenous Americans in writing would have been as villains or caricatures at best.  I think it’s a very interesting book to read, while remaining aware of the historical context, forgiving inevitable flaws and embracing the anthropological intent.

Favorite quotes:

“From time to time he looked at her as one might drink at a spring, and her occasional speech was like rain falling. She rode in triumph.”

“A man does not realize that he has changed himself, or only partially recognizes it, thinking that the world about him is different; a familiar dish has become no longer enjoyable, a fundamental aphorism no longer true; it is a surprise, then, when his eyes and ears report unchanged, familiar impressions. So the wonderful sameness of things, the unfailing way in which expectation was fulfilled, were proofs of something beautiful in the order of the world.”