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A review by book_concierge
The Antelope Wife by Louise Erdrich
4.0
Digital audio read by the author.
From the book jacket: “Family stories repeat themselves in patterns and waves, generation to generation, across bloods and time. Once the pattern is set we go on replicating it,” writes Louise Erdrich in The Antelope Wife, her sixth novel. Rooted in the landscape of city life, yet continually influenced by the power of Ojibwa family, the intricacies of Ojibwa language and religious belief, this book extends the branches of the families who populate Erdrich’s work and reflects the irrevocable patterns set in motion by certain fateful acts.
My reactions
I just have to say that Erdrich is one of my favorite writers. Her prose is luminous and poetic. Her use of magical realism seamless. It reminds me of listening to my grandparents, aunts and uncles tell stories of family lore, sitting on a dark porch of a summer evening. I would be entranced by their stories and the images they painted found their way into my dreams and into the very fiber of my being.
The novel weaves history, contemporary urban life, legend, and sacred myth into a marvelous tapestry of a story. There is violence, and lust, and tenderness to break your heart. There is birth and death, humor and tragedy, betrayal and forgiveness, broken people scattered on the battlefield of life, and others standing tall and moving forward.
I want to go back and read it again.
While Erdrich frequently uses characters over and over again in her novels, you can really read any of them as a stand-alone work. This novel was first published in 1998, and reissued in 2016 as Antelope Woman.
I was excited to get an audio read by Erdrich. The poetry of her language really comes out in her performance. HOWEVER … I realized too late that this was an abridged version. No wonder I felt that I would better enjoy the novel if I read the text … which I did.
From the book jacket: “Family stories repeat themselves in patterns and waves, generation to generation, across bloods and time. Once the pattern is set we go on replicating it,” writes Louise Erdrich in The Antelope Wife, her sixth novel. Rooted in the landscape of city life, yet continually influenced by the power of Ojibwa family, the intricacies of Ojibwa language and religious belief, this book extends the branches of the families who populate Erdrich’s work and reflects the irrevocable patterns set in motion by certain fateful acts.
My reactions
I just have to say that Erdrich is one of my favorite writers. Her prose is luminous and poetic. Her use of magical realism seamless. It reminds me of listening to my grandparents, aunts and uncles tell stories of family lore, sitting on a dark porch of a summer evening. I would be entranced by their stories and the images they painted found their way into my dreams and into the very fiber of my being.
The novel weaves history, contemporary urban life, legend, and sacred myth into a marvelous tapestry of a story. There is violence, and lust, and tenderness to break your heart. There is birth and death, humor and tragedy, betrayal and forgiveness, broken people scattered on the battlefield of life, and others standing tall and moving forward.
I want to go back and read it again.
While Erdrich frequently uses characters over and over again in her novels, you can really read any of them as a stand-alone work. This novel was first published in 1998, and reissued in 2016 as Antelope Woman.
I was excited to get an audio read by Erdrich. The poetry of her language really comes out in her performance. HOWEVER … I realized too late that this was an abridged version. No wonder I felt that I would better enjoy the novel if I read the text … which I did.