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A review by lchamberlin97
The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
4.0
As per usual, I teetered a lot between giving this book a four and a five. I settled for four not because of anything specific, but because after giving myself a little space from it I found myself remembering other books (that were on a comparable literary level) more fondly. Is that completely fair? I don't know. Because I truly really enjoyed reading this and was intrigued by it on many different levels. I just find myself wanting to save that "five star" for my absolute favorites.
Let's start with the characters, which (like all books I loved) were the main focus of the book. The STORIES. Beautifully unique and interwoven in subtle yet not too subtle ways. My favorite was Evelyn; as a girl in the first section, she was just so amusing - Erdrich captured the child's voice so perfectly. Although, the whole part with how much she loved the nun was slightly confusing; I couldn't tell what kind of love this was or why it had happened or what it was supposed to mean. But that's okay - being tricky is what this book does best.
By "tricky" I mean that it makes you think: what is Erdrich really trying to say here, when you dig beneath the clearly biased narrators and look at the actual facts of the story?
That was particularly important during Marn's chapter, for obvious reasons to anyone who has read the book. Taking that section literally will spin you in circles - but to pick out the parts that actually happened versus the parts that SHE believed happened versus the parts that OTHER people believed is a bit of work. Actually, I'm really not sure. I'm not even sure if you're supposed to be sure, though I'm leaning toward no.
I thought it was interesting that, in the judge's story about "C," he names her as C until the very end. Why? I thought it was going to turn out to be someone we already knew by name. (Shoot, now I'm questioning if we already knew her by name.) This is a genuine question I have about interpretation; I feel like in a book like this, it was done for a specific reason but different people can have different ideas about what that reason is.
THAT is why I liked this book.
It was exactly what I was in the mood for: an awesome complex story that keeps you on your toes not because of thrilling suspense but because of curiosity - because of the mystery of who is who and what is what, not what will happen.
Let's start with the characters, which (like all books I loved) were the main focus of the book. The STORIES. Beautifully unique and interwoven in subtle yet not too subtle ways. My favorite was Evelyn; as a girl in the first section, she was just so amusing - Erdrich captured the child's voice so perfectly. Although, the whole part with how much she loved the nun was slightly confusing; I couldn't tell what kind of love this was or why it had happened or what it was supposed to mean. But that's okay - being tricky is what this book does best.
By "tricky" I mean that it makes you think: what is Erdrich really trying to say here, when you dig beneath the clearly biased narrators and look at the actual facts of the story?
That was particularly important during Marn's chapter, for obvious reasons to anyone who has read the book. Taking that section literally will spin you in circles - but to pick out the parts that actually happened versus the parts that SHE believed happened versus the parts that OTHER people believed is a bit of work. Actually, I'm really not sure. I'm not even sure if you're supposed to be sure, though I'm leaning toward no.
I thought it was interesting that, in the judge's story about "C," he names her as C until the very end. Why? I thought it was going to turn out to be someone we already knew by name. (Shoot, now I'm questioning if we already knew her by name.) This is a genuine question I have about interpretation; I feel like in a book like this, it was done for a specific reason but different people can have different ideas about what that reason is.
THAT is why I liked this book.
It was exactly what I was in the mood for: an awesome complex story that keeps you on your toes not because of thrilling suspense but because of curiosity - because of the mystery of who is who and what is what, not what will happen.