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A review by inthecommonhours
Dalva by Jim Harrison
3.0
Why didn't I like this? I really don't know. I raced through it(324 pages) because it's from the library and I know other bookclub-ers are waiting for it.
The writing was strong and I liked Dalva, but I just didn't quite believe in her. I would love to read a nonfiction book on Sioux history (Dad was reading one in October and came out of surgery all upset about an Souix boy who was shot first at Little Big Horn), but the history lessons here reminded me of Barbara Kingsolver's condescension ("keep reading, folks, while I sneak in my agenda"). That's probably unfair---to both of them.
The passage I liked best (assuming it is an intentional lift from Great Gatsby):
"I caught myself being drawn ceaselessly back into a past that I wished mightily to emerge from---I had come to know only recently that one could emerge without forgetting, and that to remember need not be to suffocate.[]...I thought of a question a Cree had pointedly asked, "What do stories do when they are not being told?" page 307
also p63: "Somehow the fact that there is no home doesn't decrease the longing...Of necessity we can create layers of activity to cover this longing but it is always felt beneath the surface."
The writing was strong and I liked Dalva, but I just didn't quite believe in her. I would love to read a nonfiction book on Sioux history (Dad was reading one in October and came out of surgery all upset about an Souix boy who was shot first at Little Big Horn), but the history lessons here reminded me of Barbara Kingsolver's condescension ("keep reading, folks, while I sneak in my agenda"). That's probably unfair---to both of them.
The passage I liked best (assuming it is an intentional lift from Great Gatsby):
"I caught myself being drawn ceaselessly back into a past that I wished mightily to emerge from---I had come to know only recently that one could emerge without forgetting, and that to remember need not be to suffocate.[]...I thought of a question a Cree had pointedly asked, "What do stories do when they are not being told?" page 307
also p63: "Somehow the fact that there is no home doesn't decrease the longing...Of necessity we can create layers of activity to cover this longing but it is always felt beneath the surface."