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A review by withanhauser
The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
4.0
I really enjoyed Plague of Doves. It's quietly ambitious in scope, covering several generations of a town and shifting between 3 (and, at the end, 4) narrators. I had a little difficulty understanding it at first, initially reading it as a series of disjointed stories, centered around Erdrich's familiar, fictional town, Pluto, ND. But, I slowly recognized character names (and surnames across generations), and began to understand how different events and characters related. I think my slow uptake was likely more my fault than Erdrich's, although a character list/key would have nonetheless been helpful (I realize this isn't really a literary criticism).
Relatedly, the central event that seems to tie the novel's different strands together--the murder of Cordelia's/C's family by Warren Wolde (Uncle Wolde), and the subsequent hanging of four of the town's innocent Native Americans--doesn't really read as a central event when it appears. It seems more like the mournful recollection of Mooshun, and--although very interesting--was quickly forgotten by me. Erdrich's interest in changing between characters, and periscoping in and out of the past, gives the book a steady pace and measured feel; but, again, it made me kind of overlook certain parts in the novel, and not give it the full attention it deserved.
Erdrich is a great writer, and this is certainly my favorite book of hers that I've read. So much thought clearly went into the novel but it reads as effortlessly written (which, as discussed above, may unfairly be a reason why it's easy to overlook). Highlights of the book for me include Evelina's brief stay in a psychiatric hospital (first as an aide, then--after a brief relationship with Nonette--as a patient (Erdrich conveys Evelina's depressed and disquieted mental state very well)); the unnerving, near-starved settling of Pluto by Judge Coutts' grandfather (during which his feeling for his landlady change, only to then find that, upon his return to the town, she has married); and the story of the violin.
Relatedly, the central event that seems to tie the novel's different strands together--the murder of Cordelia's/C's family by Warren Wolde (Uncle Wolde), and the subsequent hanging of four of the town's innocent Native Americans--doesn't really read as a central event when it appears. It seems more like the mournful recollection of Mooshun, and--although very interesting--was quickly forgotten by me. Erdrich's interest in changing between characters, and periscoping in and out of the past, gives the book a steady pace and measured feel; but, again, it made me kind of overlook certain parts in the novel, and not give it the full attention it deserved.
Erdrich is a great writer, and this is certainly my favorite book of hers that I've read. So much thought clearly went into the novel but it reads as effortlessly written (which, as discussed above, may unfairly be a reason why it's easy to overlook). Highlights of the book for me include Evelina's brief stay in a psychiatric hospital (first as an aide, then--after a brief relationship with Nonette--as a patient (Erdrich conveys Evelina's depressed and disquieted mental state very well)); the unnerving, near-starved settling of Pluto by Judge Coutts' grandfather (during which his feeling for his landlady change, only to then find that, upon his return to the town, she has married); and the story of the violin.