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A review by aegagrus
Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie
I was part of the way through this book before I was informed of the Sherman Alexie's history of sexual harrassment. I elected to finish reading, for a few reasons, but I will not assign a star rating and almost certainly won't return to this book.
Detatched from that context, Reservation Blues is pretty good. It's quite funny. As a reader who is not Amerindian, sometimes I laughed because the humor is universal. At other times I laughed because I knew I didn't quite get it, and that experience gap creates its own awkward humor. The book's dominant mood, though, is elegiac. Alexie succeeds at conveying a surreal, wistful sadness weaving through a mileu which blends many forms of remembering: songs, stories, histories, dreams, imagination, and memories are all essential. Some of the dream sequences are particularly interesting, notably those conveying Fr. Arnold's spiritual/ethnic angst and various characters' historical demons.
While the plotting is competent, the novel's overall construction leaves something to be desired. A few too many ideas are explored but never fully developed. Though magical realism always involves unpredictable characters (or entities?), the best magical realism never makes the reader feel that the genre is being used to avoid constructing well-rendered characters; this book sometimes does.
Detatched from that context, Reservation Blues is pretty good. It's quite funny. As a reader who is not Amerindian, sometimes I laughed because the humor is universal. At other times I laughed because I knew I didn't quite get it, and that experience gap creates its own awkward humor. The book's dominant mood, though, is elegiac. Alexie succeeds at conveying a surreal, wistful sadness weaving through a mileu which blends many forms of remembering: songs, stories, histories, dreams, imagination, and memories are all essential. Some of the dream sequences are particularly interesting, notably those conveying Fr. Arnold's spiritual/ethnic angst and various characters' historical demons.
While the plotting is competent, the novel's overall construction leaves something to be desired. A few too many ideas are explored but never fully developed. Though magical realism always involves unpredictable characters (or entities?), the best magical realism never makes the reader feel that the genre is being used to avoid constructing well-rendered characters; this book sometimes does.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, and Violence
Moderate: Blood, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Death, Grief, Abortion, Police brutality, Sexual violence, and War