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A review by vanreads
Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
5.0
This book is pure literary art and it’s beautiful. This is my first time reading Anishinaabe literature and the storytelling really challenged my perceptions on how stories should be told.
In this dreamlike story, Mashkawaji is frozen under a lake as they tell a story of the seven characters that represent different parts of them. These seven characters represents their will, lungs, conscience, marrow, nervous system, and eyes, ears and brain. It sounds trippy to tell a story of different parts of one being, but I attribute this to what I perceive as conventional. It’s a bit hard to get into, but once again, it is a different storytelling style that I’m unfamiliar with. You don’t need to understand all of it to realize that the writing itself flows poetically and beautifully. As you read on, you’ll see it come together as a story built off the Anishinaabe traditions, heritage, into a powerful story of resistance and decolonization.
This is honestly a book I could see being taught as in a university literature class. There’s a lot to unpack and I feel like I could benefit from learning about the Anishinaabe traditions and history to understand this book better. Reading this made me wonder why I was never taught to read Indigenous literature despite attending a Canadian university. What makes the Eurocentric literature I read more “Canadian” than this? Why was my education another form of whitewashing the land the Canadian institution sits on. Why is this and other Indigenous literature not mandatory reading? Anyways, this is just my train of thought I had as I read this, because this is truly a literary masterpiece, and I think it would do well for readers to sit with it and study it to fully understand it, myself included.
Thank you NetGalley for letting me read and review this book.
In this dreamlike story, Mashkawaji is frozen under a lake as they tell a story of the seven characters that represent different parts of them. These seven characters represents their will, lungs, conscience, marrow, nervous system, and eyes, ears and brain. It sounds trippy to tell a story of different parts of one being, but I attribute this to what I perceive as conventional. It’s a bit hard to get into, but once again, it is a different storytelling style that I’m unfamiliar with. You don’t need to understand all of it to realize that the writing itself flows poetically and beautifully. As you read on, you’ll see it come together as a story built off the Anishinaabe traditions, heritage, into a powerful story of resistance and decolonization.
This is honestly a book I could see being taught as in a university literature class. There’s a lot to unpack and I feel like I could benefit from learning about the Anishinaabe traditions and history to understand this book better. Reading this made me wonder why I was never taught to read Indigenous literature despite attending a Canadian university. What makes the Eurocentric literature I read more “Canadian” than this? Why was my education another form of whitewashing the land the Canadian institution sits on. Why is this and other Indigenous literature not mandatory reading? Anyways, this is just my train of thought I had as I read this, because this is truly a literary masterpiece, and I think it would do well for readers to sit with it and study it to fully understand it, myself included.
Thank you NetGalley for letting me read and review this book.