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Title: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday ISBN: 0-06-093194-9 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 July, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.85 (34 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Writing at its Best
Comment: Momaday's first of two novels (so far!) shows any aspiring writer what to aim for. From his opening page to the last, we are treated with an amalgamation of myth, landscape, character and plot, clearly showing how 'author as mythmaker' can be accomplished without being ovedone. I have read this book several times and cannot get over how the land becomes more than setting; it becomes character. The intimate relationship that Momaday has with the southwest is obvious here, and should be a lesson to others who dare write about such sacred places in more superficial ways. Momaday is one of the countries leading writers, the first American Indian to win the Pulitzer prize, and a brilliant scholar. Anyone who has difficulty reading this book, as stated in other reviews here, clearly needs to reassess what one wants from literary fiction. This is not beach literature; he wants you to think and learn, besides understand. His novel structure is fantastic and asks the reader to go back, reread and comprehend. His descriptions of landscapes alone are worthy of many readings of this terrific novel.
Rating: 3
Summary: Beautiful but frustrating prose
Comment: Gorgeous writing about the mystical Indian culture and the personal tragedies that concurred with that culture's demise at the hands of the White Man -- authentic, serene, spiritual and heartbreaking. It's the story of Abel, raised in the old Indian culture by his grandfather and swallowed up by the "white man's" culture as an adult.
While it's beautifully written, this is a very hard book to follow. Momaday moves through time freely and the reader is constantly lost as to where he is and who his characters are and what any of them have to do with each other. He's constantly switching, with nothing more than a paragraph break, from myths and dreams and the present and the past and previously unknown characters that he picks up on mid-stream. There is very little background to the story until the very last chapter, and so if you've stuck it out til then you're rewarded. It all makes much more sense in the end. This is a book that merits two readings -- the first for the experience of its spirituality, the second to fill in the blanks of the story. It's only 200 pages but it took me four days to get through it - it slows you down when you're constantly back tracking trying to figure out what you've missed only to find that you haven't really missed anything - at least not anything that you know of yet. It's written very surreally and it gets a bit frustrating to tell the truth. There is alot to give Momaday credit for here though. It was an interesting experience but not one that would make me go and seek out everything else he's written.
Rating: 4
Summary: Enigmatic Story
Comment: This novel is a fascinating, albeit challenging, read. The basic plot and the main characters do emerge upon a first reading, but the book needs to be read at least twice for one to see its richness. I find it especially interesting to read _House Made of Dawn_ along with _Way to Rainy Mountain_. Reading both books makes each of them clearer and yields a richer understanding of Momaday's artistry. It also would be useful to read a great about Kiowa folklore and history between different readings of both books.
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Title: Ceremony (Contemporary American Fiction Series) by Leslie Marmon Silko ISBN: 0140086838 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: March, 1988 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday, Al Momaday ISBN: 0826304362 Publisher: University of New Mexico Press Pub. Date: July, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich ISBN: 0060975547 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 18 November, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie ISBN: 0060976241 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 14 September, 1994 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Ancient Child: A Novel by N. Scott Momaday ISBN: 0060973455 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 12 September, 1990 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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