I am reading a book I had heard quite a bit about, and so suggested it for my book club. Louise Erdrich is a well known First
Nations author of 14 books. I have already looked at two more of her books I would like to read, even though I am only 70 pages
into her most recent novel, La Rose. The book opens with the story of a
man, Landreaux, hunting deer. It is 1999, and known to be a fine marksman he fires a shot but the deer
flees. He walks over to see what he
has hit and finds that he has killed his friends 5 year old son, who had
been in the woods playing.
I am particularly interested in Erdrich’s writing of how the traditional and contemporary lives combine.
After speaking with police and the priest the man enters a sweat lodge. He
leaves after some time feeling that he needs to provide restorative justice. He and his wife take their
own 5 year old son, pack his bag and walk to their friends house.
They give their son to them, saying he “is now your son”. This is the
opening chapter.
There are a number of moving passages about how the family who gave up their child are coping with their decision. Beautiful parts describing how La Rose becomes accustomed to living with his new family and thinks of his parents. His mother had hoped that she would still see La Rose. She makes his favourite soup and brings it to the house.
"Inside the house La Rose heard his mother's voice and knew the smell of that soup which he wouldn't taste. Nola just kept reading Where the Wild Things Are over and over, until the knocking went away. Nola's voice was hoarse and thin.
And it was still hot, Nola said, and closed the book. Shall I read it again?
Okay, said La Rose in a tiny voice. A fuzzy wash of draining saddness covered him. He closed his eyes and fell asleep"
The story has only begun and there are a number of other characters in the two families whose stories are yet to develop.
I remember
when I spent 5 months in the United States (I think 1995 or 1996??) I went to
the Cherokee reservation. There was a man standing outside a tent, with
feathers. I did not want to have my photograph taken with him. To
me it would be disrespectful, embarrassing. I talked with him a while.
He told me that the Cherokee did not dress how he was dressed. They did
not live in the tepee style tent he was standing in front of. But he said this was what people expected to see. I felt it was degrading to the culture of these strong people.
From that
trip I have a handful of arrowheads that I was given by friends I stayed with. It has always
been my intention to have them framed. Lunch, now some years ago,
with my former university Archaeology lecturer and he advised me of the
best way to frame them. One broken arrowhead I had picked up from the
river myself. I still feel amazed, remembering sitting by the creek and seeingthe broken piece of rock lying in the water. How long had it been there? Who had walked by that creek before me?
My first
university studies, and what I will always consider my degree of passion, focused on Indigenous cultures and their materials. Even some of the work I have done over the past few years has given me some understanding of the complexities in straddling two cultures.
