House Made of Dawn
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Average rating4
The magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of a stranger in his native land A young Native American, Abel has come home from a foreign war to find himself caught between two worlds. The first is the world of his father's, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons, the harsh beauty of the land, and the ancient rites and traditions of his people. But the other world -- modern, industrial America -- pulls at Abel, demanding his loyalty, claiming his soul, goading him into a destructive, compulsive cycle of dissipation and disgust. And the young man, torn in two, descends into hell.
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its not... bad? but its very hard to follow. up until the end i could barely tell you what happened in the book if not for the fact that i read it for a class. there were definitely interesting concepts and connections, and it got me emotional in some ways but most of it was.. hmm..
Abel returns to the reservation
after serving in World War II,
but has trouble adapting to
his life there. Very depressing.
I was most amazed with the way
this author brought me into his
world through the use of sensory
details.
HMM. I think, when all is said and done, perhaps I did not totally understand this book. I enjoyed the poetic prose very much. And I enjoyed the shifts in perspective. And I think I got the gist of the native closeness to the land vs white American consumerist shit. But overall it just didn't grab me the way it should have–and I think I lost patience with it and didn't pay it the attention it deserved.
Still, I think I value this book more for its contributions as a forerunner of the contemporary Native American literary movement than I did as a book to read.
