a magnificent distraction

As I read this novel, I was continually distracted by the fact that the characters were Pikuni (Blackfeet), and they were inevitably going to be decimated by novel's end. Since the text is set in 1870, I knew that westward expansion and broken treaties where going to leave a mass of destruction in their wake. I feared Welch was going to go in a morbid happily-ever-after direction and make his characters all die so they could reunite in the Sand Hills (afterlife location), but instead he surprised me. Thirty pages to the end of the novel, he had Fools Crow come to the realization that his people were doomed, and that there was no way to defeat the Napikwans (whites). However, Fools Crow determined that it was not time to give up; instead, he insisted on the importance of making sure that the culture didn't die with his generation. This idea of passing on the cultural heritage becomes the central focus of the novel's message -- even though the Pikuni are going to be killed by the Napikwans, they must never forget that they are the chosen people and their children will need their culture as much as they do. I'm not sure how I feel about this message. On the one hand, it's certainly better than the ending I feared (one where death offers the only possibility for happiness if one happens to be Pikuni); on the other hand, it's lacking in many ways. It might be misconstrued as suggesting compliance and the-path-of-least-resistance in some ways, because Fools Crow seems to have no urge to fight. In fact, when he visits the camp of the Pikuni band that was ambushed, he sits down and weeps. I'm not saying he should hop on his horse and go shooting up the Napikwans in a suicide mission, but the weeping and the speaking of hollow words (he tells some survivors who have lost their children that it's important for them to pass the culture on to their children) isn't exactly a positive message. It's a bit defeatist, actually. The very last chapter has more to offer. This chapter, in which Fools Crow and Red Paint are joyously participating in the naming ceremony for their newborn son, offers a glimpse of life continuing on in a beautiful manner. While it's slightly marred by "a peculiar kind of happiness--a happiness that sleeps with sadness" (390), the chapter is lovely. At the same time, the last paragraph is about the blackhorns (buffalo) and how their presence and return indicates that all is as it should be. Since it's painfully obvious that this return is going to be shortlived, since buffalo are all but exterminated now, I'm not sure how to take this ending. On one hand it offers hope through the continuing of a lifestyle and a culture. At the same time, this hope has a time limit -- an expiration date. What does this say about Blackfeet in today's world? Are they practically extinct like the buffalo? That's hardly a productive reading. Are they continuing to live on, resisting elimination and thriving within their culture? I'd like to believe that's what Welch is saying, but I don't particularly think there's room for that reading. So what's Welch's point? That's the question I'm struggling with. He did such a beautiful job of creating complex and interesting characters, and of illustrating through them the various reactions to and ways of dealing with the Napikwans. Unfortunately, until I figure out what I think this ending is trying to say, I'm not sure what to do with all the other stuff. I think it's too complex to be justified in saying it's meant to provide an ethnographic portrait of Blackfeet life and culture in 1870, but I'm having trouble translating its message to contemporary American life. I'll have to continue thinking about this one....

This memoir reads like a novel. I think part of that is the disjointed nature of time González writes through -- some parts are strictly chronological, but they are interspersed with chapters that move back and forth in the author's past or that bring the reader back to the narrative present (1990). It's a dark book, full of family conflicts and an abusive relationship, but it's not an oppressive read. In fact, it's a compelling read that explores the effects of being homosexual in a family that doesn't accept that aspect of a person, and in a social and cultural environment where homosexuality is shameful. In many ways, it's a beautiful book that brings to light the internal struggles of a young boy as he grows into adulthood and embraces his sexuality. However, the family layer is also very important in this memoir. González spends a lot of time writing about his parents and his paternal grandfather, and the issues that he has with them are closely tied to his feelings about being gay. When he deals with his mother, he most often ends up wondering how she would react if she had lived long enough for him to admit to himself that he is gay. As for his grandfather, most of the issues there simply stem from his grandfather's abusive relationship with his father, and the tyrannical way he runs his household. Most of the time, he's focused on his relationship with his father. There are so many things going on in that relationship -- alcoholism, abandonment, personality conflicts, and more -- that it is obvious how much this relationship troubles González, and how much it continues to play out in his own relationships with his lover (and other men). This book takes on similar issues as those in Victor Villaseñor's novel Macho! but instead of focusing on the social and political aspects of life as a Mexican American, González focuses on how his sexuality interacts with those social and political aspects of life, and how this plays out within the family. The abusive relationship he leaves at the beginning of the memoir returns throughout the text, and while it doesn't take up a significant amount of space in the narrative, it is clearly one of the most significant aspects of the text. Because of the way this storyline is interwoven throughout the memoir, the connections between this relationship and the family story become apparent when I don't think they would have otherwise.

This book had a lot of things going on. It took up politics on so many levels (Chávez and his unions, immigration, loyalty, family, etc.), and there were times when this did stretch the story a little thin for me. However, I think that for the most part, it makes a really strong point about these things by using its characters to illustrate various points. The main character, Roberto, is (for the most part) very likable. Because of this, when Roberto struggles to understand certain things (like why illegal Mexican farm workers might support Chávez and his cause intellectually, but are unable to support it in any other way) the reader comes to an understanding with him.

Villaseñor also uses an interesting formal technique: after each chapter, there is a page that has an italicized passage on it. These italicized passages relate to the story in different ways (at times, thematically; at other times, they connect directly with the plot), but they appear to be entirely nonfictional. They are certainly not related to the main characters, and are often quoting news sources, interviews, and other such narratives. These are the most overtly political passages of the novel, and the way they interact with the bulk of the novel (the fictional chapters) is really interesting. I wonder how much of the politics would have gotten through without these italicized blurbs. Because the narrative scope pulls away from Ricardo in these passages, they push the reader to really see a larger picture instead of focusing on Ricardo's unique (and fictional) experience. In some ways, they pull the reader out of the "dream" and hit them over the head with the fact that the rest of the book is simply inspired by these realities, but not real.

Overall, I thought the book was very enjoyable. The back cover tells me that some critics have compared Villaseñor's style to Steinbeck's, and while I agree that it is deceptive in that it appears very simple when in fact the story itself is very complex, I also couldn't help but wonder if someone just said that because at one point the characters end up in the Salinas Valley. At the same time, I enjoy Steinbeck and I enjoyed Villaseñor, so perhaps there's more to that connection than I'm considering here.

I just finished D'Arcy McNickle's 1954 novel about a young boy named Salt who saves his people from ... well, from themselves, I suppose. It's a nice story, although it is written in an almost fable-like language which has the potential to oversimplify its message (in my opinion). It was a quick and enjoyable read, but one that I think is representative of an era of writing during which authors of color were serving as pseudo-ethnographers: their stories, which were finally beginning to be read by a larger (white) audience were being taken as anthropological histories rather than works of fiction. It's a style that brings me back to works I read in high school and before -- works that were taught in hopes of broadening our understanding of other cultures, but which were not the contemporary works that address political and social issues that I am more interested in today. In any case, I can't be too hard on McNickle because I did really enjoy the story. However, I must admit that part of its appeal was the fact that there was never really any narrative tension (and since I am a big wimp, this was helpful for me because I was never pushed to the point of being nervous or jumpy on behalf of the characters). So perhaps this is not ultimately a good thing as far as the writing is concerned, but it was nice since I was able to enjoy the process of reading more than I sometimes am when things get suspenseful and dangerous in a book.