|
Life is peppered with poverty, alcoholism, basketball, music and dancing. Maybe, not a huge special meaning, but to me, lovely writing."Thomas looked at these five men who shared his skin color, at the white man who shared this bus which was going to deliver them into a new kind of reservation, barrio, ghetto, logging-town tin shack." - pg. 87I just loved the way this was written. Alcoholism is rather a prevalent flaw for many of the characters. I love how true this rings to me, and how much it reminds me of some people I know who are truly passionate about music."In the outside world, a person can be a hero one second and a nobody the next.A reservation hero is a hero forever. Certainly, there are universal themes within this book.The characters are vivid and three-dimensional.
103Poverty is universal, no matter your background, the man is there to keep you down. I want to press a copy of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight In Heaven by Sherman Alexie into the arms of my good friends. This book is comprised of vignettes pertaining to reservation life, which though often bleak has an undercurrent of hope. 29Again, music is so universal.
Elvis Presley is still showing up in 7-11 stores across the country, even though he's been dead for years, so I figure music just might be the most important thing there is." - pg. However, I will settle by showing you my favorite quotes."I guess every song has a special meaning for someone somewhere. 48The prevalence of hope, sunshine in a place of bleakness."Once, he owned a black-and-white television. I know, I know, bleeding hearts and all, but honestly, poverty does suck a lot.
Color complicated even the smallest events." - pg. I don't particularly find the alcoholism offensive, as it is unfortunately the number one health problem for Native Americans, so props to Alexie for not painting Native Americans as mystical creatures, but as real people with real problems.I think the prose within this book is gorgeous. He thought everything was much clearer then. There are 22 stories which weave together to form a portrait of what life may be like for the Spokanes.
In fact, their status grows over the years as the stories are told and retold." pg. I just want to quote the whole book for you. They have their strengths and their flaws. It's simple, yet illustrates hard truths.
Not only does he possess story-telling magic, he reminds us that we need to take off our rose-colored glasses from time to time and take a much closer look at America. Although these stories aren't as strong as his novels Indian Killer or Flight (both of which blew me away), I'm glad I read these stories. It wasn't until I moved to Arizona and could drive to places like Chinle or Page that I realized that there are indeed countries within the United States. They are the vision of one individual looking at the lives of his family and his entire tribe, so these stories are necessarily biased, incomplete, exaggerated, deluded, and often just plain wrong. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is a collection of short stories written by one of my favorite authors, Sherman Alexie.
But in trying to make them true and real, I am writing what might be called reservation realism."I would imagine that, if all writers were completely honest with us, they'd have to say that what they write is often biased, incomplete, exaggerated, deluded, and just plain wrong. It has its own police force, its own language, and-- unlike the rest of Arizona-- observes Daylight Savings Time. Sometimes you need to do some (or all) of those things to get your point across. They are good, and they show the evolution of a very gifted writer. There's work to be done. It spans several years in his development as a writer, since some were written when he was nineteen: "So why am I telling you that these stories are true.
Alexie's writing can be very powerful and beautiful, and it has the added bonus of taking us out of our comfort zones and letting us see "how the other half lives" in the United States. The trials many Navajo face just to have enough water for themselves and their livestock on a daily basis are trials that you and I would never put up with. First of all, they're not really true. Alexie is a Spokane Indian, and his writing has been formed in part by growing up on the reservation.Growing up in central Illinois, I had no clue about reservations, other than knowing that the governmental policy always seemed to be one of placing reservations on worthless pieces of land. This collection of short stories contains the seeds of future films and books. (Hopefully I didn't lace that last bit with too much sarcasm).We need writers like Alexie.
The Navajo Nation is a nation. We deserve better.
I think everyone should read it. I was originally required to read this book for my English class, but I ended up really enjoying it. Sherman Alexie is an outstanding author and I plan on reading more of his work.
"The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" is a great collection of short stories and the perfect starting point for those unfamiliar with the works of Sherman Alexie. In some others, he interacts with his father. The topics this book covers range from alcoholism, relationships between a father and son, and traditional American Indian culture, something that these people are losing more and more as the years go by. The stories in the book are all independent of each other, they only share people and setting.
If you are unfamiliar with the current state of American Indian life, Alexie's prose will take you on a very enjoyable, and informative, ride. Some of the stories also include a character named Thomas Builds-the-fire, a childhood friend of Victors who is known, but not necessarily liked, on the reservation for his ability to tell stories in the vein of traditional Indian storytelling. If you can read this review, I would recommend this book to you. If you are already a fan of Alexie, this work is one of his darker and it would be the one that helped launch his very successful writing career. Alexie is a brilliant writer. Alexie was born and raised on the Spokane Indian reservation in Washington, and many of these stories are based off of real experiences from his time there.
His presence in the collection gives us the voice of traditional Indian culture, which is not often seen these days in contemporary literature. Five stars. The stories mainly follow a Spokane Indian named Victor. In some of the stories, Victor is a little boy witnessing the evils of alcoholism and its effects on the people living on the reservation.
We are not the grim stoics or the tragic figures of past lore. This book is a collection of short stories, with the general basis of location being their common theme, and anyone looking for a further connection is sure to be disappointed.
I do not see why it should be any different for this collection. One could assume before opening an anthology of Stephen King that the stories are going to be unrelated--or if there is a connection, that it is loosely based.
The most important thing to realize before jumping into The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven--or even reading anything by Sherman Alexie--is that the author is Native American, and his humor and presentation does nothing to soften his portrayal of the gritty reality still found on many reservations. East, not western expansion).
Take each story as it is. Native Americans are a serious people who rarely take themselves seriously.
Sherman Alexie brings together past and present perceptions and presents them in a fashion of the Native American colored by their own culture AND that of the West (as in West v.
|
