Amazon.com
In Tim Gautreaux's first novel, The Next Step in the Dance, the author staked a literary claim to Louisiana bayou country. In his second novel, The Clearing, he colonizes that claim. The atmosphere of the novel is humid and snake-infested, a swamp alive with mosquitoes and hungry alligators, stinkbugs and stench, flooding and freezing alternately. The setting provides a fitting backdrop for the bare subsistence lives of the people who live there.
The time is 1923, the place a family-owned mill, and the people a motley collection made up of a manager from Pennsylvania, his brother the constable, poor white and black loggers, three women, Sicilians, and polyglot Cajuns. Byron, the constable, a golden boy before the war, eldest son and heir apparent to a timber fortune, returned from France a damaged man, no longer interested in family or future. He drifted away from home and lost contact. When the novel begins, he has been found in this Louisiana backwater and his brother, Randolph, is dispatched to manage the family mill until the cypress forest is cleared and to bring Byron home. What happens to them in this hermetically sealed redoubt is a story of intense and forgiving brotherly love, as Randolph struggles to reclaim Byron and to maintain decency against formidable odds. They must deal with the Sicilians who own the gambling, liquor and women and will do anything to hang onto this franchise; the loggers who work and fight in equal part; and each other, not as the boys they were, but as the men they are.
You might learn more about old-time logging than you ever wanted to know, but the story is as compelling as Cold Mountain or All the Pretty Horses and just as well written. --Valerie Ryan
Book Description
In his critically acclaimed new novel, Tim Gautreaux fashions a classic and unforgettable tale of two brothers struggling in a hostile world.
In a lumber camp in the Louisiana cypress forest, a world of mud and stifling heat where men labor under back-breaking conditions, the Aldridge brothers try to repair a broken bond. Randolph Aldridge is the mill’s manager, sent by his father—the mill owner—to reform both the damaged mill and his damaged older brother. Byron Aldridge is the mill's lawman, a shell-shocked World War I veteran given to stunned silences and sudden explosions of violence that make him a mystery to Randolph and a danger to himself. Deep in the swamp, in this place of water moccasins, whiskey, and wild card games, these brothers become embroiled in a lethal feud with a powerful gangster. In a tale full of raw emotion as supple as a saw blade,
The Clearing is a mesmerizing journey into the trials that define men’s souls.
Customer Reviews:
A universe of the swamp.......2007-10-09
This is a novel that is just so big in so many ways. The characters are unforgettable, the hellhole they inhabit is unforgiving and the people they are in conflict with are ruthless. This is a novel with a real plot, but also with vividly drawn, totally believable characters.
Tim Gautreaux is a very talented writer and this is my first exposure to his writing.
A Cajun Heart of Darkness?.......2007-06-20
That Tim Gautreaux is a very talented writer there can be no doubt. He is well known for his short fiction and has even been called by some critics the "voice of Louisiana". Gautreaux understands what makes good fiction and in his short stories he has crafted believable characters and events that are handled in a style that rivals some of the great Southern writers. Some writers excel in the short fiction category but can never quite extend this ability to the novel form; Larry Brown (who does for north Mississippi what Gautreaux does for south Louisiana) is one such example - and I think that this is true for this author. Unshackled from the space restrictions of the short story, often their novels ramble, are overly episodic and the characters, more often than not, come across as half realized and driven by forces that are often exaggerated or untenable.
Not surprisingly, the first part of the novel has the feel of a short story with its tightly wrought introduction to the scene of the action and the principle characters. The description of the journey of Randolph Aldridge from Pittsburgh to the deep recesses of a Louisiana cypress swamp is excellent, and the section describing the river boat portion of that trip brought back remembrances of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The book centers around the two Aldridge brothers, Randloph and his Kurtz-like elder brother, Byron. Byron Aldridge is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder acquired during his experiences in World War I, and has removed himself from family and friends. He is now working as a lawman in Nimbus, Louisiana, a lumber mill deep in the swamps, and has become immune to any moral restrictions on killing and maiming. When he is not dispensing justice in his back water jurisdiction, he drinks and listens to maudlin recordings on his Victrola. In a bit too contrived plot setup, the brothers' wealthy father has bought the mill in order that Randolph would have an excuse to try to bring his elder brother back to the family and life that he knew before the war.
Once he has brought the two brothers together, Gautreaux seems a little lost as how to proceed and the novel dissolves into a very convoluted tale of cypress lumbering, drunken bar room fights, moccasins and alligators, murder and revenge, late night involuntary trysts with a sexy housekeeper (you'll have to read the book) and the Sicilian mafia. Any attentive reader knows exactly what is going to happen as the peace loving younger brother is thrown into this "gumbo of confusion" (as Gautreaux nicely puts it), and is slowly immunized from the violence around him. That this immunization becomes overly dramatic, as well as overly scripted, underscores the weakness of the book. Although the majority of the characters never really come to life, the old Cajun marshall, Merville, is a brilliantly developed character but, unfortunately, plays only a peripheral role in the story. And there is one particularly brilliant scene which ends the novel, in which the two brothers, having cut every standing cypress within miles, abandons, in a most cowardly way, the old blind horse at the sawmill: a fitting metaphor for the greed and recklesslness of their lumbring venture. Because his plot is so over the top and the author really never gets control, he falls back on his literary talent for coming up with inventive similes and metaphors: "A pair of eyes opened, boiled eggs floating in a Tabasco of pain"; the blind horse has "eyes the color of a sun-clouded beer bottle"; Randolph "rose to wakefulness the way a Louisiana coffin pushes up out of the mud after a week-long rain." This is all very fine, but a good novel needs more than finely written metaphors.
The Clearing.......2007-05-12
very much like Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ and equally difficult to read... is this what you call a men's novel?
Thanks For Recommending This Book John!.......2006-06-16
This is a beautifully written novel set in the Louisiana Backwoods Bayou Country. Randolph Aldridge is a quest to save his brother in the mean world of alligators, swamps and hard working and hard drinking men who live for their next paycheck and the next shot of hard liquor.Upon his arrival he has to deal with primitive attitudes and a way of life that seems alien to most people who live in big cities. As far as I am concerned John Steinbeck owns Monterey and the Salinas Valley but Louissiana belongs to Tim Gautreaux.
Like William Gay? Like Jeffrey Lent? You'll love Gautreaux,.......2006-04-05
With Jeffrey Lent, William Gay and Kent Haruf jostling for room on the cover, so as to offer blurbs of admiration, you know exactly where Tim Gautreaux's novel is coming from. Set in his native Louisiana just after the First World War, The Clearing is one of those rich southern tales of a community trying to establish itself in the face of lawlessness and harsh unforgiving elements.
As Randolph Aldridge travels south from Pennsylvania by train and boat watching the wilderness unfold and the violence increase, I pictured William Blake making the same kind of journey in Jim Jarmusch's film, Dead Man.
Randolph goes to take charge of a sawmill at the end of the line - a marshland where the workers take it in turns to watch the night for the gleam of hungry alligators' yellow eyes - but is really there to track down his long lost brother, Byron, who, after returning from the Great War, has sought refuge in the wasteland where he deals out rough justice with a spade to the brutes that drink themselves stupid after their toil and sweat in the mill.
Like Gay, Gautreaux is a master of using elemental description to create thick atmosphere: "A hard steady wind kicked up from the south, pushing a tide that crept into the mill yard like pooling blood." "He got up and dressed, walking blindly out into the street, stumbling around a broad puddle lying like a filthy mirror, the moon imbedded in it like a vandal's rock."
The workers' only relief comes from the Sicilian owned saloon with gambling, whores and liquor. Inside is "a burled fog of hand-rolled smoke that stuck in the room like back-lit cotton".
Examining these uneducated men and women who struggle in the inhospitable swamps trying to make sense of life Gautreaux explores the foundations of modern civilisation. The men are "leftovers of the great killing". Not lucky enough for a quick death they remained to endure "the slower mortality of hate, which they would pass on to their children and grand children like crooked teeth and club feet".
Although the story revels in the reality of such a hostile and unsympathetic environment and time, it is a tale of transition. The coming of the "copper wire" means an end to this way of life. "Like a vein, it would soon run head to foot through the body of the world." So that "anyone who witnesses wrongdoing could call for a policeman or a newspaperman. People would know everything, because the phones weren't just ears and voices but eyes as well."
Byron embodies the innocence scarred by the war but forced to finally confront the tragedy and move on. His longing for the unburdened past is wonderfully realised through his wallowing nostalgia in old records.
Randolph is also touched by the force of music. "He pulled the accordion against him like a lover, his fingers wandering for the melody, and the way a hand finds a doorknob in a midnight hallway, he found the song, playing his way into it, hoping the missing words would come and ride the notes against the silence."
Even the landscape, so real you can feel the dirt under your fingernails, is something to be mourned. Randolph, standing in the ruins of the cleared woods, sees a blind horse left behind. "The animal had listened to everything coming apart and knew what was happening, that the human world was a temporary thing, a piece of junk that used up the earth and then was consumed itself by the world it tried to destroy. When Randolph understood what the animal knew, a bottomless sadness crawled over him like a winter fog come out of the swamp at night. He thought of the cottages and shutters made out of this woods and of the money in his Pennsylvania bank account, but looking at the horse he could see no worth in any of it."
This is a mesmerising and magical evocation of a past that informs modern America. It is deeply sad and tragic. Pour a whisky, stick on a bluegrass record, and enjoy the tense climax that comes as inevitably as a train on a downhill slope with no brakes.
Product Description
A heartwarming historical story about a patriarchial Christian community in the Oregon Trail wilderness and a young woman trying to find her voice therein.
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- Curse you, Martha Egan--
- The Beverly War
- Clearing Customs
- Clearing Customs
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Clearing Customs: A Novel
Martha J. Egan
Manufacturer: Papalote Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Suspense
| Thrillers
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0975588117 |
Book Description
In 1988, long before the Patriot Act made outrageous invasions of Americans' privacy an everyday occurrence, Beverly Parmentier, the hardworking owner of a small imports store in Albuquerque, finds herself under surveillance. She isn't paranoid; she is being followed. Her phones are tapped, her mail is opened, her house is searched whenever she leaves home for a few days. Whether it's a trip to the corner store, a rafting expedition with her pals on the Yampa River, or a luxury vacation in the Caribbean, someone is always following her.
Beverly is perplexed. Yes, she stood up for a fellow importer unjustly accused of smuggling. Yes, she lodged protests with her Congressman when the newly beefed-up and power hungry U.S. Customs Service drilled holes in her special Peruvian folk art shipment. But she has no criminal ties, no arrest record. Her Latin American import business is a one person foreign aid program, an extension of the values she embraced as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia. Could her do-gooder, threadbare lifestyle be an affront to anyone - federales for example? Are her Latin American connections truly suspicious? Or do they serve as an excuse for arrogant Customs officials to wage war on an outspoken female importer and have some Federally-funded fun in the bargain?
Customer Reviews:
Curse you, Martha Egan--.......2005-04-30
because I didn't get very much accomplished after I picked up your book.
You made me laugh, infuriated me, and once or twice, I confess, made me want to throw the d***ed book across the room. Why? Because you made me care about your characters, even some of the Bad Guys, by giving them a realistic roundness (literally, in Beverly's case) and detailing their plights and reactions to them without insulting my intelligence with cheap sentimentality.
The injustice Egan writes about is chillingly possible--for all I know, this might well have happened to her, given her line of business. It's also even more relevant now than in the late 80s, when the book was set, given the quirks of our country's so-called War on Terror and the Patriot Act. But rather than merely wallow in the outrageousness of Customs' harrassment of importer Beverly Parmentier, Egan laces her story with a clever comic subtext worthy of her resourceful middle-aged protagonist (a joy in herself for those of us long-toothed readers who are getting bored with sweet young things and their Coming of Age tales).
I've often argued with my literary-snob sons that one of the primary reasons I read is for entertainment. With its quick pacing and its quirky plausibility, I found Clearing Customs every bit as entertaining as those Paretsky and Hillerman books that Beverly devours. It ain't Shakespeare, but it's a smart novel that bristles with righteous indignation and culminates in a realistic, satisfying, you-GO-girl ending. Well done, Ms. Egan--thanks for the read.
Susan O'Neill
Author, Don't Mean Nothing: Short Stories of Viet Nam
The Beverly War.......2005-03-29
Just what is this book? If it's fiction, it's fast paced and entertaining. If it's a true story of what the author has experienced, it's scarey, the story of an ordinary, honest person who's subjected to outrageous violations of her privacy by a vicious Albuquerque Customs Service. Let's hope it's the former case and not the latter. As an expatriate American university professor in Mexico, it's upsetting to believe that this kind of thing is possible in the United States.
Clearing Customs.......2005-03-28
This book is a jewel!!! Clearing Customs is the fast-paced, hilarious saga of an honest small businesswoman who finds herself crosswise with bad cops from US Customs. It's about time a writer offered real characters, a believable, outside-the-box plot, excitement, AND food for thought to readers in these perilous times for people who still believe in an honest citizen's right to privacy. I laughed and I cried along with Beverly, her handicapped pal, Ricky, and the River Rats as they made delicious fun of bad federal cops. When's Beverly's next river trip? I want to go--minus the creeps from the Longmont Post Office, of course.
Stephie Hansen
Clearing Customs.......2005-03-06
From the mango sunsets of Puerto Escondido, Mexico,to the sex-soaked sands of Colorado's Yampa River, folk art purveyor Beverly Parmentier is pursued by shady cops from US Customs intent on framing her as a smuggler. Beverly is innocent of any wrong-doing but is nonetheless ruthlessly hounded, her phone tapped, her home ransacked, every corner of her life invaded. This is the tale of what can happen to any citizen caught up in the machinations of an overfunded and overzealous federal agency gone haywire. In the end, Beverly and her river rat posse enjoy a splendid revenge. Is this story based on actual events? Beverly admits to her pals as they soak in a steaming hot springs that sometimes "the easiest way to tell a difficult true story is through fiction." This book will resonate with anyone who's had the end of an idyllic vacation soured by an encounter with a surly and hostile customs agent. Imagine they followed you home....
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The Clearing House
John Buchan
Manufacturer: House of Stratus
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
20th Century
| British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Classics
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Classics
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1842327631 |
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The clearing: A novel
John Craig
Manufacturer: Constable
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| Classics
| Comic
| Contemporary
| Literary
ASIN: 0094605408 |
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Millennium Complete Series Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 (Week 1 through 8)
Steve Englehart
Manufacturer: DC Comics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Comic
General | Comic Strips | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
General | Graphic Novels | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
DC Comics | Publishers | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
Batman | Media | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000NKK6ZQ |
Product Description
This is the complete series of Millennium. It includes Week 1: The Arrival(Over), Week 2: The Summoning (Under), Week 3: The Gathering (Back), Week 4: The Choice (Forth), Week 5: The Teaching (In), Week 6: The Dreaming (Out), Week 7: The Assault (Down), and Week 8: The Ascension (The Rising and Advancing of Ten Spirits). 1987. This series has nearly every DC super hero ever invented!
Book Description
A Martian monarch has taken possession of a priceless relic: the lifelog diary of the mysterious messiah who founded the Wager, the religion that forms the basis of all interstellar society. The Hive Intel conglomerate wants the lifelog and hires Jak to get it. It's a simple job, until other spies-including Ambassador Dujuv, Uncle Sib, and Jak's evil ex-girlfriend-arrive on Mars and turn the assignment into a wild ride of mind control, murder, and looming interplanetary war. For the lifelog contains a devastating secret that can overturn the status quo of whole worlds-a secret that Hive Intel will suppress at all costs. In the past, Jak has completed missions by betraying his friends. Now in order to succeed, Jak Jinnaka must betray the entire human race...
Customer Reviews:
Bleak and Cynical.......2004-08-31
As the series continues, it becomes clear that however well-meaning, or not, Jak tries to be that he is merely a puppet being controlled and manipulated by layer upon layer of machinations and organizations he cannot even fathom.
Barnes' world building is still very good, and the likeable cast of characters returns. He doesn't pull punches either with major and minor characters subject to terminal events.
Though I vehemently disagree that this series is satire, there was some mild humor with the incompetent hereditary politician that Jak is assigned to make shine.
However the strengths of the work are overshadowed by the bleak and cynical way Jak is used and abused by his teachers, his government and his "friends" as well as the way Jak is forced to use and abuse his friends as well.
I give this one a 3.5 that I round up to 4.
More intriguing political intrigue in the 36th century.......2003-10-29
Here is the third novel in John Barnes's ongoing chronicle of the life and times of Jak Jinnaka, a young man in a 36th Century Solar System. Jak is a citizen of the Hive, a huge space habitat at the Earth/Sun L5 point. In the previous books, we have followed his career as a part-time secret agent, and somewhat of a celebrity, due to his involvement in a couple of high-profile adventures. As this book opens, he has graduated from the Hive's Public Service Academy, and taken a job as Vice Procurator of the Hive's base on the Martian moon Deimos. At the same time he is secretly an agent of Hive Intelligence. His life is further complicated by his continued conditioned attraction to his former girlfriend, the sadistic Princess Shyf of Greenworld, a nation of the Aerie (at the Earth/Sun L4 point). All he wants is to be cured of this conditioning, and to get a more exciting job. But his bosses at Hive Intel have a use for him in his present state and position.
The crisis driving the main action of In the Hall of the Martian King is the discovery of a lifelog of Paj Nakasen, the originator of the "Wager", a quasi-religious set of principles that lies at the heart of 36th Century human society. This lifelog was discovered at an archaeological dig in one of many tiny Martian nations. Many entities want this document, and such people as Jak's much-loved Uncle Sib; Princess Shyf; and a silly but highly placed fellow diplomat are all involved in the search.
All this leads to an amusing series of comedies of errors, as various attempts are made to obtain (by fair means or foul) the lifelog. Much of the book is rather funny, and much is quite exciting. Barnes gives us an impressive set-piece or two while the McGuffin is tussled over. But it's not all funny -- there is serious speculation about the proper organization of society, and there is some wrenching tragedy as well. Good people die. And the information in the lifelog itself turns out to have potentially catastrophic repercussions for Jak's society.
As with all the novels in this series, the wheels-within-wheels of the plot are almost exhausting, and not quite believable. But Jak is an interesting and ambiguous character, well worth reading about. The action of the books is quite enjoyable, even if not always what it seems on the surface. Barnes tackles some interesting ideas, though I think he stacks the decks of his arguments on occasion. The background details of the social order, the technological underpinning, and the varied cultures of the 36th Century Solar System are just delightfully presented. I'm really enjoying these novels.
The Man of the Wager.......2003-10-09
In the Hall of the Martian King is the third novel in the Jak Jinnaka series, following A Princess of the Aerie. In the previous volume, Jak and his friend help stymie a plot to unite the Mercurian miners against the rest of human space. Jak and friends also manage to escape from the clutches of Princess Shyf, although he is still partially conditioned to love her.
In this novel, Jak is working for the Protectorates Administrative Services Corps as vice-Procurator of Deimos, the smaller and outer moon of Mars. The most exciting thing that has happened is welcoming Uncle Sib to Mars during his two-hundredth birthday Big Circuit. He has just seen his boss off for a vacation on the Hive and has barely settled into the expected boredom, when he receives a "For Your Eyes Only" message from Hel Faczel, the head of PASC, telling him that a extremely important religious artifact has been found on Mars.
Jak is instructed to turn over his duties to his staff and to go to Mars as soon as possible. His vacationing boss also calls to congratulate him on the assignment, to remind him that he is well prepared, and to request that Jak take Pikia, his great-great-granddaughter, on the mission with him. Jak and Pikia fly down to Mars together in the warshuttle John Carter.
Jak is head of the mission to Red Amber Magenta Green, the Harmless Zone kingdom where the artifact was found, but Hive Intelligence wants him to defer any credit for its success to Clarbo Waynong, a scion of a famous family slated for high office. Unfortunately, to say that Clarbo lacks proficiency as a agent is more than an understatement; it would be totally misleading. Clarbo is so narcissistic and self-absorbed that he can't even understand why people don't always follow the script that he has provided them.
Jak is determined to do everything he can to complete the mission successfully, for Hive Intelligence has promised to completely de-condition him from Shyf's influence if he succeeds. He suppresses his good sense several times to keep Clarbo in the mission, thereby really irritating his friends. However, Jak knows that he is only being a good citizen of the Hive, following the dictates of the Wager.
This novel takes Jak's alienation from his friends even further, causing him even more mental pain. However, he receives unexpected help from a little known Martian kingdom, Paxhaven, that provides him with an additional source of strength. Moreover, he discovers a new friend and competent ally in Pikia.
Once again, the reader is agitated at the machinations of Hive Intelligence and its manipulation of Jak and his friends. Although Jak does everything he can to achieve the goals set for him, the game is rigged against him. The artifact, an old-fashioned lifelog, provides an explanation for some of the Machiavellian maneuvering of the Hive and other human polities as well as the problems that Jak has keeping "toves". This installment suggests the possibility of some redemption of Jax later in the series.
Recommended for Barnes fans and anyone else who enjoys tales of intrigue and adventure in the far future.
Thank You,, Edvard Grieg (?).......2003-08-13
This is the best so far of the Jak Jinnaka books, another rip-roaring good (albeit semi-comic) space opera. Here, however, Barnes gives an extra bonus: a quite decent helping of food for thought.
Thruout this series, Barnes has occasional tongue-in-cheek touches reminiscent of Joanne K. Rowling, such as the title of this one (and, to a lesser extent, the title of the first one).
I will be looking forward to the story of Jak's trip to Triton, and, I hope, another book with the story of Pikia's adventures while Jak is gone. Both stories are sure to be great fun to read!
Totally delightful.......2003-06-12
By the thirty-sixth century mankind has spread all over the universe. Jak Jinnaka has finally graduated from the Hive and was employed by the Protectorates Administrative Service Corps, stationed on Mar's outer moon Deimos. He is actually a double agent working to further the Hive's interests and goals. When his supervisor leaves him in charge of Deimos, he is given a mission that will take him to Mars.
In the ruins of Chrysepolus, an archeologist finds the lifelog of Paj Nakagen, the founder of the interstellar religion known as the Wager. The Martian king possesses the diary that Jak must retrieve by persuading the monarch to turn it over to him on behalf of PASC (actually, the Hive). Others will do anything to get their hands on these priceless records, but the most dangerous is Jak's ex-girlfriend the evil princess Shyf of Greenword. She conditioned him to love her unconditionally and give her anything she wants, an obsession that he has not been entirely erased which makes success for Jak quite difficult to achieve.
If one can imagine a futuristic version of the TV series Get Smart, than readers will have a very good idea of what IN THE HALL OF THE MARTIAN KING is like. The hero of this fast-paced, action-packed space romp is an adorable man who tries to do his job and ends up alienating even more people than he did in his last caper (see A PRINCESS OF THE AERIE). John Barnes has put the fun back in space opera and readers will love him for doing that.
Harriet Klausner
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- sheds light on a largely unknown area of history
- How White Culture has variously used Native Spirituality
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Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality
Philip Jenkins
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Native American
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Native American
| Earth-Based Religions
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
Comparative Religion
| Religious Studies
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0195161157 |
Book Description
In books such as Mystics and Messiahs, Hidden Gospels, and The Next Christendom, Philip Jenkins has established himself as a leading commentator on religion and society. Now, in Dream Catchers, Jenkins offers a brilliant account of the changing mainstream attitudes towards Native American spirituality, once seen as degraded spectacle, now hailed as New Age salvation. While early Americans had nothing but contempt for Indian religions, deploring them as loathsome devil worship and snake dancing, white Americans today respect and admire Native spirituality. In this book, Jenkins charts this remarkable change, highlighting the complex history of white American attitudes towards Native religions from colonial times to the present. Jenkins ranges widely, considering everything from the 19th-century American obsession with "Hebrew Indians" and Lost Tribes, to the early 20th-century cult of the Maya as bearers of the wisdom of ancient Atlantis, to films like Pocahontas and Dances With Wolves. He looks at the popularity of the Carlos Castaneda books, the writings of Lynn Andrews, and the influential works of Frank Waters, and he explores the New Age paraphernalia found in places like Sedona, Arizona, including dream-catchers, crystals, medicine bags, and Native-themed Tarot cards. Jenkins examines the controversial New Age appropriation of Native sacred places; notes that many "white Indians" see mainstream society as religiously empty; and asks why a government founded on religious freedom tried to eradicate native religions in the last century--and what this says about how we define religion. An engrossing account of our changing attitudes towards Native spirituality, Dream Catchers offers a fascinating introduction to one of the more interesting aspects of contemporary American religion.
Customer Reviews:
sheds light on a largely unknown area of history.......2006-11-11
Jenkins book is a journalistic-style account of the history of a particular type of cultural appropriation: the importation of American Indian spirituality, either in large chunks or tiny fragments, into mainstream white spiritual practices. The first part of the book is devoted to the background history of Euro-American attitudes toward Native spirituality, from the 16th through the 20th centuries. There are many "aha!" moments here, as Jenkins skillfully connects the many fascinating facts and stories from these centuries into a remarkably coherent narrative. The latter part of the book explores late-20th/early 21st century white beliefs and practices that incorporate Native symbols and ideas. It also details the industry that has grown up to feed the hunger for "authentic" spiritual products and experiences with a Native inflection.
Jenkins is clear that his book is about the images of Native Americans and their religions as imagined by the white mainstream. You will find very few Indian voices in this account and even fewer references to actual religious beliefs and practices of Indian people. There are good books by anthropologists and others that fill that niche. What Jenkins provides is something rather new -- a history and analysis of a colonial and post-colonial cultural appropriation that seems actually to be sincerely meaningful to the appropriators. Jenkins doesn't hide his discomfort with these uses and misuses of "stolen" spirituality, and he debunks a few cherished new-age myths along the way, but he ultimately presents a balanced and subtle account of a complex phenomenon.
How White Culture has variously used Native Spirituality.......2005-01-14
This is one fascinating book. Every now and again I run across a book that takes me off in a direction I had not even suspected would be worth examining. Heck, this is a book I could not have even imagined. It is such a treat to be surprised and delighted.
In "Dream Catchers", Philip Jenkins guides us through the story of how the Native American (Indian?) culture has been variously (mis)interpreted, (mis)used, and (mis)adapted over the centuries. It is essential to remember that this is NOT a book about the religion or spiritual beliefs of Native Americans.
In some ways this seems strange because as I read it I had to keep reorienting myself to this fact. As I read about how White Culture found new ways to use Native American symbols as a label for issues in its own culture, I wanted to learn more about what the actual beliefs of the various North American Native cultures were. This is a topic for study in many other books (it would require a whole library of books and a lifetime of study to really grasp them in a meaningful way, I suppose).
Mr. Jenkins takes us on a lively tour through time and through changing culture and purpose. While I cannot do an adequate job of summarizing the book here, and I really want you to enjoy the surprising ride on your own, I can say that there really are three broad periods: 1) Rejection: The Indian as pagan, lost, benighted and in great need of Christianization, 2) Tolerance and Transition: the Period after the Indian Wars and particularly after WWI when Christianity and Western Culture had a great crisis of meaning. There was a huge turning to Indian culture as if it were a monolithic thing. White writers wrote supposed guides to this Spiritual "system" and ended up writing about their own beliefs as much as any insights they had to Native American spiritual systems, and 3) Acceptance: the Sixties and New Age creation of all kinds of spiritual paths that used (and almost always misused) native totems, symbols, and words and incorporated White Culture concerns with matters such as the Environment and Feminism, all the way through to UFOs and Magick (sic).
This really is a most interesting book. I was exposed to so much I did not know that I honestly did not suspect that reading this book would be such a satisfying and enlightening experience. I urge you to take the time to read this book. You will learn more about American Culture as it exists today from this one book than from a whole shelf full of less competent books.
Highly recommended.
Book Description
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Citation Details
Title: Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality.(Book Review)
Author: Katie Flaherty
Publication:
Catholic New Times (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 20, 2005
Publisher: Catholic New Times, Inc.
Volume: 29
Issue: 5
Page: 14(1)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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