The Lesser Blessed: A Novel

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Coming of Age is Never Easy

A shaker!

wicked!

a masterful achievement

Awesome!

The Lesser Blessed: A Novel
Richard Van Camp
Manufacturer: Douglas & McIntyre
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Canadian | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1550545256

Book Description

The Lesser Blessed is a powerful coming-of-age story — edgy, stark, and at times, darkly funny that centers around Larry, a Native teenager trying to cope with a painful past and find his place in a confusing and stressful modern world. Skinny as spaghetti, nervy, and self-deprecating, the 16-year-old is an appealing mixture of bravado and vulnerability. His life has held many terrors: an abusive father, blackouts from sniffing gasoline, and an accident that killed several cousins. He has a quick tongue, hallucinations, an appreciation for Iron Maiden, and hot fantasies about Juliet Hope, the school tramp.

Eventually, through his friendship with Johnny Beck, a Native from another Nation, Larry develops an expanded world consciousness and a stability that helps him face his dark memories — and create a brighter future.

Customer Reviews:

Coming of Age is Never Easy.......2004-08-22

Richard Van Camp¡¦s novel "The Lesser Blessed" is rooted firmly in the tradition of the coming-of-age, Bildungsroman genre that appeals to all who have survived the teen years and lived to tell about it. Or in this case, lived to read about it.

Writing from the sensibility of a Canadian aboriginal artist, a First Nation author speaking from within the experience of life as a member of the Dogrib nation, Van Camp imbues his novel with a definite sense of the indigenous culture situated within the history of Canadian social colonization. His 16-year-old narrator and primary protagonist, Larry, is comfortable with the First Nation culture passed down to him by his family. However, Larry truly finds himself coming alive in the stories told by his mother¡¦s firefighter boyfriend, Jed.

As the novel progresses and we discover the dark ¡§devil¡¦s kiss¡¨ secret that weighs so heavily upon Larry¡¦s heart, it becomes increasingly clear that Jed the firefighter is there to save Larry from burning in the flames of guilt and shame. The quenching waters that he offers the tormented teen are his stories, histories and mythologies. Indeed, the chilling influence of Adrian C. Louis and Leslie Marmon Silko is recognizable in this novel at its darkest moments. This is certainly not a childhood story of nostalgia and happiness, but neither is it a tale overwhelmed by sadness and self-destruction.

The sharing of stories helps Larry survive the challenges thrown at him as a North American teenager: experimenting with drugs; dealing with bullies; controlling sexual urges; getting into fights; and making friends. Scattered across the pages of almost every chapter is the music of the period, as Larry also draws strength from his favorite band, Iron Maiden. Band names and song titles are peppered throughout the novel. Most post-teenaged readers will probably smile as they remember how very important music was to them as teens.

Especially satisfying is Van Camp¡¦s playfulness with language and his creation of a jargon that is both pleasant and jarring, such as the hyper-speech that Larry calls ¡§Raven talk.¡¨ The dialogue is often fast and funny, although the humor tends toward the darker edges of comedy. Most intriguing are the flashes of memory offered up in dreamlike and psychedelic patterns. Watch out for those blue monkeys.

If the novel has any failing, it is the brevity of the work. The story takes place in the space of a few weeks, and though ¡§manhood¡¨ or ¡§adulthood¡¨ remain far from Larry¡¦s grasp, he revels in his life experiences and fancies himself lucky to be alive. For the cynical adult reader, Larry's joy represents his naivety; his faith in love seems misplaced. Poor Larry just doesn¡¦t know what kind of mud the world still has in store for him, for us all. But maybe, just maybe, he¡¦ll survive better than the rest of us because he¡¦s got stories, Jed¡¦s stories and his own, to keep him going.

Timothy R. Fox
Kui Xing: The Journal of Asian/Diasporic and Aboriginal Literature
http://www.kuixing.panopticonasia.com
Join the Kui Xing Discussion Group

A shaker!.......2003-11-29

"The Lesser Blessed is a coming of age tale told in photo-booth snapshots and raunchy one-liners. It is poetry and prose and locker-room boasts and puking-your-guts-out shame. It's sex that transcends tragedy. It is loud and rude and high. It's a shaker."
--John Burns for the Georgia Straight (Nov. 28, 1996)

wicked!.......2003-11-29

"[Van Camp] does not stumble over nostalgia or romanticism or careless diction. He loves words-his own, his Nation's, rock and roll's-and slips perfect ones into atrociously profane and perfect sentences..."
--Lorna Jackson for The Malahat Review (Summer, 1997)

a masterful achievement.......2003-11-28

The Lesser Blessed. Richard Van Camp. Douglas & McIntyre, 1996. Reviewed by Dr. Geary Hobson.

In virtually every generation, in the realm of literary activity, there comes along a
book that, by the very nature of its subject matter and place and the sheer exuberance
of its utterances reverberant of the place and people depicted, introduces not only a
little-known terra firma and people, but sometimes becomes the definer of that era in
which it is produced. Not surprisingly, these books are usually the products of younger
writers. Wordsworth's and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads, Jane Austin's novels, the
work of the Brontes, Stephen Crane's stories, Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises
ushering in the Lost Generation, Kerouac's Beat Generation introduced in On The
Road, Salinger's Holden Caulfield wandering through Catcher in the Rye, the jaded
"me"-obsessed teens in Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero, Native American
sensibilities in Momaday's House Made of Dawn, and a generation later, Alexie's The
Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven-all these books and writers burst forth
in such dynamic ways that not only defined their respective eras, shook the accepted
literary standards of their day, but expanded and extended the English lan-{78}guage,
while at the same time occasioning the debut of sometimes extraordinary new literary
talents.
In my view, Richard Van Camp, a Dogrib Nation writer born in Fort Smith,
Northwest Territories, Canada, in 1971, is accomplishing virtually the same thing in his
first novel, The Lesser Blessed, as Hemingway, Kerouac, et al. did in their times.
Given the smaller spectrum of Native American literature within (or without, as many
Native writers would have it) the larger context of American, British, and Canadian
literatures, Van Camp's novel introduces a new terrain and language that nonetheless
has roots in the fiction of Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, and James Welch, while
simultaneously exploring the same subject matter as the contemporary stories of
Sherman Alexie, Adrian Louis, and Lorne Simon.
In The Lesser Blessed, a Dogrib Indian teenager named Larry Sole narrates his
story and thus invites the reader into the little-examined world of contemporary Dogrib
(a part of the Dene, or Athabaskan-based, tribal people of the Northwest Territories
of Canada). More specifically, Larry embodies a modern Indian teenager's view of his
particular tribal culture and of the Indian world in general, acknowledging them and
appreciating them along with his fondness for Iron Maiden, Bruce Springsteen, Ozzy
Osbourne, occasional pot-smoking, getting "hamburgered" ("Raven" talk--Larry's own
take on his tribe's trickster figure's language for "drunk," Larry tells us), and trying to
get closer to his own particular Juliet (and, incidentally, the girl's actual name in the
novel) whom Larry remembers as "the first girl in grade school to swear at a teacher."
A North of 60 Romeo, Larry is in love with Juliet while she throws her sexual favors
to Johnny Beck, Larry's best friend, who is scornfully casual to her attentions.
Van Camp's method of characterization is strikingly vivid. At seventeen, and tall
and skinny, Larry describes himself as having "spaghetti arms and daddy longlegs,"
and at one point he visualizes himself as a Dogrib hunter of an earlier time as he
watches Juliet, "seen in his sights as a white caribou, pure, but (whom) he let go out of
respect and awe." Larry and his mother, a night school student at Arctic College, live
in Fort Simmer, a north-of-the-60th parallel town near the border of Alberta. Jed, his
mother's on-again, off-again boy friend, is a traditional Slavey Indian trapper whom
Larry identifies as a father-figure, and who promises to take Larry out "on the land" for
a season of trapping. Larry is amenable to this, but he is still comfortable in his
high-school world of hanging out with Johnny, lusting after Juliet from afar, {79} trying
his best to avoid the numerous school-ground fist-fights, and playing his tape deck
"cranked up" with AC/DC, Judas priest, and Iron Maiden.
Slowly, through a number of finely crafted, fragmented flashbacks, the reader
learns of Larry's past, in which his biological father physically and sexually abused him
and later died in a cabin fire that Larry himself may have started. Like Welch's
emotionally frozen nameless narrator of Winter in the Blood, Larry gradually awakens
to love and affection--after he surprisingly (to himself most of all) consummates his
sexual desire for Juliet in a brief relationship--and learns to retrust his mother and to
give himself fully in a father-son relationship with Jed. The Lesser Blessed, incredibly
funny and wise-cracking in many places, is nonetheless filled with the genuine
ingredients of a well-wrought tragi-comedy.
The Lesser Blessed is also the harbinger of a sophisticated Arctic literature, and
of a bold new direction for contemporary Native literature. And while it is perhaps not
the first novel to come out of the Canadian Northwest Territories, it is certainly the first
work of fiction by a Native writer from that vast region. By all accounts, it is a
masterful achievement.

Dr. Geary Hobson

Awesome!.......2001-11-08

"THE LESSER BLESSED is easily one of the most truthful, painful, powerful novels I've ever read."

Customer Reviews:

Couldn't put it down!.......2006-05-19

This book was simply awesome! I could not put it down from the moment I picked it up; I read through it in one afternoon. These are saints that you probably have never heard about before, and it made me so interested I did some research on my own of other saints. Highly recommended!

Truly wonderful - inspiring and uplifting.......2001-10-31

Have you ever heard of St. Ralph Milner? How about Gemma Galgani or Robert Southwell? Ivan Innerst has done a masterful job of telling the stories of these lesser-known Saints of the Church.

Not only are the twelve probably unfamiliar to most, but their stories are truly inspiring, such as illiterate farmer Ralph Milner who refused simply to walk into the doors of a nearby Anglican church and was martyred in England.

This collection includes the stories of: Ralph Milner, Paschal Baylon, Rosalia, Isidore the Farmer, Theophane Venard, Margaret Clitherow, Benedict Joseph Labre, Nicholas of Flue, Margaret of Citta-di-Castello, Arsenius, Gemma Galgani, and Robert Southwell.

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Wind Speaker, published by Aboriginal Multi-Media Society of Alberta (AMMSA) on January 1, 1997. The length of the article is 1018 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Lesser blessed.
Publication: Wind Speaker (Newsletter)
Date: January 1, 1997
Publisher: Aboriginal Multi-Media Society of Alberta (AMMSA)
Volume: 14 Issue: 9 Page: 11

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Average customer rating:

The Lesser Blessed: A Novel
Richard Van Camp
Manufacturer: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MJ5NN8

Book Description

Welcome to Waterdeep

Here, everything imaginable is for sale. Even dreams can be purchased if one is willing to pay the price.

When the sale of dream spheres threatens the life of his newfound half sister, Danilo Thann joins forces with Arilyn Moonblade to uncover the source of this deadly trade. Their search leads them into the dark heart of Waterdeep, and to personal secrets that could destroy them both.

Elaine Cunningham returns to the City of Splendors and the characters that made her one of the most popular Forgotten Realms authors.

Customer Reviews:

2 and 1/2 stars.......2005-12-14

This an acceptable entry level book to fantasy, it doesn't have any real depth or much in the way of originality. If your looking for a moderately enjoyable book that you can blow through in an evening then its right up your alley.

Cunningham shows some promise, but she tends to be lazy it seems. This book had some fairly decent ideas, but what could have been a stellar story instead just left me wondering "that's all?'.

Could have been so much better!.......2004-07-25

Dream Spheres is the fifth book in Elaine Cunningham's series after Elfshadow, Elfsong, Silver Shadows, and Thornhold. Keep in mind that there are several short stories that take place before, during, and after events presented in these five books and can be found in the Dragon magazines 246 and 259, and the novels Realms of Mystery, Realms of Infamy, and Realms of Valor. This is why there are some reviewers that feel "lost".
In relation to Dream Spheres, it takes a while for the story to take off, i.e. it is rather slow. The first scene, the party at the Thann residence, takes up almost 50 pages (!!!) and it's not that great.
This comes in contrast with the previous in line book, Thornhold, which starts off by capturing the reader's attention/interest from the very first page, though the ending is very disappointing.
The plot as a whole is not bad, but it is not great either. It is just that the more one reads, the more one realizes how much like a soap opera the series, and this book in particular has become; enough with the Danilo-Arilyn relationship difficulties already! Get married or break up! And enough with Arilyn's attitude problem.
Moreover, the tren are not that great or interesting of a nemesis, especially not one to be used so much throughout the whole book.
Khelben Blackstaff who we see a lot of in Thornhold has only a few lines in Dream Spheres for no apparent reason (he might as well have been considered to have been absent from the City of Splendors).
Furthermore, the SERIES seems to be going back and forth between Waterdeep and Tethyr, Waterdeep and Tethyr... There are other places in Faerun to visit.
The mother-in-law thing was just too much...
My main question is why did Danilo not raise his sister? If she had been devoured by tren yes, but she was found in one piece.
Most of the favorite characters are there, some without good reason though.
(I agree with many of the points the reviewer "kalan" has made further down)
It is unfortunate, that there is no mention of the issues/matters that do matter to us fans, and had been left lingering at the end of Thornhold; Arilyn's brother Dag Zoreth, Arilyn's niece Cara Doon, the Thornhold fortress, the Samular Paladin order, the paladin Algorind, the Zhentarim that had a change of heart, the three rings and the artifact etc.
What we do get though, is the arrival of Foxfire and a wild elf band in the City of Splendors??? How did they ever make the journey north in one piece? And how were they allowed in the City without city guard supervision yet alone participate in the fighting that took place? Especially when the City is supposed to be so vigilant in relation to elves.
There seem to be too many things going on at the same time just for the sake of it, and not for any apparent reason.
At first I thought it was just a matter of getting to the good part, but the book seems to lack that something to put it over the top, along with Elaine Cunnigham's other work.
On the positive side, the book is not terrible, the characters for the most part are familiar if not good, the overall plot is alright, and hopefully a sequel will be written setting things straight by shedding light as to what comes next.
In conclusion, it is my belief that the book for the most part deserves about 3.5 stars, and since I am an Elaine Cunningham fan, that translates into a 4.

Danilo's response to foxfire.......2004-07-24

I have to agree with most people that this book seemed to hop all over but thats not my problem with it. When Danilo finds out what happened between foxfire and arilyn he just takes it in stride and they kiss and make up. No man would take that easy even if he was confident they would be nothing else but friends, he would still be haunted by it because it gave him second seat in her life. Moreover that would be same as ripping a mans entire ego out and making him feel worthless. Does Danilo love his duty more than arilyn of his other friends "no". Yet for arilyn her duty to the elves comes before danilo he takes a 2nd seat at best in her life. No man could ever be truly happy like that. If you drag this story out 20 years Danilo is going to be a bitter old man who isn't happy with his life due to nagging doubts. I never saw these problems dealt with. You can't have 2 masters, Yet Arilyn does, which in the end does she choose?This series needs another book or a follow up series. No man could be content like that. For a very realistic writer about human nature elaine seems to have had her head stuck in the clouds.

Just couldn't get into this...........2003-08-06

Mmmm.... I admit, this is my first book in this series, and I just could NOT get into it. I have difficult caring for a character who steals for a living without serious just cause. The concept of the dream spheres seems like a thinly veiled cautionary tale on the dangers of drugs. I don't know... It just did NOT work for me. Perhaps the others are better. Until then, I'll give this series a pass.

Time to stop.......2002-06-07

When reading Elaine Cunningham's books, I'm always troubled by the nagging feeling that her plots make no sense. With The Dream Spheres, I had no doubt: this book makes no sense at all.
The plot is constantly turned in new directions by the introduction of yet another new character or element, and Cunningham so overloads the plot this time that it becomes nothing but an illogical mess. What was this book supposed to be about? The dream spheres? Lily? The absurdly powerful Isabeau Thione? Danilo's family difficulties? Elaith Craulnober? The secrets of Waterdeep's noble families? Bronwyn and Ebenezer? Danilo and Arilyn's romance?
Cunningham really needs to learn that less is more. Throwing in everything you possibly can for the sake of trying to appeal to everyone and playing with your pet characters one more time does not make a strong or well-written story. The continual references in The Dream Spheres to other events that the reader was apparently supposed to know about were highly irritating, and another symptom of bad story-telling. I've read everything by Cunningham on this thread except for Thornhold and the odd short story, and I still found myself lost.
Cunningham clearly shows in The Dream Spheres that she has nothing new to say about her favourite characters. Danilo has his good points, but Arilyn is as dour, bigoted, and boringly invincible as ever. Their story has essentially gone nowhere in all the time that Cunningham has been writing about them. And as for the way she wrecked Elaith in this book (a tortured soul tormented by doubts about his moral character, who puts Arilyn, of all people, on a pedestal), the less said, the better.
Cunningham needs discipline, a stricter editor, and some new ideas. The Magehound shows that she is only partway there.

Average customer rating:

The Dream Spheres
Elaine Cunningham
Manufacturer: Wizards of the Coast
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000OUYUOS

Average customer rating:
The Best of Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine

Manufacturer: St Martins Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Rusch, Kristine Kathryn | ( R ) | Authors, A-Z | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
General | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0312083173

Average customer rating:
The Best Of Pulphouse (The Hardback Magazine)
Kristine Kathryn (editor) Rusch
Manufacturer: St. Martins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000I84L7M

Average customer rating:
The Best of Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine
Kristine Kathryn (editor) Rusch
Manufacturer: St. Martins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MZK7JC

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The Best of Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine
Kristine Kathryn, Ed. Rusch
Manufacturer: St Martins Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTAYRQ

Average customer rating:
Best of Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine
Kirstine Kathryn (ed.) Rusch
Manufacturer: New York: St. Martins Press,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OVAPA0

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A Wonderful Introduction to the History of a People

Informative for the Uninformed...Maybe

nothing but good things to say...

If there is a "true" Judaism, it is as diverse as Judaism itself.

not what it could have been

The Woman Who Laughed at God: The Untold History of the Jewish People
Jonathan Kirsch
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Jewish | World | History | Subjects | Books
General | World | History | Subjects | Books
General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
History of Religion | Judaism | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
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Amazon.com

Jonathan Kirsch wants to answer the question, "Who is a Jew?" and in The Woman Who Laughed at God, he comes to some gracious, broad-minded conclusions. Kirsch rejects definitions of Judaism based on "a set of commandments literally written in stone." Instead, he offers stories of chutzpah through the ages, beginning with Abraham (who argued with God) and Sarah (who laughed at Him), demonstrating that "Judaism has been defined by generation upon generation of courageous men and women who felt both inspired and empowered to reimagine and reinvent what it means to be a Jew." Kirsch argues by telling stories--of Maccabee freedom fighters, of ecstatic mystics, of kibbutzers who feasted on "kosher pigs." Although his essential point--that diversity, not orthodoxy, is the hallmark of true Judaism--is not a new one, it still bears repeating. Kirsch, author of the bestselling The Harlot by the Side of the Road, writes with such flair, ranging over a wide variety of characters, that his lively style elevates his conventional premise. --Michael Joseph Gross

Book Description

Who is a Jew? In this colorful, eye-opening work, bestselling author and lecturer Jonathan Kirsch takes us on a three-thousand-year tour of Jewish identity and diversity and offers answers to this complex and difficult question. Kirsch reveals that Judaism has never been a religion of strict and narrow orthodoxy. For every accepted tradition in Jewish faith there are countertraditions rooted in biblical antiquity: the Maccabee freedom fighters who closed the Bible and picked up swords, dervish-like ecstatics who claimed to enjoy direct communication with God even after they had been excommunicated by a distrustful rabbinate, and courageous men and women who were the forgotten heroes of the Holocaust. With drama and narrative verve, Kirsch explores these and many other "Judaisms" that make up the rich tapestry of Jewish identity.

Customer Reviews:

A Wonderful Introduction to the History of a People.......2007-04-03

When I undertook a study of Judasim, I plowed through dozens of dense, dry books until I came upon this book. It's a delightful, light read that left me knowing far more than when I started.

I'm ready to read it again.

Informative for the Uninformed...Maybe.......2006-08-01

Kirsch's revelation (sic) that Judaism has a long history of diversity and myriad interpretations is old news by roughly 3500 years [Note to Jonathan: that is the definition of Midrash in the first place.] Repetetive exclamations! that biblical writers tried to conceal, whitewash, or censor this or that bit of information are presented in a tabloid style as often as not citing sloppy research or questionable scholarship. Newcomers to biblical inquiry may pick up a few nuggests of basic information here, but for my money Mr. Kirsh would be well advised to pay more attention to his serious subject than to selling books to supplement his income.

nothing but good things to say..........2006-02-15

great writer, great overview of jewish history, great book overall! for anyone looking to start learning about the history of jewish people, this book is a great primer. i truly enjoyed reading this book and finished it over a single weekend. after reading THE WOMAN WHO LAUGHED... i feel competent and confident in picking up other books that delve deeper into more specific aspects of history.

i highly recommend this book...

If there is a "true" Judaism, it is as diverse as Judaism itself........2005-05-21

Kirsch succeeds in provoking the reader to consider both the historical uncertainties of the Biblical texts' mosaic and their historical and contemporary interpretations. At first glance, Kirsch appears to rely on alternative, "out-of-the-box" analysts, but his arguments are more than well founded on contemporary and historical notions within Judaism's main traditions. The book succeeds in sparking discussion and engaging the reader in alternative perspectives on less-than-settled issues that normative trends would have us think otherwise.

not what it could have been.......2005-04-14

One need only read the first few paragraphs of "The Woman Who Laughed at God" to realize that Mr. Kirsch's agenda in his "Untold History of the Jewish People" is to convince the reader that there really is no such thing as traditional Judaism. The way in which he attempts to prove this hypothesis, however, is as muddled as this statement which appears on page two: "After three thousand years of rich and daring innovation, an argument can be made that diversity rather than orthodoxy is the real core value of Judaism...." Although diversity may be thought of as a value, orthodoxy is not - it is a position - thus one thing can't be compared to the other. In any event, the fundamental "core value" of Judaism is not diversity itself, but the mindset that we are commanded to have that welcomes diversity: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am God" (Leviticus 19:18). That this is the foundation of everything in Judaism is underlined by the following Talmudic story:

A non-Jew once came to Hillel (a sage who lived 2,000 years ago) and said, "I would like to become a Jew on the condition that you tell me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot." Hillel replied, "Don't do to others what you wouldn't like to be done to you. This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and learn it."

Unfortunately Mr Kirsch does not appear to have learned much Torah, for "The Woman Who Laughed at God" reveals fundamental misunderstandings and superficial interpretations of biblical texts on virtually every page. As the extensive bibliography does not even include the Talmud, which apparently Mr. Kirsch didn't bother consulting, nor any of the many classic Torah commentaries readily available to the public in modern translations, it's no wonder that the result is yet another misguided reinterpretation of Judaism.

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