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Loading... There There: A novel (original 2018; edition 2018)by Tommy Orange (Author)
Work InformationThere There by Tommy Orange (2018)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. So good. There were a lot of characters to keep track with and I didn’t always succeed, but the story is powerfully beautiful and sad. The pacing of the novel is excellent, starts at a normal pace but by the end I tore through it. Some of the opening quotes were devastating. “In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing. About the dark times” Bertold Brecht and “what strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need do is still about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters” Charles Baudelaire. Quite a remarkable book. This book presents an assortment of Native American characters from different backgrounds with one thing in common - they don’t live on a reservation. They are urban, and trying to figure out what exactly that means to them. What does it mean to be Native if you live surrounded by white people and white culture and colonialism? Are you Native because of your blood? How much? How do you know if you feel native enough? The characters are all heading toward a big event - an urban powwow in Oakland, California. Some of them are helping to organize it, others are dancing or playing instruments or meeting family they barely know or just attending. But life under colonialism takes a toll, and things don’t end well. I really enjoyed the characters here, and I wish I had gotten to know more about them. Some of the teenage/young adult boys blended together in a way that was hard to follow, but that might have been on purpose. Some of the connections between characters seemed a little far fetched, but connection is a theme of the book so it worked. The writing style is very stream-of-consciousness, which is very much not my thing, but if you like it this is an incredible example. I really did not care for the ending, but it did feel appropriate to the story. Certainly a book I appreciate having read, but I won’t be reading it again. The first pages of this debut novel are a sociological prologue, a red hot scythe through the myths of this country’s relationship with Native Americans. They show Orange to be a tremendously gifted writer and are my favorite part of this book. The fictional story that follows was less compelling for me but I’ll be quite interested in following Orange’s future development. When I started this book, I thought that instead of a novel, it was a series of short stories that might have some link that would be revealed as I got deeper into it. It took a few chapters to see that the characters’ stories were related in ways — by blood or circumstance — that came more into focus, all moving toward one event — The Big Oakland Powwow — that would irrevocably change many lives. From the arresting prologue to the violent and abrupt (to me) end, Tommy Orange engaged me with his crisp writing, exposing some problems facing Native Americans, in this case, Urban Indians, as he calls them.
Characters here do not notice connections that might offer meaning even though they tell endless details. For those of us who may want literature to confirm human journeys, (or even reject them), this is boring stuff. There There signals an exciting new era for Native American fiction. Orange lends a critical voice that at once denudes the reality of cultural genocide while evoking a glimmer of encouragement. The network of characters in There There proves dizzying, but the multivocal nature of the book is a purposeful, intelligent strategy. It offers a glimpse of an interconnected life, a world in which small stones don’t just sink to the bottom of the sea but change tides. This is a trim and powerful book, a careful exploration of identity and meaning in a world that makes it hard to define either. The idea of unsettlement and ambiguity, of being caught between two worlds, of living a life that is disfigured by loss and the memory of loss, but also by confusion, distraction and unease, impels some of the characters, and allows the sound of the brain on fire to become dense with dissonance. Orange’s characters are, however, also nourished by the ordinary possibilities of the present, by common desires and feelings. This mixture gives their experience, when it is put under pressure, depth and a sort of richness. Belongs to SeriesThere There (1) AwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Twelve Native Americans came to the Big Oakland Powwow for different reasons. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life together after his uncle's death and has come to work the powwow and to honor his uncle's memory. Edwin Frank has come to find his true father. Bobby Big Medicine has come to drum the Grand Entry. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil Red Feather. Orvil has taught himself Indian dance through YouTube videos, and he has come to the powwow to dance in public for the very first time. Tony Loneman is a young Native American boy whose future seems destined to be as bleak as his past, and he has come to the Powwow with darker intentions -- intentions that will destroy the lives of everyone in his path No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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