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Summary: Reservation Blues
Review: The story that is made up, Ernest Hemingway said, can be truer than the account of actual events. In Reservation Blues Sherman Alexie has used the elements of outrageous fantasy to limn the realities of modern Indian life - and not just Indian life; because, as Thomas Builds-the-Fire observes: "Ain't nothing gone wrong on the reservation that hasn't gone wrong everywhere else."
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Summary: Reservation Grey
Review: This book gives a creative insight into life on a reservation. But the plot wasn't very interesting. It was true to life in some places but not in others. The strory was boring. Hence the title.
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Summary: The Highly Acclaimed Mearig & Jenson Review Board
Review: We'er not racist, we just dont find Native American literature pertinant to secondary education.
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Summary: Reservation Blues for comtemporary lit.
Review: We are young Euro-american men ages 17 and we thought that this book was extreemly boaring. Except for when Junior and Victor were drunk ... This made the book semi-tolerable
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Summary: Interesting
Review: Well to start off i have never read any books like this. Some parts were amusing, and some parts were dispurbing. Sherman Alexie is a very skilled writer, and i would like to read more of his books. Sometimes I find myself confused at what he is writing. Some things seem so random, I don't know if there is some deep and phiosophical meaning or he is just throwing it in to make the readers confused and go searching for something that isn't there. Through out the book, I was sort of uncofortable. The Sherman Alexie does something that makes me feel bad about being white. I don't know if he ment to do this but it makes me feel ashamed to have ansestors that ran the natives out of there land. Also he talks about things that would seem unacteptable to most people. For example: One of the women characters has a dream about sleeping with a cathloic priest. Now i am not cathloic, nor am i even religious, but something about that made me also feel uncomfortable. I don't think i would recomend this book for all people. Either it if full of metaphors so deep that I can't understand it, or it is full of meaningless stuff that i can't understand, I can't tell. If you like books that do that to you then go for it, but also at the same time, even if you don't like the deep philosophical stuff, this book is worth reading, I don't how much truth is behind it, but I think it gave me a greater understanding about how Native American life is, or might be.
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Summary: A wonderful story. . .
Review: I am neither a fan of the genre of Native American mystical fantasy nor into the interpretation of dreams. But, I really, really enjoyed this book despite the fact that those were two recurring themes!! I have to also add that I have no idea if the book's depiction of modern life on the reservation was accurate, though I'm willing to assume that it was. The book was a recommendation from my younger son, Joey, and I have since learned that no one knows my tastes like my family. What the book did have was a great story, great characters, lots of rock and roll, and a strong resemblance to the writings of Tom Robbins. And these are all things that I enjoy immensely. The book was a linguistic treat with enough offbeat characters to definitely be reminiscent of Robbins at his finest. It will be a long time before I forget the man-who-might-be-Lakota and Simon, the man who always drove his truck in reverse. I also found the book to have appeal to the senses - I could picture the barrenness of the reservation - as well as a deep sense of poignancy - the friendship between Victor and Junior ran much deeper and truer that we were originally led to believe. The casting of Robert Johnson was also a stroke of genius. This was the first work of Sherman Alexie that I read; it will not be the last. Higher praise than that I cannot give.
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Summary: A stunning and beautifully tragic tale
Review: Incredible is the talent of Sherman Alexie. In this masterfully written story of a rock band and dreams, love and blind hate, unbridled humor and memories, Alexie blends reality with a world that, though doesnt exist can be understood by any human being. This story is about life, and is written in such a way that reading it is one of the most rewarding and moving experiences one can hope for when devouring a book. Music and imagination permeate it's very puncuation and the results are spectacular.
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Summary: Reservation Blues
Review: Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie depicted reservation life in a very realistic manner. The people that lived on the reservation were very poor and had nothing to look forward to besides receiving their next government check. They all lived in government built HUD houses and very few had jobs. The Indians were not treated as individuals. Most Indians were stuck in a rut with their alcoholism. This alcoholism could have been prevented if the Indians had more job opportunities. The Indians did not have anything besides what was presented to them on the reservation.
The character development for Reservation Blues was an important aspect in the book. In the beginning Junior was very dependent upon Victor, he was a follower, and he hid everything from Victor. By the end of the novel he was making his own choices and trying to live his own life. Thomas was the rock that everyone leaned on, he was the one that Victor and Junior used to beat up on. He emerged as a leader in the group as the novel went on.
I genuinely liked this book and found it was very different that I had suspected. I really enjoyed the way he used names that were important in history for characters. These characters showed the same tendencies ad the real people who shared their names. I was also surprised at the abrupt ending. I felt that the book did not resolve itself. It leaves you yearning for more and wondering, "What happens next?" However this book is definately one that I would recommend to anyone who was interested in Native Americans of today or any avid reader.
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Summary: Native Blues
Review: This is the first book my bookclub read. We all have enjoyed it. It is a very easy to read and entertaining book. The basic message prevalent throughout the book is to make the reader aware of the abuse to Native Americans in the past and the continued oppression of Native Americans on today's reservations. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Native American writing. (...)
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Summary: EVERYBODY SINGS THIS SONG SOMETIME
Review: "There are things you should learn. Your past is a skeleton walking one step behind you, and your future is a skeleton walking one step in front of you . . . these skeletons are made of memories, dreams, and voices . . . they can trap you in the in-between, between touching and becoming. But they're not necessarily evil, unless you let them be . . . Sometimes your skeletons will talk to you . . . Maybe they'll make you promises, tell you all the things you want to hear . . . But, no matter what they do, keep walking, keep moving . . . See, it is always now. That's what Indian time is. The past, the future, all of it is wrapped up in the now. That's how it is. We are trapped in the now." That sums up life for the people in RESERVATION BLUES. The statement is actually from "A Drug Called Tradition" (one of the short stories in Sherman Alexie's previously published collection, THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO FISTFIGHT IN HEAVEN) which, while also reprising characters and themes, appears to be the source for this novel--part dark latter-day fable, part spiritual-emotional odyssey. RESERVATION BLUES is the laid-back, sardonic account would-be all-Indian rock band Coyote Springs' swift rise and abject fall. It starts when the legendary Robert Johnson--rumored to have sold his soul at a southern crossroads in exchange for being the unrivalled best bluesman ever--mysterious appears on the Spokane Indian reservation 54 years after his reported death in Mississippi. Abandoning the charismatic guitar which has bedeviled him all those years--the instrument which "sealed the deal"--eventually leads to the formation of Coyote Springs: "misfit storyteller" Thomas Builds-the-Fire, lead singer and songwriter, and his raucous, less-than-bosom buddies, Junior Polatkin and Victor Joseph, on drums and guitar. (This Victor in particular, by the way, seems to be a more loutish incarnation than in the earlier book, as Alexie swings his sympathies to Thomas, physically more frail while emotionally stronger, as hero and protagonist.) Along the way they're coached by Big Mom, ageless tribal medicine woman; joined by other Indians as backup singers, sisters Chess and Checkers Warm Water; idolized by a certain cartoonish pair named Betty and Veronica; and courted by apocryphal record company moguls Wright and Sheridan (historical names that live in Northwest Indian infamy). There are snide laughs, especially in the early going--the ragged, rugged rehearsals; first gigs and local success; groupies; the invitation to greater things, and the Reservation's startled reaction to it all--faintly reminiscent of Roddy Doyle's THE COMMITMENTS. But around midway through, as the band first senses, then fears, that it may get opportunity to not just leave the reservation, but leave it behind, the satire veers to melodrama. Thematic wild horses literally and figuratively run away with Alexie's imagination. We get pulled in different directions by characters are haunted by memories of childhood abuse and parental failures. Clashes between faith in tradition and Western religion. The price and possibility of assimilation into the outside world. What's expected on the reservation, the culture of defeat, the communal yearning for an individual success and disdain when one has blown it. What all this does is disturb the pace and distort the focus when minor characters' amplified crises jostle in the foreground with those of the main characters. But I can understand it. One point that Alexie seems to make is that the most understated, yet integral, character of all is the reservation itself, part and parcel: "The word gone echoed over the reservation. . . But the reservation still possessed power and rage, magic and loss, joys and jealousy. The reservation tugged at the lives of its Indians, stole from them in the middle of the night, watched impassively as the horses and salmon disappeared. But the reservation forgave, too. Sam Bone vanished between foot falls on the way to the Trading Post one summer day and reappeared years later to finish his walk." The "reservation blues" is a collective lament and litany of a people, place and circumstances--could be better, could be worse. But what's in store for those who might want to try to dance to a different tune? Alexie's vision here is that the choices are giving in, giving up, or going on--when the place that made you no longer feels like "home," it's time to go on out and find a genuine place in the world. This first novel isn't bad. It doesn't always work because the young writer tries to cover too much ground, understand too many perspectives, confront too many issues. Consequently, we don't get as definite a feel for his characters here as we did in the earlier short stories. But it's still a decent read; the young artist falls short of a great work only for trying too hard.
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