Rating: 
Summary: A boo-tay kickin' novel. I dropped a load.
Review: I can't say this was my favorite book, altough some partskept me entertained. -George McCleary
Rating:
Summary: PASS ME THE PEACE PIPE.....I'M CONFUSED!
Review: I don't know what to think after reading this book. I don't know what kind of review to write after reading this book. The story jumps around a lil' bit from one thing to another and then blends back together again at different points in the story. This book in a way reminded me of "The Catcher In The Rye" which I also had high expectations for and was at last dissapointed with.
Rating: 
Summary: Requires careful reading
Review: I have been teaching this book for 10 years in my course Cultural Diversity in Contemporary American Fiction. I will be using it this fall in my course Cultural Anthropology. The shifts of time and location have made the work difficult for most students, most of whom expect straighforward narrative in a novel; it takes them a while to latch onto the clash of cultures
that is the center of the novel. At that point most have found the effort worthwhile. Did Momaday's ethnic background influence the choice of this novel for the Pulitzer Prize? Quite possibly.
But that does not make it a less worthy selection. A look back at previous winners suggests that often the national mood at the moment has impacted the process. I highly recommend this novel for the thoughtful reader.
Rating:
Summary: Evocative, haunting, fascinating
Review: I read this book in one sitting. I found it extremely well written, and throughout I felt like I was with the characters. This book achingly portrayed the plight of Native Americans in the middle of the twentieth century, torn between the ancient and modern ways, scourged by alcoholism. I really liked the way Momaday interspersed past and present, the same way that people actually experience life, in their minds. Although this work saddens me on behalf of the protagonist, it does offer hope that the ancient ways will be continued by him, so I came away with a bittersweet taste. I am now going to see if I can find his other books.
Rating:
Summary: poetry and loss do not make a novel
Review: I'd read and admired Momaday's short stories before I started reading HOUSE MADE OF DAWN. I recognized him as a major American writer and certainly one of the most acclaimed Native American voices in literature. Furthermore, as a person always interested and concerned with cross-cultural understandings, I wanted to appreciate this work as a powerful contribution to what a Native American author wishes to say about life. I must say I was surprised and disappointed by the novel. On the one hand, Momaday's eye and descriptive ability of moments, of natural beauty, and of the shifting sweep of weather could impress anybody. The colors, sounds, and tiny details are true American haiku, not often found in the novels of others. I would say HOUSE MADE OF DAWN was an epic poem unfortunately poured into the mold of a novel. The second strong feeling one gets from Momaday's first major work is of quiet loss---what the Native Americans once had and how, through the violence he scarcely mentions, it was all taken away. Abel, the protagonist, grows up in beauty in the Southwest, walks in beauty, but goes to World War II, has largely unspecified bad experiences, comes back twisted, but confident, couples briefly with a rich white woman, murders a white man, goes to jail, and emerges broken to try to survive amongst urban Indians in Los Angeles. Drink and anger consume him. Will there be any healing ? Momaday offers the frail hope of the old ways at the same time as he realizes the difficulty of holding on to them in the modern world. As a novel illustrating the difficulty of changing worlds, this one certainly has moments of brilliance, but there are caveats. HOUSE MADE OF DAWN is a novel made of fragments. Each fragment contains beauty, contains understated truths, but the whole does not add up to a novel as I understand novels. I derived a feeling. I empathized with the characters as survivors in a time that was not theirs. But the `silent spaces' within the novel grew too great. I thirsted for a little explanation. I wondered what went on in Abel's mind, because I found only his memories of better times. I could not connect several of the events, some of the characters. They may be finely drawn portraits, but they walk alone, unconnected to each other. That is why I found this novel difficult, why I think that it could have gone directly to my heart if it were poetry. Comparisons to Faulkner are misplaced, I think, though HOUSE MADE OF DAWN does have that elliptical style. The great Southern author always concludes his story: you come to very powerful ends. Momaday's story is inconclusive. As far as beauty goes, perhaps Momaday's world is more beautiful, but it is less populated by well-rounded characters.
Rating:
Summary: poetry and loss do not make a novel
Review: I'd read and admired Momaday's short stories before I started reading HOUSE MADE OF DAWN. I recognized him as a major American writer and certainly one of the most acclaimed Native American voices in literature. Furthermore, as a person always interested and concerned with cross-cultural understandings, I wanted to appreciate this work as a powerful contribution to what a Native American author wishes to say about life. I must say I was surprised and disappointed by the novel. On the one hand, Momaday's eye and descriptive ability of moments, of natural beauty, and of the shifting sweep of weather could impress anybody. The colors, sounds, and tiny details are true American haiku, not often found in the novels of others. I would say HOUSE MADE OF DAWN was an epic poem unfortunately poured into the mold of a novel. The second strong feeling one gets from Momaday's first major work is of quiet loss---what the Native Americans once had and how, through the violence he scarcely mentions, it was all taken away. Abel, the protagonist, grows up in beauty in the Southwest, walks in beauty, but goes to World War II, has largely unspecified bad experiences, comes back twisted, but confident, couples briefly with a rich white woman, murders a white man, goes to jail, and emerges broken to try to survive amongst urban Indians in Los Angeles. Drink and anger consume him. Will there be any healing ? Momaday offers the frail hope of the old ways at the same time as he realizes the difficulty of holding on to them in the modern world. As a novel illustrating the difficulty of changing worlds, this one certainly has moments of brilliance, but there are caveats. HOUSE MADE OF DAWN is a novel made of fragments. Each fragment contains beauty, contains understated truths, but the whole does not add up to a novel as I understand novels. I derived a feeling. I empathized with the characters as survivors in a time that was not theirs. But the 'silent spaces' within the novel grew too great. I thirsted for a little explanation. I wondered what went on in Abel's mind, because I found only his memories of better times. I could not connect several of the events, some of the characters. They may be finely drawn portraits, but they walk alone, unconnected to each other. That is why I found this novel difficult, why I think that it could have gone directly to my heart if it were poetry. Comparisons to Faulkner are misplaced, I think, though HOUSE MADE OF DAWN does have that elliptical style. The great Southern author always concludes his story: you come to very powerful ends. Momaday's story is inconclusive. As far as beauty goes, perhaps Momaday's world is more beautiful, but it is less populated by well-rounded characters.
Rating: 
Summary: A book worth reading.
Review: In Momaday's Pulitzer Prize winning novel "House Made of Dawn," a young Native-American Indian named Abel, returns to Walatow Reservation in New Mexico from World War II. Only to discover that he is caught between two worlds. This book is a great example of Native-American fiction, it reveals the hardships of the Native-Americna people. Anyone who loves a good book based on storytelling and myth will find this book a must-read. It draws the reader in, with it's vivid description of the landscapes and ceremonies. At first I was a bit apprehensive in reading this book, because I have been told this is not a good book to read if you're reading Momaday's work for the first time. Yet, I enjoyed reading it, I apprieciated Momaday's effort to draw the reader in with the struggle of Native-American Indians living in industrial America. I recommend this book to anyone who is in search of a good book.
Rating: 
Summary: Smooth as Water
Review: In N. Scott Momaday's tragic House Made of Dawn, the incredible comparisons yield a sense of Native American struggles in a modern society. Momaday uses similes and metaphors to reflect and capture his intended gloominess and ominous symbolism. For instance, when Francisco hunts the eagle pair, he describes a volcanic crater to "the right eye the earth, held open to the sun." In this comparison, Momaday depicts the crater as impaired, reflecting the state of the Kiowa society in the novel. Also, Momaday shows nature's importance as a motif by describing Francisco's next morning, breathing in air that "was thin and sharp, like a shard of glass." The careful simile mirrors nature's control over man, as well as the Kiowa people, but even establishes the Natives' land as a symbol for themselves. Then, the author sets Angela St. John in the Benevides house, a place he calls " a tomb." The parallel points toward the structure as "the stage of a reckoning," developing an eerie mystique about the home. While discussing the canyon near Abel's origins, Momaday reports that "the earth is a kiln." With this he continues his motif in nature and establishes the canyon as a fiery oven, housing the bones of those ruined in it. Momaday even unravels a comparison between silver-sided fish, "writhing in the light of the moon," and his lead character Abel throughout the book. By presenting Abel through the guise of fish, Momaday shows Abel's helplessness and fear in his new habitat, the large urban city. Abel appears just as lost and confused at home ,however, as he does in Los Angelos. Once home, Abel describes the sky "like a shell," encasing and imprisoning this foriegn body to a land it no longer knows. With adept and precise metaphors and similes, Momaday sculpts Abel, his protaganist, as a man without a race, set adrift in time's continuity, too much in the past, but never enough in the present.
Rating:
Summary: Visionary but challenging
Review: Interesting book which was re-released 1999 -- put in the context of late 60's it was a watershed novel. Now it is still beautifully written & evocative of the 40's & 50's -- through an Oliver Stone type jump-cut imagery. Glimpses of characters' thoughts and motivations are interspersed with native american cultural history as Abel loses his soul in modern America. Difficult to follow unless you give yourself up to stream of consciousness type thinking & appreciate the spiritual message. This is a tragic story but well worth reading, I think.
Rating:
Summary: Overrated, didn't meet my expectations.
Review: Many vivid descriptions made this Pulitzer Prize winning novel very difficult to follow. The omniscient narrator moves back and forth in time, describing the troubled life of Abel, the central character. It becomes very hard to read as the author bounces back between stories of whom you are not sure he is talking about. Amidst all of the difficult reading, however, is a very clever story line. Momaday uses a variety of narrative strategies to tell stories of the characters. Many exotic descriptions are used when describing characters and scenery. Recommend reading if you have the tensions span to do so.
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