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BOOK
CORNER
BY: Jude Morris Erdrich, Louise. Four Souls. New York: Harper Collins, 2004. Four Souls (2004) is Louise Erdrich’s newest offering
in the ongoing tale of Nanapush and Fleur, taking up the narrative where
Tracks (1998) left off. Told in two narrative tracks, one in
the ever-familiar voice of the Trickster, Nanapush, of the happenings
at home and the other of Fleur’s quest for revenge on the man who
has stolen her land, Four Souls parallels nicely the two male-female
relationships. However, it does so disappointingly. Nanapush’s
story is filled with deliciously funny twists and turns as his jealous
pursuit of Margaret puts him into one ridiculous situation after another.
However, the Trickster is also the wise teacher, as we learn through
his mishaps. Especially funny are the cross-dressing episode and the
lie he tells about a meteor falling through the roof rather than admitting
having destroyed Margaret’s coveted linoleum. Yet, testy Margaret
finds him out every time and makes some surprising breakthroughs in
the text. Sadly, it is Erdrich’s Fleur who disappoints. In her quest for
revenge, Fleur tracks her fallen trees to the mansion into which they
have been transformed, weasels her way into the household as a servant,
and marries the man of the manor whom she hates. Here, Four Souls
is at its weakest. Fleur’s attempts to “live white” do
not ring true and many scenes fall flat. The narrative jumps back and
forth between the two tracks, and it is always a relief to see Erdrich
return to Nanapush and familiar territory. Erdrich wraps things up in the end of Four Souls a little
too easily for those of us who expect more from her, thus making Four
Souls a disappointing book overall. Perhaps it is because she has
strayed too far from familiar territory -- an author can only take a
character where a character can logically go; or rather, she tries to
do too much in Four Souls, such as exploring Fleur’s taking
of her mother’s name (thus the Four Souls of the title)
in too little space -- an undertaking with vast implications in Ojibwa
culture. Perhaps Erdrich’s shortcomings are that too many of the
white characters are cardboard cutouts to make Fleur’s story interesting.
Whatever the difficulty, Four Souls does not have the resonance
and narrative cohesiveness of Love Medicine or any of Erdrich’s
earlier works. Other Books I’d Recommend: Hoffman, Alice. Blackbird House. New York: Doubleday, 2004. If you’ve only seen the film version of Hoffman’s Practical
Magic, please ignore that interpretation and take the time to read
this novel. Hoffman weaves a wonderful story and Blackbird House
shimmers with magic and lyrical language. Blackbird House is
actually a collection of interwoven tales, all set in a farmhouse on
Cape Cod. Beginning at the time of the British occupation and extending
into the present, the tales are peopled with extraordinary characters
whose interconnected narratives, loves and losses, permeate the house,
which haunts and changes those who occupy it as they themselves grow
and change. Hoffman is not canon-bound; but, she is a first-rate and
enjoyable storyteller. Irving, John. A Widow For One Year. New York: Random House,
1999. A Widow For One Year is a rich and compelling read, entwining
the lives of protagonists / writers Ruth Cole and Eddie O’Hare
over thirty-seven years from their first meeting when Ruth is four and
Eddie is seventeen and Ruth’s mother’s lover. A Widow For
One Year twists through that first fateful summer in which Ruth’s
parents’ teetering marriage finally dissolves and her mother disappears;
teeters into the past and chronicles the untimely deaths of Ruth’s
teenaged brothers, who are memorialized in photographs on every wall
of the Cole home (photos which disappear with the mother); plunges through
Ruth’s famous father’s odd career as an author of frightening
children’s books and seducer of their readers’ mothers; rollicks
through a murder Ruth inadvertently witnesses of a prostitute in Amsterdam;
and finally plummets into the present in which an adult Ruth and Eddie
meet again and where he holds the secret to her mother’s disappearance. Irving provides enough ironic twists, quirky personalities, happenstance, and psychological pathology to keep the reader turning the pages and marveling at the puzzle he neatly pieces together. Irving is a master craftsman of the omniscient point of view and takes us easily through the landscapes of love, grief, sex, family relationships, and friendship in a thoroughly modern Dickensian romp. |
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