Tracks : A Novel

by Louise Erdrich

Tracks : A Novel

by
Louise Erdrich

book data

1,885 ratings, 3.94 average rating, 141 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		31%
4		39%
3		23%
2		4%
1		1%

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published

September 1989 by Demco Media (first published 1988)

details

Unbound

isbn

0606128301 (isbn13: 9780606128308)

description

North Dakota Chippewas fight for survival in the early 20th century. "Even readers won over by Louise Erdrich's two earlier works may be surpris…more

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Jun 03, 2009

Brandon rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

Read in September, 1990

I loved reading William Faulkner in college, so when I discovered in Louise Erdrich a similar depth of voice, honest characters and a consistent imaginative setting, I fell in love with her writing, too. I know Love Medicine is her classic, but Tracks was the first novel of hers I ever read, and as the cliché goes, "You dance with the one who brung you," so Tracks stays alongside LM on my shelf.

In the interest of disclosing bias, I grew up in the farming town of Valley Cen...more I loved reading William Faulkner in college, so when I discovered in Louise Erdrich a similar depth of voice, honest characters and a consistent imaginative setting, I fell in love with her writing, too. I know Love Medicine is her classic, but Tracks was the first novel of hers I ever read, and as the cliché goes, "You dance with the one who brung you," so Tracks stays alongside LM on my shelf.

In the interest of disclosing bias, I grew up in the farming town of Valley Center near several Indian reservations. The relationship of Argus to Matchimanito is close to what it’s like around Palomar Mountain, but that's another story.

Tracks tells the history of Benign Neglect through the voices of two great but unreliable narrators: Pauline and Nanapush. As a homely Métis (mixed blood), Pauline succumbs to the worst of being someone caught between two cultures; it's an "invisible sickness" that we would probably recognize today as Post Trumatic Stress Disorder (6). Not only does she throw herself into religion, she throws herself so hard she damages everything she touches. Erdich's use of dramatic irony in the shaping of Pauline would be relentless were it not that Pauline is recognizable in contemporary mistakes of The Church (Apparently, such crimes are eternal). Likewise, Grandpa Nanapush represents a contemporary telling of the mythological Nanabozho who is so clever he tricks himself.

In alternating chapters, Nanapush tells Lulu a story intended to heal the rift between her and her mother, while Pauline tells one of the most perverse conversion stories ever. The paired voices of the narrators complement the plot of the novel that charts the near destruction of the tribe. This tribal point of view is perhaps Erdrich's greatest contribution. While it is true that Faulkner first attempted something like it with the Compson family in Sound & the Fury, Erdrich's use of the Métis reaches beyond the limits of a family and into the complications of ethnic identities. It’s through the polyphony of this tribal voice, including the Métis, that Erdrich has made a great contribution to literature.

I need to refrain from praising Tracks by itself because it is part of a "round," meaning that Erdich considers this novel part of a larger narrative that includes LM, Beet Queen and counting. In a meta-fictional passage from Tracks, Erdrich puts her apotheosis in the voice or Pauline, who says of a story told over and over by different storytellers, "It comes up different every time, and has no ending, no beginning" (31). The book is full of allusions to the terrible power of language that will also make Erdrich’s subsequent travelog Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country so poetic. For instance, the title “Tracks” seems to refer to language that leads back to our better selves. The quiet Fleur leaves "tracks" in the snow that change to the bear of her clan (12). Later, when Pauline goes on the death road with Fleur, there are "no lines, no tracks" (159). Pauline's actions on this night will lead to a terrible split in the tribe that will take generations to return from. It will be in the tracks through the round of novels that the tribe survives.

I've tried to describe as little as possible so as not to spoil the story but still give a sense of how big this 226-page novel is. I have the same condition Grandpa Nanapush had when tea, lard and bread healed him from the silence of going half-windigo: I'm pushing with too many of my own words (7). So let me back off and say Tracks got me started in the round of Erdrich’s wonderful novels. I hope the same for you.

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Mar 18, 2010

Kristine Kouba rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

Read in March, 2010

Plot Summary: This story has different narrators for each chapter. Some chapters are told by Nanapush, the old Native American, and others are told by Pauline, a mixed blood member of the tribe. We see the view of Native Americans through the old, set in his ways Nanapush, and we see Pauline abandon the Native American ways. Throughout the story, we read about Fleur, a strange Native American with powers and we read about her experiences.

Nanapush - wants to keep Native American ways ...more

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Apr 12, 2009

Catherine rated it:

(review of isbn 0805008950)

bookshelves: 2009, 50books_poc, ojibwe_country

Read in April, 2009

It's an adventure, reading books about one place and one set of people, but dependent on what's in the library, and what comes in on interlibrary loan. I've read about the Little No Horse rez back and forth, in all kinds of incarnations, but I'd missed Tracks until this weekend. And oh, what a beautiful book.

This is the missing link between much of what I've read before - the early stories of Nanapush, Margaret, Fleur, and Lulu; the backstory to Sister Leopolda's life; the roots of...more

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Feb 17, 2010

Ryan rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

bookshelves: historical-fiction

Read in February, 2010

Haunting, unsettling depiction of the disintegration of Native American tribes in North Dakota circa 1912-1924.

There are two narrators, both unreliable. The first narrator is an elderly man of Pukwan origin named Nanapush, who wants to preserve the ways of Indians but is philosophical about knowing that assimilation is a given fact of the future.

The other narrator is a teenage Puyet girl named Pauline, who, after a difficult childhood, comes under the influence of nuns....more

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Feb 16, 2010

Emily Dyess rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

Read in February, 2010

Tracks is a very interesting and sometimes intense Native American novel. Told from the perspectives of two people throughout the book, Nanapush (the old and intelligent man who has had many wives and has lost many things along the way during the white man's take over) and Pauline (The young and misunderstood youth who turns into a lunatic by the end of the novel).

This book is filled with heaping amounts of passion and drama! IT is an excellent story about an Indian province that ha...more

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Apr 18, 2009

Brian rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

"We started dying with the first snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall..." So begins Tracks by Louise Erdrich, my favorite book by the Minnesota-born, Anishinabe / Lakota Sioux author. Through the conflicting narratives of Nanapush and Pauline, we become woven into the story of Fleur Pillager, an orphaned Anishinabe woman whose life is as hard as the times she is born into, on her ancestral land at Matchimanitou. Throughout the story, she and the other characters use humor and ...more

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Dec 07, 2008

Kaitlin rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

This is the first Erdrich novel I have read. I enjoyed the technique of using different narrators that tell variations of the same framestory, while providing their own insights and experiences.

Nanapush is my personal favorite on this first reading, but I found the insanity of Pauline to be really funny, which may or may not be due to my sick sense of humor.

I read an essay where Leslie Marmon Silko was dismissive of Erdrich's writing style in The Beet Queen, which I hav...more

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Jan 08, 2009

Stephen rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

Read in February, 2009

I had forgotten that I had already read Tracks! Didn't matter, though, because it was still entirely absorbing. Erdrich makes her characters sad and humorous at the same time; she describes the porous curtain between this world and the next in a way that allows you to believe it completely -- a kind of Indian magic realism; she invokes Fleur Pillager's and Nanapush's powers as simply matters of fact; she allows the tragedy of the Indians' condition to set the stage for the story and dominate it...more

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Aug 04, 2008

Mjcouzelis rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

Read in October, 2007

The story is told in two alternating narrating voices: Nanapush, a Chippewa elder, and Pauline, a Catholic converted mixed blood. The story spans twelve years, from 1912 to 1924. Nanapush is telling his story to Lulu, his social granddaughter, while Pauline seems to be talking to no one in particular. Both narrators cover the events in Fleur Pillager’s life: Nanapush saving her from sickness, her rape by Argus men, Eli Kashpaw’s romance with her, her two children, and the legends that sur...more

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Jul 07, 2008

Emily rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

Read in June, 2006

Tracks is one of those books which can easily be read in a day. It's short, and it's good. I originally read it for an undergraduate English course, but it was easy breezy enough for free reading. It does deal with some pretty heavy themes, and if you have any metaphysical guilt regarding our treatment of Native Americans, it might get a little uncomfortable at times. Yet, I think it's important to read a book like this because it examines the plight from a perspective you're not going to get...more

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May 20, 2008

Carm rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

bookshelves: books-i-own, library-books, read-in-2008, rrvwp-book-club-picks

Read in June, 2008

For a few years now I've heard my friend Judy say of this book, "that's my favorite Erdrich book" and now I think I understand why. It was wonderfully written, poetic and haunting. She's a little Toni Morrison-eque, only of the Native American world. I've heard her read and met her briefly back on the Turtle Mountain Indian reservation where she has familial ties. Even that binds me to this amazing author a bit more. I loved, loved, loved "The Master Butcher's Singing Club" a...more

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2 comments

May 06, 2008

Ken rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

Read in May, 2008

After reading and teaching Love Medicine this spring, I felt a desire to return to Erdrich's work, which I had not read for some time.

Tracks is the third book in Erdrich's series of interrelated novels following a particular Indian reservation in North Dakota. Following after Love Medicine and The Beet Queen, this book moves backward in time to tell the stories of characters who, in the previous two books, were either in advanced age or dead.

The story is told through two...more

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Jun 20, 2009

Cindi rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

bookshelves: 2009

Owns a copy — Read in June, 2009

My husband had to read this book for a history course on Native Americans several years ago. When his eyes were too tired to read, I often read sections out loud to him. Those small glimpses of the book were intriguing and I have long intended to read it fully.

It is the story of a people on the edge of cultural and physical extinction. The characters are so alive and the story, told in first person by two alternative narrators, is vivid, mystical and entrancing.

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Jan 22, 2010

Anna Zaleska rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

bookshelves: currently-reading

An incredible read. Chilling! Exceptional poetic writing, which weaves the multiple perspectives and offers a glimpse - or what feels like an immediate presence - in the lives of a struggling group - during land appropriation circa 1900. The characters are unforgettable, but I'll admit it was at time difficult to read, only because of the rich language. I will definitely read more of Louise Erdich, and be much more prepared!

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Jun 04, 2009

Taylor rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

Read in June, 2009

Brilliant. The richness and complexity of the themes involved definitely made me feel like I was reading an Important Book, but it was also so beautifully written and so easy to read that I felt like its deeper meaning was effortlessly absorbed. It's one of those books I would have loved to study in school with some kind of guidance, but I'm also glad I read it for pleasure. Definitely on my list to re-read and pick apart in a new way.

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Mar 01, 2009

Kelly rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

bookshelves: historical

Read in January, 2003

I had a difficult time following this story. As a result, I would put it down and pick it up again a few months later. I never held the thread of the story. I was disappointed in myself, because I had heard enough to know that it was the type of story I would enjoy, if only I could get into it.

I hope to return to it again, maybe after I have read some of her other work.

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Dec 29, 2009

Trish rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

Read in December, 2009

This is the first Louise Erdrich book I have read. I did find it entertaining, but sometimes it just seemed to jumble all together, the story that is. I did like and appreciate all the characters and the story. I hated weirdo Pauline. I think I may need to read it over again. But I will continue on to some more of LR’s other writings. Maybe things will make more sense later on.

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Dec 27, 2008

Kelly rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

bookshelves: family-issues, fiction, friendship, historical-fiction, multicultural

What a sad and painful read. However, the characters are strong willed and proud and refuse to allow discrimination/racism/hatred/prejudice/violent crimes to destroy them. Told in flashbacks in contemporary times, we see the lives of many Native Americans in the early 1900's. The purpose of the telling? A grandfather wants to impart wisdom to his granddaughter.

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May 19, 2008

Molly rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

Read in May, 2008

This is the best Erdrich I've read in a long time. I mean, really: it had Sister Leopolda as a viewpoint character. How can you go wrong there?

It was a lot more plotty and consistent than her books usually are (as much as I love them)--it stayed very tightly to the same core group of people, and its duration was, I'm pretty sure, less than 10 years.

It also tied a lot of threads that had previously been loose for me together--how Russell Kashpaw is related to Eli Kashpaw (...more

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Jul 05, 2009

Mick rated it:

(review of isbn 0060972459)

bookshelves: contemporary

The three books in this series span generations and decades, and depict love, hatred, magic and sadness through one reservation's struggle to both retain its people's culture and adapt to the demands of American society. Beautifully written and very powerful. Tracks is my favorite of the three.

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