The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birth Year
by Louise Erdrich
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 221)
Read in August, 2007
I did not think it was possible that I could be disappointed by Ms. Erdrich, but I was with this one.
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Read in June, 2008
Not sure what took me so long to read this book-- it's only 223 pages. It was very poetic, which made for a lot of goosebumps and admiration over well-crafted sentences and passages of sheer brilliance. But, killed the element of rapid page turning. Aside from its delicious verbosity, I think I took this memoir at a snail's pace for two reasons: 1.) I expected it to be more about "birth" and motherhood as it is subtitled "A Birth Year" 2.) Instead there were a lot of passag...more
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I absolutely loved this book. I loved it mostly for the language -- a deep celebration of motherhood as well as an acknowledgement of the burdens. I read this quietly, disappearing into the words each time I picked it up, underlining passages such as this: "Growing, bearing, mothering or fathering, supporting, and at last letting go of an infant is a powerful and mundane creative act that rapturously sucks up whole chunks of life." And one of my favorites: "A mother's vision ...more
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recommends it for:
new mothers
More personal and introspective than many of her novels, Erdrich brings the same tenderness,attention to detail, and wonder for human nature that I have grown to love about her.
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recommends it for:
new moms
I read this when I was a new mom. I love Louis Erdrich's books. She takes an interesting perspective in this book, blending the experiences of giving birth to her children. I remember her meditation on trying to retrieve a cat from a whole in her basement wall being a little too long, but for the most part I loved this book. Especially, the way she juggles being a writer and a new mom.
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I think kids, baby's, and birth are kind of icky so a lot of the parts in this novel I skipped over because I just didn't care. She is a great writer though and I really liked the way this was written. In some parts though I wanted to tell her to get a life and move on. I also disliked that she basically said that you weren't a woman until you had a child.
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Read in June, 2008
recommends it for:
nature-y pregnant women
I loved her holistic take on pregnancy, nature, the cycle of life, identity... with so much pregnancy and child-bearing non-fiction out there, it was refreshing to read a pregnancy and birth memoir that folded in more than just THE BABY. It's beautifully literary and helped me meditate on concepts like pain, growth, partnership, and parenthood.
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