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17th out of 406 books
—
255 voters
The Painted Drum
While appraising the estate of a New Hampshire family descended from a North Dakota Indian agent, Faye Travers is startled to discover a rare moose skin and cedar drum fashioned long ago by an Ojibwe artisan. And so begins an illuminating journey both backward and forward in time, following the strange passage of a powerful yet delicate instrument, and revealing the extrao...more
Paperback, 304 pages
Published
August 22nd 2006
by Harper Perennial
(first published 2005)
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You know, I think I'm just going to give up on Louise Erdrich. I liked The Master Butcher's Singing Club, and was okay with The Beet Queen and with parts of The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. But with each of her books, it's a chore for me to read. It takes weeks, if longer occasionally. I pick them up and put them down. Sometimes, I'm rewarded with a line like "In her eyes I see the force of her love. It is bulky and hard to carry, like a package that keeps untying." (The Beet...more
As always, Louise Erdrich tells a fascinating story, related to the Ojibwe Native American tribe. I loved this story about how people all over the continent are connected together by a drum, and how this drum helps heal those who have suffered great loss. There are many recurring themes in this story, and the mother/daughter theme is the one that stood out most for me. The daughters sacrifice much for their mothers and yet there is compassion and understanding for the mothers as well. There is o...more
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How does one even begin to review the writing of Louise Erdrich? Her words resonate with ancient mysteries and intricate complexities which draw me into her characters' lives time and time again. This novel is no exception.
In The Painted Drum we follow the story through the eyes of different people.
Faye Travers risks her moral rectitude and her career as an Estates agent by stealing an incredible Native American drum. It called to her with a single beat and she was overwhelmed by its mystical po...more
In The Painted Drum we follow the story through the eyes of different people.
Faye Travers risks her moral rectitude and her career as an Estates agent by stealing an incredible Native American drum. It called to her with a single beat and she was overwhelmed by its mystical po...more
The bare bones of the plot summary in this book's jacket notes made me slow to begin reading, because they suggested an elegy. But although the story includes tragedy and sadness, the mood is far from elegaic. There are many interesting and lively characters and relationships, some based in the present time and others in recent history. Some of the characters show cruelty and depravity; all are flawed but all show redeeming qualities. Relationships aren't static, but evolve in interesting ways....more
Initially I was enchanted with The Painted Drum. I found the first character’s musing interesting and the language in places was stunning. She described the eyes of a character as “peach-colored granite with specs of angry mica”. I was also intrigued by the theme of life and death, the presence of the dead in the lives of the living, particularly as influenced by Ojibwe thought.
But I was ultimately disappointed. Once the narration passed from Faye to the Ojibwe on the North Dakota reservation, I...more
But I was ultimately disappointed. Once the narration passed from Faye to the Ojibwe on the North Dakota reservation, I...more
The Painted Drum, by Louise Erdrich 10/10 (5/5)
I know I say this about many of the books I read, but I REALLY liked this book. I liked it so much that I intend to reread it sometime soon, after it has a chance to settle somewhat. Like many of Erdrich's books, this one is about Native Americans, and the voice feels authentic and human. It is divided in four parts. In the first, we meet a mother daughter team who deals with people's estates after they die, or go in a nursing home, etc. We also lea...more
I know I say this about many of the books I read, but I REALLY liked this book. I liked it so much that I intend to reread it sometime soon, after it has a chance to settle somewhat. Like many of Erdrich's books, this one is about Native Americans, and the voice feels authentic and human. It is divided in four parts. In the first, we meet a mother daughter team who deals with people's estates after they die, or go in a nursing home, etc. We also lea...more
I was falling asleep last night when I realized what a deft and meaningful thing Erdrich does in this book. By anchoring the book's beginning and end in the experience of Faye, a white woman (by culture, even if her bloodline does contain Ojibwe ancestors) Erdrich demonstrates how it's possible to love nature deeply, to revere the silence of open spaces, to believe in spirits and the agency of the dead - all without appropriating Native culture to do it. As the person who finds the drum of the b...more
The best thing about this book is the author's sense of humor. I almost choked on my coffee a few times when she came up with unexpected bits of funny. Her scene with Kit Tantro and the Winnebagos was really charming and laugh out loud funny.
What I didn't like was the abrupt change in time, location and character. For a simple book one had to be paying attention to not be saying, "who is John?"
I also wish I knew what happened with Morris and Ira, there is an unfinished feel to some of the chara...more
What I didn't like was the abrupt change in time, location and character. For a simple book one had to be paying attention to not be saying, "who is John?"
I also wish I knew what happened with Morris and Ira, there is an unfinished feel to some of the chara...more
This is definitely among the top five of the most pointless books I've read in the past 12 months, top ten most pointless I've ever read. We just get involved with the introductory character, then hear about her broken childhood, then suddenly we are thrust into another character's story that for a long while seems to have virtually nothing in common with the story line, then a long, drawn-out description of the making of the drum in which I zoned out so many times that I frankly did not care an...more
Another magical tale by Louise Erdrich. I will admit, the first section disappointed me. It was too dreary for me. Told from the perspective of Faye Travers, a dull...lifeless character...a little dirty. Not engaging to me until her apple tree quote in section 4. (I read a review by a woman who said this was her favorite section. I am intrigued...) But the novel took off from there and drew me in. I loved it. The stupidity, strength, abandonment, pain, love, redemption, forgiveness. I became emo...more
WEEK 7
WORD: PEGS
BONUS: DOOR
MY LETTER: P - The Painted Drum
Book: The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich
Finished: April 27, 2013
Rating & Book Review: 1 star - Not my style of book at all. I hate when the author jumps around and makes it so difficult to follow the storyline (such as it is). I'm also not a big fan of this type of "literature", where everyones' lives are so desolate and nothing good ever happens and people are cruel to ones they supposedly love. I don't need a happy ending per say, b...more
WORD: PEGS
BONUS: DOOR
MY LETTER: P - The Painted Drum
Book: The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich
Finished: April 27, 2013
Rating & Book Review: 1 star - Not my style of book at all. I hate when the author jumps around and makes it so difficult to follow the storyline (such as it is). I'm also not a big fan of this type of "literature", where everyones' lives are so desolate and nothing good ever happens and people are cruel to ones they supposedly love. I don't need a happy ending per say, b...more
This is a gripping, moving tale about Erdrich’s usual raft of multi-generational Native Americans. The story begins in present day New Hampshire when Faye Travers, an estate valuator, comes across the drum of the title, a large, ceremonial Native American artifact, and determines to return it to its rightful owners (not the owner of the estate she is handling). Back in time we learn the history of the man who made the drum, the stories of his family, three generations worth, and they are powerfu...more
A surprise treat came my way while evaluating and updating the library collection for materials written by or about North American First Nations. In this novel, Louise Erdrich examines issues of cultural heritage and ancestral ownership. She engages the reader through a balanced style of sensibility tempered with a sense of frank humour. The audiobook format, read by Anna Fields, captured the author's voice enhancing the stories of generations of individuals and families who took possession of a...more
The writing is incredible and it's like putting poetry into prose with the way the words flow. Little phrases like, "he screeches between two cars" (23), "Still, in spite of my suspicions, I am leaning toward him, farther, farther" (7), and "my heart creaks shut". Louise Erdrich is a story teller who uses the richness of Indian traditions without revealing any sacred knowledge. One of the best of American Indian literature I have read to date. A novice reader, I am able to understand the subtle...more
Favorite.
Erdrich is a remarkable historian, storyteller, poet... A magical concept, the inheritance of history through place, time, and objects is powerful and also telling of Erdrich's personal experience as a Native American woman. The book also places importance on female geneology, a common theme in many of her books. Each sentence and moment is stark and revealing, much like her poetry, movement and beauty flow from her fingertips.
Erdrich is a remarkable historian, storyteller, poet... A magical concept, the inheritance of history through place, time, and objects is powerful and also telling of Erdrich's personal experience as a Native American woman. The book also places importance on female geneology, a common theme in many of her books. Each sentence and moment is stark and revealing, much like her poetry, movement and beauty flow from her fingertips.
So far (about a third of the way through), I am really enjoying this book. It's a strange and absorbing story about an estate appraiser who discovers an Ojibwe ceremonial drum in the possessions of a wealthy, small-town New Hampshire family. She alone can hear a low, resonant hum the drum gives off. So taken by the drum is she that she steals it from the estate. To be continued...
I enjoyed this book tremendously but would say that it is not for those who are looking for an easily digestible, fee...more
I enjoyed this book tremendously but would say that it is not for those who are looking for an easily digestible, fee...more
Not her best, not her worst, say critics of Erdrich's 10th novel. Yet though it's leaner than works like The Master Butchers Singing Club and not as brilliant as others, it's pure Erdrich, full of grace, legend, and mysticism. Here, she weaves together three stories, each about mother-child relationships, over time and place. Critics agree that Ojibwe elder Bernard Shaawano's story is the strongest and most memorable; Erdrich renders reservation life impeccably. Faye's story, by contrast, is a l
...more
This book was fine, and I don't really feel like I wasted my time listening to it, but it didn't quite live up to my expectations. The brief synopsis on the audiobook jacket indicated that it would follow the path of a drum through time and see how it impacted the lives of those who had come in contact with it. To be fair, it did do that, but I had incorrectly assumed that it would go back for many generations when the drum was first built by Native Americans, and tell stories of many different...more
Those familiar with my reviews will know that I am a borderline fanatical Louise Erdrich fan, and have made no effort to disguise that fact. At this point for me to say that I love one of Erdrich's works is about as enlightening as Donald Trump saying he loves money. So I will minimize the glowing praise here, and instead attempt to offer a few worthwhile insights about, The Painted Drum.
Erdrich's unique, indeed often startling ability to delve into the depths of her character's hearts is not as...more
Erdrich's unique, indeed often startling ability to delve into the depths of her character's hearts is not as...more
This was an interesting story, and not like anything I've read in the recent past. The culture and stories and setting of a Native American tribe made the text more lovely than it might have been otherwise, and the author certainly has a lyrical way with words. The characters were messy and imperfect and real - and that was wonderful.
The main challenge I found in reading this book was feeling like the middle section of the book was very disconnected from the first and last sections. Not topicall...more
The main challenge I found in reading this book was feeling like the middle section of the book was very disconnected from the first and last sections. Not topicall...more
I'vebeen avoiding the books by Louise Erdrich based on one I tried to read some years ago...Well...I was WRONG to ignore her other works and I've missed so much, evidently, based on my read of the Painted Drum and the reviews of Round House of members of my book club.
In Painted Drum Erdrich zips back and forth between the present where an antique ritual tribal drum is found during the appraisal of a home's contents...When the drum is returned to the tribe and falls into the hands of the man who...more
In Painted Drum Erdrich zips back and forth between the present where an antique ritual tribal drum is found during the appraisal of a home's contents...When the drum is returned to the tribe and falls into the hands of the man who...more
As with Erdrich’s other novels, this one is told with multiple narrators but the chronology is straightforward. (I like her tangled narratives from other novels but I know some find them confusing.) The action is set in motion when Faye, a middle-aged antiques dealer, finds a cache of Native American items amongst the belongings of a recently deceased man. One of the items is a huge painted drum of high significance to the Ojibwe tribe. Being part Native American herself, she is torn over what t...more
The Painted Drum clarifies several previous Erdrich novels because of the chapter entitled "The Shawl." "The Shawl," which has appeared in several periodicals as a short story, explains how Fleur Pillager came to be. Fleur is the shaman, medicine woman, legend of the Pillager clan which figures in many Erdrich works. The painted drum of the title is a living artifact that is a tribute to a sacrificed daughter, a powerful symbol of salvation, and a living repository of a lost era. The drum repres...more
Erdrich tells us one story set in the present in white society, another taking us back a couple of generations in a Native American tribe, and a third relating the poignant story of a mother and her children living in poverty on a reservation. The Native American sections use stories containing a fluid sense of reality, a mystical quality that I found appealing: can a drum influence human events? Can wild animals give us specific information? As I read the stories of past generations, I was some...more
I'd gone to the library hoping to get Erdrich's latest book, Shadow Tag. Of course there is a waiting list for it, so I checked out The Painted Drum instead.
In an interview I heard Louise Erdrich say the themes of Shadow Tag are love, survival, and memory. The same can be said for Painted Drum. Especially the love/guilt bond between mothers and daughters.
The book has three distinct stories. The first is how a mother-daughter team of antique dealers of Ojibwe decent acquire the drum.
The second de...more
In an interview I heard Louise Erdrich say the themes of Shadow Tag are love, survival, and memory. The same can be said for Painted Drum. Especially the love/guilt bond between mothers and daughters.
The book has three distinct stories. The first is how a mother-daughter team of antique dealers of Ojibwe decent acquire the drum.
The second de...more
I really enjoyed this book with interesting characters unlike any in my own world, and I learned more about native American culture and folklore. This story involves a sacred healing drum and the three or four generations of people connected to it. It is told from different perspectives, some which is oral history handed down from generation to generation. Supurb description, occasional humor, and crafted writing except for occasional confusing transitions between scenes and characters.
It fal...more
It fal...more
I listened to this book on an audio tape. It was really well read by an expressive person. The Painted Drum is a carefully crafted realistic fiction which interweaves a plot of three mother/daughter relationships. At the beginning one mother and daughter who live in New Hampshire find the drum in the estate of a gentleman who dies unexpectedly. The daughter is drawn to take the drum and becomes caught up in a magical spell by its ancestral mysticism. The story shifts back and forth to the Ojibwe...more
Most favorite part of the book:
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, w...more
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, w...more
I've read short stories by Louise Erdrich but never a novel. Her writing, that I've read, all centers around Native American folklore and the experiences of Native Americans now. Erdrich is a breathtakingly beautiful writer. I took my time and savored every word. The Painted Drum is comprised of two narratives that are more intertwined the farther you get into them. The central character is Faye Travers, who is 1/8 Ojibwe and lives with her mother. Together their business is to organize and sell...more
A mother and daughter live a quiet life in rural New Hampshire. They make a living by buying and selling antiques. While accessing the estate of a man who was a descendant of a North Dakota Indian agent, the daughter (Faye Travers) steals a mysterious drum. She has never done anything like this but is powerfully compelled to not only take it - but to find a way to return it to the tribe it came from. Within this narrative the story of the drum and its creation is revealed. The Drum's power - bor...more
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Karen Louise Erdrich is a American author of novels, poetry, and children's books. Her father is German American and mother is half Ojibwe and half French American. She is an enrolled member of the Anishinaabe nation (also known as Chippewa). She is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant Native writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renais...more
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“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
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4,904 people liked it
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up.”
—
58 people liked it
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