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12th out of 213 books
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Tracks Tracks
Set in North Dakota at a time in this century when Indian tribes were struggling to keep what little remained of their lands, "Tracks" is a tale of passion and deep unrest. Over the course of ten crucial years, as tribal land and trust between people erode ceaselessly, men and women are pushed to the brink of their endurance--yet their pride and humor prohibit su...more
Paperback, 226 pages
Published
August 7th 1989
by Harper Perennial
(first published 1988)
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Because I loved reading William Faulkner in college, 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.
(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 ...more
(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 ...more
Haunting book about the disintegration of a Native American community in North Dakota in the early 20th century, as the land they live on is sold off to white developers.
Told in alternating chapters by two narrators - Nanapush, an old man of the tribe, still living as much by the old ways as he can, and Pauline, a youth at the beginning who unravels as she discards her heritage and comes under the influence of Christianity - revolving around their connections to Fleur Pillager, a fie...more
Told in alternating chapters by two narrators - Nanapush, an old man of the tribe, still living as much by the old ways as he can, and Pauline, a youth at the beginning who unravels as she discards her heritage and comes under the influence of Christianity - revolving around their connections to Fleur Pillager, a fie...more
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
Nanapush - wants to keep Native American ways ...more
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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
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
The context of this book is the demise of the tribe in the face of the white man. The book opens with the initial wipe out due to disease and closes with the final sweeps of erasure via land foreclosure, forest clearing and the bewitching allure of white man's culture. The novel that stretches between reflects the time between the beginning and end of the end and how it transpires among the lives of several characters. Central to these characters is Fleur, the wild woman of the forest, the on...more
“We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall.” So begins Louise Erdrich’s Tracks, a novel which charts the lives of a native people over ten years as the boundaries of personal and physical territory slowly erode.
Erdrich is a literary mystic. Tracks is told through alternating narrators: first by Nanapush, an older, charming character who recounts the deterioration of his people and land, and by Pauline, an orphan who slowly descends into religious ...more
Erdrich is a literary mystic. Tracks is told through alternating narrators: first by Nanapush, an older, charming character who recounts the deterioration of his people and land, and by Pauline, an orphan who slowly descends into religious ...more
There are a couple of spoilers in this review... nothing that ruins the plot but even still, you have been warned.
I'm on the fence between 3 and 4 stars with this book. The only reason that I settled on the kinder of the two is because I am enamored with the character Pauline.
What do we do with such a woman? She hides behind ideologies of piety and martyrdom but Pauline is, in fact, the most wicked character in the entire novel. I can't wrap my head around Erdrich's creation. Thou...more
I'm on the fence between 3 and 4 stars with this book. The only reason that I settled on the kinder of the two is because I am enamored with the character Pauline.
What do we do with such a woman? She hides behind ideologies of piety and martyrdom but Pauline is, in fact, the most wicked character in the entire novel. I can't wrap my head around Erdrich's creation. Thou...more
I first met Louise Erdrich in "The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse" which was both different and thought provoking. Erdrich writes with insight into life in the Dakotas and among Native Americans and offers intriguing plots, lyrical prose, and very strong characterizations. This book explores the tracks of a dying culture through the eyes of a grandfather telling his granddaughter about her family. Erdrich paints the atmosphere of Native American life on the edge of c...more
Although it's only 226 pages, this book reads like a saga. The events it recounts are set in the early 20th century on a North Dakota reservation whose inhabitants confront dramatic historical and personal challenges and changes. I spent only a couple of days with the book's characters, so it's testimony to Erdrich's skill as storyteller that I feel as though I've known them much longer. The saga itself is really composed of a series of interlocking stories spanning a range of about 10 years, mo...more
This story of the changing world of an American Indian community in the early years of the the 20th century is filled with the complexities of assimilation, adaption, and identity. Throughout the story you are given two narratives. One belongs to Pauline, a Chippewa woman who is desperately trying to assimilate to the dominant culture via the Catholic Church. The other is Nanapush, an English educated traditionalist. The story gives reminder not only of the realities of these people in the face ...more
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
This book is filled with heaping amounts of passion and drama! IT is an excellent story about an Indian province that ha...more
Erdrich does a wonderful job of painting a believable Native American tale set firmly in history, yet somehow existing outside of it. The clash between "old" and "new," both in character, religion, tradition, and way of life makes for a really interesting and meaningful read rife with metaphor and symbolism that far exceeds the reach of merely a Native American novel. I have a feeling that anyone who has experienced any rite of passage - be that the loss of a loved one, a cri...more
"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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A story which reaches toward the past as it is inescapably dragged toward the future. Erdrich is an extremely skilled writer and possesses a patient and, at times tentative, soul which allows the story to unfold itself in a natural and very free manner, not contrived but drifting beautifully from narrative to narrative. We see the spiritual homelessness of a people whose traditions have been endangered by their changing world, who struggle to leave their tracks back to a home which dissipates. E...more
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
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
Louise Erdrich, I have two words for you: Character Introductions. Learn how to introduce your characters properly. I only read the first 25 of 221 pages and really do not care about the characters. It's difficult to engage when you get names only, no description, no way to fit them into the story, then learn that some of the men have girls' names as nicknames. It well may be a great story with profound insights, but I found this confusing and not worth the trouble. And I understood Willia...more
Greetings, this is a review of the book "Tracks." I've read it before, or at least a part of it, in a foreign school, and I remember bits of the beginning, but none of the rest.
This is an excellent book with vivid imagery, crossing lines of perspective (and character) as well as walking into the realms of magic and through time. It is delightful to imaginative people. The author has a clear and narrative voice which is quite enjoyable to read.
Although the plot is so...more
This is an excellent book with vivid imagery, crossing lines of perspective (and character) as well as walking into the realms of magic and through time. It is delightful to imaginative people. The author has a clear and narrative voice which is quite enjoyable to read.
Although the plot is so...more
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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I was unsure about Tracks when I first started reading it; Erdrich writes in a very lyrical manner, and Tracks is very heavy on the imagery, but the more I read, the more I fell in love with both the writing style and (most of) the characters. The story is told from the perspectives of Nanapush, an elder and traditional storyteller, and Pauline, a mixed-blood Native American. It’s a story of power, survival, and tradition, and Erdrich manages to make a 226-page book feel like a sweeping saga.
Set in North Dakota in the early 20th century, Tracks focuses on Indian tribes trying to keep what's left of their land and their culture. Each chapter is told by a different narrator--either Nanapush, a Chippawa elder who wants to cling to traditional beliefs and who doesn't want to deal with the U.S. Government for obvious reasons, or Pauline, a young mixed blood who converts to Catholicism and ultimately tries to make herself more holy through self-punishment. A compelling story with compel...more
Reading this book reminded me of trying to work a jigsaw puzzle without the benefit of the box top picture. You begin to wonder if these pieces REALLY fit together or have you forced them. Will there be a recognizable picture when you finish or will it just be a splatter of dots that mean nothing?
One doesn't expect Louise Erdrich to tell a linear story and she certainly doesn't in Tracks. It is a thoroughly non-linear, stream-of-consciousness kind of tale, an Ojibwe tale. Her sto...more
One doesn't expect Louise Erdrich to tell a linear story and she certainly doesn't in Tracks. It is a thoroughly non-linear, stream-of-consciousness kind of tale, an Ojibwe tale. Her sto...more
I LOVED this book. It's a great story about a Native American community being slowly encroached upon by white people, white culture and white religion. It's told from the point of view of two very different characters, old Nanapush, representing the more traditional perspective, and Pauline, a more "modern" or assimilated Indian. I think these narrators represent the tension within the community that is so palpable throughout the book.
Another thing I really liked about Erdric...more
Another thing I really liked about Erdric...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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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 surroun...more
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
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
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
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
Set in North Dakota at the turn of the century, this novel covers the struggles to understand the Indian culture and the changes coming to the people of the plains. The story is told through Nanapush, a widower who survives through his story-telling talent, and Pauline, who is trying to blend ancient Chippewa beliefs with Christianity. If you wish to understand the struggles, pride, and humor of the men and women who dealt with these issues at this period of time, this is a good read for you. ...more
this is the third of louise erdricks books. as I reread her work, the words still rings true to me. this time we return to the reservation, and learn more about the lazarres, the morreseys, and nanapush. the chapters are told by seperate characters, revolving mostly around the other-worldly fleur and her baby lulu. the story sometimes winds around itself, but is so real, and so softly funny, and so heartbreaking, that ir is well worth following this wonderfully twisted tale.
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Karen Louise Erdrich is a Native American author of novels, poetry, and children's books. She is an enrolled member of the Anishinaabe nation (also known as Ojibway and 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 Renaissance.
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“We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall.”
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“Some have ideas. You know how old chickens scratch and gabble. That's how the tales started, all the gossip, the wondering, all the things people said without knowing and then believed, since they heard it with their own ears, from their own lips, each word.”
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