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Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story

Oliver La Farge,

Wanden Lafarge Gomez

Start date: November 1, 2018

Finish date: November 30, 2018

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Nov 20, 2018 Candi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics-shelf, historical-fiction, native-american, pulitzers

"I am not a Navajo, nor am I an American, but the Navajos are my people."

This novel, set in the American southwest of 1915, is the 1930 Pulitzer-prize winning novel. As the title implies, it is in fact a love story of sorts. But beyond that, it seems to speak to a time and place when the Navajos were caught between the influence of the American way of life due to westward expansion and the customs and traditions of their own people. Laughing Boy, a Navajo young man, fills the role of a tradition "I am not a Navajo, nor am I an American, but the Navajos are my people."

This novel, set in the American southwest of 1915, is the 1930 Pulitzer-prize winning novel. As the title implies, it is in fact a love story of sorts. But beyond that, it seems to speak to a time and place when the Navajos were caught between the influence of the American way of life due to westward expansion and the customs and traditions of their own people. Laughing Boy, a Navajo young man, fills the role of a traditional Native American. He follows the ways of the people, living with them and cherishing the ceremonies and rituals. His dreams of the future are pure and lovely. "That would be really on the trail of beauty; to work in silver and turquoise, own soft-moving ponies, and lead the Mountain Chant. Just thinking about it was good. It made him feel cool inside." Until one day he meets the very alluring and mysterious young woman known as Slim Girl. Initially, Laughing Boy feels disdain towards this woman, based on rumors of a corrupt background. Slim Girl has not been raised in the manner of the people, but rather was pulled from her home as a child and forced to attend the American schools. She is not like the others, and is therefore scorned. "He felt animosity towards her, dark and slight, like a wisp of grass—only part of a woman." Yet, the attraction is there, and as one knows, young love will go where it wants, not necessarily where it is directed. Laughing Boy is soon smitten with Slim Girl and will grapple with his own reservations as well as the opinions of his family towards this woman. "That girl was strong for one who looked so slight. He would make a bracelet about her, thin silver, with stars surrounded by stone-knife-edge."

Now, what of Slim Girl… I could not quite figure her out. Does she truly love Laughing Boy as he loves her, or is she using him to her own advantage? She wants to find her way back to the Navajo way of life, yet she wants to live separately from the people, settling at the outskirts of town with Laughing Boy rather than with his tribe. At the same time, she warns Laughing Boy from going into the town itself, as he would not be welcome by the Americans living there. Now Laughing Boy too is caught between the two worlds. "He was necessary to her; he was the perfect implement delivered to her hands; he was an axe with which to hew down the past; he was a light with which to see her way back to her people, to the good things of her people."

This story is told simply but beautifully. As the novel progresses, layers of Slim Girl’s story are revealed. We see beyond the tough exterior and catch glimpses of her doubts and fears. We come to understand what motivates her actions. I loved learning about the Navajo way of life – the ceremonial dances, the exquisite craft of jewelry making, the beliefs and other traditions of the people. The descriptions of the landscape are as stunning as I had hoped them to be. All that vast openness and the striking colors are sure to give anyone pause.

"Right before their horses’ feet the cliff fell away, some fourteen hundred feet, and there, under their hands, lay all the North Country. It was red in the late sunlight, fierce, narrow cañons with ribbons of shadow, broad valleys and lesser hills streaked with purple opaque shadows like deep holes in the world, cast by the upthrust mesas. The great, black volcanic core of Agathla was a sombre monstrosity in the midst of colour. Away and away it stretched, jumbled, vast, the crazy shapes of the Monuments, the clay hills of Utah, and far beyond everything, floating blue mountain shapes softer than the skies."

I became more and more immersed in the novel and sympathetic towards the main characters as the story progressed. I yearned for a happy ending for this pair of lovers. The tension heightens to a dramatic conclusion. This is a stunning novel when you really reflect further, given the fact we as readers know what happens to this way of life and the Navajo people. Author Oliver La Farge was an anthropologist who moved to the southwest and studied the way of life of the Native American people. His writing feels authentic and sensitive towards a people and the issues that were so relevant and important to this place and time. Despite the fact this book was written so many years ago, it is one that modern readers should be able to appreciate due to its impact. The message conveyed inside could easily translate to other cultures that may be pushed aside and lost forever if we don’t recognize each for their own value and respect the rights of all.

"She had unravelled her blanket back to the beginning, and started again with a design which could not be woven without Laughing Boy, and she knew that there could be no other design." ...more

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