Helpful Score: 3
There wasn't anything particularly insightful about this book, but the conversations between Nanapush and Margaret over his childhood nemesis made it worthwhile. The love felt between the two of them, as old as they were, was evident, regardless of the bickering.
Helpful Score: 2
Beautiful! To be read as a sequel to Tracks!
Helpful Score: 2
Most of us know Louise Erdrich for her bestseller The Beet Queen. In this novel she follows a Native American woman seeking revenge for the loss of her land and way of life
Helpful Score: 2
A moving and respectful examination of the Native American experience.
Helpful Score: 2
One of the dullest books I've read in a long time. Very bored; kept forgetting who was who. Not my cup of tea. I beleive the reviews were misleading.
Helpful Score: 1
A very fast read, quite lyric in prose.
Helpful Score: 1
Another good book by Louise Erdrich.
Helpful Score: 1
Beautifully written, wonderful characters. Shades of Faulkner.
Every Erdrich book I read is my favorite. No exception with Four Souls.....I loved every word. Rich with American Indian heritage and rich with characters' emotions.
The fact that I am willing to part with one of my favorite author's books, and a hardcover to boot, speaks volumes. I wasn't crazy about this one at all.
This book had strong female characters spanning 3 generations. The juxtaposition of the Native American and the "mainstream" American culture is fascinating and full of unexpected turns. Very lyrical prose and an original, well-told story.
After a slow start, Erdrich rewards the patient reader with a rich and wonderful tale reminding us that evil can never be redeemed by more evil.
Fleur Pillager travels to the 1920s era city of Minneapolis, seeking to retrieve the land swindled from her by a wealthy white man -- or to take his life in return. What appears to be a straighforward mission of revenge and retribution is twisted into something far more complex.
The multiple narrators reveal things bit by bit, bouncing between Fleur's life in the city and the lives of her extended family members still living on the reservation, including most notably old Nanapush, who is having his own struggles with keeping Margaret, the wife of his heart, out of the clutches of an old enemy and former brother-in-law.
Nanapush and Margaret's relationship, frankly, is much more interesting than Fleur's with James Mauser. The old man's battle with a pesky fly (who may be the shape-changed spirit of his rival for Margaret) is much reminiscent of parts of Erdrich's "Love Medicine", with its same sweet humor.
There's also a layer to the story dealing with language, with the power of names, and with the power of women to channel healing through their labors. Women, Erdrich says through Margaret, "turn things inside out and set them right." Including, eventually, Fleur.
Fleur Pillager travels to the 1920s era city of Minneapolis, seeking to retrieve the land swindled from her by a wealthy white man -- or to take his life in return. What appears to be a straighforward mission of revenge and retribution is twisted into something far more complex.
The multiple narrators reveal things bit by bit, bouncing between Fleur's life in the city and the lives of her extended family members still living on the reservation, including most notably old Nanapush, who is having his own struggles with keeping Margaret, the wife of his heart, out of the clutches of an old enemy and former brother-in-law.
Nanapush and Margaret's relationship, frankly, is much more interesting than Fleur's with James Mauser. The old man's battle with a pesky fly (who may be the shape-changed spirit of his rival for Margaret) is much reminiscent of parts of Erdrich's "Love Medicine", with its same sweet humor.
There's also a layer to the story dealing with language, with the power of names, and with the power of women to channel healing through their labors. Women, Erdrich says through Margaret, "turn things inside out and set them right." Including, eventually, Fleur.
after taking her mother's name, Four Souls, for strength, the strange, compelling Fleur Pillager walks from her Ojibwe reservation to the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. She seeks restitution from an d revenge on the lumber baron who has stripped her reservation. But revenge is never simple, and her intensions are complicated by her dangerous compassion for the man who wronged her.
