Winter of the Holy Iron; Porcupine Year
20. Joseph Marshall III, Winter of the Holy Iron.
In one of his essays in Dance House, Marshall writes of how guns -- transliterated from the Lakota as "mysterious irons" or "holy irons" -- changed Lakota society, both by shifting the economic basis of the society and by changing the necessary skills of hunting and war, which then affected both the characters of hunters and warriors and the shape of the society itself.
The Winter of the Holy Iron explores these same themes, but in fiction. Set in 1750, just before the Sicangu Lakota adopted the gun, the central plotline features the Western-style pursuit of a flintlock-armed French murderer by a traditionally-armed Lakota "lawman." Both men put their equipment and skills through their paces, and the resilience of the traditional arms (and the skills that go along with them) are on full display. The Frenchmen, we discover, are sadly limited without their guns, and are forced to borrow or steal another one whenever they lose their own. However, when the Sicangu war-leader's horse is shot and the horse's fall destroys his rider's weapons and most of his gear, the war-leader merely slows down his pursuit so that he has time to craft a new set of weapons before he catches up to the murderer. Similarly, the two gun-wielders, despite making their livings as fur trappers, have far less refined survival skills than the Lakota: there is little point in making invisible camps if the crack of the gun betrays your location each day; there is less point in learning to be stealthy if the range of the gun means that you don't have to come so close to your prey; a gun-wielder doesn't have as much incentive to pay attention to his environment, because he'll never be able to build another gun, nor more craft more ammunition, from the things he finds around him. The gun may have (marginally) superior firepower to lances and bows, but it dulls the sharpness of the person who is using it.
The deeper conflict, however, occurs back at home, as the other members of the band discuss the new technology, compare it to other recent social changes (such as the adoption of horses), and attempt to decide what the flintlock should or should not be to the Lakota. In the end, the fugitive is apprehended, but the discussions are divisive enough that the band splits in two, leading the keeper of the winter count to dub the year "the winter of the holy iron."
The book hit some of my own personal quirks -- both my inner technology-geek and outdoorswoman-geek were very pleased with it -- and I very much enjoyed the inversion of the norms of the Western genre. I did find myself pining for women, however -- Marshall describes traditional Lakota society as having strong gender roles, and that is very much reflected here, in a book which is thematically about how guns changed male skills and roles. Marshall does place strong women characters within the narrative, but however respectfully they are portrayed, they do remain somewhat separate from the novel's main throughlines.
21. Louise Erdrich, The Porcupine Year.
Sequel to The Birchbark House and The Game of Silence, The Porcupine Year is the third book in the middle-reader series that is often compared to Little House on the Prairie. (I would suggest that such a comparison does Erdrich's work a disservice, but the two series are comparable in audience, historical period, tone, and structure.)
At the end of the last novel, twelve year-old Omakayas and her family were displaced by European migration into their land; this novel begins with her family trekking northward to join relatives. Like the other novels in the series, there is a lot of playfulness here -- the children tease each other and open the novel with a cruel-in-their-innocence prank upon their family -- but there is also a lot of heartbreak, too.
And I suppose I should just say this now while I'm talking about heartbreak: Erdrich kills off my very favorite character. Early in the novel, too. I had to put the book down and go away for awhile, and decide whether or not I really wanted to finish reading. Which, you know, I did. Eventually. And I'll read the rest as they come out. But still. My favorite character, you know? I'll miss that character. A lot. Not as much as Omakayas misses her, but still.
Omakayas does a significant amount of growing up in this book -- she does in all the books, doesn't she? -- even to the point of having interest in a boy. And there's other good stuff, too, like the push and pull of the various family relationships, and just the day-to-day details of life.
I do wish they were all already published, though, so I could blow right through them.
In one of his essays in Dance House, Marshall writes of how guns -- transliterated from the Lakota as "mysterious irons" or "holy irons" -- changed Lakota society, both by shifting the economic basis of the society and by changing the necessary skills of hunting and war, which then affected both the characters of hunters and warriors and the shape of the society itself.
The Winter of the Holy Iron explores these same themes, but in fiction. Set in 1750, just before the Sicangu Lakota adopted the gun, the central plotline features the Western-style pursuit of a flintlock-armed French murderer by a traditionally-armed Lakota "lawman." Both men put their equipment and skills through their paces, and the resilience of the traditional arms (and the skills that go along with them) are on full display. The Frenchmen, we discover, are sadly limited without their guns, and are forced to borrow or steal another one whenever they lose their own. However, when the Sicangu war-leader's horse is shot and the horse's fall destroys his rider's weapons and most of his gear, the war-leader merely slows down his pursuit so that he has time to craft a new set of weapons before he catches up to the murderer. Similarly, the two gun-wielders, despite making their livings as fur trappers, have far less refined survival skills than the Lakota: there is little point in making invisible camps if the crack of the gun betrays your location each day; there is less point in learning to be stealthy if the range of the gun means that you don't have to come so close to your prey; a gun-wielder doesn't have as much incentive to pay attention to his environment, because he'll never be able to build another gun, nor more craft more ammunition, from the things he finds around him. The gun may have (marginally) superior firepower to lances and bows, but it dulls the sharpness of the person who is using it.
The deeper conflict, however, occurs back at home, as the other members of the band discuss the new technology, compare it to other recent social changes (such as the adoption of horses), and attempt to decide what the flintlock should or should not be to the Lakota. In the end, the fugitive is apprehended, but the discussions are divisive enough that the band splits in two, leading the keeper of the winter count to dub the year "the winter of the holy iron."
The book hit some of my own personal quirks -- both my inner technology-geek and outdoorswoman-geek were very pleased with it -- and I very much enjoyed the inversion of the norms of the Western genre. I did find myself pining for women, however -- Marshall describes traditional Lakota society as having strong gender roles, and that is very much reflected here, in a book which is thematically about how guns changed male skills and roles. Marshall does place strong women characters within the narrative, but however respectfully they are portrayed, they do remain somewhat separate from the novel's main throughlines.
21. Louise Erdrich, The Porcupine Year.
Sequel to The Birchbark House and The Game of Silence, The Porcupine Year is the third book in the middle-reader series that is often compared to Little House on the Prairie. (I would suggest that such a comparison does Erdrich's work a disservice, but the two series are comparable in audience, historical period, tone, and structure.)
At the end of the last novel, twelve year-old Omakayas and her family were displaced by European migration into their land; this novel begins with her family trekking northward to join relatives. Like the other novels in the series, there is a lot of playfulness here -- the children tease each other and open the novel with a cruel-in-their-innocence prank upon their family -- but there is also a lot of heartbreak, too.
And I suppose I should just say this now while I'm talking about heartbreak: Erdrich kills off my very favorite character. Early in the novel, too. I had to put the book down and go away for awhile, and decide whether or not I really wanted to finish reading. Which, you know, I did. Eventually. And I'll read the rest as they come out. But still. My favorite character, you know? I'll miss that character. A lot. Not as much as Omakayas misses her, but still.
Omakayas does a significant amount of growing up in this book -- she does in all the books, doesn't she? -- even to the point of having interest in a boy. And there's other good stuff, too, like the push and pull of the various family relationships, and just the day-to-day details of life.
I do wish they were all already published, though, so I could blow right through them.