David Treuer's essays on Native American fiction sound fascinating:
"We function the way ghosts function in ghost stories," Treuer says from his home on the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota. "We sort of hover around to admonish people about what they should be doing, what they're doing wrong, how they're destroying nature. We're always there, but chained to our own deaths, not really alive and active and engaged."
As does his latest novel
One naturally wonders: Is the story of Bimaadiz and Eta the "ancient manuscript" that Apelles is translating? If you're the kind of reader who would be bothered by an answer such as "yes and no," or even "that's not the right question," this novel probably isn't for you. Treuer's double narrative works like a pond in which two stones have been dropped; the two circles of expanding ripples meet, overlap and flow on. Calvino comes to mind. A good alternate title for this novel would be If on a Winter's Night a Translator .:
And while I am sick to death of chick lit/not chick lit stories, this quote in the Village Voice made me laugh:
"Who ever heard of such a thing in publishing," writes Baratz-Logsted in her preface. "What next . . . This Is Not a Literary Coming-of-Age Story?"
If you care at all about the internet and freedom of speech and all those things we take for granted then do read about the Net Neutrality Law and the insanity that Ted Stevens is trying to bring down upon us all in the Senate. Then email your senator - I would, but he's Ted Stevens. (I doubt I'll get far telling him how pissed I am about this.)
Finally, after seeing this lysol feminine hygiene ad over at Maud Newton I am both totally thrilled to be a woman in the year 2006 and totally freaked out by what happened to women fifty years ago. God, I want to go take a shower - and make damn sure there are no lysol products in this house!
