Debra Magpie EarlingRezensionen

I couldn't get into this. I really respect what Earling is doing, but I found it very difficult to read. First of all, she uses a lot of words that are never defined, so it's really hard to tell if a word is referring to a person or a concept or an object. I think I ultimately would have liked that, and would have liked to be forced to question whether the categories of "person", "concept", and "object" are meaningful, except it made it very difficult to understand what was going on. The bigger problem for me was that a lot of the book is written in a very choppy sentence structure, which to me ended up sounding like the Hollywood stereotype of "How, me Big Injun, smoke peace pipe, how." I gave up about 10% into the book.

I wanted this to be a journal showing how smart Sacajewea was and how much she knew over the white men, but in this rendition, the speech is short and choppy and IMHO doesn't make her look intelligent. She does manage to learn a lot of English, but she keeps the knowledge to herself and uses her insights to figure out the plans, but never really to guide the exploration. She has a tough life, kidnapped and made pregnant by white men, stolen from her husband and people. This is a rough read, and maybe that is the whole point. Her reality sucked.½

I usually have problems with real historical people having fictional words put into their mouth. But here we have one of the most marginalized, yet mythologized historical figures that was barely mentioned in even the accounts of Lewis & Clark, who apparently needed her around for their benefit. But since Sacajewea was hardly allowed her own story, I'm willing to read a fictionalized story of Sacajewea written from a Native perspective, as this author is. Here, Sacajewea spends the early part of the book as a child with her family, but then is kidnapped by enemies and is forced to marry a white man. She stays in her husband's lodge until Lewis & Clark arrive. But this summary just makes it sound like the narrative is following the generic myth of Sacajewea. It is so much more. The book is difficult to read in all the ways, like making your way through a river of dead buffalo. I did not expect a historical person like Sacajewea to have a modern vernacular, and I appreciate the inventiveness of the writer here, but reading this is always work, at times it was a bit TOO confusing, with sometimes a few puzzling things even within one sentence. (I still haven't figured out what the "Ogres" represent...) But a narrative like this shouldn't be easy, by any means, for any of the reasons. For all its harshness and brutality, there is also a ton of beauty. If you can pick apart some of this, I don't think it could possibly be richer or fuller. If it were simpler, it might lean into cliche by default, no matter the skill of the writer. I ended up loving the confusion of what was spirit and what was not. There is a ton of memorable beautiful imagery here, but also some horrifying, miserable imagery as well. But I can see the reason: this isn't supposed to be the sugarcoated/myth/history book version from school. This is realistic. With this writer's power, she can make Sacajewea live in your heart. And I think that was the entire point.
*Book #147/340 I have read of the shortlisted Morning News Tournament of Books½

I applaud the Author for her creative method and format. It is very hard to understand, figure out what is going on, but with perseverance you get it more, though for me it was never an enjoyable read. Sometimes it is "stream of consciousness" talk, sometimes poetic ramblings, sometimes it's about ghosts and indigenous mystics. Maybe if you're an indigenous person or expert in the languages it might be possible to read and understand this book, but given the huge number and variety of indigenous languages, we at least would need to know which one the Author is using. Or she could at least provide a dictionary/vocabulary list of a couple dozen important and heavily used words - Agai, Weta, Bia, Appe, Baida, etc. Sometimes peoples native names are like Bawitchuwa are used, sometimes it's the English version like Blue Elk. Is Corn Woman a real person or a mystical apparation? It's hard enough to keep track of who's who, but also we must speculate on what is real and what is supernatural.

Anyone interested in Sacajawea knows that most of what has been written is romanticized and the Author is rightly pointing out a more realistic picture of what a native women in this time experienced, but this is such a bleak story that it is hard for most readers to believe a human being could exist as she is portrayed.

I think Ms.Earling is probably a profoundly wise and interesting person totally immersed in her wonderful culture and history of her people, but unless she is writing only to people of similar backgrounds and knowledge, this book does not, in my opinion, teach or persuade the reader in understanding one of histories most amazing women.

If you're American, you grew up with the story of the brave Indian maid who helped out Lewis and Clark on their journey across the western half of the American continent. What usually isn't included in the children's tale is that she was taken along as the enslaved chattel of their interpreter and that she was so, so young. Debra Magpie Earling tells the more complicated story here.

The book begins with Sacajawea's childhood, where her parents teach her about the world around her. Earling is doing something very interesting and difficult here -- her protagonist is from a society that is pre-literate and that has its own complicated spirituality based on nature. To recount Sacajewea's experiences in her own words is to enter a place where language is used differently, and while there is a note explaining what is intended, it was an effort for me to understand what is going on in beginning of the book. As Sacajawea grows up and as events in her life lead her into contact with both other tribes and with white men, her language changes accordingly, which was easier to follow, but also heartbreaking. This is not a happy story; it's full of beauty and poetry, but also full of pain as she is first kidnapped by a hostile tribe and then traded to a French Canadian when she is still a child. I admire what Earling has accomplished here, but I am not going to reread this one.½

A bright, observant Shoshone girl, Sacajewea is only nine when she's taken from her home, and must navigate a brutal world.

In a poetic rendering of a first-person journal, Earling reimagines Sacajewea's story, weaving in the few historical details of her life, and refuses to whitewash or gentle what must have been a really hard and frightening experiences. A difficult read at times, but well worth engaging.½

I wanted to like this book, but it was so much work to understand. I haven’t been so relieved to finish a book in a long time.
The book is written as if in a dream state, trying, I assume, to present the state of consciousness of a young Native American woman of that era. Events are described obliquely, and occasionally poetically, but almost never directly. Whether characters had died or lived became a point of confusion for me at times.
I was so mentally invested in trying to follow the plot and keep track of the characters and mythologies that I no energy left for emotional connection.
It did leave me wanting to know more about Native American culture and the events and characters of the Lewis and Clark expedition, so the author stimulated my curiosity if not my admiration for her creative choices.½

A powerful prose poem of a book about Sacajewea's life with her people, coming of age as a captive, and going on the trial with Lewis and Clark.

Louise White Elk and Baptiste Yellow Knife, beautiful, strong and courageous lovers hell-bent on self-destruction. Both wanting only to survive brutality and prejudice.

This is a powerful novel of a young woman who grew up the hard way on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana. The story is not an easy one to read at times, but the writing is lyrical. I enjoyed the book particularly because I have been to all the places where it takes place.

Perma Red takes place in the 1940s on a Wyoming Indian Reservation where ancient customs prevail and old secrets hang heavy. Louise White Elk is a contradictory girl. Independent yet needy. Brave yet frightened. An orphan with family. Louise is also has attention of many men. The list of attendees is long: trouble maker Baptiste Yellow Knife; cousin Charlie Kicking Woman (Perma's Tribal police officer); rich man Harvey Stoner; and mystery man Jules Bart. They all want something from her whether it be under the guise to own her or protect her. They all end up using her or abusing her. At one time or another they all get their way. It is a ruthless existence. Yet, Louise welcomes it in her own strange way. She perpetuates the vicious cycle of running away at the same time as being drawn to violent and needy men. What keeps Perma Red magical is its descriptive language. The landscape is as wild and as beautiful as untamed Louise White Elk.½

A truly beautiful tormentingly sad novel. I loved it even in all it's sorrow. Louise is such a finely drawn character with strength from within that even she doesn't completely understand. This novel took me in and broke my heart - and then gave me hope. Highly recommended.½

This book is real sad, coming from me that's saying something, and only becomes hopeful at the tail-end, which winds up feeling saccharine and contrived. The author has crafted some beautiful sentences, but there is a lack of character development that really hurts the book as whole.

Lyrical, haunting, brutal. I couldn't read it fast enough or bring myself to put it down right away when I finished.½

it's really fascinating to read a book and be able to relate to it cause you know someone who has that name or you drive through this town on the way to the city, or you have lost someone you love to the same river and circumstance. I really enjoyed this book.

depressing, hopeless, confusing at times. Good character development

Debra Magpie Earling’s debut novel Perma Red is something of a miracle. The University of Montana creative writing professor began writing it in 1984 and, over the years, it has gone through at least nine different rewrites, trimmed from an epic-length 800 pages to a compact 288, been burned to a crisp in a house fire, and rejected by publishers who loved the writing but thought the original ending too dark and brutal.

Through it all, Earling persevered and the novel stands as a testament to her faith and patience. Perma Red wears the two decades of hard work on the sleeve of its dust jacket. I mean that as the sincerest compliment. Like the finest of wines, Perma Red’s vintage has reached the peak of perfection with a lyricism that makes most other books on the average bookstore’s New Release table look like cheap bottles of Mogen-David.

Taken at face value, there’s really nothing extraordinary about Perma Red’s plot. A sixteen-year-old girl, Louise White Elk, struggles to escape life on the Flathead Indian Reservation as she is caught in a tug-of-war between the men who love her: the volatile-tempered Baptiste Yellow Knife, the rich white man Harvey Stoner, and the soulful reservation police officer Charlie Kicking Horse. Fans of James Welch, Louise Erdrich and Sherman Alexie will undoubtedly hear echoes of those authors on these pages.

What makes Earling’s novel such a stellar piece of literature—the closest thing approaching a masterpiece I’ve read in recent years—is the way she gets the reader involved in the characters on the page. These are not mere pulp-and-ink creations—they are real people who continue to haunt me even now, nearly a week after finishing the book. When I reached the last page, it was a heart-wrenching moment as I knew I’d have to say goodbye to Louise, Baptiste and Charlie Kicking Woman.

Imagine, then, the emotional journey Earling must have taken when writing Perma Red. Complicating matters is the fact that Louise is based in part on Earling’s aunt who was murdered when she was 23. Earling has transformed her family history, the legendary story of an aunt who was “wild and vivacious and sexy,â€? into literature with universal appeal and which subtly comments on strained race relations.

Subtlety limns every page of the novel. Perma Red is set in the 1940s, yet it has a timeless aura; it is about Native Americans, but the characters could be anyone caught in the net of a love triangle; it takes place in Montana, yet you could substitute the American South or New England and it would have the same impact. Earling’s simple, graceful way with words creates a world where we can all find some part of ourselves on the page.

From the first sentence—When Louise White Elk was nine, Baptiste Yellow Knife blew a fine powder in her face and told her she would disappear—Earling draws us into the complex relationship between strong-willed Louise and the reservation’s bad boy Baptiste, a rattlesnake-deadly Heathcliff. Try as she might, Louise is unable to resist his dark pull:

When Baptiste Yellow Knife got drunk he was mean. His teeth looked big. She noticed he had tattooed her name on his hand with indigo pen ink. The tattoo was large, in wide block letters, blue pigment staining his skin forever with her name. Louise tried to imagine Baptiste poking the ink-dipped needle into his brown hand again and again, ink pooling beneath his skin, her name sinking into his blood.

Louise longs to escape not only Baptiste, but the reservation and the harsh Catholic schoolteachers, the “bad medicineâ€? cast on her family by Baptiste’s mother, the barren, snake-haunted landscape and the ever-present undercurrent of violence. In the course of the novel, Louise is always in motion—literally and figuratively. She is running away from herself, but what is she running toward?

If Charlie Kicking Woman had his way, she’d be running straight into his arms. As tribal police officer, he is always on the lookout for Louise, a habitual truant from school. Charlie and Louise do a ritualistic dance of pursuit-capture-pursuit-capture, and even though his attraction to the teenager threatens to destroy his marriage, he can’t keep his mind, or his eyes, off her. Some people just seem to draw trouble and Louise is one of them, he tells us. Perma Red’s chapters shift points of view between Charlie in the first person and Louise and Baptiste in the third—as such, we’re drawn most intimately into Charlie’s mind.

Lives are tangled, tension mounts, characters die tragically and the land-scouring Montana wind continues to blow. Perma Red climaxes on a note which most readers will probably see coming for many pages, but yet it is a note which is ultimately satisfying—right down to the last, simple sentence: She stepped forward.

With Perma Red, Debra Magpie Earling finally steps forward after two decades and delivers a book as permanently beautiful as the Montana landscape itself. To paraphrase another Big Sky writer, Norman Maclean, I am haunted by words.½