This dialectic underlies much of The Everlasting Sky. And even that trivial insight is not key to understanding or experiencing the dazzling Anishinabe voices under Vizenor's pen. Perhaps it is necessary to allow oneself to experience the pain in it, even vicariously, to progress to something like a starting point, or common ground. Then the elusive beauty that pervades the underlying cultural vision can perhaps be glimpsed or imagined.

Though it is difficult to understand those whom we have so badly hurt, it is not a punishment to read The Everlasting Sky. Rather, it is an experience of richness, like the final series of paintings of George Morrison, that work to "create a sense of that imagic moment when the water on the horizon of the lake merges with the sky (p. x)."

Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer

For students of Native American Literature puzzled by Gerald Vizenor, perhaps the most important--but often the most difficult--Native writer, Blaeser's book is long-awaited and highly recommended.

Blaeser shows how Vizenor's prose, oftentimes cryptic and fraught with neologisms, parallels influences that come from his interest in Chippewa oral tradition and haiku. She explains how Vizenor's concept of "word cinemas," for example, stimulates the reader into active thought. Vizenor's prose leaves a great deal unsaid and unfinished, and it is up to the reader to participate in the production of ideas Vizenor introduces.

Finally, Blaeser shows how Vizenor's prose is most effective in dismantling stereotypes regarding Native identity; by creating an active relationship with the reader, the reader's conception of "Indianness" becomes a dynamic, continually changing process, never static.

For a critical study of this type, Blaeser's book is well-written and not difficult reading. This study is highly recommended, and readers who are interested in Gerald Vizenor and Native American Literature and culture will find this book essential

'The Turn to the Native,' while it serves as a nice overview of major themes, especially post-Colonialism and the ideologies through which Westerners always tend to view Indian literature, concerns itself largely with Gerald Vizenor and his 'Heirs of Columbus' (two out of the four 'criticism' chapters are devoted to Vizenor, and a full one of them is devoted to 'Heirs.') Krupat identifies some of the Sartrian influences (and refutations thereof) in 'Heirs,' while placing the book squarely in the larger context of postcolonial literature and literary theory as a whole.

But the main theme of the book is IDENTITY, which he fully explores in the last (and byfar the longest) chapter, 'A Nice Jewish Boy Among the Indians.' While obstinately about the role of the non-Indian reader in general (and the non-Indian critic in particular) in exploring and reading Indian literature, it really serves as a model for later criticisms of Indian work (and, I'll admit, it helped me in my own journey into this subject far more than 'traditional' criticism ever did). Told in the form of a story (what else?), it tells Krupat's story as a Jewish-American immigrant and the offspring of Holocaust survivors, who share quite a bit in common with the Indians who, in their own way, are survivors of a different kind of Holocaust. From that basis, Krupat manages to make several statements about the role of non-Indian critics (shaky at best) and non-Indian readers (sorry, you just won't 'get' all of it). As a non-Indian, it was refreshing to read, and it helped me immensely in organizing my thoughts about Indian literature and my place as a 'twinkie' in it.

Essential reading for anyone doing scholarly work in Native American or Indian literature. Makes an excellent companion piece to 'The Heirs of Columbus.'

_Bearheart_ is a wild dystopian ride through the American heartland. Some unnamed natural disaster has deprived the United States of its petroleum reserves. Consequently, in order to meet the growing needs for wood fuels, the governmet has nationalized timber on Indian reservations. These actions lead to a chain of events that displace Proude Cedarfair, the guardian a certain cedar grove, from his ancestral lands. The reader journeys with Proude, picking up an assortment of pilgrims along the way, to Pueblo Bonito, New Mexico.

This work deserves to be read alongside classic satiric journeys from Western literature, such as Chaucer's _The Canterbury Tales_ and Voltaire's _Candide_.

When this book was first published, Jimmy Carter was President and the nation's dependance on foreign oil was stimulating new initiatives to drain natural resources from Indian reservations with as little benefit to the inhabitants as possible. Vizenor used this political context to craft a story that pokes fun at conventional ideas regarding tribal peoples, resource exploitation, and a lot more.

This book is a stream-of-consciousness novel, somewhat similar to "Almanac of the Dead" in style. There are many scenes that really are likely to make many readers wince. But, that said, I really laughed at many of the characters and situations depicted, particularly as the white people (who have managed to wreck their "part" of America) keep trying to steal onto the Native reservations. Yes, this could very well be the truth in a few years when we've turned the rest of the continent into a large open-pit-garbage-dump which we currently seem bent on.

The bottom line: highly recommended but likely to cause laughter that, if you are of European descent, will slowly fade to dismay as the true impact of history sinks in...

The story is told in an interesting surreal style, but the plot itself is a rather cliched American man meets Asian woman tragedy.

All in all this book remains a typical novel written in the Mid-80's when China bashing was in vogue and reading novels about it was a favorite assignment of college professors. It may have seemed original in it's day and may have contained some truth, but in 2001 it seems as stereotypical a depiction of PRC as much as older novels that depict China as a mysterious, exotic land with an inscrutable population that knows kungfu and ancient secrets.

The "action" centers around one Stone Columbus, Native American captain of the Santa Maria Casino. Every year, he and the other descendents of Columbus (who actually descended from Jewish Indians who immigrated to the 'Old' World) get together and tell tales, and what follows is the result. It would ruin the book to discuss it too much plot-wise, but it's Viezenor's constructs that really set "The Heirs of Columbus" apart.

Indian literature was the first to really mess around with notions of time, narrative, history, and place, all of which have become staples of the po-mo establishment (how's THAT for an oxymoron). Viezenor almost seems to thumb his nose at the anti-establishment that has now become the trendy establishment, tongue firmly in cheek, saying both that "we Indians thought of it FIRST" and "you don't do it RIGHT, let me show you HOW." It's a nice change of pace from the usual blah-blah that most po-mo writers seem to think anyone with a latte will lap up.

The only fault is that "Heirs of Columbus" references a LOT of things that those unfamiliar with Native American culture (indeed, most non-Indians) simply won't understand. Furthermore, Viezenor offers little to no explanation of what these things are, and almost taunts the non-Indian reader with the deluge of them. It violates one of the cardinal rules of literature - that you don't have to explain everything as you go, and that it should be, at least somewhat, universal no matter what culture the reader comes from. But that doesn't detract from the book's overall beauty and fun. If you're interested in Indian literature, "The Heirs of Columbus" is indispensable for your reading list and collection.