Riding the White Horse Home

 

Riding the White Horse Home: A Western Family Album by Teresa Jordan
Nonfiction - Memoir
1993 
Finished on January 26, 2024

First read on March 4, 1997

New Rating for 2024: 3/5 (Good)
Original Rating for 1997: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

"A haunting and elegant memoir, evoking the ghosts of... family and those spirits inherent in the landscape.... Riding the White Horse Home becomes the story of us all. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

In 1887 Teresa Jordan's great-grandfather bought a ranch in the Iron Mountain country of southeast Wyoming. Four generations later her father sold it, under the economic pressures that have made ranching a dying way of life. This superbly evocative book is at once Teresa Jordan's family chronicle and a eulogy for the West her people helped shape.

Riding the White Horse Home is about generations of women who coped with physical hardship and killing loneliness in a landscape at once beautiful and inhospitable. It is a book of practical information--how to keep a cold from shying; how to tell when a cow is about to calf--conveyed with such precision that reading it is like a fast gallop across the prairie. Teresa Jordan has made a gift of her heritage--and has taught us something about our own.    

My Original Notes (1997):

Marvelous! I love this book. Makes me want to write my own memoirs. I identified with so much of the author's views and feelings. Very sad in places - brought tears to my eyes, yet also humorous. Great look at life on a cattle ranch in contemporary time. Insightful. Touching. Spellbinding.

My Thoughts in 2017 (for my Looking Back post):

Yes, I still own a copy of this wonderful memoir and plan to read it again. I read it for my Great Plains Lit class, many years ago, but still remember how much I enjoyed it. Flipping through my copy, I see a lot of underlined passages and notes jotted down on the pages... far too many to share here, but this particular passage caught my eye and I think it speaks to the author's love of the land she grew up on:

When my family tells the story of the ranch, we say we left because we had to--we could not afford to pay the estate taxes after my grandfather's death. This is true, but it is only part of the story. My family left the land because for four generations we had yearned to leave. We had lived in a culture that taught us that a professional life is more respectable than one tied to the land. This attitude shaped the decisions my family made, and it continues to shape the larger political and economic decisions, made by educators and policymakers far removed from the land, that affect the few who still hold on.

My sadness over the loss of the homeplace is my dark side, my grief, but it is also the source of my deepest knowledge. Perhaps it is only through this experience of loss that I can value a sense of place, that I can question how thoughtlessly--even how contemptuously--we are taught to cast it aside.

I'm willing to bet that none of you have heard of Teresa Jordan or this book. If you enjoy memoirs or novels such as A River Runs Through It (Norman Maclean), Dancing at the Rascal Farm (Ivan Doig) or All the Pretty Horses (Cormac McCarthy), this is sure to be one you will love. I'm so happy to see that it's still available for purchase 

Update in 2024: 

After blogging about this book in 2017, I finally made time to re-read it this past month. I wish I could say that I loved it as much as I did in 1997, but I didn't. I enjoyed revisiting Jordan's memoir, and I didn't skim the familiar passages, but it didn't strike me as a great book this time around.

Snow doesn't melt, people say, it just wears out. Someone who asked if the wind ever quits is likely to be told that it does, long enough to change directions. I once ran across a list of nearly four hundred winds from around the world and wondered why Wyoming, so dominated by wind, has so few names for its variations. The only one that came to mind was chinook. "I can think of a few more," our neighbor, Wayne Bonham, suggested. "There's the wind, the damned wind, and the goddamned wind." 

Looking Back - Their Fathers' God

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Their Father's God by O.E. Rolvaag
Fiction
1983 Bison Books (first published in 1931)
Finished in September 1997
Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

Susie Doheny, an Irish Catholic, and Peder Holm, a Norwegian Lutheran, fall in love and marry in South Dakota in the 1890s. Soon their marriage is tested by drought, depression, and family bickering. Susie believes they are being tested by their fathers' God. Peder blames Susie for the timidity of her beliefs; Susie fears Peder's pride and skepticism. When political antagonism grows between the Norwegian and Irish immigrant communities, it threatens to split their marriage.

Against a backdrop of hard times, crisscrossed by Populists, antimonopolists, and schemers, Rölvaag brings the struggle of immigrants into the twentieth century. In Giants in the Earth the Holm family strained to wrest a homestead from the land. In Peder Victorious the American-born children searched for a new national identity, often defying the traditions their parents fought to uphold. In Their Fathers' God, Rölvaag's most soul-searching novel, the first-generation americans enter a world of ruthless competition in the midst of scarcity.

My Original Notes (1997):

OK, but not as good as Giants in the Earth. Rolvaag spent the entire book showing his readers how the conflict of an interfaith marriage can lead to destruction of that marriage. It was the Irish Catholic vs. Lutherans. Constant problems arose between the couple and they acted so juvenile throughout their marriage. I found the book boring and tiresome.

My Current Thoughts:

I must have been bound and determined to try the third in this series, in spite of not enjoying Peder Victorious (#2) as much as Giants in the Earth (#1).

Looking Back - Peder Victorious

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Peder Victorious by O.E. Rolvaag
Fiction
1982 Bison Books (first published in 1929)
Finished in May 1997
Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Peder Victorious, the sequel to Rölvaag's massive Giants in the Earth, continues the saga of the Norwegian settlers in the Dakotas. Here again, years later, are all the sturdy pioneers of the earlier novel, Rölvaag's "vikings of the prairie"—Per Hansa's Beret and their children, Syvert Tönseten and Kjersti, and Sörine. The great struggle against the land itself has been won. Now there is to be a second struggle, a struggle to adapt, to become Americans.The development of the Spring Creek settlement in these years is manifested in the rebellious growing up of Peder Victorious. Peder is a beautiful and moving novel of youth and youth's self-discovery. It is the story, too, of Beret's pain and dismay at the Americanization of her children, what Rölvaag described as the true tragedy of the immigrants, who made their children part of a world to which they themselves could never belong.Out of the inevitable conflict between the first-generation American and his still Norwegian mother, Rölvaag built a powerful novel of personal growth, guilt, and victory.

My Original Notes (1997):

Good, but not great. Certainly not as good as Giants in the Earth. The novel ran hot and cold for me. Some parts didn't hold my interest at all (too much religion?) and others did so much that I couldn't put it down. Interesting sections involving the loss of native language (Beret vs. children and the church)

My Current Thoughts:

I still plan to someday reread Giants in the Earth, but sadly this follow-up holds no interest to me.

Looking Back - O Pioneers!

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
Fiction
1988 Houghton Mifflin Company (first published in 1913)
Finished on May 5, 1997
Rating: 4.5/5 (Excellent)

Publisher's Blurb:

In O Pioneers!, Willa Cather introduces Alexandra Bergson, the daughter of Swedish immigrant farmers, whose devotion to the land sustains her against the hardships and suffering of prairie life. With Alexandra, Willa Cather created the model for a series of remarkable, spirited heroines. This vivid portrait of the American frontier reveals Cather's powerful themes as it enthralls new generations of readers.

Willa Cather was born in 1873 in Virginia, but at the age of nine, she moved with her family to Nebraska; this landscape later provided her with the setting for many of her finest stories. After graduating from the University of Nebraska she worked as a journalist, a teacher, and as an editor at McClure's magazine, until deciding to write full-time. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Willa Cather is the author of more than fifteen books, including My Antonia and The Song of the Lark.

My Original Notes (1997):

Excellent! A great novel. Similar in some ways to My Antonia. I felt strongly connected to the characters and didn't want the story to end. Beautiful descriptions of the landscape as in My Antonia. Grabbed my attention from the very start.

My Current Thoughts:

As I recall, I wound up liking this novel better than My Antonia. I wish I had taken more detailed notes in my reading journal because now I only have a slight recollection of the plot and cast of characters. I guess it's time to read it again.

Looking Back - Alexander's Bridge

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather
Fiction
1977 University of Nebraska Press (first published in 1912)
Finished in April 1997
Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Bartley Alexander, an engineer famous for the audacious structure of his North American bridges, is at the height of his reputation. He has a distinguished and beautiful wife and an enviable Boston home. Then, on a trip to London, he has a chance encounter with an Irish actress he once loved. When their affair re–ignites, Alexander finds himself caught in a tug of emotions — between his feelings for his wife, who has supported his career with understanding and strength, and Hilda, whose impulsiveness and generosity restore to him the passion and energy of his youth. Coinciding with this personal dilemma are ominous signs of strain in his professional life. In this, her first novel, originally published in 1912, Willa Cather skillfully explores the struggle between opposing sides of the self, a facility that was to become a hallmark of her craft. 


My Original Notes (1997):

Cather's first published novel. Good, but not as good as My Antonia or Death Comes For the Archbishop. The characters weren't as developed. The lyrical and beautiful descriptions of the landscape weren't as prevalent. A good book, but not great.

My Current Thoughts:

I only have a vague recollection of this novel and I no longer own a copy, so it's not one that I envisioned re-reading.

Looking Back - Death Comes For the Archbishop

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Death Comes For the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Fiction
1990 Vintage Classics (first published in 1927)
Finished in April 1997
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

There is something epic--and almost mythic--about this sparsely beautiful novel by Willa Cather, although the story it tells is that of a single human life, lived simply in the silence of the desert. In 1851 Father Jean Marie Latour comes as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. What he finds is a vast territory of red hills and tortuous arroyos, American by law but Mexican and Indian in custom and belief. In the almost forty years that follow, Latour spreads his faith in the only way he knows--gently, although he must contend with an unforgiving landscape, derelict and sometimes openly rebellious priests, and his own loneliness. Out of these events Cather gives us an indelible vision of life unfolding in a place where time itself seems suspended.

My Original Notes (1997):

Another beautifully written novel by Cather! Very different from My Antonia, but just as good. Now I want to go to New Mexico and see the Cathedral in Santa Fe and the Mission at Acoma. The landscape Cather describes so well sounds lovely.

Wonderful characters. Eloquently described.

My Current Thoughts:

This is another novel of Cather's that I'd like to reread. Flipping through my copy I see lots of highlighted passages, most of which pertain to the landscape. It took me 16 years, but I eventually got to New Mexico and saw the Cathedral in Santa Fe. It was just as impressive as I had imagined.

I had no doubt that I would fall in love with the New Mexico landscape, but it was the sky that impressed me the most. I couldn't get enough of the clouds!

The ride back to Santa Fe was something under four hundred miles. The weather alternated between blinding sand-storms and brilliant sunlight. The sky was as full of motion and change as the desert beneath it was monotonous and still,--and there was so much sky, more than at sea, more than anywhere else in the world. The plain was there, under one's feet, but what one saw when one looked about was that brilliant blue world of stinging air and moving cloud. Even the mountains were mere ant-hills under it. Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky. The landscape one longed for when one was far away, the thing all about one, the world one actually lived in, was the sky, the sky!

Now that we have our travel trailer, it might be time for another visit to New Mexico.

Looking Back - Medicine River

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Medicine River by Thomas King
Fiction
1996 Penguin Canada (first published in 1990)
Finished in April 1997
Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

When Will returns to Medicine River, he thinks he is simply attending his mother's funeral. He doesn't count on Harlen Bigbear and his unique brand of community planning. Harlen tries to sell Will on the idea of returning to Medicine River to open shop as the town's only Native photographer. Somehow, that's exactly what happens. Through Will's gentle and humorous narrative, we come to know Medicine River, a small Albertan town bordering a Blackfoot reserve. And we meet its people: the basketball team; Louise Heavyman and her daughter, South Wing; Martha Oldcrow, the marriage doctor; Joe Bigbear, Harlen's world-travelling, storytelling brother; Bertha Morley, who has a short fling with a Calgary dating service; and David Plume, who went to Wounded Knee. At the centre of it all is Harlen, advising and pestering, annoying and entertaining, gossiping and benevolently interfering in the lives of his friends and neighbours.

My Original Notes (1997):

Very funny. Would make a great movie! A novel about a community in Canada (Alberta) and the Native Americans living there (contemporary time period). Harlan Bigbear is a wonderful "coyote" figure.

My Current Thoughts:

I only vaguely remember this novel, but I do remember that it made me laugh out loud. I read it for a Great Plains Lit. class that I was taking at UNL.

Looking Back - Leaving the Land

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Leaving the Land by Douglas Unger
Fiction
1995 University of Nebraska Press
Finished in March 1997
Rating: 1/5 (Poor)

Publisher's Blurb:

The reputation of Leaving the Land has grown steadily since its first publication in 1984. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Robert F. Kennedy Award and was an ALA Notable book in 1984.

Not much of a description, and I no longer own the book, so here is some praise from the author's website:

Douglas Unger writes with great power and compassion about a unique, virtually undiscovered landscape in American literature. Leaving the Land is an authentic and deeply moving drama of people trying to hold on and go on. It’s a remarkable novel and one that will leave an indelible impression. —Raymond Carver 

This is the story of a remarkable survivor, the daughter of a turkey farmer, whose shattering, romantic entanglements are always doomed by her larger obsession: to hold on to the unlovable land which sapped her parents’ blood. Leaving the Land is, as well, the story of the disintegration of a town and its unforgettable inhabitants, and of the son who is the unwilling inheritor of his family’s lost dream. All of this is distilled with enormous grace and passion, humor and economy, and marks the most impressive debut of a young novelist. —John Irving

Douglas Unger understands why the pure products of America go crazy, or to prayer, and details the heartbroke comedy of their journey in South Dakota. Sherwood Anderson, Faulkner, Wright Morris…Leaving the Land continues their tradition, and leaks rough authenticity and humor from every wound. —William Kittredge 

Leaving the Land resembles the best work of Zola, Norris and Dreiser. Like it, this novel rises out of the knowledge of a vast process which is measured and made significant by the characters forming and formed by it. Almost everything they do has in Unger’s book apocalyptic force. —Richard Stern

Eloquent… At its best, this fine first novel courts comparison with Willa Cather’s classic and epic account of homesteading on the Western prairies, O Pioneers!. In language as luminous and rhythmic as the opening of The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence. —The New York Times Book Review 

An affecting family story… A lot of true grit sifts through his pages… Unger obviously writes about what he knows: the coarse prairie soil called gumbo, the papery texture of clapboard in the last stages of dry rot, the astonishing stupidity of turkeys… Unger also understands what writers like Eudora Welty have learned, that the trick is to write what you don’t know about what you know. He intuits a generous range of emotions and draws stark credibility from the toppled rage of defeated men and lonely women. —Time

Accomplished… unsentimental… very moving… Unger's portrait of Marge… is sharp, affectionate and darkly funny… A fine work of personal and national history about a critical part of our national character thatπs become an artifact. —Newsday

My Original Notes (1997):

I didn't like this book at all. The author doesn't seem as polished as Willa Cather, Theresa Jordan, or even, Hope Williams Sykes. Depressing themes throughout the book without any redeeming qualities. I didn't connect with any of the characters. Didn't really want to finish the book, but I did. A couple of funny parts, but very few.

My Current Thoughts:

I read this for my Great Plains Lit. class and would have quit early on if it weren't an assigned reading. After 20 years, I have zero recollection of the novel.

Looking Back - Riding the White Horse Home

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Riding the White Horse Home: A Western Family Album by Teresa Jordan
Memoir
1993 Vintage Departures
Finished on March 4, 1997
Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

"A haunting and elegant memoir, evoking the ghosts of... family and those spirits inherent in the landscape.... Riding the White Horse Home becomes the story of us all. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

In 1887 Teresa Jordan's great-grandfather bought a ranch in the Iron Mountain country of southeast Wyoming. Four generations later her father sold it, under the economic pressures that have made ranching a dying way of life. This superbly evocative book is at once Teresa Jordan's family chronicle and a eulogy for the West her people helped shape.

Riding the White Horse Home is about generations of women who coped with physical hardship and killing loneliness in a landscape at once beautiful and inhospitable. It is a book of practical information--how to keep a cold from shying; how to tell when a cow is about to calf--conveyed with such precision that reading it is like a fast gallop across the prairie. Teresa Jordan has made a gift of her heritage--and has taught us something about our own.    

My Original Notes (1997):

Marvelous! I love this book. Makes me want to write my own memoirs. I identified with so much of the author's views and feelings. Very sad in places - brought tears to my eyes, yet also humorous. Great look at life on a cattle ranch in contemporary time. Insightful. Touching. Spellbinding.

My Current Thoughts:

Yes, I still own a copy of this wonderful memoir and plan to read it again. I read it for my Great Plains Lit class, many years ago, but still remember how much I enjoyed it. Flipping through my copy, I see a lot of underlined passages and notes jotted down on the pages... far too many to share here, but this particular passage caught my eye and I think it speaks to the author's love of the land she grew up on:

When my family tells the story of the ranch, we say we left because we had to--we could not afford to pay the estate taxes after my grandfather's death. This is true, but it is only part of the story. My family left the land because for four generations we had yearned to leave. We had lived in a culture that taught us that a professional life is more respectable than one tied to the land. This attitude shaped the decisions my family made, and it continues to shape the larger political and economic decisions, made by educators and policymakers far removed from the land, that affect the few who still hold on.

My sadness over the loss of the homeplace is my dark side, my grief, but it is also the source of my deepest knowledge. Perhaps it is only through this experience of loss that I can value a sense of place, that I can question how thoughtlessly--even how contemptuously--we are taught to cast it aside.

I'm willing to bet that none of you have heard of Teresa Jordan or this book. If you enjoy memoirs or novels such as A River Runs Through It (Norman Maclean), Dancing at the Rascal Farm (Ivan Doig) or All the Pretty Horses (Cormac McCarthy), this is sure to be one you will love. I'm so happy to see that it's still available for purchase.

Looking Back - Second Hoeing

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Second Hoeing by Hope Williams Sykes
Fiction
1982 University of Nebraska Press (first published in 1935)
Finished on March 1, 1997
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

"Papa’ll work her till she drops in the field!" The backbreaking labor of German-Russian immigrants in the sugar beet fields of Colorado is described with acute perception in Hope Sykes's Second Hoeing. First published in 1935, the novel was greeted in all quarters as an impressive and authoritative evocation of these recent immigrants and their struggle to realize the promise of their chosen country.


My Original Notes (1997):

Very good, yet depressing and bleak. Somewhat predictable. Not a great artistic author, although a gripping story. Good look at German-Russian history in Colorado.

My Current Thoughts:

I only have a vague recollection of this book, but I do remember comparing it to My Antonia, feeling a little less impressed than I had been with Willa Cather's prose. Cather's novels are full of beautiful images and Sykes' novel, while informative and gripping, didn't evoke the same sense of creative drama as Cather's. I no longer own the book and have no inclination to read it again.

Looking Back - My Antonia

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

My Antonia by Willa Cather
Great Plains Trilogy #3
Fiction
1995 Houghton Mifflin (First Published in 1918)
Finished on February 21, 1997
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

An enduring literary masterpiece first published in 1918, this hauntingly eloquent classic is an inspiring reminder of the rich past we have inherited. Willa Cather's lustrous prose, infused of the immigrant pioneer woman on the Nebraska plains, while etching a deeply moving portrait of an entire community. As Jim Burden revisits his childhood friendship with the free-spirited Antonia Shimerda, we come to understand the sheer fortitude of homesteaders on the prairie, the steadfast bonds cultivated there, and the abiding memories that such vast expanses inspire. Holding the pastoral society's heart, of course, is the bewitching Antonia, whose unfailing industry and infectious enthusiasm for life exemplify the triumphant vitality of an era.

Kathleen Norris says in her forward that My Antonia is in many ways "a perfect evocation of childhood," guided by a remarkable friendship. Willa Cather has wondrously captured a measure of our collective youth, and her classic remains an ode to the pioneering soul and the romantic possibilities of the land.

My Original Notes (1997):

What a beautifully written book. My very first Cather and I enjoyed it so much, I bought a bunch more by her to read this summer. (Also, a couple of biographies.)

I was a little disappointed when I first began reading the book, because it seemed so simplistic. As I got further into the novel, I realized how eloquent Cather wrote. It's basically a plotless novel, yet rich in description of the characters and the beauty of the land.

Lots of symbolism & imagery. 

My Current Thoughts:

Like most high school students of the 70s, I read authors such as Hawthorne, London, Austin, Bronte, Steinbeck and Melville. It wasn't until I moved to Nebraska in the early 90s that I even heard of Willa Cather, let alone read one of her famous novels. Again, thanks to a wonderful reading list in my Great Plains Lit class at the university, I was introduced to My Antonia, which I have since read a second time. I have also read O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark, which complete this Great Plains trilogy. 

As I thumb through my copy of My Antonia, I find myself reading the highlighted passages and notations from my first encounter with the novel, eager to make time to read the book a third time.

If you've read any of Cather's novels and find yourself in Nebraska, do make time for a visit to Red Cloud. I went for a Cather symposium many years ago and loved seeing so many of the landmarks mentioned in My Antonia. You can view several wonderful video clips by clicking here. 

My husband and I have now lived in Nebraska for almost 25 years. These are just a few of the photographs I've taken of the wide open sky and prairie.

Looking Back - Bless Me, Ultima

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
Fiction
1972 TQS Publications
Finished on February 10, 1997
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Stories filled with wonder and the haunting beauty of his culture have helped make Rudolfo Anaya the father of Chicano literature in English, and his tales fairly shimmer with the lyric richness of his prose. Acclaimed in both Spanish and English, Anaya is perhaps best loved for his classic bestseller ... Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima comes to stay with his family in New Mexico. She is a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic. Under her wise wing, Tony will test the bonds that tie him to his people, and discover himself in the pagan past, in his father's wisdom, and in his mother's Catholicism. And at each life turn there is Ultima, who delivered Tony into the world-and will nurture the birth of his soul.

My Original Notes (1997):

Another book assigned in my Plains Lit. Class. Very good! A story of a seven-year-old Chicano boy growing up in New Mexico around 1945. Very interesting look at the devotion of Catholicism blended with pagen mysticism. Suspenseful. Sad. Beautifully written. Lyrical. I'm ready to read more of Anaya's works, such as Tortuga and a collection of short stories. Beautiful descriptions of the llano and nature in New Mexico.

My Current Thoughts:

I remember how much I loved reading and studying this novel for my Great Plains Literature course at the university. It was my first exposure to magical realism and I was spellbound! Thumbing through my copy, I have to chuckle at all the notations and underlined passages. I was such an eager student, wanting to understand everything about this book--the symbolism, biblical imagery, and the legends and superstitions of Antonio's people. There are a lot of untranslated Spanish words and phrases, which required careful translation, but now that I have those noted in the margins, reading it a second time shouldn't be too difficult. This is definitely a book I will read again!

Looking Back - The Way to Rainy Mountain

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday
Fiction
1976 by Turtleback Books (first published 1969)
Finished on February 2, 1997
Rating: 3/5 (Good)

From Wikipedia:

The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969) is a book by Pulitzer Prize winning author N. Scott Momaday. It is about the journey of Momaday's Kiowa ancestors from their ancient beginnings in the Montana area to their final war and surrender to the United States Cavalry at Fort Sill, and subsequent resettlement near Rainy Mountain, Oklahoma.

The Way to Rainy Mountain, a unique blend of history, folklore, and poetic memoir, was published in 1969. It takes the reader through author N. Scott Momaday’s own journey of discovering his Kiowa background and identity. The journey is told in three separate voices: The first voice, the ancestral voice, tells about the Kiowa by using oral traditions and myths; the second voice is a historical commentary; and finally, the third voice is Momaday’s poetic memoir of his experiences. All three voices together teach about the Kiowa’s origin, beliefs, traditions, morals, and conflicts. Not only does the journey recounted in this book help Momaday better understand his ancestry, it also teaches about the Kiowa tribe’s history. The uniqueness of this text, however, has been an issue for some readers; they claim it is confusing to follow and discombobulating. Others find it easier to understand by reading each individual voice consecutively instead of alternating from one voice to another as the book is written. The Way to Rainy Mountain continues to be an entry point to Kiowa history and a way to open discussions about what constitutes any history of a people.


My Original Notes (1997):

Very interesting. Quite different. A 3 part narrative about the Kiowa Indians. One part was legend or folklore. Another part was history or factual. The third part was the author's memories or thoughts. I read this book for my Plains Lit. class. Actually, I read it about 4 times (it's quite short) and got more out of it each time.

My Current Thoughts:

We spent quite a bit of time in my Great Plains Literature class studying the Kiowa Indians. I wound up giving my oral presentation on the Kiowa and as I mentioned above, I read The Way to Rainy Mountain several times, partly to gather information for my presentation, but mainly to make sense of the unique narrative. I no longer own a copy of the book, but I know it's still available and will have to take a look at it at work one of these days.