Skip to main content

Dancing with Words

For interesting reasons I will not go into right now, I am currently rereading Dances With Wolves, the inspired novel behind the 1991 Academy Award winning film. I have just glanced once more over the words of the first page, and I cannot quite explain my feelings. This is the first book I am reading in this new year, and I feel blessed by it. It reads like something I would have encountered in my days as a creative writing student. It is a lesson in how to do this craft we call writing. It is beautiful.

The 20th Anniversary Blu-Ray of the film Dances With Wolves comes out in a few days, and I have a number of reasons for hoping that this book garners new and due attention. But foremost among those reasons are the simple facts that this book is beautiful, that it is a precious and honored representation of our Native American forebears, and that those who read it do not walk away unchanged. Thank you, Michael Blake. We still remember you.

Comments

  1. I think I was a wreck last time I watched that movie, which means that the book is probably a hundred times better. I'll put it on my list! And I love that you love it; I wouldn't have guessed.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It is just beautifully written. Very simple and honorable.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Can someone please explain why my Quicktime isn't working? Anyone with prophetic awareness of my little Atlas, none so old but recently behaving so?
because you were all wondering what I'm writing my dissertation on, here's a brief synopsis of my 'research context': When James Macpherson published his Fragments of Ancient Poetry in 1760, he went to great lengths to make the Fragments appear to be authentic remains of an ancient, heroic oral tradition. His reasons for this were largely political, and as such, influenced the content of the epics themselves. As an attempt to establish a particularly Scottish identity, the poems were quite effective. However, to do so required both a simplification and a manipulation of traditional mythology. Stripped of anagogical significance, the Ossian epics more or less represented an Enlightenment version of history, tradition, and mythic heritage. The stories themselves were changed by their very purpose and in turn changed the manner of representing myth in future narratives. Moreover, the emphasis on the Ossian epics as authentic tales from the past, as ‘fragments,’ served...
I just finished Shiver , by Maggie Stiefvater, the other day. From the first few chapters, I had every reason to expect this book to rival the other dark-teen-romance novels recently released (you know which ones I mean). And in a way, it did. There was nothing obnoxious about this book. The characters were mostly believable and endearing. The story was subtle and simple. Maybe a little too simple. At times, maybe a little too subtle. The best chapters were the ones from Sam's point of view, when he's a wolf. That doesn't take up a whole lot of the story, unfortunately. I mean, it would seriously hamper the progression of the plot if he was a wolf for much more of the time, but the writing was still at its best then. Perhaps because it seemed that the poetic, lyrical passages were justified. I like Rilke just fine, and I know plenty of people who compose song lyrics in their heads, but Sam as a human was just maybe a little too emo for me. It could just be that I'm almo...