NYSSD: "What You Pawn, I Will Redeem"

Just read it. Beautiful!

What You Pawn...
I wish I could properly characterize this story.

It seems to present an Indian civilization decimated, devalued, and essentially trashed by the dominant white culture. However, the Indians in the story seem to fatalistically accept that they are engulfed by that white culture but remain indifferent to it.

One way of dealing with their lot is to fall back on a tradition of kindness and sharing among themselves, which ironically, sometimes seems to drive them into a deeper despair and alienation, but, mysteriously, sometimes their faith in the goodness of each other and in the goodness of many people in the white culture results in spiritual reward.

The story is beautifully told, and many attitudes are on display that are completely foreign to the ordinary white person's way of thinking.

Sozobe, I recall from the Louise Erdrich story that you seemed to have read more deeply in the Native American genre. I hope you will have some comment on this story.

I will! Happy to see you here.

Briefly, and I will come back:

Yes, this is really an interesting story in the context of our previous discussion. Sherman Alexie is one of my favorite modern Native American authors, and so a lot of what I was saying was based on stories and novels of his that I have read. (Can I just say I LOVE the New Yorker?!! T.C. Boyle and Sherman Alexie are both faves of mine.)

Anyway, what I really like about Sherman Alexie is how he dispenses with the romantic myth of the American Indian while keeping a low-key fanastical element. The Aleuts, for example, who may have walked on water or may have drowned.

I adore this part:



A lot of Alexie's stories are about this, the stubborn, perverse humor in the face of decidedly un-funny circumstances. And I appreciate the humor itself. Jackson Jackson is a great character.

I wondered briefly if I thought it was a cop-out to have him get his grandmother's regalia at the end, but no, I like it. I like that Jackson wasn't Noble (cap N), he was just a romantic. I like that he takes responsibility for his sorry circumstances, doesn't expect that he has anything coming to him, squanders his opportunities when he gets them. (If he actually had the wherewithal to come up with that money, would he be homeless? No. The way he used the money that came to him made perfect sense within the context of the story.)

I have a particular fondness for storytellers that transport me to the Other -- other places, other ways of thinking, other ways of talking, etc. This is part of why I love Salman Rushdie so much. That's also why I love Sherman Alexie -- I don't have enough firsthand experience to know if what he is saying is the Truth, but I sure buy it.

The Other
As it did for you, this story also transported me into the Other. Alexie did it in such a way that Jackson's actions and decisions began to seem natural to me, even though they were so different from anything I would do.

I am now reading "Enemies, a Love Story" by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Here is another trip into the Other. It's about Jewish immigrants in New York who have been through the camps and the Nazi genocide. It is one of the most amazing descriptions I've ever read about people who are living in a state of internal horror and dislocation. Singer is a master of displaying all their quirky ways of hiding themselves from God knows what. They seem to have an incredible longing to belong and yet to have a sense of detachment and isolation from everyone, even those close to themselves. This is a wonderful novel.

I have rean none of Rushdie's books, but have been following the A2K discussion.

Ya know, this context highlights why "Fury" was so subpar in my estimation, beyond how rushed it obviously was. Rushie doesn't KNOW New York the way he KNOWS Bombay, and so the transportation didn't work -- it didn't ring true.

Yeah, "Enemies, A Love Story" is great. I read it while quite young (like high school), but it made an outsized impression, and I would like to go back to it.