Love Medicine

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Summary: If you love sagas...
Review: What i liked best about _Love Medicine_ was the way the characters were portrayed: so very real. Other authors, when dealing with Native American culture, fall short on their attempts to integrate their characters' spirituality with daily life in a believable manner. Some advice: I read _The Beet Queen_ first, and i liked it better that way.

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Summary: Love Medicine brings the reader into the family circle.
Review: Love Medicine chronicals the relationships between two Chippewa tribe families in North Dakota. Over a 50 year period the lives of the members of these families are intertwined through love, hate, lust, greed, honor and tradition. Love Medicine is much more than a historic chronical of two families. In reading Love Medicine the reader is drawn into the lives of the families. There is much rich symbolism in the book, which seems even more fitting in the traditional Indian setting. Many questions are left unanswered in Love Medicine, questions that may or may not be answered in subsequent books. Love Medicine also had four additional chapters inserted ten years after it was first released. The additional chapters were strategically placed within the book. To understand their significance, one needs to read both editions of Love Medicine.

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Summary: Great multi-generational Indian family saga
Review: Many fascinating charcaters, and--in an effort to keep them straight--I have a done a simple "family tree" to show who's related to who. If anyone would like a copy, post a note with your review and I'll send one. ---MReynolds

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Summary: Enlightening, sensual, evocative. Romantic & realistic.
Review: Louise Erdrich's novel, Love Medicine covers a fifty year time span through the lives of several generations of North Dakota Indians. Many of the chapters appeared as short stories in publications such as The Best American Short Stories of 1993, New England Quarterly/Bread Loaf, and The O. Henry Collection. Louise Erdrich weaves the novel together in a masterful and intricately-beaded collage. Love Medicine is a vivid and sensually evocative account of communal Indian life, culture, and landscape. Characters in this novel experience glory, shame, romance, and tragedy. In traditional fashion, women bear and raise the young, bake the bread, gather and preserve the food, while the men hunt for game, hunt for women, and drink too much. For the most part, male-female stereotypes apply to Erdrich's characters, but there are some exceptions--June Kashpaw and Lulu Nanapush, to name a few. Louise Erdrich takes the reader into different characters's viewpoints within each chapter. As the novel unfolds, one sees the intertwinning, convoluted, and potentially dangerous relationships among the characters, families, and tribes. Some of their obstacles could be encountered by any character, but a lot of their problems stem from being Indians in white man's society. Erdrich, herself a North Dakota Chippewa descendant, does and outstanding job depicting Indian culture in untamed landscape. An authentic intimacy with the Indians permeates throughout the book. The reader feels the experience of gathering Juneberries alongside Grandma Kashpaw, feels the passion between Lulu Nanapush and Nector Kashpaw, and feels the heartaches and sturdy endurance of Marie Lazaar Kashpaw. The overall tone of this book in proportionate to the real-life predicament of the American Indian. While Erdrich captures the wholesome and honorable spirit of her people, the anger, sense of injustice, and the Indians's struggling attempts to cope with their plight, comes hurling across the page like a tomahawk in motion.s. Love Medicine offe

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Summary: Lyrical novel of American Indian life
Review: "Love Medicine" is a lyrical, unique novel of American Indians living, for the most part, on a reservation. Community life is not important to the novel, whereas individuals and family and the experience of nature and spirit are. While not long, "Love Medicine" follows many characters over many years, doing so by moving between time and character in each chapter, in a non-linear fashion. I understand the new edition of "Love Medicine" has 5 additional chapters, and a genealogy in the beginning. If you have the old version, make sure you construct your own genealogy as you work through the novel, in order to keep everyone straight. Love Medicine is definitely not a "feel good" novel, but I really wish Erdrich had not introduced King in the second chapter. He made that chapter on the family reunion more disheartening than it should have been, given the future development of the novel, as well as the reader's enjoyment.

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Summary: Read Nasdijj instead
Review: This book presents a poetic, emotional account of Native American life, but the shifts in voice give the book a disjointed feel. It is necessary to frequently refer repeatedly to the sometimes inadequate geneology at the beginning of the book. Another drawback is the sheer disbelievability as the second half of the book becomes a parade of tragic accidents, acts, and deaths.

The entire time I was reading this book, while it was an engaging, interesting, relatively light read, I was wishing that I was rereading Nasdijj's <u>The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams</u>, or <u>The Boy and the Dog are Sleeping</u>, or <u>Geronimo's Bones,</u> which I've not yet read. Nasdijj presents a factual symphony of life in, including that of Native Americans, in his memoirs, presenting some of the most gorgeous prose available from a living writer.

Anyone considering reading Love Medicine should take the opportunity to experience Nasdijj's measureless passion and priceless insight instead, or at least in addition to this novel.

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Summary: A Powerful portrayal of a Native American Experience
Review: "Love Medicine" is the lyrical tale of the Nanapush, Kashpaw and Lamartine families of Native Americans living on a reservation in the Dakotas. Each chapter peels at the layered relationships among the families and reveals how their lives intersect and extend to encompass all that is traditional and new in the Native Americans experience. Told from multiple points of view, the narrative is capable of transporting one to a place where truth, like fruit from the tree of life, hangs low for the picking. I saw myself and my culture represented in the stories of the Chippewa. "Love Medicine" is tragic and triumphant, magical and inspiring. The novel's exquisite symbolism is drawn in succinct prose that pulsates with the vibrancy of the characters and culture. This was a great read recommended by a cousin in high school who didn't quite like the story. After reading the novel I can understand my cousin's lukewarm response to the text, for our family's - the African American family's - experience seems inextricably tied to that of the Native Americans depicted in the novel. I found it particularly interesting how the effects of oppression are the same regardless of the group of people being oppressed. Having that experience rendered with such clarity and unflinching honesty can be a lot to take in when you're at the height of discovering who you are, why you are and where you belong. I'm looking forward to a lengthy discussion with my little cousin and recommend that all high schools add this to their required reading list.

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Summary: A Great Book to Learn About Native Americans
Review: Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich is part of a tetraology. These four books focus on four different charaters. This particular book focuses on a character named June who is absent throughout the book. "Homing In" is a huge theme that a lot of Native American authors write about and it is evident throught this book. Love Medicine also shows the struggles of anger, desire, and the healing power of two families. Love Medicine is an excellent way to find out how Native Americans live on the reservation.

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Summary: A Different Type of Love Story
Review: In my English class, we were required to read a book written by great women authors. Because I am very indecisive, I did not know which one to choose. I picked "Love Medicine" because I am of a Native American heritage, and I wanted to see if this was just another stereotypical book devoid of any real truths whatsoever. I must admit I was taken aback by the quality of this book. "Love Medicine" is a story of two Chippewa families, the Kashpaws and the Lamartines, whose lives interlace throughout the entireity of the story. The three main characters find themselves caught in a love triangle that lasts through most of their adult lives, and it has a major influence on the lives of their family members. In trying to heal this plight with a love medicine, a plan which goes sour in the end, Lipsha realizes that true love cannot be forced upon another; it is felt deep within the soul. Erdrich's style of writing is what makes this novel interesting. Her attention to detail brings her characters to life, and each story gives the reader insight into the individual's life and feelings. This is truly a great work and a pleasure to read. After really getting into it, I found myself not able to put it down. I would highly recommend this book to anyone.