<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: A vivid, original, fascinating and informative work.
Review: To read The Apache Diaries by Grenville (1907-40) and son Neil Goodwin is to enter a portal to another dimension. Through a dialogue of contemporary and historic diaries and related photographs, a vivid landscape haunted by blood, pain, fear, suffering, passion, and ancient enmities emerges. In this world all tales are entwined by tones of sorrow, loss, and a relentless quest for the understanding and peace of the dead. There is also fascination, pride, and great heroism. The plight of the Sierra Madre Apaches intrigues the youthful Grennie, destined to become a singular if short-lived ethnographer who partially chronicles their ambiguous fate. That unfinished life task is taken up by his son Neil in the research and writing of The Apache Diaries. In an effort to reach out and perhaps even touch the father who died when he was only two months old, the author recreates the journeys made by his father when he wrote the original diary entries in the 1930's. The Apache Diaries is, as intended, a dialogue built between Neil and Grennie in an exploration of the dual enigmas of the nature of the man himself and the mysterious fate of the Sierra Madre Apaches he studied. It is as though Neil, the son, hopes to uncover a mirror experience of both the true life essence of his father and the inconclusive, mysterious fate of the "wild" Sierra Madre Apaches. It is fitting that he is joined in his quest by his wife, son and his son's future wife. The Apache Diaries is a classic quest riddle, filled with real unquenchable anguish and courage mixed with evil and cowardice. It is bitterly poignant. True to life, it never resolves completely; but there is a partial lifting of the veil. The key to experiencing this strangely compelling, haunted world of the blood- feuding Mexicans' and Apaches' history is, perhaps, acceptance of the pain and wrong, the incredible wrenching anguish that is called forth again and again. But there is a second step that is as yet unfinished. One quickly learns to guess at an outline of forgiveness, perhaps ? a future resolution that still may loom yet several generations away. The deaths and the kidnappings are so brutal and vivid. Though Grenville Goodwin was a respected ethnographer and Neil Goodwin is an accomplished film-maker of Native American documentaries, the reader does not need to be fluent in either medium to appreciate the depth and complexity of The Apache Diaries. It resonates in the heart. It breaks the heart. Perhaps it remakes the heart, or the heart's vision. This is a profoundly moving book. Perhaps the book reflects the spirit of the crown dance of the Chiricahua, a holy ritual Neil witnesses in 1987 when he accompanies two grandsons of one of Geronimo's warriors on a commemorative visit to the location of Geronimo's near surrender to General Crook: Later during that trip the Chiricahuas conducted their holiest of rituals, the spellbinding crown dance. It begins with an immense leaping bonfire. There is a line of drummers and chanters. Shockingly, out of the darkness, come the dancers. They circle the fire wearing masks with high, antlerlike crowns, short kilts, painted bodies, a thousand tiny bells, a sword in each hand - they reel, hover, sway, and as they do, they become the mountain gods. The assembled Apaches are witnessing the first crown dance held in these mountains for a very long time. It is at long last a dance for the peaceless dead, and it is overdue by a hundred years or more. (page 236) Nancy Lorraine Reviewer
Rating:
Summary: A vivid, original, fascinating and informative work.
Review: To read The Apache Diaries by Grenville (1907-40) and son Neil Goodwin is to enter a portal to another dimension. Through a dialogue of contemporary and historic diaries and related photographs, a vivid landscape haunted by blood, pain, fear, suffering, passion, and ancient enmities emerges. In this world all tales are entwined by tones of sorrow, loss, and a relentless quest for the understanding and peace of the dead. There is also fascination, pride, and great heroism. The plight of the Sierra Madre Apaches intrigues the youthful Grennie, destined to become a singular if short-lived ethnographer who partially chronicles their ambiguous fate. That unfinished life task is taken up by his son Neil in the research and writing of The Apache Diaries. In an effort to reach out and perhaps even touch the father who died when he was only two months old, the author recreates the journeys made by his father when he wrote the original diary entries in the 1930's. The Apache Diaries is, as intended, a dialogue built between Neil and Grennie in an exploration of the dual enigmas of the nature of the man himself and the mysterious fate of the Sierra Madre Apaches he studied. It is as though Neil, the son, hopes to uncover a mirror experience of both the true life essence of his father and the inconclusive, mysterious fate of the "wild" Sierra Madre Apaches. It is fitting that he is joined in his quest by his wife, son and his son's future wife. The Apache Diaries is a classic quest riddle, filled with real unquenchable anguish and courage mixed with evil and cowardice. It is bitterly poignant. True to life, it never resolves completely; but there is a partial lifting of the veil. The key to experiencing this strangely compelling, haunted world of the blood- feuding Mexicans' and Apaches' history is, perhaps, acceptance of the pain and wrong, the incredible wrenching anguish that is called forth again and again. But there is a second step that is as yet unfinished. One quickly learns to guess at an outline of forgiveness, perhaps ? a future resolution that still may loom yet several generations away. The deaths and the kidnappings are so brutal and vivid. Though Grenville Goodwin was a respected ethnographer and Neil Goodwin is an accomplished film-maker of Native American documentaries, the reader does not need to be fluent in either medium to appreciate the depth and complexity of The Apache Diaries. It resonates in the heart. It breaks the heart. Perhaps it remakes the heart, or the heart's vision. This is a profoundly moving book. Perhaps the book reflects the spirit of the crown dance of the Chiricahua, a holy ritual Neil witnesses in 1987 when he accompanies two grandsons of one of Geronimo's warriors on a commemorative visit to the location of Geronimo's near surrender to General Crook: Later during that trip the Chiricahuas conducted their holiest of rituals, the spellbinding crown dance. It begins with an immense leaping bonfire. There is a line of drummers and chanters. Shockingly, out of the darkness, come the dancers. They circle the fire wearing masks with high, antlerlike crowns, short kilts, painted bodies, a thousand tiny bells, a sword in each hand - they reel, hover, sway, and as they do, they become the mountain gods. The assembled Apaches are witnessing the first crown dance held in these mountains for a very long time. It is at long last a dance for the peaceless dead, and it is overdue by a hundred years or more. (page 236) Nancy Lorraine Reviewer
<< 1 >>
|
