Book

Champion, Laurie, and Rhonda Austin. "Louise Erdrich." Contemporary American Women Fiction Writers: An A-to-Z Guide. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002. 84-90. Print.

In the book, Contemporary American Women Fiction Writers: An A-to-Z Guide, a good chunk is given to Louise Erdrich. At first it goes into detail about her biography and occupations which led her to her profession of novel and short story writing. Many of her awards are also mentioned. Erdrich established a store, Birchbark Books, in 2000. This store sells Native American objects. For example, Native American books, music, jewelry, crafts, foods, etc.

The authors applaud Erdrich’s significant role in the Native American Renaissance and she is once again compared to William Faulkner. Erdrich and Faulkner both created their own imaginary towns or villages to tell their stories in. They also both place a big importance on family. Erdrich tends to center her novels on many different families and their connections.

For this chapter on Erdrich there is a large focal point of the mothers in her novels. Whether the mothers abandoned their children or mothered more than their own. The authors also give a little synopsis of a few of her novels to show how the mother’s importance comes into place. The main focus, within the mother aspect, is Erdrich’s novel Love Medicine. Many of the characters throughout her novels demonstrate the hardships of being of “mixed-blood,” or not fully Native American. Many of them those characters find it very hard to find a “home” or a place to fit in. The society surrounding them is constantly changing and they aren’t sure where they belong, on the reservation, in the “city,” or nowhere at all. The author also states that in Erdrich’s novels, some of the men had to be the mothers to the children, whether it is because the mother died or the children went to live with a male relative or close family friend. Critics admire Erdrich and her ability to write about the reservations with such truth and respect.  However, she has received criticism as well for her novels like Tracks and The Bingo Palace.

I think this was a pretty good source if a reader was looking for good information about women fiction writers in general. It is really helpful to see the positive and negative criticism of the Erdrich’s novels. I believe it helps you recognize that the authors are real people and that not everyone is going to be a fan, especially critics. This book also helps to better understand some of the feelings the characters are feeling in the novels. For example, loneliness, isolation, not being accepted, etc.

Book

Beidler, Peter G., and Gay Barton. A Reader's Guide to the Novels of Louise Erdrich. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999. Print.

The book, A Reader’s Guide to the Novels of Louise Erdrich, goes into great detail regarding how complex and confusing Erdrich’s novels may be to new readers or read the books out of order. The author compares Erdrich’s writing to that of William Faulkner’s. Erdrich and Faulkner are compared because they both write about “imaginary landscapes.” Erdrich is also very good at producing fictional characters, which is a difficult thing to do at times.

Erdrich is a one of a kind writer. She has the ability to tie the style and language of modern writers as well as bring in “narrative elements from the Ojibwe oral traditions.” Not all fiction writers can do this with their writing. A complex thing about Erdrich’s novels is that her characters appear in every story. If you haven’t read one of her books for awhile, then pick up another and don’t remember the history of the character, you may be slightly confused and lost. There is also a map that helps you understand where all the towns and cities where her novels took place. The authors go into great detail about the geography of Erdrich’s stories. They also went as far as to include genealogy charts of all of the characters to help readers understand the family relationships and keep the characters straight. They do so for Erdrich’s first ten novels. They also compiled a list of the Ojibwe words and phrases that were used in Erdrich’s novels and translated them.

The authors of this book chose to write this in order to help the readers of Louise Erdrich to have a guide to help understand if they have become lost. They figured if the well known critics were to be confused at points in her books, then why wouldn’t students who have to read her novels?

I believe this book would be a great resource to the reader’s who may have been a bit confused at how Erdrich illustrates her novels. I found it to be very interesting. The authors took a lot of time and energy to compile things from all ten of her novels in order to help others. I would definitely suggest this book for readers who become interesting in Louise Erdrich’s writing.

Book

Fallon, Erin. "(Karen) Louise Erdrich." A Reader's Companion to the Short Story in English. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001. 143-153. Print.

In the book, A Reader's Companion to the Short Story in English, there is an entire chapter dedicated to Louise Erdrich. It discusses her biography, criticism on her work and analysis on her short stories and novels. The biography section is fairly small and just gives the most important details of her life. Such as, her parents and how they encouraged her to write as a child, her family history and background, educational background, her career, and her marriage.

The criticism section essentially praises all of her writings, short stories, and novels. It discusses a majority of awards she received as well. The main writing of Erdrich’s that is most talked about is the novel Love Medicine. A majority of the chapters that are now included in the novel were originally written as short stories. The critics are fascinated at how well she presents the information about the culture of her tribe, the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe. Erdrich’s writing techniques are also said to be very similar to William Faulkner’s. one of the opposites in Erdrich and Faulkner’s writings is that his seem to revolve around white characters with a few Indians, while hers revolve centrally around Indians and have a few white characters thrown in.

In the section talking about the analysis of her fiction writings is talks about how she is constantly revising and expanding her short stories. When she does she, she makes them all “intricately connected to each other.” This process she has done is very helpful for when she puts her short stories into a novel form, like Love Medicine. All of her novels revolve around the Chippewa Indians and her European heritage. The author goes very in depth when discussing her short stories and novels.  A description of several of Erdrich’s stories and novels are given.

I thought this was a very helpful chapter especially if you weren’t very familiar with Louise Erdrich and her writings. It gives great details about her novels and what the critics think about a majority of them. Erdrich’s novels and short stories sound really interesting from how they are described in this chapter. It is always interesting and nice to hear critics say good things about novels about Native American’s. especially since there aren’t many Native American writers, especially women writers.