5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Surreal, January 13, 2002
This review is from: Bone Game: A Novel (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series) (Hardcover)
After reading the novel Bone Game, a common reaction of many readers must be confusion. There are so many visions and dreams in this novel. These visions seem to occur independent of time and space, leading a reader used to highly structured "Western" novels to throw up their hands in futility. On reflection, however, several themes can be discerned from this confusing novel. One overarching theme seems to be the pervasive force of evil that manifests itself throughout the book. Louis Owens definitely has a grasp of criminal history. He has borrowed from real life events to construct his novel. Most of the events in Bone Game occur at the University of California, Santa Cruz where Cole McCurtain works as a professor. During the early 1970's Santa Cruz suffered through a crime wave when three serial killers committed crimes there.
Herbert William Mullin was, by anybody's account, a strange bean. A heavy user of LSD and a frequent pot smoker, Mullin eventually suffered a serious psychological collapse. He began hearing voices that commanded him to kill people in order to prevent earthquakes from destroying Southern California.
Edmund Kemper embarked on a sadistic rampage of murder and mayhem that culminated with his arrest in Pueblo, Colorado in April 1973. Kemper was a giant of a man, 6'9" tall and 280 pounds. Inside lurked a monster. Kemper despised women, especially his mother. When Kemper began to hunt women, his mother, a UCSC employee, inadvertently aided her son's murderous desires by providing him with a parking sticker for his car. This sticker allowed Kemper to lure young college co-eds to their deaths. After killing his victims, Kemper dismembered their bodies and decapitated them. Kemper buried one particular head in the yard outside his room, with the head facing towards the house so he could "talk" to his victim.
The third killer was John Linley Frazier. Frazier's spree was limited to a single event in 1970, when he torched the house of a local doctor. Frazier left a note at the crime scene expressing his outrage at the exploitation of the ecosystem and the rampant materialism prevalent in American society. When arrested, it was discovered that Frazier was a rabid ecologist and a practitioner of Tarot cards. Police believed that the murders Frazier committed might have been linked to the hippie culture movement that existed in the surrounding areas of Santa Cruz.
This lengthy description of madness is not an attempt to skirt discussion of Bone Game. Rather, Owens uses these real events to create fictional characters that adopt, and ultimately subvert, Indian culture. Can any reader look at the hulking figure of Paul Kantner and not see Ed Kemper? The murderer in Bone Game uses a car with a UCSC parking sticker to pick up one of his female victims. Kantner even murders his mother in the same way Kemper killed his mother. Paul also admits to burying the head of one of his victims so that it faces his room, allowing him to talk to the head. Again, this is the same thing that Kemper did.
Herbert Mullin and John Frazier are also represented in the story. Robert Malin, Cole's graduate assistant, seems to possess some of Mullin's attributes. Both Mullin and Malin (the names again share a similarity) engage in hallucinogenic experiences. Mullin takes acid and Malin takes part in the peyote ceremony. Mullin's experience with hallucinogens does not have the spiritual and healthy connotations of an Indian peyote ritual. Instead of receiving visions helpful and cleansing visions, Mullin's visions are nightmares of depravity that lead to murder. Even Robert does not share in the healthy experience of the ritual because he runs out before the ritual is finished. Robert talks about his "dreams" to kill, closely resembling Mullin's own sadistic visions. It is also important to point out that Malin seems to have adopted Mullin's fascination with earthquakes, as can be seen when he talks to Abby after he has abducted her.
Frazier's fascination with ecology and the prevention of materialistic consumption are both ideas that are closely associated with Indian values. In the hands of Frazier, they become twisted beyond recognition and turned into a reason for murder and destruction. The hippie culture that Frazier was immersed in also presents a problem. The hippie culture attempted to co-opt many Indian ideas, especially the concept of community. While this may seem to be a noble goal, in the hands of Whites it had a propensity to occasionally produce a John Frazier or a Charles Manson. The hippie culture that Frazier was a part of actually does makes an appearance in Bone Game, when Paul takes Abby to a place called Elfland. Elfland is a place where white students go to take part in wacky "New Age" rituals. These rituals are actually pathetic attempts by Whites to copy Indian ritual.
Another important event in Bone Game that illustrates the idea of subversion deals with the Indians themselves, as people. Luther and Hoey run into a gang of criminals who deal in a sort of Indian slavery. The evil committed against the Indians here is twofold: not only is an Indian abducted and denied dignity as a human being by Whites, the Whites have also turned Indian against Indian. One of the gang is an Indian who has nothing but contempt for his own people.
A weird book but worth reading if you like Indian literature.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Finally Someone Mentions Native Californians, January 4, 2004
The whole history of the opression of Native Californians is not widely known or spoken of, even in California (I still hear that misbelief that the missions were good for the Indians occaisonally -- don't get me started0. And unfortunately, many times people aren't even aware that native peoples such as the Ohlone that figure into Owens' book still exist (they were, after all, declared extinct by anthropologists like Alfred Kroeber, which is extremely untrue). So I commend Owens for drawing upon the rich history of California in a way I have not seen many other authors do. Plenty of books rely on the premise of the wronged native -- most deal with horse-back riding Plains Indians with names like "Big Wolf" or "Two Eagles."
As for plot, and story, Owens scores here as well. I notice that many other reviewers found the plot line confusing, which in turn confuses me as I found it easy to follow. I even figured out that there were two...well, I don't want to spoil it for you. Owens also has good descriptions of the local scenery -- the redwoods forests of the Santa Cruz mountains as well as the juniper-pinyon forests of New Mexico - that come through as authentic to any who has ever walked in those places.
It's too bad Owens isn't still around producing works like these.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Haunting, surreal, July 9, 2000
I just happened to stumble upon this novel through a book club. I enjoyed every sentence of it! Owens blends Native American history, lore and custom with his characters' modern-day American concerns and fears. Cole McCurtain, teaching Indian Studies at Santa Cruz, finds that he is lonely, drinking far too much, and missing his family. His daughter, Abby, comes to stay with him at the same time that body parts start floating ashore. Cole is haunted by nightmares that seem to be telling him a story. He is also surrounded by a fascinating array of characters who fill the novel with humor, sarcasm and wisdom.
Owens' writing is first-rate. This is a chilling novel that, at the same time, is quite touching. I cared about what happened to the characters and had to keep reading to find out the next twist.
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