Customer Reviews

Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country (National Geographic Directions)

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In her novels, Louise Erdrich has never strayed far from the northern plains of her youth, nor the interior landscape of a woman straddling the border of two cultures.

And she doesn't stray far in "Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country," her deeply personal, non-fiction reflection on the land and lore of some of her indigenous ancestors.

Part travelogue and part memoir, Erdrich takes her infant daughter by small boat to Lake of the Woods in southern Ontario to visit powerful, centuries-old rock paintings still read by contemporary Ojibwe as "teaching and dream guides." She sees these cultural artifacts, like books, as intimate art and communications that transcend centuries.

But this trek among the myths and spirits of an ancient culture begins and ends -- and sometimes pauses along the way -- in the contemporary life of one of America's most superb storytellers. It explores the edges of the sometimes-treacherous zones in Erdrich's personal landscape: Family, love and children.

"Books and Islands" is the latest title in National Geographic's Directions series, travel memoirs by some of the world's most highly regarded literary figures, including David Mamet's "South of the Northeast Kingdom," and John Edgar Wideman's recent "The Island: Martinique."

Fans of Erdrich's earlier fiction, such as "Love Medicine" or "The Master Butchers Singing Club," will glimpse the very foundation of her literary vision in this small, easily read volume, which also includes several original drawings by Erdrich.

Normally, I would not read a travel memoir, or actually any travel writing. I decided to give this book a chance because Louise Erdrich is my favorite author and I'll read anything she writes. I had no idea what to expect from this book. I knew that it was a travel memoir of Erdrich's trip to Rainy Island at Lake of the Woods.

Rainy Island once belonged to explorer Ernest Oberholtzer. Ober, as Erdrich refers to him, was a book collector (among other things). The Island has many cabins that are just filled with books. Since Louise Erdrich is Ojibwe, an author, and a bookseller, this is the type of journey that fits right into her life. We begin the book as she is just arriving up in Northern Minnesota and Erdrich is meeting up with the father of her youngest daughter. Erdrich writes about the Ojibwe, this man's place in the culture (he is a spiritual leader), her daughter, the Ojibwe language, and why she is making this trip.

I might expect a travel memoir to focus completely on the journey, but Erdrich deviates from this and talks about everything that influences the trip and the history of the northern Ojibwe and the islands. Erdrich writes about the oral traditions of the Ojibwe and weaves the story of her trip into the narrative.

On one hand this is a fascinating journey, but a warning to the reader: this is not like her fiction. This is a slow moving history of Edrich's trip to Rainy Island and a history of the Ojibwe from the Lake of the Woods. This is an interesting book, but it might not be for everyone.

Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country documents Erdrich's journey to the Lake of the Woods region on the Ontario/Minnesota border, the traditional home of some of her ancestors. For the most part, I found the book enlightening, and although at first somewhat flustered by the author's style, soon was drawn into her story. The author seemed to me to be quite sincere about her intents and although only part Ojibwe on her mother's side, I felt that she had much appreciation for this heriatge. I feel, therefore, that D. Sander's review is quite harsh and seemingly motivated by other unspecified factors, and is not an accurate assessment of what the reader will derive from this book.

Of the six or so I have read, this is one of the better entries in the National Geographic Directions series, probably because Louise Erdrich is one of the better, more congenial writers. It is a light and charming book, which should provide a pleasant two hours of reading. It probably will be appreciated more by those interested in matters relating to Native Americans.

In BOOKS AND ISLANDS IN OJIBWE COUNTRY, Erdrich writes about her two obsessions: books and islands, of course. The islands are specific ones - islands in the Lake of the Woods just over the Minnesota border into Ontario and for centuries home territory of the Ojibwe Indians. Many of the islands are decorated with rock paintings (a practice dating back to 2000 B.C.). How are those rock paintings books? "So we can talk to you even though we are dead."

BOOKS AND ISLANDS revolves around a trip that Erdrich, then 48, took in 2002 to the Lake of the Woods with her 18-month-old daughter. She visits rock-painting islands and tells of many other things Ojibwe, including the Ojibwe language, Ojibwemowin, one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn (two-thirds of the words are verbs, and for each verb there can be as many as six thousand forms). The other highlight of her trip is the island and home of Ernest Oberholtzer in Rainy Lake. I had not previously known about Oberholtzer, but I learned that I am indebted to him for being instrumental in the preservation of the Boundary Waters, or Quetico-Superior wilderness, where I spent one of the best weeks of my life. He also accumulated books, of which 11,000 remain on his island, along with his quirky, hand-crafted house. Erdrich's trip, and the book, ends back at her bookstore in Minneapolis, Birchbark Books.

In one of those curious coincidences of life, I read BOOKS AND ISLANDS three weeks after finishing W.G. Sebald's "Austerlitz". The coincidence? "Austerlitz" is the book that Erdrich takes with her and reads during her trip and then discusses off and on during her book.

Anyone who loves books should read this one; you'll be able to relate to the author. I personally could't put it down once I started it. It's a light read, I would even describe it as a 'comfort book', something one would read to relax and get his/her mind off of stressful sitations in life.

Women are more likely to enjoy it than men; it is very emotional and personal. It combines a mother's experience of travelling with her baby, an author's passion for books, and a young woman's love and pride for her native culture.

The book also contains an intimate insight into a foreign culture (for me, as a European), which complemented the book very well.

It was definitly not what I expected of the book, in a good way.

This was the first book by Louise Erdrich that I read, and I really loved it. It's a literary tour around Ojibwe country, some of which she takes with her baby's father, a spiritual leader, and of course, her baby, who the animals seem intrigued by. It's an unusual, hard to describe book - not quite a mere travelogue, but also a glimpse into the Ojibwe life, a survey of the land, a little about her family, and the efforts of a man to bring more books to the reservation. This effort continues today, and in LE's view is a vital endeavor. I totally agree.

First, the disclaimer: I am a great admirer of Louise Erdrich's fiction work and consider her one of America's greatest living storytellers. "Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country," however, left me early and never came back. Her tone throughout this self-congratulatory road trip memoir is stingy and smug while her observations are, at best, shallow to the edge of banality; despite her torrent of words and phrases, one almost never sees what she's seeing or trusts that we're truly feeling what she's feeling, the test of great landscape writing and a surprise, given it is one of her fictional gifts. At her worst, Ms. Erdrich's words convey an emotional immaturity and lack of generosity that betray her age and experience, not to mention her Anishinabeg roots (although it's a separate conversation best held among Indian people, it's worth noting here that this Ojibwa found some of her subjects, particularly those involving the sacred, uncomfortably close to a line of exploitation we should never cross). This book, which impressed me as little more than an exercise in boastful foolishness and a sad and futile attempt, perhaps, at some sort of self-healing by suggestion, was a great disappointment that verges sadly close to disaster.