Customer Reviews

Power: A Novel

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In this story, there is a storm, a panther is killed, and there are two trials--one in a courthouse about the death of an animal protected by the Endangered Species Act and one among the Taiga elders, who abide by the old ways, on whether the killing was conducted in accordance with tribal law. We experience these events through the eyes, ears, body, and mind of 16 yr old Omishto as she accompanies her adult friend and "teacher," Ama, on a journey she knows is wrong but inevitable, experiences the chasm between the old and new ways of living for the Taiga people, and seeks to understand her own place in a chaotic and dying world. Linda Hogan's masterful writing led me to read this book with my heart, not my mind. This story is an exquisite masterpiece.

Of all Linda Hogan's three novels, this is her finest, with a mesmerizing lyrical voice, a young Native American narrator who is coming of age in a time when tribal and environmental law are in conflict. This story of Omishto, the One Who Watches, the endangered Florida panther, a hurricane which reveals family and tribal truths -- is elegantly told and a real page-turner. The courtroom drama at the center of the book, is more fascinating than that of Snow Falling on Cedars (David Guterson's recent bestseller). And I found the descriptions of place, people, and Native American vision and a rebirth of a culture of both panther and tribe to be deeply inspiring. This is one of my all-time favorite novels, and I bet it will be a classic.

Ms. Hogan has woven a tale that is a tapestry both complex and deceptively simple in focus. For many, this story could be told with other than Native symbology, from the point of view of living honestly and the struggles within the lives we inhabit, be it home, work, family, neighborhood, or, most importantly, self. She illustrates with reverance how deeply connected we are to all of creation and how, when we seek meaning in our lives in indifference to all of creation, how separate and fearful our beliefs can become. This is carefully illustrated by Ms. Hogan through the duplicitous nature of many of the characters (not unlike any of us) interacting with the young woman of this story. The fear Ms. Hogan exposes throughout the telling of this story is that which is held in many hearts when confronted with how we have moved from living with respect for life to the group-held belief and reality that being human is separate and above the rest of creation. This book tells of old ways which compel a young woman to herself, which is, in my view, both particular to this story and potentially to any reader that "sees" similar to that of the young Native woman whose story this book reveals. Ms. Hogan speaks of that which is authentic, sacred, and true. The book has much to say, but it also draws the landscape of the Florida swamps with its heat and searing presence indelibly in the readers mind. The book confirms the truth of life as an immutable force larger than any of our efforts to ignore it. I am grateful to have read her work.

Hogan's voice is unique, poetic, fluid, and very rooted in nature. In both POWER and SOLAR STORMS, she explores the complexity of relationships with our own culture, the natural world, and the spirit world, creating rich and multi-dimensional stories. Both of these books have been beautiful experiences for me that leave me wanting to share them with everyone. All my friends will be receiving POWER for their birthday this year.
Kaya McLaren, author of CHURCH OF THE DOG, ON THE DIVINITY OF SECOND CHANCES, and HOW I CAME TO SPARKLE AGAIN

One of the best stories I've ever read, told in gripping first-person narrative by teenager Omishto, a smart but isolated young woman caught between two worlds: modern, westernized America and the ancient Taiga Indian swamps. I never before understood the beauty of Florida wetlands until Ms. Hogan put pen to paper. When Omishto is caught in a hurricane, the description is so vivid you can feel the wind and water against your skin....

Linda Hogan has much to say to modern, busy people seeking spirituality and a connection with nature. Give your soul enrichment with her exquisite writing and sharing.

"Stories are for people what water is for plants." (Omishto)

Author Linda Hogan's book, Power, first published in 2008, remains today a vital, uplifting mythical story. The text represents wanderings and wonderings of a young sixteen-year-old woman in southern Florida, close to Kili swamp, near the Gulf, "... where clouds are born from water ... arriving with restless weight."

Although Omishto owns a self-renewing interest in creatures of the woods, she does not stare too hard into the dark shadows. She heeds the precautionary advice of her "aunt" Ama: "... what you look at is what you become ...," and the warning of her people - the Taiga - that by speaking an animal's name out loud, a person actually calls out to the powers inside the animal.

Even though Omishto considers herself endowed with an above-normal amount of spiritual intuitiveness, she remains wary of impenetrable shadows of the woods, and the stalking of the Panther. Omishto's descriptions of the land and swamp life reflect tender love and respect held by Hogan herself for God's animal creations.

Omishto refers to herself as her older sister's "project". Leery of her mother's husband, however, she resists her sister's pretty-ing up efforts. Using her small boat as a bed, Omishto keeps a physical distance between herself and the family. Her mother, a Taiga who prefers living as a white, is described by Omishto as "... jealous like she is being replaced by me and it's all my fault, my design."

The Panther is called "Sisa" by the Taiga (a fictional tribe). Ama refers to Sisa as the "first person to enter this world", long before human people came along. Sisa is honored, respected as an elder by the Taiga.

One aspect of this novel which I found riveting, was Omishto's narration about the hurricane/tornado, its incomprehensible power. Through Hogan, Omishto's telling of the storm's destruction is unequaled. The reader is literally wound up into the telling as the storm blasts through the swamp and woods, and everything flies through the air and drops out of the sky -- many animals, and the immense old tree "Methuselah" ripped out by its Spanish roots. Omishto describes the experience of listening as "... [the] land is screaming and drowning."

Hogan writes with such enticing descriptions, you almost feel as if you are right there, walking alongside the women tracking in the woods. Occasionally, their observations become wonderfully philosophical.

Ama and Omishto's hunt for the ailing golden Panther is intense, as are the two trials which take place afterward. Still, I am pondering the story, and Ama's reference to the hunt and killing of the Panther as a sacrifice. Was Ama a cold-blooded killer? A shapeshifter?

Events leave Omishto coming full circle with her inner arguments, then finding her proper, necessary place. She knows that trying to walk a straight line while balancing between the two worlds of whites and Taiga, will only leave her in a kind of "twilight." She believes her faintest move or thought is governed not only by spirits but by the desires and dreams of animals who are people like ourselves, in different skins."

Through her work with wildlife rehabilitation, Linda Hogan lends an expertise to the texts of her novels, prose & poems. Power is, without a doubt, one of the most intriguing mythical stories I've ever read. It is a must read!

I was obligated to read this book for a college course. While it does have some redeeming literary value (and quite frankly the panther hunt was cool), it fails as a narrative. It moves from being a well driven story in the beginning, to an amorphous and boring fictional dissertation about the friction between tribal an western ways of viewing the world.

You will be hard pressed to find a book that is more stylistically pretentious, or one that says so much while conveying so little, or one that will take as much of your will 'power' to finish.

If you have a choice in the matter, there are other pieces of native american fiction that are more entertaining and contain more original thought.