A Reader's Guide to the Novels of Louise Erdrich [Hardcover]

Peter G. Beidler (Author), Gay Barton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1999 | ISBN-10: 0826212123 | ISBN-13: 978-0826212122

 

This revised and expanded edition of Beidler and Barton’s indispensable A Reader’s Guide to the Novels of Louise Erdrich builds on the sellout success of the first edition. Every serious reader of Erdrich’s fiction will want access to this comprehensive new edition, which includes valuable new material.

• Completely updated with information on four new novels published since the first edition: The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, The Master Butchers Singing Club, Four Souls, and The Painted Drum

• Easy-to-use genealogical charts for the various families

• A map and geographical details about the settings for the novels

• A detailed composite dictionary of characters (even including the minor characters)

• A glossary of all of the Ojibwe words, phrases, and sentences that Erdrich, an astoundingly versatile and energetic Native American author, uses in her panoply of novels

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Beidler and Barton’s excellent reference guide has all the information any student or teacher needs to follow the interconnections of Erdrich’s novels. . . . With its sound scholarship and clear, concise writing style, this guide is a must for any library holding Erdrich’s novels. It will be heavily used by undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty.”––Choice

“This is a valuable tool for undergraduate students and advanced scholars alike. . . . A conscientious reader who uses this handbook as it is intended––to facilitate the considerable intellectual work that Erdrich’s texts demand––will find that it enhances the pleasure of traveling the road to full appreciation of Erdrich’s achievement. Including this text with Erdrich’s novels as required reading in literature classes will, without a doubt, lead students quickly to higher, more insightful levels of discussion and writing than they might otherwise have reached within the span of a single course.”––Studies in American Indian Literature

“To help readers and scholars, Beidler and Barton have put together genealogies (actual family trees for all characters in Erdrich’s novels), a map showing the settings of her novels, chronologies, an extensive character dictionary that allows readers to look up each character and get an instant history of who the character is and what he/she has done in previous books, a shorter list of minor characters, a bibliography, and an index. What the authors don’t do is try to deconstruct the actual novels. They leave that to the readers as they should. . . . This guide is an ideal supplement for those teaching courses that include Erdrich’s works or a serious reader who wants to find out more about her books.”––Baton Rouge Advocate Magazine

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

About the Author

 

Peter G. Beidler is Lucy G. Moses Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Lehigh University. He now lives in Seattle, Washington. Gay Barton is retired from the English faculty at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 265 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Missouri Pr (May 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826212123
• ISBN-13: 978-0826212122
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,645,493 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Genealogy and character "tracking" vs. literary analysis, October 24, 2000

By 

E. T. Bender (South Bend, Indiana USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Reader's Guide to the Novels of Louise Erdrich (Hardcover)

In an attempt to "solve" readers' problems, Beidler and Barton have simplified the structure of Louise Erdrich's interlocking series of narratives (Tracks, Bingo Palace, Tales of Burning Love, Love Medicine)-- almost to a fault. In a painstaking but somehow wrong-headed exercise, they have straightened out the intricate and mysterious convolutions of Native American ancestry in these novels and recharted them as Western pedigrees. With similar de-mystifying intent, they have dogged each major and minor character through the entire series of novels and then collected every scrap of information in all the books under single headings bearing that chracter's name. While the authors should be complimented on their tenacity, the linear vision that permeates their "guide" is likely to send readers of Erdrich and other Native American storytellers in the wrong direction. This reductive study obscures rather than illuminates the magical power of Erdrich's asynchornous narrative fragments that loop and twist out of the reach of clock time into the realm of spirit.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Erdrich's Work Needs and Deserves a Guide, August 5, 2005

By 

F. Thomas - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Reader's Guide to the Novels of Louise Erdich (Paperback)

I've been teaching Erdrich's fiction for a few years, and often have wished I could check my own sense of genealogy and character relationships. This guide does a good job of that, though it was published before THE LAST REPORT was published; we need an update to include that and subsequent works.