Customer Reviews

Sun Dancer

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I have spent a good deal of time in South Dakota, on and off the res., working more with Lakota than whites. I thought London's book did a fantastic job of capturing the moods, attitudes, tragedy, frustrations and magic of that amazing locale. I liked the characters; they felt right and I wanted to follow their story, which had lots of nuance and no condescension. A really good read!

I had come across a very strong review of Sun Dancer in the Portlandia Book Review (Portland, Oregon) in which the reviewer compared Sun Dancer favorably to Sherman Alexie's Indian Killer, which he also liked. So, I decided to give it a try. Wow! This is a fast-moving book, yet thoughtful and spiritual. It's full of beauty, pain, humor and pathos--no mere action-adventure. There is also a crushing love story in here, yet I wouldn't categorize Sun Dancer as a romance. It seems to defy genre.

Perhaps what I loved most about this book is how real it felt. You actually forget you're reading. You're there. And the voice of the narrator is mesmerizing.

Without effort, you absorb a great deal of Lakota culture while ripping through the story. (And what a beautiful culture it is!) Never, though, do you feel like you're reading ethnology, for you're too busy caring about these sympathetic characters and wondering what happens next, and will they succeed at regaining their Black Hills.

At the heart of this book, it seems to me, are profound spiritual questions, and equally serious questions about justice.

I loved it. Many scenes in Sun Dancer have stayed with me a long time--as have the haunting characters. London has a way of burning things into your eye and into your mind. The book was definitely fun to read, but it may also change the way you see things.

I came across Sun Dancer only by accident, and was completely taken with it from page one. The plight of the Lakota Sioux has been on many people's minds over the past several years, and this book lets the reader revisit some of the complex issues surrounding the history of the Sioux within the context of a captivating, well-written novel.

As an author myself, I was particularly impressed by the fine craftsmanship of Mr. London's prose, and thoroughly enjoyed the cast of quirky, but entirely believable characters who serve to manifest the various facets of contemporary life on the reservation. I was further impressed to learn that Mr. London is not a Native American himself, but spent several summers living and working with the Lakota.

This book is clearly an inspired tribute to a group of Americans that the author has great respect for; it is keenly observed, and a wonderful first novel that deserves nothing but praise.

I picked up this book expecting just a good story - and ended up unable to put the book down until I finished. The concommitant devotion and pain that the characters share; the complexity of their relationships with one another and their predicament; the author's straightfoward style coupled with a hawk's eye for detail; and his acute sense of the pathos of the historical and cultural territory that this book covers all make this book one of the best I've read for a long time.

I think the issue of whether a writer is "qualified" to write about another culture is a thorny one. Certainly there's the whole "it's a <insert issue> thing, you just don't understand" is valid in certain respects. However, I can't help but think that the act and process of trying to understand (and write about) a culture or experience that is "other" is admirable and is what, ultimately, enables people to rise above their own small worlds and begin to make sense of that raging ether we call the human condition. I applaud London's sensitive and educated attempt - as well as what I would say is his successful result. That is, if you can claim to distill the ability to capture and empathize with pain, exhilaration, the will to survive, etc - all of that - something as simple as "successful." Perhaps a work such as Sundancer is better labled with a word such as "humilty" rather than "successful."

I bought this book purely on a whim. As it turns out I wish I could "whimsically" find more works by Mr. London. His grasp of the plains indians and their life conditions from past to present is far better than the "big four" of indian fiction... i.e. Tony Hillerman, etc. (and I love Hillerman's works). The historical accuracy of events is eclisped only by his graphic portrayal of the on-going struggle of the modern day indians trying so desperately to regain lands and "promises" that our government so blatantly tricked them out of. Moving back and forth between fact and fiction so smoothly kept my interest piqued several nights into early a.m. Strong characters and physical descriptions kept me spellbound. It's a fantastic read!

I often get books at the library, but when I saw that Sun Dancer won the MOUNTAINS AND PLAINS PRIZE, I decided to buy it; I have had nothing but great experiences with books that received the MPBA--works by Wallace Stegner, Stephen Ambrose, William Least-Heat Moon, Larry Watson, Tony Hillerman and native writers such as N. Scott Momaday, Vine Deloria and Joy Harjo.

SUN DANCER lived up to the laurel and then some.

The writing is uncluttered and penetrating. The intricate plot moves fast, yet forces you to think about very big questions in the life of the nation and in your own life.

It is an amazing and perspective-changing read. There are moments which make you laugh and others that make you ache and wish much of history had been done differently. You'll love the people in this story--some of whose souls you delve into quite deeply.

There is an interesting mix of the profane and the sacred in this narrative, and that tension works a spell.

As the L.A. Times noted (back jacket), London "describes native spirituality in ways that will move even readers familiar with BLACK ELK SPEAKS and the novels of N. Scott Momaday." I am one of those readers of Momaday and Neihardt/Black Elk, and that L.A. Times guy is right.

I don't think I'll forget the people and events in Sun Dancer, and I look forward to more books by Mr. London.

Are you diving for a pearl to read? If so, you have found one. This beautifully written inspired novel explores the resurrection of individual and community in the context of a Native American theme. The characters touch the essence of human development and walk the heart of mystical experience through the classic path of conversion, transformation and illumination. A daring adventure, with love story and humor too!

...A remarkable accomplishment, powerful, distinguished by the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association Award.

This is quite simply the most informative and moving novel I've read in a couple of years. I've lived out there and met folks like the ones in this book--both white and Lakota. Wish I had read it years ago. I would have known more what was going on.
It's also a thrilling story with a lot of (emotional) pay-off at the end.

I refuse to give any book five stars, but this story left me winded.

Years ago, I taught on the neighboring reservation and spent a lot of time on Pine Ridge. Sun Dancer and its fleshed-out characters took me back and that felt great. "Fleshed-out," what a funny choice of words when what I really mean is that their psyches and personalities felt completely real and deep and reminded me of friends and others on Pine Ride and Rose Bud and off the reservations, too.

I love how the story grips you and at the same advocates so passionately (and seemlessly) for a return of THE BLACK HILLS TO THE LAKOTA---or at least parts of the Black Hills. Yet it never feels like you're being lectured to. It's a fast, compelling story, but the message is there for anybody with brain and a heart.

I'm amazed that a fellow reviewer on this site accuses this novel of portraying the sun dance as a force of violence and armed rebellion, for through out the book the Sun Dance is clearly portrayed as a healing, cleansing, resorative and peaceful act. Above all, a spiritual and selfless act. Meanwhile, the proponents of armed conflict in the book are so clearly at odds with the sun dancer Clem and his mentor Bear Dreamer Bordeaux, who both clearly seek a non-violent path to Justice.

It's fine for people to have strong and politicized opinions, but why not READ the book before logging on?

I read SUN DANCER because I came across it on the web site of the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association, which bestowed its fiction prize on this book, and it has similarly honored the works of writers like N. Scott Momaday, Vine Deloria, James Welch and Leslie Marmon Silko, as well non-native writers like, Tony Hillerman, Cormac McCarthy, Wallace Stegner and Barbara Kingsolver.