14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Surrounded: A Book for our Times, December 5, 2005
This review is from: The Surrounded (Zia Book) (Paperback)
Some of the best books are those that have been retrieved from the shelf and dusted off. Such is the case with The Surrounded, first published in 1936 by the late Native American anthropologist, D'Arcy McNickle. Through this singular work of fiction McNickle attempted to generate understanding about the realities of a people and a culture disrupted and all but destroyed by assimilation into white society. The Surrounded is a measuring stick by which we can read the failures and progress of first Americans and America itself.
The Surrounded is replete with oral origin stories and native traditions juxtaposed with the poignant stories of characters representative of a culture divided and camped on the edge of extinction. Set on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana, McNickle's story revolves around Archilde Leon, a young Native American educated in white ways who struggles with feelings of alienation when he encounters the unchanged dysfunction of his own family and the longing of his tribe for the old ways:
. . . it was funny to come home and sit at his mother's feast. His eyes saw the old faces, faces he had forgotten about, never thought to see again; and now to be sitting in the circle of firelight and looking at them-but it wasn't really funny, not deeply funny. The deeper feeling was the impatience, irritation, an uneasy feeling in the stomach. Why could he not
endure them for just these few hours? Why did they make him sick? (62)
Even as he eventually softens toward his own culture, Archilde is caught up and ultimately destroyed by the influences of the reservation. Archilde's story could be that of any reservation Native today.
The Surrounded portrays a Native culture encompassed and diminished by white neighbors, white law, and a white social system. Rather than blending or accepting help, however, the people cling tenaciously to tribal loyalties, even when it means their destruction. Symbolically, Archilde attempts to rescue an emaciated mare and her foal existing in a grueling land. Despite her extreme condition, the frustrated Archilde cannot reach her-she is simply too wild to understand that he is trying to help. In a desperate attempt to save the creature, he ends up driving her to her death: "The sun had set and in the evening light a rider on a strong white horse led an unprotesting skeleton on a rope. It was grotesque" (241). Prophetically, the scene depicts his own fall, and reflects the fine line that modern first Americans walk.
McNickle's writing captured the Native American heart, at once spirited and broken, and projected it down through the years to the present. As literature that imparts empathy for the dilemma of first Americans, The Surrounded is a book for our times.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thoughts on McNickle's The Surrounded, December 12, 2005
This review is from: The Surrounded (Zia Book) (Paperback)
D'Arcy McNickle's The Surrounded, is an excellent fictional text. Written around the time that can be referredto as "forced assimilation", "The Surrounded" deals with identity conflicts affecting Native youth. Native kids are being forced to attend boarding schools in order to assimilate to white culture. The protagonist, Archilde, is torn between pursuing life within the context of white or Native tradition. His mother is Salish and his father is an immigrant farmer from Spain. This further complicates his search for identity, because, while his mother is Salish, and does not want to assimilate, his father is Spanish, and is already an example of an assimilated minority.
The text does an excellent job of incorporating the thoughts of all the characters, and it is interesting to consider what is and is not "lost in translation" between the characters. I am not speaking merely about the translation of languages, but of the ways in which the characters perceive one another, how correct these perceptions are, and to what degree these perceptions affect their actions in the novel. Native and white cultures want Archilde to assimilate in their interest. The dialogue between language and cultures is fascinating. In the beginning, Archilde seems to be very interested in white culture, but as time rolls along, and he explores the effects of assimilation on the reservation, his viewpoint begins to shift.
Archilde's progression throughout the novel and the ways in which he learns and begins to understand those around him, is written in a poignant and emotional way that does not beg sympathy. Instead, the writing asks for understanding. The reader is asked to consider the perspective of U.S. history from the other side in a way that he/she can relate to through character usage. In this way, McNickle's work is an essential read for anyone who wishes to understand a little bit better, one small piece of the complex history between colonists and Indians, as told by one who experienced it.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
not bad, November 15, 2010
This review is from: The Surrounded (Zia Book) (Paperback)
the book came in a timely manner however, it was a different cover and edition than pictured which was a little frustrated since that was not mentioned in the sellers description of the item.
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