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I'm not really sure I want to write this one, to be honest, because I feel like I missed something here.
Book #55: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Author: Sherman Alexie
Provenance: Bought from Chapters online (with a nice slipcase and everything)
Okay. So. Today's review challenge: trying to figure out what I missed. If we were going to put together a list of the most well-received and admired works of young adult literature from the past few years, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian would be somewhere around the top. The edition I have of it is filled with a lot of praise, blurbs saying how wonderful and humorous and insightful and all that stuff it is, from a multitude of newspapers and authors. It had been recommended to me a few times, as well, and so I picked up a nice copy, and decided to give it a try when I wanted something that matched that set of quality descriptors. And... I don't know. It's not like it was bad or anything, but it didn't exactly live up to its advance billing, and not even in that way that happens sometimes when your expectations were too high.
Our hero here is Arnold Spirit, often just referred to as Junior, who lives on an Indian reservation in Washington, and whose existence has been fairly full of problems, what with having born with water on the brain, and is thus fairly susceptible to shocks; he stammers, he has huge thick glasses, he'd seem a bit of a mess if you met him, likely. But he does have a strong spirit, and a love of comics, for getting his drawings out into the world, and you see them over the course of the book, illustrating various points. That strong spirit, though, is what convinces him that he has to get out of the rez school and into the white school nearby; that's going to be the only way to build a good future for himself, even if it doesn't really make his life easy now, what with the troubles getting there, getting accepted, and most of all, explaining to the his friends and the people on the rez what he's doing and why, without looking like a traitor.
Yes, the book has a lot to say about poverty, belonging, race, bullying, friendship and family, substance abuse, and death. There's a lot of well-observed stuff in there, really, and it's written up in an engaging way - it's not too heavy-handed, and a lot of fairly weighty stuff does indeed happen in here, but given Junior's voice and pictures, it doesn't get overwhelming. It can be rather amusing, as well. Really, I do think it was well-written; I've thought often of the phrase Alexie uses about being poor not teaching you about anything except how to be poor. The characters, too, particularly Junior and his best friend and great athletic talent Rowdy, are great to follow.
So I don't know why I just didn't find myself that into the book; I think perhaps I read through it too quickly, or I wasn't in the right mood, or something. It's weird, but I rather feel like the fault should probably lie with me, and not with the book, in this case. When I look back on it, it seems admirable and interesting, with a good style and good art, but I didn't enjoy it that much, and I don't think it's because I really expected to enjoy it a lot. I see where everyone else is coming from, and maybe I'll give it another try, but for now, for all that I can point at good bits, I'll have to chalk this up as the most mysterious read, in a sense, of the year for me. Sometimes, it is in how it hits you; you bring yourself to the experience as much as the writer brings his story. Maybe I'll connect better next time.
Tomorrow: The Language of Flowers, probably. I haven't quite decided, but I think that's where I'll go.
Book #55: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Author: Sherman Alexie
Provenance: Bought from Chapters online (with a nice slipcase and everything)
Okay. So. Today's review challenge: trying to figure out what I missed. If we were going to put together a list of the most well-received and admired works of young adult literature from the past few years, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian would be somewhere around the top. The edition I have of it is filled with a lot of praise, blurbs saying how wonderful and humorous and insightful and all that stuff it is, from a multitude of newspapers and authors. It had been recommended to me a few times, as well, and so I picked up a nice copy, and decided to give it a try when I wanted something that matched that set of quality descriptors. And... I don't know. It's not like it was bad or anything, but it didn't exactly live up to its advance billing, and not even in that way that happens sometimes when your expectations were too high.
Our hero here is Arnold Spirit, often just referred to as Junior, who lives on an Indian reservation in Washington, and whose existence has been fairly full of problems, what with having born with water on the brain, and is thus fairly susceptible to shocks; he stammers, he has huge thick glasses, he'd seem a bit of a mess if you met him, likely. But he does have a strong spirit, and a love of comics, for getting his drawings out into the world, and you see them over the course of the book, illustrating various points. That strong spirit, though, is what convinces him that he has to get out of the rez school and into the white school nearby; that's going to be the only way to build a good future for himself, even if it doesn't really make his life easy now, what with the troubles getting there, getting accepted, and most of all, explaining to the his friends and the people on the rez what he's doing and why, without looking like a traitor.
Yes, the book has a lot to say about poverty, belonging, race, bullying, friendship and family, substance abuse, and death. There's a lot of well-observed stuff in there, really, and it's written up in an engaging way - it's not too heavy-handed, and a lot of fairly weighty stuff does indeed happen in here, but given Junior's voice and pictures, it doesn't get overwhelming. It can be rather amusing, as well. Really, I do think it was well-written; I've thought often of the phrase Alexie uses about being poor not teaching you about anything except how to be poor. The characters, too, particularly Junior and his best friend and great athletic talent Rowdy, are great to follow.
So I don't know why I just didn't find myself that into the book; I think perhaps I read through it too quickly, or I wasn't in the right mood, or something. It's weird, but I rather feel like the fault should probably lie with me, and not with the book, in this case. When I look back on it, it seems admirable and interesting, with a good style and good art, but I didn't enjoy it that much, and I don't think it's because I really expected to enjoy it a lot. I see where everyone else is coming from, and maybe I'll give it another try, but for now, for all that I can point at good bits, I'll have to chalk this up as the most mysterious read, in a sense, of the year for me. Sometimes, it is in how it hits you; you bring yourself to the experience as much as the writer brings his story. Maybe I'll connect better next time.
Tomorrow: The Language of Flowers, probably. I haven't quite decided, but I think that's where I'll go.
