| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
‘Louise Erdrich’s imaginative freedom has reached its zenith – ”The Plague of Doves” is her dazzling masterpiece’ Philip Roth
'A masterly new novel…Writing in prose that combines the magical sleight of hand of Gabriel Garcia Marquez with the earthy, American rhythms of Faulkner, Ms. Erdrich…has written what is arguably her most ambitious—and in many ways, her most deeply affecting—work yet' Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
Confirms her reputation as a writer able to combine the apocalyptic with the mundane world whose inhabitants are set loose to roam the heavens in spirit but are ballasted always by their defiantly human bodies.' Observer
'You could read Louise Erdrich's latest book for its wisdom…Or you could read The Plague of Doves for its poetry…in the end, you’ll read this book for its stories…The stories told by her characters offer pleasures of language, of humor, of sheer narrative momentum, that shine even in the darkest moments of the book'
Boston Globe
'Wholly felt and exquisitely rendered tales of memory and magic…By the novel’s end, and in classic Erdrich fashion, every luminous fragment has been assembled into an intricate tapestry that deeply satisfies the mind, the heart, and the spirit'
O magazine
'The Plague of Doves is Erdrich's dazzling masterpiece'.’ Philip Roth
'A masterly new novel…Writing in prose that combines the magical sleight of hand of Gabriel Garcia Marquez with the earthy, American rhythms of Faulkner, Ms. Erdrich…has written what is arguably her most ambitious—and in many ways, her most deeply affecting—work yet.’ Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
'You could read Louise Erdrich's latest book for its wisdom…Or you could read The Plague of Doves for its poetry…in the end, you’ll read this book for its stories…The stories told by her characters offer pleasures of language, of humor, of sheer narrative momentum, that shine even in the darkest moments of the book.’ Boston Globe
'Wholly felt and exquisitely rendered tales of memory and magic…By the novel’s end, and in classic Erdrich fashion, every luminous fragment has been assembled into an intricate tapestry that deeply satisfies the mind, the heart, and the spirit'. O magazine
Praise for Louise Erdrich:
'Louise Erdrich is the rarest kind of writer, as compassionate as she is sharp-sighted.' Anne Tyler
'Intricate and beautifully written…Erdrich is a writer who believes that life is change and who is never afraid to let her characters experience it.' Margot Livesey, Boston Sunday Globe, on ‘The Painted Drum’
'Intimate and epic, tender and violent…Erdrich manages to reveal the hope and fears, the history and gossip, the public and private myths of an entire community. She writes with immense sympathy, without a trace of moralism, and with a grace that makes the most extreme, even gothic, events plausible and convincing.' Francine Prose, People Magazine, on ‘The Master Butchers Singing Club’
'Joyful and miraculous…It is no small feat to create a whole world, people it believably, and then record the histories of those people (one thinks of Faulkner and García Márquez), but Louise Erdrich is more than equal to the task.' San Francisco Chronicle on ‘The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse’
New York Times
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Pluto, North Dakota forms the center of interactions among Native Americans and the eager dreamers who want to build a better life on the plains. The book moves back to the first expedition where the theme of "we need each other is established." You'll find out that early cooperation soon turned to hatred and violence, after the white settlers decide that a family was murdered by the Native Americans who found the victims. Alliances and attractions rapidly splinter as intermarriage follows the violence.
While many might think that small-town North Dakota has to be pretty boring, Ms. Erdrich chooses to endow her characters with extreme quirks and strong appetites that lead them to places where you've probably never thought about going. Before you are down, you'll find your jaw dropping at least a few times when secrets are revealed and conflicts resolved in unexpected ways.
Ultimately, the book has another broad theme: Can we really know what happened in the past? Ms. Erdrich displays a world in which perspectives are extremely fragmented, people don't tell the truth, stories are embellished, and secrets are jealously guarded.
Look, too, for the theme of whether physical things matter in the long run.
I felt that Ms. Erdrich went too far in being sure that our jaws drop. To me, she wrote a story that seems beyond implausible so that I was often watching her write rather than feeling immersed in the story.
Thus spake the voice of Louise Erdrich in THE PLAGUE OF DOVES, a novel that is itself like a river: sometimes gentle and calm; at other times deep, dark and dangerous; more often than not, tumbling the reader through complex currents of emotion ranging from outright laughter to despair and ultimately into a lingering melancholy touched by a glimmer of hope.
As is usual when I read Erdrich, I stayed up well into the night to finish this book in one sitting. From the tragic opening chapter and the repercussions of the act that shadowed the story right until the pragmatic voice of Doctor Cordelia Lochren finally resolves all the unanswered questions, the subtle threads that bind the characters and their lives together across time and generations and race are woven into a story that, as the "strange sweetness" of violin music does, shatters our expectations.
Beautifully written, both lyrical and mystical, the story Erdrich tells never glosses over the cruel legacies that we both inherit from our ancestors and ourselves plant for our descendants. From the surreal voice of Marn Wolde to the iconoclastic bantering of the Milk brothers, the characters discover that the lives we live are the sum of our past and of our own choices: "freedom," says the gifted violinist Shamengwa, "is not only in the running but in the heart." And, as Judge Antone Bazil Coutts reflects on his life - from a torrid youthful affair with an older woman to his early work as a grave digger - he realises that "only the dead [are] at equilibrium."
When one reads THE PLAGUE OF DOVES, there is no equilibrium: one is swept along from page to page and left gasping at the poignant dignity and utter humanity of the characters inhabiting this must-read novel.
If my summary seems oblique, then this reflects the plot of "A Plague of Doves". The story is narrated by Evelina, the granddaughter of Mooshum who suffers a terrible injustice and Judge Coutts, who courts Evelina's aunt and tells the story of the Peace family, whose life is interwoven with Evelina's. The links between the two are so tangential and there are so many discursions into other tales about the history of Pluto and its founders; that it's difficult to maintain a sense of the basic story line and because of this any tension that might be generated by the central incident - the slaying of the family - dissipates early on. This is a pity because Erdrich's writing is playful and richly descriptive, but without the rigour of a plot, tends to ramble in any direction that takes the author's interest. We have anecdotes about violins, legends of the Ojibwe clan, stories about lost settlers and an excursion into the sinister snake cult set up by Billy Peace, all of which add colour, but contribute nothing to the resolution of the story. This telling of side stories can work very well, but only when the plot is strong enough to pull the reader back in and while the writing is strong enough to make "Plague of Doves" worth reading for this alone, the lack of a central story may leave you feeling lost.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
