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3.0 out of 5 stars
poetry and loss do not make a novel, Jan 11 2004
I'd read and admired Momaday's short stories before I started reading HOUSE MADE OF DAWN. I recognized him as a major American writer and certainly one of the most acclaimed Native American voices in literature. Furthermore, as a person always interested and concerned with cross-cultural understandings, I wanted to appreciate this work as a powerful contribution to what a Native American author wishes to say about life. I must say I was surprised and disappointed by the novel. On the one hand, Momaday's eye and descriptive ability of moments, of natural beauty, and of the shifting sweep of weather could impress anybody. The colors, sounds, and tiny details are true American haiku, not often found in the novels of others. I would say HOUSE MADE OF DAWN was an epic poem unfortunately poured into the mold of a novel. The second strong feeling one gets from Momaday's first major work is of quiet loss---what the Native Americans once had and how, through the violence he scarcely mentions, it was all taken away. Abel, the protagonist, grows up in beauty in the Southwest, walks in beauty, but goes to World War II, has largely unspecified bad experiences, comes back twisted, but confident, couples briefly with a rich white woman, murders a white man, goes to jail, and emerges broken to try to survive amongst urban Indians in Los Angeles. Drink and anger consume him. Will there be any healing ? Momaday offers the frail hope of the old ways at the same time as he realizes the difficulty of holding on to them in the modern world. As a novel illustrating the difficulty of changing worlds, this one certainly has moments of brilliance, but there are caveats. HOUSE MADE OF DAWN is a novel made of fragments. Each fragment contains beauty, contains understated truths, but the whole does not add up to a novel as I understand novels. I derived a feeling. I empathized with the characters as survivors in a time that was not theirs. But the 'silent spaces' within the novel grew too great. I thirsted for a little explanation. I wondered what went on in Abel's mind, because I found only his memories of better times. I could not connect several of the events, some of the characters. They may be finely drawn portraits, but they walk alone, unconnected to each other. That is why I found this novel difficult, why I think that it could have gone directly to my heart if it were poetry. Comparisons to Faulkner are misplaced, I think, though HOUSE MADE OF DAWN does have that elliptical style. The great Southern author always concludes his story: you come to very powerful ends. Momaday's story is inconclusive. As far as beauty goes, perhaps Momaday's world is more beautiful, but it is less populated by well-rounded characters.
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