- Paperback: 276 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers (2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0739464477
- ISBN-13: 978-0739464472
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 13 x 2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Leaving the child cemetery with its plain hand-lettered sign and stones carved into the weathered shapes of lambs and angels, I am lost in my thoughts and pause too long where the cemetery road meets the two-lane highway. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Leaving the child cemetery with its plain hand-lettered sign and stones carved into the weathered shapes of lambs and angels, I am lost in my thoughts and pause too long where the cemetery road meets the two-lane highway. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beautifully interwoven story.,
By
This review is from: The Painted Drum: A Novel (Paperback)
I really enjoyed this book, especially Part Two. It's about a woman who appraises antiquities from estates and comes across an old Native Ojibwe drum that fascinates her. The first part of the book is about Faye, her mother and her sculpture boyfriend and the bereavements Faye and her boyfriend endure. The second part of the book is about the origins of the drum and the people who come in contact with it and the third part of the book is about another Native woman who experiences hardship. All the characters and events are beautifully interwoven.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Native Trauma and Healing,
By Shih-hong Chuang (Kaohsiung, Taiwan) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Painted Drum: A Novel (Hardcover)
An Ojibwe drum, empowered by one's trauma of the loss of child, can summon the spirits, and has a magic power that heals and kills, and furthermore, the mental disorder of the trauma of the loss of their relatives reintegrates through the power of the painted drum.Trauma haunts and hovers over the story: Krahe's grief of losing his daughter, Grandfather Shaawano's trauma of losing both his daughter and wife, and Ira's self-abandoning in the pubs. The series of traumatic events may lead to their mental disorder. Sad as they might feel, impossibly as their mourning can't work through, they strive to seek to find solace to work through from the things that surround them: Krahe cuts the grass in Faye's backyard in order to commemorate his daughter; Grandfather Shaawano, selected by his tribal people to communicate with the spirits, makes a beautiful painted drum that heals (as the story then proceeds, Ira's boy from pneumonia), and, potentially kills Simon Jack, who cuckolds Grandfather Shaawano and was indirectly murdered by the drum; Ira, helped by an almost blind Ojibwe man Morries and a hospital worker Shaawano, may restore and regain her originally peaceful life from the disorder. Furthermore, Grandfather Shaawano's drum serves in this poetical novel as a little cosmology between the Ojibwe and Nature, especially when the drum was sold to an "unscrupulous" white man Jewett Parker Tatro. Generally speaking, the white men are, in rhetoric or reality, American Indian's feuds. When this sacred drum (in which Grandfather Shaawano leaves some of his daughter's bones) is sold to a white man, when the magic is stolen by Faye from the legitimate owner, the harmony of the drum deteriorates and dissolves, thereby causing the trauma of, as stated above, Grandfather Shaawano's and Krahe's loss of daughter and the accidental burning of Ira's house in a frosty winter. The disharmony, which the drum brings, dwindles when the drum was safely returned to its original owner Bernard Shaawano, who finally uses this drum to heal Ira's boy. The story can be concluded that, inspired or encouraged by the loss of his daughter, Grandfather Shaawano invents a drum that, with its magic power, heals and assuages the trauma, and more importantly, the disorder of the trauma of the loss of their relatives becomes reintegrated. The mental disorder, caused by the trauma of losing a person's relatives or by the drum being sold to the white, becomes order.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.4 out of 5 stars (34 customer reviews) 31 of 34 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Verbal artistry,
By Gale Zasada "www.brownbookloft.com" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Painted Drum: A Novel (Hardcover)
The story of the painted drum is a tale that blends the pragmatism of the modern world with the unexplained mystical forces that inexplicably bind past and present together. When estate appraiser, Faye Travers discovers the drum found in the attic of a deceased client, she does something that she's never been tempted to do. She steals it and seeks out its rightful owner. When she finds the family of the man who initially crafted the drum, she hears the story of how it came into being. She comes to understand how the drum itself may have compelled her to act on its behalf.Louise Erdrich is a verbal artist. Through her carefully crafted prose, I could smell the dust rising from the prairie, hear the wind rustling the grass and feel the texture of the drum. The Painted Drum gives us a snapshot into the lives of people who must reconcile tradition with reality. This was the first novel I've read by this author. At times, the story came vividly into focus and was quite engrossing. At other times, I found it difficult to maintain a firm grasp on the story as it was told by the various characters. However, overall, it left a mark that won't soon be forgotten. 20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderfully done!,
By Maurice Williams "mauricewms" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Painted Drum: A Novel (Hardcover)
"The Painted Drum" is a marvelously crafted novel that traces the history of a drum and the people whose lives it touches. Primarily set in New Hampshire, the story opens with a quiet introspective contemplation by one of the novel's narrators. ". . . I am lost in my thoughts and pause too long where the cemetery road meets the two-lane highway. This distraction seems partly age, but there is more too, I think." This opening paves the way for the unfolding of Faye's life in the small New England town where she has spent her entire existence. Faye and her mother, Elise, are proprietors of a business that specialized in estate liquidation. It is through this business that Faye finds the tribal drum that is at the novel's center. Upon first sight, Faye knows that the drum is powerful. Her attachment to it is immediate and indefinable. After a period, Faye decides that she will locate the drum's original owners and return it. In locating the owners, the novel shifts setting and an entirely new cast of characters populate the story. I found the story to be at it richest when telling about the making of the drum and the people involved with it.Erdrich's story telling abilities are keen. I was easily wrapped up in each character's story. The relationships explored in the novel are subtly interrogated with lyrical language that's pregnant with meaning. The novel is set in three parts, each of which could be a short story; each connected by the tribal ancestors and stories that inhabit the drum. "The Painted Drum" is another superb novel by Erdrich. I read "Love Medicine" a few months back and it was familiar and pleasing to be reintroduced to the Pillagers clan in Erdrich's latest novel. Now I'm motivated to read more of her works just to see how many of her characters have lives that span multiple novels. This is a quality read; enjoy it! 15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
"No two are alike, but every drum is related to every other drum.",
By Mary Whipple - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Painted Drum: A Novel (Hardcover)
(No spoilers here.) In the opening pages, Faye Travers, an estate agent in New Hampshire, inventories the home of John Jewett Tatro, whose grandfather was an Indian agent, and whose grandmother was an Ojibwe. When Faye opens an attic room, she finds a collection of enormous value, including an incredible drum, hollowed out from a single piece of cedar wood and covered by a moose hide.The history of the "Little Girl" drum takes the reader from New Hampshire to an Ojibwe reservation in Minnesota. Bernard Shaawano, who is the grandson of the drum's maker, narrates this section, telling about the life of his grandfather, why he made the drum, who he was memorializing, and how this drum eventually came to New Hampshire. The fascinating process by which the drum was made, the ceremonies and traditional beliefs associated with it, and the traumatic lives and deaths of the Shaawano family over three generations connect the drum and its history with the essence of existence. In the final section, Shawnee, a young girl living in a remote area of the reservation, has been babysitting for her younger brother and sister for several bitterly cold days, without enough fuel and no food. Their mother has been sidetracked, drinking in town. The depiction of the lives of these children is heart-rending, and their connection to the "Little Girl" drum adds another layer of mystery to the drum's "life." Written with a homey intimacy and honesty, Erdrich deals with big themes of life and death and the beliefs associated with them. Nature is an intimate part of this process, and it is further emphasized through symbols and repeating motifs--a field of orb spiders, a dog which escapes its cruel confines, wolves and their mystical connection with mankind. Always, of course, Erdrich conveys Indian spiritual values, even as she depicts their often sad and limited lives. The characters here have real faults and real conflicts, but Erdrich is generous with them, never making value judgments while showing the circumstances which have determined their behavior. With interconnected stories involving characters from three generations and three different families, The Painted Drum is a novel which taps into universal feelings and hopes, even as it depicts some of life's terrible realities. n Mary Whipple |
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