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About the hope… It was comforting having Joe narrate the story. I appreciated knowing he made it to adulthood, went to college/law school, married Margaret, and went back to work on the Reservation. It would have been a different story for readers if we didn’t know all that in advance.</p>
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<p>I read Love Medicine about 15 years ago and I don’t remember one single thing about it. Did I ever post this poem for you guys? It’s one of my favorites. This link allows you to hear Billy Collins read it, in his typically dry way: <a href=“Forgetfulness by Billy Collins | Poetry Magazine”>http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/26905</a></p>
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<p>I agree. I found Joe/Cappy’s killing of Lark to be very disturbing. I kept hoping that fate would somehow intervene. No matter how evil Lark is, to think that two 13 year-old boys planned and executed a murder…I wanted to go back in time and change the outcome. Actually, I guess fate (or the Creator) did try to alter Joe’s path by throwing Bugger in his way, but Joe wasn’t listening closely enough: “The best thing for me to do was forget. And then for the rest of my life to try and not think how different things would have gone if, in the first place, I’d just followed Bugger’s dream” (p. 328).</p>
<p>I was relieved that at least Joe’s target was correct. As the plan progressed, I had fears that he was going to accidentally off some poor schmuck on the golf course who resembled Lark. Even so, I have a problem with vigilante justice. I feel like the horrendous nature of the crime and the vagaries of tribal law were sort of “red herrings.” That is, does it matter if the punishment is deserved or if the law did not/could not mete out justice? Is it ever okay to hunt and kill another human being? I think Joe’s dad saw the line between what he wanted and what was morally sound. Joe couldn’t quite distinguish that line, probably because of his youth and inexperience. I wondered if the fact that Joe spent his life emulating his father and studying tribal law was some sort of atonement.</p>
<p>Where do you think Louise Erdrich stands? This is from the end of a New York Times review of The Round House: </p>
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<p>On page 323 Joe’s dad, Bazil, talks about his own responsibility in response to Lark’s murder/death. This is my favorite line from his dialog - “Lark’s killing is a wrong thing which serves an ideal justice.”</p>
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<p>But as a lawyer Joe’s dad had his defense ready for Joe (should he need it). Bazil’s conversation with Joe continues and goes on further to say -
[quote]
…As I did not kill Lark, but wanted to, I must at least protect the person who took on that task. And I would, even to the extent of attempting to argue a legal precedent…Traditional precedent. It could be argued that Lark met the definition of a wiindigoo, and that with no other recourse his killing fulfilled the requirements of a very old law…I just wanted you to know that.</p>
<p>I got a little behind, but finally finished it. The similarity with To Kill a Mockingbird is interesting. I haven’t read that book since high school, but so many people say it’s their favorite book I keep thinking I should reread it.</p>
<p>So to question 1. honestly those trees annoy me, because they seem so symbolic, but I don’t like the stories I can tell about them. Certainly a large part of the novel is how hard it is for the strong foundation of Joe’s parents’ marriage to survive his mother’s trauma, but how together they work to save it/her. </p>
<p>Regarding question 2. I had a hard time thinking of Joe as only 13. Kids grow up slower in the suburbs! (Or at least I hope they do, who knows what they were actually up to.) I had a hard time not imagining him and Cappy as at least 15 or 16. Would a 13 year old (even the son of a lawyer) be so certain he’d get clemency just because he was young?</p>
<p>Oh and in the end the lack of quotation marks did annoy me. There were some bits where I got confused and then realized, “Oh, this is supposed to be dialog.” I really don’t understand why novelists do this. It’s just annoying.</p>
<p>OK, I’m joining in the “discussion” here, but I’m not sure how much I can add. I read “The Round House” 18 months ago for my RL Book Club, and, after listening to the Billy Collins poem above, all I can say is, “Yup, that’s me …” And, unlike some others here, I didn’t have time to re-read the book.</p>
<p>ANYWAY, I did enjoy the book a lot. I do remember thinking Joe acted older than 13. I seem to have this “complaint” about a number of books – child characters acting/speaking much older than they are in the story. Of course my main basis of comparison is my own 2 children – i.e. I think back to when they were the age of whatever character. I naturally believe they were typical for their age, but maybe that’s not true?</p>
<p>I don’t remember being overly put off by the lack of quotation marks – I probably just kept reading along, figuring everything would sort itself out in my head – but agree it can be annoying. Really, what’s the point? Is it supposed to be some sort of author’s statement? If so, I don’t get it.</p>
<p>And yes, the whole “vigilante justice” thing – I kept thinking “this is wrong,” while also hoping Joe would “get 'em!” It’s difficult to come to terms with someone getting away with a crime, especially in a situation like the one in the book, where legal jurisdiction is all jumbled.</p>
<p>I missed the quotation marks in this book. Several times I had to reread a passage to be sure which character was talking. I think it distracted from the story. I didn’t miss them in The Orchardist.</p>
<p>I also think Joe and friends often come across as older than 13 … maybe 15 or so.</p>
<p>I noticed the lack of quotation marks in The Roundhouse more than I did in The Orchardist. (I see Caraid just posted the same thing. Great minds think alike. Right?) More dialogue in this book, maybe? Anyway, both books came out in 2012, so maybe it was a “thing” that year that seemed novel (ha) to authors/editors. Erdrich uses quotation marks in The Plague of Doves so she changed things up for this book.</p>
<p>And as for
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<p>Lots of characters complicit in Lark’s murder:</p>
<p>Whitey with his trumped-up alibi for the boys</p>
<p>Linda Wishkob and the brother who helped her disassemble the rifle</p>
<p>The policeman who found Joe’s pickle jar on the scene, returned it to Geraldine, and suggested she wash it out</p>
<p>And my guess is that Father Travis did not report the incriminating discussion he had with Joe about wanting shooting practice on gophers. You can’t tell me that Father Travis employs anything other than willful ignorance in this case. Lots of time spent in prayer needed here.</p>
<p>Friends Zack and Angus know: “I don’t think you’ll make it [heaven], you two, said Angus dreamily. You guys can’t get in now with that mortal stain.” </p>
<p>And Bazil and Geraldine know, of course</p>
<p>The boys only got away with murder through the protection of many.</p>
<p>Moral issues aside, the tragedy inherent in Lark’s murder is this: It doesn’t free Geraldine; it only trades one form of her suffering for another. What must it be like for her to know that the rape led her young son to commit murder? What a terrible, lifelong burden to be carried in addition to the memory of her assault. </p>
<p>If she had a choice between living her whole life looking over her shoulder for Lark or living with the knowledge that her son had committed murder on her behalf and “every night Lark came after him in dreams,” which one would she choose? That’s a rhetorical question, my fellow mothers. We know the answer.</p>
<p>Joe is not a parent and does not understand how his actions are agonizing to his mother and father. He also has no concept of the depth of their understanding (an attitude that does make him seem his age). Joe says after the murder that it was “Like I was the grown-up and the two of them holding hands were the oblivious children. They had no idea what I had gone through for them” (p. 305). But in fact, they are well aware of what he has done, as Joe’s dad makes apparent in the conversation that Caraid quoted above (post #22).</p>
<p>Here’s an article that addresses the topic of lack of quotation marks. It says that Cormac McCarthy (whom I’ve never read) may be most responsible for popularizing the custom.</p>
<p><a href=“Missing the Mark - WSJ”>http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB122489468502968839</a></p>
<p>I must admit that I’ve never noticed it when a piece of writings lacked quotation marks. </p>
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<p>We have The Master Butchers Singing Club and The Beet Queen on the shelf and Erdrich uses quotation marks in those as well, so The Round House appears to be a departure from her usual style. For me, a lack of quotation marks makes a book seem “quieter”—as if everything is being pondered inside one’s head rather than being told to another person. In that way, it worked for me in The Round House because Joe’s story is part memoir, part confessional. Until he is Mooshum’s age, he can’t really tell his story aloud, for all the reasons that ignatius listed above—too many friends and family would be implicated.</p>
<p>NJTM, thanks for the article. I just read it and I guess I’m not alone: “For that is the overwhelming effect of the no-quote style: quietness.” I completely agree with the author that such quietness can at times be awfully out of place:</p>
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<p>I’ve been reading the comments about the implications of Joe as murderer with interest. </p>
<p>I think in some ways that this was not a story about just <em>any</em> boy taking justice into his own hands, in a way that was almost implausible.</p>
<p>Joe was part of an incredibly strong and supportive community that shared complicity, as ignatius pointed out.</p>
<p>The community was in many ways quite tough and had historically lived through some very hard times. Plus it had some rather uniquely harsh traditions, like those regarding wiindigoos, as Caraid pointed out.</p>
<p>I’m not sure, Mary13, that Joe’s mother would suffer quite as much as you think she would over Joe’s guilt. She was a very strong woman who did fall apart for a while in the aftermath of the attack, but who recovered with the help of the wonderful love of her family and community. Given that the reader was kindly given glimpses of Joe’s stable and productive future life, I would like to think that this was also an indication that Geraldine may not have agonized for her whole life over the murder’s effects on her son.</p>
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The author needs her characters young in order to pull it off. Somehow 17-or-18 year-old boys plotting and carrying out murder comes across as colder than her young son and best friend doing so. I’m not sure even friends and family could step away from the act as easily.</p>
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I agree. I think Geraldine knows not only what happened boys-wise but also family-and-friends-wise (protection). Also she had come to believe that Lark was a wiindigoo. She and Bazil have not completely stepped away from traditions and beliefs of their ancestors - a foot in both worlds, as it were. </p>
<p>I can’t find my book at the moment. The boys shoot Lark while he’s on the golf course. Is the golf course on tribal land? I know Geraldine’s rape got all caught up in the legalities of where it occurred. It matters also where the murder occurred.</p>
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<p>I hope that’s true—and what you and ignatius point out makes sense. Admittedly, I come from Fr. Travis’ tradition, where there are no windiigoos, just a lot of Catholic guilt. :)</p>
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<p>Complicated: </p>
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<p>(or by a bullet!)</p>
<p>Speaking of Catholics and guilt, what do people think of the priest bursting out of the confession booth and chasing Cappy across the reservation?</p>
<p>Well the first book I read without quotation marks was Ragtime so the idea has been out there for a while. That book had so many other peculiarities (like the main characters having no names) - that I just chalked it up to Doctorow being literary pretentious.</p>
<p>I can see that the lack of quotation marks makes this book seem extra-memoirish. And who really memorizes dialog anyway? (Always a little bit of a problem for first person narratives IMO.) But in the end there were enough places where I felt confused, that it annoyed me and I thought it was therefore counterproductive. The example in the essay referred to in post #220
There’s no way to know if “No cloud cover in sight” is dialogue or just landscape description.</p>
<p>I hadn’t really thought about how so many people knew what had happened. I thought his father’s attempt to make it right by evoking Indian law was interesting - particularly since a big deal was made of the story of Nanapush’s mother and how she didn’t need to be killed to be healed.</p>
<p>I liked that priest. He was all too human. I’m sure that the chase was not proper protocol!</p>
<p>Probably over-thinking and asking more questions than anything else, but…I know this is Joe’s story and he lives with the guilt of his act for the rest of his life; I’m wondering about Cappy. Did he have to die? He conspired with Joe, and actually made the shot that killed Lark. so his death was a sacrifice for the murder. But I wonder if there was any outcome for Cappy other than his death while driving (and drinking). Was he possibly suicidal since he had been forbidden from seeing the girl and was also sick over his murderous act? </p>
<p>Also, I don’t recall if I read anything that pointed to the other boys’ futures. Surely knowing or at least having suspicions about Lark’s murderers, not to mention surviving a car crash in which one of the group was killed could make for a miserable life too? Or maybe this is another point of the book–that the consequences of a history of violence and greed continually perpetuate for years and years? </p>
<p>I too liked the priest. I’m sure some have felt like chasing their penitents :)</p>
<p>True confession here: I did not like the way the book ended. I felt the same way about the ending to Let the Great World Spin - the last section pushed me away. Cappy and Zelia’s doomed romance - in the manner of Romeo and Juliet - didn’t work for me. I honestly can’t see all four boys - at age 13 - pulling that stunt: stealing a car and traveling to ‘rescue’ this girl. Definition of overkill - “an excess of what is required or suitable, as because of zeal or misjudgment” - covers what I feel about that section fairly accurately - and also in a more literal sense in that the author kills off a character unnecessarily - unless you decide to delve into all the abstruse stuff PlantMom mentions. Bah! Humbug! </p>
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<p>Comic relief and not too realistic. But as PlantMom pointed out, there are undoubtedly many priests who wish it were an option! </p>
<p>Fr. Travis had a way of connecting with young people—a sometimes peculiar and inappropriate way (I’m thinking of the night the boys spied on him), but an impact nonetheless. He scared them, he impressed them, and he made them think. Certainly, his conversation with Joe about evil was thoughtful rather than “fire and brimstone.” He had to have known that pounding on Cappy was not going to yield any transformative results. Maybe he was just pissed off because he knew instantly that Cappy was beyond reform in that particular area. The horse was already out of the barn, so to speak…</p>
<p>As an aside, did anyone see the movie, “Calvary”? There’s an amusing scene (in an otherwise pretty dark film) where two parish priests carefully try to discuss another character’s rather interesting sins without breaking the seal of the confessional. </p>