The Round House - October CC Book Club Selection

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

<p>** NJTheatermom ** enlightening ( and sad) reading about fetal alcohol syndrome. I read several pages in the google book link you provided.
Also, thanks for the tiny URL link, I didn’t know about that site, but have see the link on twitter.</p>

<p>** mary13 ** the myth link is excellent. Can you explain why Linda maintained her home decor with two of everything.? </p>

[Mary13]

<p>

@SouthJerseyChessMom

Can you explain why Linda maintained her home decor with two of everything.?

</p>

<p>Linda tells Joe:</p>

<p>

Doe told me in that sweat lodge, Joe, that since I had a double spirit around me I should just welcome it. I set up my house for two people, see, even the little people. And when I eat I always set out an extra plate and I put a bit of the food I’m eating on it” (p. 314).

</p>

<p>I would add that Joe observes that in Linda’s house, “Everything had a double, though not an identical.” This is also the case with Linda and Linden—they are “doubles” (twins), but fraternal not identical. </p>

[mathmom]

<p>I assume that Linda’s two of everything came from the fact that her psyche was missing her twin. Though obviously she was better off without him. Interesting twin mythology - in Western myth I think they are more likely to have more alike. So Romulus and Remus are basically interchangable, ditto Castor and Pollux as far as I can remember. Though of course Artemis was associated with the moon and hunting while Apollo was associated with the sun and music.</p>

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

<p>Thanks **mathmom ** your post led me to the story of baucas and Philemon.</p>

<p>Who showed such welcoming hospitality to strangers they asked Zeus to keep them forever entwined and they became a ** linden **tree and oak forever entwined. Their home became a sacred space. Didn’t Linda’s home see like a shrine to " duality", and hospitality, with the extra place setting, welcoming the negative spirit. </p>

<p>Myth 2 : Metamorphosis Baukis. Philemon and Baukis were a pious couple who hospitably received the gods Zeus and Hermes when they were travelling amongst mankind in disguise. The gods destroyed those who had turned them away and rewarded the couple by making them priests of the temple and transforming them into a pair of entwined trees at death: Baukis a linden, and Philemon an oak. (Source: Ovid)</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Baucis_and_Philemon.html”>http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Baucis_and_Philemon.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Found this while searching
<a href=“http://www.uucpa.org/sermons_06/sermon060409.html”>http://www.uucpa.org/sermons_06/sermon060409.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>One of the scenes which made me laugh was when Joe and his buddies joined the youth church group, pretending to be converted. Father Travis’s skepticism of the boy’s sincerity and his sideways glances made me laugh outloud. </p>

<p>How did you feel Louise Erdich depicted Father Travis and Chirtianity overall? in previous posts many of you thought the Cappy/ Father Travis Chase a bit overdone, ineffective. </p>

[Caraid]

<p>

@SouthJerseyChessMom

How did you feel Louise Erdich depicted Father Travis and Chirtianity overall? in previous posts many of you thought the Cappy/ Father Travis Chase a bit overdone, ineffective.

Father Travis’ character grew on me. At the beginning Erdrich wanted us to suspect him as a possible rapist. Once it was clear he wasn’t the rapist, we were allowed to get to know him. l liked him. He was real. He came to the priesthood via a nontraditional route, so he had lived a different type of life than most priests. He knew the emotions of love and loss from a husband’s perspective. He also knew war and loss from a military perspective. He didn’t have his proper priest behavior down pat, but that made him more real. Leaving the confessional to run after Cappy was definitely over the top, but in the end it all helped me like him more. His discussions with Cappy and Joe were thoughtful and insightful. He wasn’t preachy. He presented his point of view from a position of understanding and empathy.</p>

[Mary13]

<p>SouthJerseyChessMom, great find re the Linden tree. I love those little hidden gems.</p>

<p>I agree with Caraid’s assessment of Fr. Travis. </p>

<p>Although there is an element of farce in the interactions between Fr. Travis and the boys, his teaching is sound. He teaches (in more accessible language) from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: </p>

<ul>
<li><p>God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. <a href=“http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a3.htm”>http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a3.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
<li><p>God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his creatures. <a href=“http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p4.htm”>http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p4.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
</ul>

<p>However, knowing that God can draw good from evil does not mean that the end justifies the means – the message that I think Fr. Travis was trying to get across to Joe:</p>

<ul>
<li>*One may not do evil so that good may result from it. *
<a href=“http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a4.htm”>http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a4.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
</ul>

[NJTheatreMOM]

<p>I liked Father Travis, too. In Plague of Doves there is a foolish priest whom Mooshum and his brother Shamengwa tease and make fun of.</p>

[mathmom]

<p>I liked Travis very much, even the chase. I liked the way he loved the old fashioned mass, but was very much rooted in the real world. His humanity really comes through - he’s not perfect and I don’t think he expects others to be either. He’s hot-headed, but I don’t think he holds grudges, not really.</p>

[PlantMom]

<p>I too liked Father Travis, beginning with turning up the volume on the movie so the boys could hear!</p>

<p>Back to twins–nice find, SJCM!-- competitive in this case as was true for the Lark twins’ competition for good and evil directed towards Joe’s family. From Louise Erdrich’s The Antelope Wife which I opened last night.

Bayzhig. Ever since the beginning these twins are sewing. One sews with light and one with dark. The first twin’s beads are cut-glass whites and pales, and the other twin’s beads are glittering deep red and blue-black indigo. One twin uses an awl made of an otter’s sharpened penis bone, the other uses that of a bear. They sew with a single sinew thread, in, out, fast and furious, each trying to set one more bead into the pattern than her sister, each trying to upset the balance of the world.

</p>

[Mary13]

<p>^ She has a way with words, doesn’t she? I love that last sentence.</p>

[SouthJerseyChessMom]

<p>mary she does have a way with words! And The Round House was an excellent -PERFECT- book selection, following Lonesome Dove. I commented about the last line of that book, didn’t like it at all. Ugh.
But, the last lines of The Round House, prefect ending …</p>

<p>

It was always what my father called the last leg of the journey. But we did not stop this time. We passed over in a sweep of sorrow that would persist into our small foresees. We just kept going.

</p>

[NJTheatreMOM]

<p>Erdrich’s way with words just blew me away when I read Love Medicine in 1984. I was working in a bookstore at the time, and a few copies of each new hardback that wasn’t expected to be a big seller would be on display back on a shelf that wasn’t highly visible. That was where I discovered Love Medicine. A quick perusal convinced me that I would like it. We employees were allowed to borrow books and read them for free, so I instantly snapped up Love Medicine and devoured it.</p>

<p>I kept telling the other employees and any customers who wanted recommendations, “This is great! This is great!” but I’m not sure I ever convinced anybody to read it.</p>

<p>So it is really, really, REALLY nice, thirty years later, to have shared another of Erdrich’s fine books with this wonderful group of people.</p>

[ignatius]

<p>

@NJTM

In The Plague of Doves there is a foolish priest whom Mooshum and his brother Shamengwa tease and make fun of.

^^^ A favorite part: When that foolish priest Father Cassidy gives the eulogy at the funeral mass for Mooshum’s brother Shamengwa, he mixes the brothers up and speaks of Mooshum instead:</p>

<p>

[Mooshum] who died unhouseled, refusing Extreme Unction or the anointment of holy oils. Though his soul may be in hell we have no way of knowing for sure as he was always good at getting out of sticky situations, his family tells me, and moreover, sometimes the saints intercede for sinners on a whim.

</p>

<p>Clemence finally manages to stop the priest and Mooshum happily gives him a wave.</p>

[NJTheatreMOM]

<p>Slightly off-topic, but if anybody lives in or is going to be in the Minneapolis St Paul area, there is a new Native American restaurant opening there in December that looks terrific:</p>

<p><a href=“New Native American Restaurant Promises Amazing "Pre-Colonization" Menu”>http://mic.com/articles/100308/amazing-new-native-american-restaurant-promises-a-delicious-pre-colonization-menu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>And of course Louise Erdrich’s bookstore!</p>

[Mary13]

<p>^ The Sioux Chef – clever!</p>

[Mary13]

<p>We haven’t relied on the discussions questions this time around, having covered the key topics in our own free-ranging discussion. But there is one question buried in #7 that I was thinking about: “Discuss the connection between the natural and animal world and the tribe’s spirituality.”</p>

<p>In Mooshum’s tale, the buffalo sacrifices herself for Nanapush, and there is an interdependence and understanding between man and animal. However, in Joe’s story, the balance between man and animal is somehow askew. First, Joe is pestered by swarms of biting mosquitoes (outside the sweat lodge), then he is literally crawling with blood-sucking ticks (in the woods), then, biking to Fr. Travis’ house, he is lunged at by wild dogs. Joe has a bond with Pearl, but other than that, his relationship to his fellow creatures seems rather adversarial. Any thoughts on why that might be? All I could think was that the series of “attacks” on Joe reflect his inner anxieties eating away at him.</p>

[ignatius]

<p>“Discuss the connection between the natural and animal world and the tribe’s spirituality.”</p>

<p>The legend of the round house - yes - but also the connection Joe and family find in everyday life (and not just the mosquitoes and ticks):</p>

<p>

My walls were painted a soft yellow. My mother had painted the walls while she was pregnant and always said she’d chosen the color because it would be right for either a girl or boy, but that halfway through the painting she knew I was a boy. She knew because each time she worked in the room a crane flew by the window, my father’s doodem, as I have said. Her own clan was the turtle. My father insisted that she had arranged for the snapping turtles she’d hooked on their first date to scare him into asking her to marry him without delay. I only learned later that they’d caught the very snapper whose shell my mother’s first boyfriend had carved with their initials. That boy had perished, Clemence had told me. The turtle’s message had been about mortality. How my father should act with swiftness in the face of death. […] My mother hadn’t ever realized that cranes are very predictable and cease their hunting at a certain hour and return to their roosts. Now the crane my mother used to watch, or its offspring, flapped slowly past my window. That evening it cast the image not of itself but of an angel on my wall. I watched this shadow. Through some refraction of brilliance the wings arched up from the slender body. Then the feathers took fire so the creature was consumed by light (end of ch. 7).

</p>

<p>Joe and those around him stay connected with the natural and animal world and look for meaning through the world around them.</p>

<p>And … symbolism at its finest in the above passage. Anyone care to tackle the meaning.</p>

[Mary13]

<p>Ah ignatius, you know how I love a good paragraph teeming with symbolism… :)</p>

<p>Bazil’s clan is the crane and Geraldine’s is the turtle, and although Joe does not connect these two for the reader, they are bound together in myth. </p>

<p>

Every shrine or temple we visited in Hanoi had statues of The Crane on the Turtle… usually 2 statues, one on each side. I was curious about the significance of this ubiquitious pair, so I asked Bien, our guide. And he told us such a very pretty story.</p>

<p>The turtle and the crane, said he, represent friendship and co-operation. In days gone past, a flood arrived upon the plains of Vietnam. The crane flew hither and thither but found no place to rest his wings. He stayed in the air for a long time and was about to drop with exhaustion when a young turtle arose out of the flood waters and offered his back to the tired bird to rest upon. In this manner, the turtle kept the crane alive long enough for flood waters to recede.</p>

<p>Years passed.</p>

<p>The crane owed the turtle an eternal debt. The two stayed in close touch, one a creature of the skies and the other a creature of the lakes. They grew old together for both are long-lived creatures. And it came to pass that a terrible drought passed through Vietnam. It was a drought so long and so thirsty that it drank up all the water in the turtle’s lake. Many animals died. The crane could not bear to see his friend perish. With a supreme effort (for the old turtle was heavy and the old crane was weak) the crane heft the turtle up into the air and carried him to another lake far away.</p>

<p>There, the two animals lived together in reciprocity… helping and caring for each other until each passed into the mists of time. <a href=“PetuniaLee™: The Crane On The Turtle”>http://petunialee.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-crane-on-turtle.html&lt;/a&gt;

</p>

<p>The story reflects the lifetime of love and friendship that Bazil and Geraldine show for each other. In The Round House, Bazil “with a supreme effort (for the old turtle was heavy and the old crane was weak)” supports and protects his wife. Later, after Bazil’s heart attack, Geraldine lovingly tends to her husband “long enough for flood waters to recede.”</p>

<p>Here they are in sculpture form: <a href=“Turtle carry crane on its back | Mergen* | Flickr”>https://www.■■■■■■■■■■/photos/mergenp/552217731/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>It’s not a Native American myth, but it works for me.</p>

[Caraid]

<p>Great find, Mary!!</p>

[ignatius]

<p>What about the crane casting through a trick of light a fiery image of an angel on the wall?</p>

<p>And a discussion of justice, revenge, vengeance in The Round House:</p>

<p><a href=“Interview: Louise Erdrich, Author of 'The Round House' | Erdrich Sets Revenge On A Reservation : NPR”>Interview: Louise Erdrich, Author of 'The Round House' | Erdrich Sets Revenge On A Reservation : NPR;