Synopsis
Presents essays, literary criticism, and personal reflections on Native American life and culture
Reviews
While most prior efforts in the genre of the Indian professorial essay collection have drifted between incomprehensible and fanatical, this book from Allen (The Sacred Hoop), of Laguna Pueblo and Lebanese ancestry, is most often even-keeled (if on occasion overwrought: "Let me remind all of us that vegetarianism inevitably accompanies misogyny, racism, tyranny, gynocide, and infanticide"). As with most collections of the sort, the content is all over the map, from rape and misogyny, to criticism of literary criticism, to personal recollections and family ancestry, to an overview of Native spirituality. Even in this broad perspective, there seems to be a unifying theme. Allen best describes this cohesion when she states in the foreword, "Spanning thirty years, from the late sixties to the late nineties, each essay is, in its own way, an assertion that Indians are everywhere." There is some really compelling writing here, as in "Radiant Beings" and the whole last section, "La Frontera/Na(rra)tives." General readers will no doubt stumble through the middle section, titled "Wyrds/Orthographies," but the injection of Native sensibilities in every article takes this literate collection beyond the usual intellectual exercise.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Poet, novelist, feminist, and English professor (UCLA), Allen draws on her experiences as a woman of mixed Laguna and Lebanese heritage to critique contemporary American culture from the perspective of one who views it from the margins. The resulting essays are political, spiritual, and ecological in thrust yet sometimes intensely personal, as when she reflects on her Lebanese roots or her return to Laguna Pueblo after a long absence. In spite of occasional quirky and disputable conclusions like "vegetarianism inevitably accompanies misogyny, racism, tyranny, genocide, and infanticide," Allen's writings are thought-provoking and informative. Recommended for all academic libraries and public libraries with women's studies and Native American collections.?Faye Powell, Portland State Univ. Lib., OR
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
After creation and emergence, the first two major themes of the sacred lore of the Keres Pueblo, comes migration, the tradition to which Native American feminist scholar Allen claims allegiance. Her own legacy embraces three migration strands: Maronite Lebanese and Celtic Scots as well as Laguna Pueblo. Standing at these ethnic crossroads, refusing to be confined to any reservation, literal or figurative, Allen views the boundary where Native American cultures and Western civilization meet. In a series of essays that explore this boundary from a female-centered perspective, she proclaims the frontier a site of spiritual conflict and challenges; takes on the issue of how Native Americans assert themselves in an Indian country engulfed by white culture; and depicts Indians as plural and pervasive--" like the goddesses and gods." In other essays, she explores Native American literature and reflects on her personal "un-bounded" relation to the world. Intelligent critique from a renegade spirit who can inspire us all to see what the global prospects are "off the reservation." Philip Herbst
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