Love Medicine (Louise Erdrich)
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The concept of national or cultural identity can define a literature - or limit it. William Butler Yeats, in promoting the Irish Renaissance, would write over and again "an Irish writer should write about things Irish" (a paraphrase). At the same time, he would make a careful distinction between the specifics of Ireland and Irish themes. In following Yeats advice, John Millington Synge would go on to write The Playboy of the Western World with such a concentration of theme into his characterizations that, it has been remarked, even a Russian peasant can understand his play. So it is with Louise Erdrich's episodic, saga-like novel Love Medicine. Her characters are Native American, Chippewa specifically, and her theme within the framework of the larger structures shaping the narrative is one of "Indian-ness." As a consequence, it is conjectured by this observer, probably even a homeboy from the Bronx could understand the story. By being, first and foremost, Chippewa Indians, Erdrich's characters become, above and beyond all else, universally human. This thematic approach to literature - universality through ethnicity - sounds schizophrenic. In the hands of a lesser writer probably it is. Certainly some later chapters of Love Medicine exhibit a less-than-sure grasp of what the author intends to convey, moments when "Indian-ness" descends to didactic political polemic. These are neither the strengths of the novel nor near its heart. The Indian-ness that Erdrich cap
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ht. Death came and tapped his chest, so he went just like that. ... His eyes clouded over and squeezed shut, but just before that I looked in. He was still fishing in the middle of Matchimanito. Big thoughts was on his line and he had half a case of beer in the boat. He waved at me, grinned, and then the bobber went under (250).
Every great plot incident - and many small moments - in Love Medicine display this sort of dichotomy; and, to this observer, it has to be bound up in the "Indian-ness" of the characters and author's worldview. Much like the Russians in a play by Chekhov, even when nothing is apparently happening in their lives, there is always a heightened sense of feeling in the characters themselves. The analogy with Chekhov is apt, since his plays are "cosmic comedies" as well; his characters, his themes, are always intrinsically bound up with their "Russian-ness" - and in that specificity of observation they take on a life outside their storyline's milieu.
This points to the essential resonance that works thematically throughout Love Medicine. "Resonance," as has been seen in other readings for this course, is an integral theme of Native American culture: connections among people, among peoples, between hu
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Approximate Word count = 1329
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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