Saturday, May 9, 2009

Love Medicine: By Louise Erdrich





My most recent book this month is one I'm reading for Lit called Love Medicine, by Louise Erdrich, about a Native American Family. Erdrich, who is Native American herself and lives in Minnesota, writes about individual family members and their dealings with one another. They can get to be a little crazy. One man even burns his mistress's house down. Erdrich's style is provocative and worth reading, although I am a little disappointed by the decisions of the characters. But, of course, what's a book without conflict? I'm not done with it yet, but I'm having trouble finding the underlying "theme" of the book. We're supposed to answer the question, "what is love medicine, according to the novel?" And I haven't a clue what it is. It might be forgiveness, because you need a lot of it to still love such a wacko family. There's alcohol, rape, affairs, and death everywhere, and there's a lot of anger. So I guess the real solution is to just forgive, change, and move on.

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