<p>Our October CC Book Cub selection is The Round House by Louise Erdrich, set on a fictional Ojibwe Indian reservation in North Dakota. This winner of the 2012 National Book Award "is an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family" (Amazon).</p>
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“The Round House is filled with stunning language that recalls shades of Faulkner, García Márquez and Toni Morrison. Deeply moving, this novel ranks among Erdrich’s best work, and it is impossible to forget.” (USA Today)</p>
<p>“While Erdrich is known as a brilliant chronicler of the American Indian experience, her insights into our family, community, and spiritual lives transcend any category.” (Reader's Digest)
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<p>Discussion begins October 1st. Please join us!</p>
<p>I picked up my copy at the library Saturday. I’m not quite ready to start it - I’m finishing up another book (or two). I’ll probably give it a go at the end of the week or so. Aiming for Oct.1!</p>
<p>I just got mine from the library, too, in Kindle format via OverDrive Media. At the moment, I’m in the middle of The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown – meh. I’m looking forward to starting The Round House. See you all on October 1st!</p>
<p>I tried to like it, I really did. But I just wanted those three women to get over themselves. As one Amazon reviewer put it, “I stopped reading when all I could think about was how I wanted to slap each one of them.”</p>
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<p>As with The Orchardist, I stopped noticing after about the second page. In my previous pre-Book Club life, if browsing in a bookstore, I would have probably put either book back down on the table. I’m always grateful to CC readers for expanding my horizons.</p>
<p>It’s October 1st! Welcome to our discussion of The Round House by Louise Erdrich. What a great book! I don’t know how big our group will be this time around—I’m guessing small—but while reading the novel, I was very aware of how it would appeal to a much wider audience than I’d thought. It has everything from crime drama to coming-of-age to cultural identity to religion to love in its many forms.</p>
<p>In its lighter moments, the coming-of-age story had elements of Michael Ondaatje’s *The Cat’s Table<a href=“our%20June%202012%20CC%20book”>/i</a> or Stephen King’s *The Body<a href=“adapted%20into%20the%20film%20%E2%80%9CStand%20By%20Me%E2%80%9D”>/i</a>. Overall, though, The Round House was darker than those works.</p>
<p>^ I think that’s a perfectly normal sentiment from a 13-year-old. Joe is on the cusp—at the age where he is separating from his parents, not yet sure where their influence ends and his “true” self begins. I don’t think the grown-up Joe sees himself as so very different from his parents. It seems to me the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree: Joe attends his father’s alma mater for law school, practices law on behalf of his tribe, wears his father’s ties and carries his fountain pen (“I still have it, but I don’t sign my tribal court opinions with it the way he did” [p. 280]).</p>
<p>With the exception of the grocery story scene where he (understandably) loses his cool, Joe’s dad reminded me of Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird–his commitment to the law and his attempt to find ways to rise above its discriminatory propensities; his gentle, hands-off (older) parenting; his quiet wisdom. Similarly, the mild embarrassment that Joe feels about his father’s profession echoes Jem and Scout’s feelings about Atticus.</p>
<p>There is a brief scene in The Round House that has a parallel in To Kill a Mockingbird-–and in looking up the two passages, I was also struck by the thematic similarities.</p>
<p>From The Round House:</p>
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<p>From To Kill a Mockingbird:</p>
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<p>Joe’s dad is also “civilized in his heart.” He does not pick up a gun to go after Lark. His conscience won’t let him. However, he does acknowledge that simply wanting Lark dead makes him accountable:</p>
<p>I’m so glad you liked the book, Mary! Hope everything else did too. I have a special place in my heart for these wonderful characters and their world.</p>
<p>It was interesting re-reading the book after a couple of years. The things that had stuck with me from the first reading were:
The love in Joe’s family.
His great relationship with his three guy friends.
The complications of the different kinds of law.
The happy descriptions of food.</p>
<p>I’d completely forgotten about the priest, Cappy’s relationship with the girl, and Joe’s mention of his eventual marriage. I had even forgotten about the doll with the money in it!! (Getting old, I guess. )</p>
<p>The Atticus Finch parallel had never occurred to me, but now that you mention it, it’s quite obvious!</p>
<p>Good morning and a happy October the First to all. I finished reading The Round House for the second time a few days ago. You’re right, Mary. There’s just so much to this book, so many themes and ideas to talk and think about; as a result, I am so glad to have had the chance to reread it and ponder it along with a group. It’s rare that a book presents to me the combination of mystery, humor, darkness, and hope all in one compelling package. Bravo Louise Erdrich!</p>
<p>Per question three, how to describe the family. Well, they seem like a beautiful, tight family with unusually strong ties and commitment to one another. I see Joe, in the beginning, as one of those young saplings attacking the foundation; a thirteen year old entering the years of manhood, who’s naturally on the brink of setting himself apart from his parents, but relishing the roots of his happy, stable, and relatively uneventful childhood. I agree with Mary on the comparison of Atticus Finch and Joe’s father, although that didn’t occur to me while reading the book. He is a loving father, but recognizes Joe’s growing independence. He has this incredible aura of being fair and balanced, but kind–the wall or foundation of the family. But Joe’s mother by her “regularity of habit” was also a wall in that foundation. How beautifully said of her (pg. 3), “We (men) absorb their comings and goings into our bodies, their rhythms into our bones. Our pulse is set to theirs.” </p>
<p>Considering the age, it does seem normal that Joe see’s himself as different as a 13 year old. He “was the sort of kid who spent a Sunday afternoon prying little trees out of the foundation of his parents’ house,” the kid who wanted “something out of the ordinary” (pg. 5). That could have been one of my kids as a very young master gardener! At thirteen, before the brutal attack on his mother, it seems Joe saw his behavior as quirky and rebellious. As an adult, however, having had years to live with the consequences of his actions in the aftermath of the attack, he appears to perceive his separation behavior on coming of age as beginning signs of an aberration. </p>
<p>NJTM, I had forgotten major plot twists, too-- the doll, the trip to the hospital after Dad;s heart attack, Sonja’s departure and return. I guess the first time through the book I was really engaged in the suspense and the page turning element. This time I read more carefully and appreciated the other stories of other family members, the friendship and hardship, as well as the judicial inequalities. </p>
<p>I caught the Atticus Finch parallel immediately. It seemed to me so obvious that I figured it to be intentional on the part of Erdrich.</p>
<p>By coincidence, I read *Pigs in Heaven<a href=“sequel%20to%20%5Bi%5DThe%20Bean%20Trees%5B/i%5D”>/i</a> shortly before I picked up the Erdrich books. Pigs in Heaven also looks at life and community on a reservation and in particular laws regarding adoption of Native American children. It was interesting to move from one book/author to the other.</p>
<p>Judge Antone Bazil Coutts is my favorite character. I read Plague of Doves first so I got to see his love for Geraldine from the beginning: “The moment I passed Geraldine Milk in the narrow hallway of the tribal offices, I decided I had to marry her.”</p>
<p>See how I digress from The Round House to two books by Barbara Kingsolver and then to Erdrich’s Plague of Doves. 8-| </p>
<p>*Ha - I forgot to add in the reference to To Kill a Mockingbird. </p>
<p>I re-read Plague of Doves too, ignatius. Anybody who read that book and wants to discuss it, we could do it in PMs.</p>
<p>Plague of Doves has a lot about Judge Coutts’ earlier life, and it presents a portrait of Mooshum at a slightly younger age.</p>
<p>That book also features a Native American guy who becomes a religious cult leader of a group that attracts non-Indians. Quite a disturbing character!</p>
<p>I enjoyed this book and realized after looking at the descriptions of Erdrich’s other works (in the back of my paperback edition) that I had read Erdrich’s book The Beet Queen when it first came out ('86). I know I liked it, but didn’t remember much about the plot.</p>
<p>At the end of this book, I was left with conflicting emotions. Yes–Lark deserved to be punished for what he did and the craziness of the jurisdictional rules related to Native Americans was indeed unfortunate. Taking justice in his own hands may have “worked” for Joe as a resolution since the societal structures that should have dealt with Lark were broken. However, Joe had to live with his conscience and it’s not clear how that works out for him over time. I guess Joe dealt with it by giving himself a “pass”. But clearly, Joe was somewhat troubled. That being said–I wasn’t sad Lark was dead.</p>
<p>Joe as narrator generally worked well, but at times I was confused whether Joe was commenting as his 14-year-old self or as adult-Joe. looking back. Many times, I thought that 14-year-old Joe was mature for his age. Other times, I thought he was just a goofy 14-year-old kid.</p>
<p>I loved how Erdrich didn’t keep the focus on Joe getting revenge but had lots of subplots about the colorful characters that were part of Joe’s family and the reservation. I especially liked Mooshum and Linda Wishkob,</p>
<p>I liked Round House. The characters and their different stories were interesting, as was the look at Reservation life. I’ll confess to picking it as my #1 choice because of the description on Amazon that referred to it as a Native American To Kill a Mockingbird. @Mary13, I like your Bazil/Atticus comparison.</p>
<p>Joe’s life his first 13 years with his parents was good. He had a house full of love. His family was also well off compared to many, his parents were both professionals, and they both lived with him. His 3 closest friends had very different family lives. Joe’s family was well liked, respected, and an active part of the Reservation community. Everyone knew who he was. He was surprised a couple of times in the story when someone knew him and referred to him as “good boy”. I think the difference he feels now is probably different than what he felt at 13, especially at the beginning of the story. That summer changed him. It changed his perspective on his life and on the lives of others. I would love a book that continues on with Joe’s story.</p>
<p>@Bromfield2, I agree there were times in the story that Joe seemed much older than 13. His friends seemed older. I kept thinking Cappy had to be older than the others, but he wasn’t.</p>
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