<p>I don’t think Cappy was suidical. Erdrich repeatedly represented him as more mature in various ways than the other boys, and I think it is fairly plausible that he could have stolen the car to go after the girl.</p>
<p>It might have been a bit far-fetched for all the boys to go along, but Cappy was also young enough to feel he needed their support.</p>
<p>It’s possible that having participated in the killing of Lark made Cappy feel more reckless…more like he could get away with something outrageous like the trip to Montana.</p>
<p>Our neighbors had friends whose under-16 teenage son stole their car for a joyride, so that actually seemed pretty plausible. Lots of kids who live on farms or out in the country learn to drive long before it’s actually legal. That aspect of their ages bothered me less. Cappy also seemed to me like a relatively reckless personality, but I don’t think he was suicidal. There didn’t seem to be any reaction on the kids’ part that this was some sort of retribution for having taken part in the murder. Was there? It did seem to me that there was sort of a life-for-a-life aspect to it. Maybe it did make it easier in some weird way for them all to move forward.</p>
<p>Was it inevitable that Joe would be a lawyer? Or do we think that his experience made it more likely or even inevitable? I tend to think the latter.</p>
Agree that Cappy is not suicidal but still don’t think he would have attempted that road trip and all it entailed at age 13. Maybe if the girl lived closer - a nearby town, sure. Don’t you think though that the book could have left off meaningfully without that … with the focus on Joe and his role in Lark’s death? The revelations (Linda Wishkob’s role) and insights (Bazil’s discussion with Joe) - I wanted to ponder those. The road trip and Cappy’s death pulls away from that in my opinion.</p>
<p>I remember from when I lived in Texas that you had to drive for hours and hours to get anywhere. That was considered normal, and I’m sure it would have been the same for people on the reservation in The Round House. Looking at the map, it appears that someone could drive from the center of North Dakota to the center of Montana in about eight hours. If the trip had been shorter, the boys would have been more likely to survive it. </p>
<p>I read Marys earlier comment about Joe’s mother while I was waiting for a doctor’s appointment. I see it has been discussed since. I was going also say I didn’t think Geraldine was worse off because Joe murdered her rapist. The way it read, I felt she was relieved. When Joe wasvwatching her out in the garden, I got the sense he thought she seemed better. I agree with what @NJTheatreMom and @ignatius said above. :)</p>
<p>I was wondering how common the underage drinking and other reckless behaviors were on the Reservation. Was Erdrich presenting it from a realistic point of view? I think some of my reluctance to accept the reality of the boys’ Reservation life, is my lack of experience with Reservation life.</p>
<p>Has anyone read the book Dunes that Father Travis gave Joe? Joe mentions that he read it over and over for about a year. I looked it up. It’s a science fiction novel originally published in 1965. Here is how Amazon summarized it -
<p>I agree with this and hadn’t thought of what NJTM said, “I think that in a way Cappy represented Joe’s wild side. Joe could likely not have accomplished the revenge killing without Cappy. Killing off Cappy sort of excised the wild part of Joe and paved the way to a more sober life that was largely modeled after his father’s.”</p>
<p>One of the passages I marked (pg. 110) was about Joe and Cappy playing a video game while Linda watched-
</p>
<p>I also do not think that Cappy’s death was suicidal, especially since the two other boys had come along for the ride. I see Cappy and Joe, minus the plot’s accident and Cappy’s death, as broken, alcoholic adults. Joe asked Linda if he was like Lark. Linda said
Though the murder still gets to him, after the sacrifice of Cappy, he still goes on to have a life that’s not wrecked.</p>
<p>Caraid, yes, I’ve read Dune, although it was a long time ago. It’s a sci fi classic–highly recommend! </p>
<p>I read Dune years ago, but didn’t really care for it. It’s just not my genre, I guess. I do remember that large parts of Dune were lifted and dropped into the “Star Wars” trilogy, so it makes sense that the book would appeal to Joe.</p>
<p>I agree with mathmom that there was a “life-for-a-life” aspect to Cappy’s death. Although I appreciated the literary symmetry, I didn’t like the message. It smacked of Divine Retribution, and I don’t think that even Fr. Travis, who “taught like Vatican II had never happened,” believed in such a God. </p>
<p>Looking at it another way, maybe Cappy’s death, like Lark’s, is another example of what Fr. Travis told Joe:</p>
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</p>
<p>Cappy didn’t “deserve” death the way that Lark did, but he made some bad decisions, with tragic consequences. </p>
To me, Joe seemed destined to be a lawyer. He enjoyed reading his father’s law books, although he was disappointed when he learned the type of cases his father actually saw as a judge. I think his experience helped him better understand tribal law and his father’s role in the Reservation. So, I feel it is likely that his experience influenced his decision to be a tribal lawyer, rather than any other type of lawyer.</p>
<p>@PlantMom and @Mary13, do you see a connection between Dune and Joe’s story?</p>
<p>I’ve read Dune, for the first time when I was 12 or 13 and then about once a year for many years. Teenage boy saves the world! But there are other reasons it would be of interest. It’s about a colonial power taking over another planet to exploit its resources. It’s one of the first novels where ecology is important. (Remember those missing buffalos?) It’s also got a religion that is a mixture of world religions. There are excerpts from the “Orange-Catholic Bible” in many of the chapter headings. Lots of spirtualism. Lots of drug taking and vision quests.</p>
<p>They keep making terrible movies of it - including one where Sting (The Police) starred as the bad guy. It’s a super-classic novel - one of the few that won both the Hugo and Nebula awards and is always on lists of best sci fi novels.</p>
<p>I think the way Erdrich portrayed things was probably pretty realistic. I’d recommend On the Rez, a non-fiction book by Ian Frazier. He’s a superb reporter who writes for the New Yorker a lot. In On the Rez Frazier is writing about the Oglala Sioux, who are poorer than the folks Erdrich writes about, but there are similarities.</p>
<p>Frazier is sometimes slightly annoying (“I’m so cool, getting close to these Native Americans”) but he is such an excellent writer that you can pretty much forgive him for it.</p>
<p>Walking the Rez Road by Jim Northrup is good too, and he’s a genuine Native American.</p>
<p>Right now, as a follow-up to The Round House, I’m reading (at my teen daughter’s suggestion), Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, written from the 1st person perspective of a 13-year-old boy growing up on the Spokane Indian reservation. There are definitely shades of Joe and Cappy. </p>
<p>ignatius, thanks for the link to The Paris Review. Very interesting interview. Re your quote above, I think I applied that “primal” instinct to Geraldine when I was trying to express that because she is a mother, seeing Joe suffer (as a result of killing Lark) would compound her own personal suffering. I do understand and agree, though, that in the end, the supportive (and complicit) reservation community helps heal everyone involved.</p>
<p>SouthJerseyChessMom asked me to pass along that she is on page 175, frantically reading, but did not want to open the thread to say hello for fear of spoilers. I told her to stay far away until she’s finished, as there are spoilers galore!</p>
<p>That’s true. And Joe and Cappy’s shooting of Lark isn’t the only secret. There are two other secrets that the book leaves unresolved (unless I missed something). The first is the whereabouts of Mayla Wolfskin. Joe is sure–“down to the core of me”–that Bugger saw her body in the construction site, but he will not/cannot do anything about it.</p>
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</p>
<p>It seems to me that it’s another crime, another sin, to let Mayla remain where she is, without a proper burial. Do you think Joe ever tried to follow up on this, especially after Cappy’s death?</p>
<p>The other secret is the $40,000 that was inside the doll. Sonja is not very discreet. How long before the truth comes out about that? Do you think there would be any repercussions for Joe?</p>
<p>I thought that Sonja’s initial actions with the money were well-intended (if unwise). I believe she banked it for Joe, and Joe alone, but in the end the temptation was too great for her to resist. </p>
I want to believe that eventually Joe told the authorities about Mayla possibly being buried in the construction site. </p>
<p>
I don’t think there would be major repercussions for Joe. He was 13. Sonja could get in trouble. My question is, what are the rules for reporting found money. When Joe first found it, he didn’t know it was part of the mystery of Mayla’s murder and his mother’s rape. He didn’t know it was evidence. Now granted, if one finds $40,000 in a doll, you have to consider a strong possibility of something illegal. If nothing else, someone lost a lot of money and probably wants it back. But, what is the finder’s legal obligation?</p>
<p>As much as I’d like to think divulged Mayla’s final resting place, I do not believe he did. I think he continues to live with the guilt of his involvement in the case, the tampering with evidence, and the death of his best friend for the rest of his life. </p>
<p>And what about Mayla’s baby? It seems the paternity wasn’t disclosed, and she was found after being abandoned by Lark. What of her fate? </p>