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The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birth Year
“[Louise ] Erdrich holds up an articulate strength. Moving, memorable… [ The Blue Jay’s Dance is] a book that breaks ground.”— Boston Sunday Globe Fifteen years after its initial publication, New York Times bestselling author Louise Erdrich’s beloved memoir The Blue Jay’s Dance is available for a whole new generation of families to discover. The first major work of nonfiction by the author of such classics as Love Medicine and The Plague of Doves, The Blue Jay’s Dance is, in the words of the New York Times Book Review, an “observant, tender, and honest” meditation on the experience of motherhood.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
54 people are currently reading
2747 people want to read
About the author
Louise Erdrich
130 books12.7k followersKaren Louise Erdrich is a American author of novels, poetry, and children's books. Her father is German American and mother is half Ojibwe and half French American. She is an enrolled member of the Anishinaabe nation (also known as Chippewa). She is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant Native writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance.
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Author Biography:
Louise Erdrich is one of the most gifted, prolific, and challenging of contemporary Native American novelists. Born in 1954 in Little Falls, Minnesota, she grew up mostly in Wahpeton, North Dakota, where her parents taught at Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. Her fiction reflects aspects of her mixed heritage: German through her father, and French and Ojibwa through her mother. She worked at various jobs, such as hoeing sugar beets, farm work, waitressing, short order cooking, lifeguarding, and construction work, before becoming a writer. She attended the Johns Hopkins creative writing program and received fellowships at the McDowell Colony and the Yaddo Colony. After she was named writer-in-residence at Dartmouth, she married professor Michael Dorris and raised several children, some of them adopted. She and Michael became a picture-book husband-and-wife writing team, though they wrote only one truly collaborative novel, The Crown of Columbus (1991).
The Antelope Wife was published in 1998, not long after her separation from Michael and his subsequent suicide. Some reviewers believed they saw in The Antelope Wife the anguish Erdrich must have felt as her marriage crumbled, but she has stated that she is unconscious of having mirrored any real-life events.
She is the author of four previous bestselling andaward-winning novels, including Love Medicine; The Beet Queen; Tracks; and The Bingo Palace. She also has written two collections of poetry, Jacklight, and Baptism of Desire. Her fiction has been honored by the National Book Critics Circle (1984) and The Los Angeles Times (1985), and has been translated into fourteen languages.
Several of her short stories have been selected for O. Henry awards and for inclusion in the annual Best American Short Story anthologies. The Blue Jay's Dance, a memoir of motherhood, was her first nonfiction work, and her children's book, Grandmother's Pigeon, has been published by Hyperion Press. She lives in Minnesota with her children, who help her run a small independent bookstore called The Birchbark.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 222 reviews
December 21, 2008
This book approaches the best book on mothering I have ever read. Precisely because it is poetic and doesn't collapse a large world into a small, explainable thing. It wanders and waits and watches and takes it time. She's not interested in theories or milestones as much as those slippery, inexplicable moments of grace and agony. I felt wrapped up in her experience and fundamentally understood--feminine, in a way that I didn't understand before I had children. I have wanted to express my experience with motherhood--with pregnancy and nursing and child-rearing, in ways that don't degrade it. But somehow the words are never right and other people's even less so. It's a hard thing to articulate--the endlessly rewarding but ceaselessly discouraging world of being a parent. But Erdrich, true to form, has simply shared a year's worth of mothering in a style that suits the experience--lush, roundabout, thoughtful--all in the small snippets of sentences and mind that are leftover luxuries for a mother. I felt part of a community reading this book--felt a deep pride in my inconsequential everyday doings. I am watching my baby sleep and feeling glad that Erdrich respected the unutterable while at the same time conjuring and celebrating it.
December 29, 2020
This is my first year reading Erdrich but even so this motherhood memoir is deep backlist, when her girls were all under 4 and her husband was still alive. It feels more like Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek + infant than most new mom memoirs. There are tidbits about her larger family, seasonal noticings of nature, self-reflection, etc.
I found it interesting that she had adopted three older children before having her babies, as it made me think her experience only seems serene because she knows the contrast.
"I'm usually a bit late and relieved if others are a little late too...waiting doesn’t bother me...Life comes on you all unawares while you are stuck in an interim situation. Life sneaks up. You have a tea, another tea, watch the water...There is the sweet self-indulgence of reading in public, a newspaper! Sometimes I simply feel myself vitally alive int eh moment, the interstice."
"[after a baby is born] Most days, I can't get enough distance on myself to define what I am feeling."
“Any sublime effort has its dark moments… Here is a job in which it is not unusual to be, at the same instant, wildly joyous and profoundly stressed.”
“Women without children are also the best of mothers, often, with the patience, interest, and saving grace that the constant relationship with children cannot always sustain…Women who are not mothering their own children have the clarity and focus to see deeply Ito the character of children webbed by family. A child is fortunate who feels witnessed as a person….”
I found it interesting that she had adopted three older children before having her babies, as it made me think her experience only seems serene because she knows the contrast.
"I'm usually a bit late and relieved if others are a little late too...waiting doesn’t bother me...Life comes on you all unawares while you are stuck in an interim situation. Life sneaks up. You have a tea, another tea, watch the water...There is the sweet self-indulgence of reading in public, a newspaper! Sometimes I simply feel myself vitally alive int eh moment, the interstice."
"[after a baby is born] Most days, I can't get enough distance on myself to define what I am feeling."
“Any sublime effort has its dark moments… Here is a job in which it is not unusual to be, at the same instant, wildly joyous and profoundly stressed.”
“Women without children are also the best of mothers, often, with the patience, interest, and saving grace that the constant relationship with children cannot always sustain…Women who are not mothering their own children have the clarity and focus to see deeply Ito the character of children webbed by family. A child is fortunate who feels witnessed as a person….”
September 11, 2009
Memorable:
"Women without children are also the best of mothers, often with the patience, interest and saving grace that the constant relationships with children cannot always sustain. I come to crave our talk and our daughters gain precious aunts. A child is fortunate who feels witnessed as a person, outside the relationship with parents, by another adult."
"You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth...let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness."
"Children do not love wisely, but perhaps they love best of all."
"We cannot chose who our children are, or what they will be - by nature they inspire a helpless love, wholly delicious, also capable of delivering startling pain. That weed, again. Some children are best cherished when lightly held, some need to test the strength of your grip. We all grow thorns. We have to."
"Women without children are also the best of mothers, often with the patience, interest and saving grace that the constant relationships with children cannot always sustain. I come to crave our talk and our daughters gain precious aunts. A child is fortunate who feels witnessed as a person, outside the relationship with parents, by another adult."
"You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth...let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness."
"Children do not love wisely, but perhaps they love best of all."
"We cannot chose who our children are, or what they will be - by nature they inspire a helpless love, wholly delicious, also capable of delivering startling pain. That weed, again. Some children are best cherished when lightly held, some need to test the strength of your grip. We all grow thorns. We have to."
May 2, 2013
One of my favourite books of all time. Ever. How does she do it? Write such beautiful, honest, sentences? Reveal everything while saying so very little? Who knows. not me. It's magic.
September 5, 2023
I’ve been wanting to read something by Louise Erdrich for a while. For some reason, I believed she wrote only fiction, so that’s what I was looking for. But then this book found its way towards me in a small second-hand bookshop and it soon became my favourite of the year so far.
This is a memoir of sorts, a series of reflections about becoming a mother and conciliating motherhood with work and simply with keep on being oneself. In Erdrich’s own words, “the meaning of this book for others may be this: Here is a job in which it is not unusual to be, at the same instant, wildly joyous and profoundly stressed.” and “I am overwhelmed by what is happening to me. I certainly can’t take notes, jot down my sensations, or even have them with any perspective after a while. And then, once our baby is actually born, the experience of labour, even at its most intense, is eclipsed by the presence of an infant.”
This book deeply resonated with me for many reasons, including the fact that it includes a fair deal of nature writing. For example, after finding a nest built using wool leftovers left in the garden by her mother, Erdrich had the idea of leaving outside in early spring, the cleanings from the hairbrush used to brush her daughters’ hair. In late fall, she found it: “It is almost too painful to hold the nest, too rich, as life often is with children. I see the bird, quick breathing, small, thrilling like a heart. I hear its song, high and clear, beating in its throat. I see that bird alone in the nest woven from the hair of my daughters, and I cannot hold the nest because longing seizes me. Not only do I feel how quickly they are growing from the curved shape of my arms when holding them, but I want to sit in the presence of my own mother so badly I feel my heart will crack.”
I wish I had found this book when I was a young mother, but I am still happy I found it now, even if my children are no longer small. Besides its content, the book is beautifully written. Erdrich has a rich, sensuous prose which is a pleasure to read, so I will definitely be looking for other books from her, fiction included.
This is a memoir of sorts, a series of reflections about becoming a mother and conciliating motherhood with work and simply with keep on being oneself. In Erdrich’s own words, “the meaning of this book for others may be this: Here is a job in which it is not unusual to be, at the same instant, wildly joyous and profoundly stressed.” and “I am overwhelmed by what is happening to me. I certainly can’t take notes, jot down my sensations, or even have them with any perspective after a while. And then, once our baby is actually born, the experience of labour, even at its most intense, is eclipsed by the presence of an infant.”
This book deeply resonated with me for many reasons, including the fact that it includes a fair deal of nature writing. For example, after finding a nest built using wool leftovers left in the garden by her mother, Erdrich had the idea of leaving outside in early spring, the cleanings from the hairbrush used to brush her daughters’ hair. In late fall, she found it: “It is almost too painful to hold the nest, too rich, as life often is with children. I see the bird, quick breathing, small, thrilling like a heart. I hear its song, high and clear, beating in its throat. I see that bird alone in the nest woven from the hair of my daughters, and I cannot hold the nest because longing seizes me. Not only do I feel how quickly they are growing from the curved shape of my arms when holding them, but I want to sit in the presence of my own mother so badly I feel my heart will crack.”
I wish I had found this book when I was a young mother, but I am still happy I found it now, even if my children are no longer small. Besides its content, the book is beautifully written. Erdrich has a rich, sensuous prose which is a pleasure to read, so I will definitely be looking for other books from her, fiction included.
May 20, 2016
I read this way back in 1995-96 when my daughter was a baby (she who turned 21 today). A friend recommended it as a balm when I was struggling with working, caring for a newborn and wasting altogether too much time on being anxious about not being perfect. At the time it helped calm me, but I was also consumed by rabid jealousy of Erdrich's life and daily routines -- she took her baby to her writing cabin and they spent the day together in a form off peaceful communion while Louise wrote. It was about as far as possible from my frenetic yuppie drop-off/work/home/sleep schedule as I could imagine and I was so exhausted it made me cry with frustration that her life couldn't be mine. Several years later there was a terrible scandal and her husband committed suicide and I felt so small for envying her gentle times alone with her children. Only one of many times in my life I have been reminded that I should spend more time looking at joys of my everyday rather than wasting my energy on yearning for what is not mine.
Being in a reminiscent frame of mind (having kids hit a major milestone will do that to you) I realized I had never logged this read here on Goodreads when scrolled through my update feed and despaired of the fact that I haven't yet read LaRose (or The Round House or, or, or) and I really, really, really should.
Being in a reminiscent frame of mind (having kids hit a major milestone will do that to you) I realized I had never logged this read here on Goodreads when scrolled through my update feed and despaired of the fact that I haven't yet read LaRose (or The Round House or, or, or) and I really, really, really should.
Read
September 27, 2021There were sentences and even whole paragraphs in this book that I loved, but I didn't love the whole book:
1. I never felt grounded. Was I reading about motherhood, writing, nature? I didn't know what kind of book I was reading. In the end I decided it was a book about whatever Louise Erdrich wanted to write about that day and I felt she was a little indulgent at my expense.
2. Too many adjectives and adverbs. It slowed me down and made the book less fun.
That said, I wish I would have written this sentence: "When every inch of the world is known, sleep may be the only wilderness we have left." I love it.
1. I never felt grounded. Was I reading about motherhood, writing, nature? I didn't know what kind of book I was reading. In the end I decided it was a book about whatever Louise Erdrich wanted to write about that day and I felt she was a little indulgent at my expense.
2. Too many adjectives and adverbs. It slowed me down and made the book less fun.
That said, I wish I would have written this sentence: "When every inch of the world is known, sleep may be the only wilderness we have left." I love it.
March 6, 2010
My favorite part of Louise's memoir is a section entitled "Horizon Sickness" which describes how this North Dakota girl had trouble living in New England and not being able to see the horizon. I've had the opposite experience, having grown up in Vermont and now living in the flatlands of the upper midwest. Louise says: "I am suspicious of Eastern land: the undramatic loveliness, the small scale, the lack of sky to watch, the way the weather sneaks up without enough warning." This whole section is brilliant and the book is peppered with similar gems, particularly concerning the natural environment and animals. At points I felt like Louise's writing was scary good and I look forward to reading some of her fiction.
April 5, 2009
This is a beautiful and lyrical non-fiction book that describes the author's life in rural New Hampshire after the birth of one of her children. The problem is that the book is not about anything. It has no plot, no characters, and no development. Mostly it describes nature and animals, with occasional tangents for recipes. There were a few nice moments but it was way too rambling for me. When I look past the content problems I did sense some writing talent so I am curious to see if her fiction is better.
August 30, 2017
The postpartum period after giving birth to my first son seems like the perfect time to reread Anne Lamott's "Operating Instructions" -- unfortunately, I gave my copy to my best friend when she was pregnant, having no idea that my own pregnancy was so close at hand. I thought Erdrich's book might serve as a good stand in, which it did to a certain extent.
Unlike "Operating Instructions," this is not really a journal or a traditional memoir but rather a series of loosely connected essays written in the year after the birth of Erdrich's third baby. As a new mother, this format makes total sense to me -- when you are writing in snatches grabbed while Baby naps or you pawn him off on someone else for half an hour, you learn to write "small" or not write at all. While this is undoubtedly part of Erdrich's personal style, I found myself bored by how often she wrote about nature and wanted her to write more about parenting a baby, since that is what drew me to this book. And when she does write about new motherhood, her writing is beautiful, aching, and insightful, whether she is delving into postpartum depression or the travails of sleep deprivation. I always was left wanting more in these sections, as well as in the sections where she wrote about the challenges of maintaining any sort of writing practice at all with a new baby in your orbit. In these moments, I had that wonderful feeling of being fully understood, of having someone give voice to questions, feelings and experiences that I was in the midst of grappling with and not yet able to articulate.
Unfortunately, this comprised only about a third of the book. In addition to the musings on nature, stories about her cats (which I didn't mind in the least), and brief glimpses into the rest of her family life (also interesting), she includes quite a few recipes. I skimmed these because most were far too involved for me to consider making them, but I understood their inclusion because food takes on a whole new level of meaning when you are pregnant and breastfeeding, especially when it is prepared by someone you love.
Unlike "Operating Instructions," this is not really a journal or a traditional memoir but rather a series of loosely connected essays written in the year after the birth of Erdrich's third baby. As a new mother, this format makes total sense to me -- when you are writing in snatches grabbed while Baby naps or you pawn him off on someone else for half an hour, you learn to write "small" or not write at all. While this is undoubtedly part of Erdrich's personal style, I found myself bored by how often she wrote about nature and wanted her to write more about parenting a baby, since that is what drew me to this book. And when she does write about new motherhood, her writing is beautiful, aching, and insightful, whether she is delving into postpartum depression or the travails of sleep deprivation. I always was left wanting more in these sections, as well as in the sections where she wrote about the challenges of maintaining any sort of writing practice at all with a new baby in your orbit. In these moments, I had that wonderful feeling of being fully understood, of having someone give voice to questions, feelings and experiences that I was in the midst of grappling with and not yet able to articulate.
Unfortunately, this comprised only about a third of the book. In addition to the musings on nature, stories about her cats (which I didn't mind in the least), and brief glimpses into the rest of her family life (also interesting), she includes quite a few recipes. I skimmed these because most were far too involved for me to consider making them, but I understood their inclusion because food takes on a whole new level of meaning when you are pregnant and breastfeeding, especially when it is prepared by someone you love.
June 16, 2025
It's difficult reckoning with a memoir that lauds, and is dedicated to, a man who took his own life after allegations emerged of sexual abuse against his daughters; the same children whose infancy this book recounts. Of course, it was written before the allegations, and for this review I've separated the awful situation from Erdrich's writing and insights into motherhood, which are beautiful and profound. I would recommend that if you read this, quickly follow it up with Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country, which is similarly about Erdrich's experience of mothering an infant - her fourth biological daughter, to whom she gave birth aged 47 (slay) - and mentions the brilliant creative lives that her other daughters have pursued.
February 12, 2019
I won't say that I could relate to everything in this book on early motherhood in the same way Erdrich felt it (a little less later in the book). But when I could relate, I felt like we were relating on some perfect, higher level. She just nailed so many emotions in that wonderful beautiful difficult turbulent time (first year of baby).
I didn't become acquainted with this book until I had all four of my children soundly birthed and growing up. On a friend's recommendation I bought it and then promptly misplaced it, only to find it just recently while cleaning. I'm so glad I did. It's so beautiful. At least as long as you believe beauty is tied into the ugly, messy things of life. Part of me wishes I'd read it when my babies were small. Part of me is glad I didn't discover it until recently, so I have some distance and remembering in the reading of it.
I didn't become acquainted with this book until I had all four of my children soundly birthed and growing up. On a friend's recommendation I bought it and then promptly misplaced it, only to find it just recently while cleaning. I'm so glad I did. It's so beautiful. At least as long as you believe beauty is tied into the ugly, messy things of life. Part of me wishes I'd read it when my babies were small. Part of me is glad I didn't discover it until recently, so I have some distance and remembering in the reading of it.
December 26, 2023
It's kind of like Annie Dillard had a baby. This is a really lovely contemplative, insightful, reflective book about many things - the natural world, family tensions, feeling at home (or not) in a natural environment, being a talented, ambitious woman who loves her babies, and the way babies slow you down and complicate things, but also enhance things. It seems like mostly a book about going slower for a year, and the beautiful and interesting things you get to notice and experience as a result.
PS - A book stands on its own, but she talks a bit about her family in the book and I was curious so I googled them. 😬😬😬😬😬 She had a rough few years coming, folks.
PS - A book stands on its own, but she talks a bit about her family in the book and I was curious so I googled them. 😬😬😬😬😬 She had a rough few years coming, folks.
April 1, 2022
I'm not the biggest fan of nature writing, and I did skim some parts that got really into the weeds (har har) talking about plants. I did enjoy her talking about trying to find a self while being so absorbed in the newborn stage. This wasn't quite a series of short stories, nor quite a stream of consciousness; more like a series of vignettes, as if she had a few minutes per day to write, and took them where she could. It was fine.
April 5, 2019
I read this years ago and found myself thinking about it recently. I was thinking of how it moved me and how lines from it are still with me. This is why, in retrospect, I’m upgrading my rating to a 5.
February 29, 2024
4.5--Beautifully written memoir by one of my favorite authors. There were several passages I had to stop share with my sister as I was reading. This is a collection of Erdrich's thoughts and experiences during the first year of her fourth pregnancy. Especially poignant to me were her thoughts on laughter and on grief. Her experience with a skunk and skunkiness made me laugh. These will go in my favorite quotes. And while Erdrich speaks primarily of the experience of mothering, the tensions, the embodiedness of motherhood, the overwhelming love, the impossible demands, the necessary relationships with other mothers, she reaches an arm out and pulls this woman without children close to her. She writes, "Women without children are also the best of mothers, often, with the patience, interests, and saving grace that the constant relationship with children cannot always sustain. I come to crave our talk and our daughters gain precious aunt. Women who are not mothering their own children have the clarity and focus to see deeply into the character of children webbed by family. A child is fortunate who feels witnessed as a person, outside relationships with parent, by another adult." (162)
This is an earlier work from 1995, and you can see the threads she's creating here woven into her fiction, in particular my favorite "Future Home of the Living God." This is a good gift for the women with young children. It's presented in short sections ranging from one paragraph to several pages. It's not a traditional narrative so you don't have to necessarily remember what happened 20 pages ago. This book will help Moms feel seen, validated, and reminds us that there are other ways to live and see and be in the in the world.
This is an earlier work from 1995, and you can see the threads she's creating here woven into her fiction, in particular my favorite "Future Home of the Living God." This is a good gift for the women with young children. It's presented in short sections ranging from one paragraph to several pages. It's not a traditional narrative so you don't have to necessarily remember what happened 20 pages ago. This book will help Moms feel seen, validated, and reminds us that there are other ways to live and see and be in the in the world.
April 15, 2020
I didn't expect to like this book - a memoir of early motherhood - but it turns out I loved it. Years ago, I had the opportunity to hear Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris speak at the University of North Dakota Writers' Conference, and that experience helped make this book come alive for me. I remember, at the time, thinking what a golden couple they were, and what a fairy tale life it must to live in the woods and work and raise a family. Turns out it was, and it wasn't. But this book was moving, and poignant, and funny, and all about what it means to be a parent, and what it means to be part of nature. There is a "warm blanket" feel in slowly taking in each page. And there are recipes. Good recipes...for food, and maybe, for living our best lives.
December 27, 2024
So different from the usual Erdrich but we can continue to rejoice in her magnificent writing. She meanders through the first year of motherhood - the overwhelming feelings of frustration, incompetence, but especially love. Everyone tells you how busy you will be, how you will wonder what you did with all your time before that baby came, but no one prepares you for how protective, how invested, how much adoration you will feel for that tiny miracle you have created.
The quote I want to remember:
"You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth...Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness."
The quote I want to remember:
"You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth...Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness."
July 13, 2017
I loved so many passages of this book. I purchased it after reading the library copy (something I never do) because I want to write in it and remember so much of the beautiful writing. My enjoyment of this book stems from where I am right now, so I don't expect that others will react as strongly as I did, but if you are a parent of a baby or toddler, you will appreciate the non-cliched musings on life. This is not a parenting book, but a warm blanket after a perfect night's sleep.
August 15, 2019
This was lovely, but the real star of Erdrich's "Birth Year" is the nature surrounding her as she writes. What she says about parenting and new babies is wonderful and True, but that isn't the focus of this narrative.
January 5, 2019
Do not speed read this gem as I started to, with my usual habits. This is one to savor slowly.
February 4, 2018
This book is exquisite in so many ways, though drawn out and a bit tedious (much like caring for an infant, I presume). But reading this while a dear friend went through pregnancy and motherhood made me feel closer to her and the emotions she must've been feeling. These particular lines are my favorite--beautifully written with an air of honesty and intimacy you don't find easily.
"I come in eager hope and afraid of labor, all at once, for this is the heart of the matter. Whatever else I do, when it comes to pregnancy I am my physical self first, as are all of us women. We can pump gas, lift weights, head a corporation, lead nations, and tune pianos. Still, our bodies are rounded vases of skin and bones and blood that seem impossibly engineered for both. I look down onto my smooth, huge lap, feel my baby twist, and I can't figure out how I'll ever stretch wide enough. I fear I've made a ship inside a bottle. I'll have to break. I'm not me. I feel myself becoming less a person than a place, inhabited, a foreign land." (p.9)
"Life seems to flood by, taking our loves quickly in its flow. In the growth of children, in the aging of beloved parents, time's chart is magnified, shown in its particularity, focused, so that with each celebration of maturity there is also a pang of loss. This is our human problem, one common to parents, sons and daughters, too--how to let go while holding tight, how to simultaneously cherish the closeness and intricacy of the bond while at the same time letting out the raveling string, the red yarn that ties our hearts." (p.69)
"Early on in my adult life I tried to ware a watch, but I didn't like the feel of time ticking itself away on my wrist, as if in a mortal race with my own pulse. I tried to tell time by the length of light, but I was always late... Still, I'm usually a bit late and relieved if others are a little late too. For some reason, waiting, even alone and conspicuously, doesn't bother me as much as it seems to bother others. Life comes on you all unawares while you are stuck in an interim situation. Life sneaks up. You have a tea, another tea, watch the water, the goldfish in the Chinese restaurant... There is a sweet self-indulgence of reading in public, a newspaper! Sometimes I simply feel myself vitally alive in the moment, the interstice." (p.84)
"A woman needs to tell her own story, to tell the bloody version of the fairy tale. A woman has to be her own hero. The princess cuts off her hair, blinds her eyes, scores her arms, and rushes wildly toward the mouth of the dragon. The princess slays the dragon, sets off on her own quest. She crushes her crown beneath her foot, eats dirt, eats roses, deals with the humility and grandeur of her own human life." (p.104)
On love: "Blind will without direction. Stubborn and insufficient love. Bewildering love. Helpless and devouring love of children. Forged love, married love, love that starts molten and throughout its life must be thrown back into the fire, recast, reshaped, restored. Sometimes a vase, a startling beast, a perfect shoe, there is no predicting the raw shape of love when it drops from the burning mold. Married passion is a quest, in the end, and the lovers are its heroes, fighting along the way demons of their own making and of others, changing identities, carving their initials into each other's hearts." (p.104)
"We cannot choose who our children are, or what they will be--by nature they inspire a helpless love, wholly delicious, also capable of delivering startling pain... Some children are best cherished when lightly held, some need to test the strength of your grip. We all grow thrown. We have to." (p.105)
"Grief blinds us to itself, plunges under, moves through our arms into the earth, and surfaces in moments out of time. Grief is alchemy by which living memory changes the daily lead and silver of our loved one's existence to purest gold. We caress air, murder hope, wishing for just one ordinary word. Loss is a powerful wave that hurls us forward at the same time that its undertow drags us down, scrapes us along the bottom." (p.109)
"And, for the first night since she was conceived, she sleeps more than a foot away. First she was part of me, and then she slept curled between us. Then, a night, I don't know when, she was placed in her bassinet. Now she sleeps in the next room. For nights I wake, startled, my brain humming with abysmal exhaustion, aware only in the most atavistic way that something is wrong. It is as if in sleep I have been cut in two and suddenly miss my other half. I am there at her cry in the deepest hour of the night we fit together again like the pieces of a broken locket. On a cot in her little room, warming gradually under webs of afghans, we nurse, sighing, becoming more separate with every breath." (p.152)
"I come in eager hope and afraid of labor, all at once, for this is the heart of the matter. Whatever else I do, when it comes to pregnancy I am my physical self first, as are all of us women. We can pump gas, lift weights, head a corporation, lead nations, and tune pianos. Still, our bodies are rounded vases of skin and bones and blood that seem impossibly engineered for both. I look down onto my smooth, huge lap, feel my baby twist, and I can't figure out how I'll ever stretch wide enough. I fear I've made a ship inside a bottle. I'll have to break. I'm not me. I feel myself becoming less a person than a place, inhabited, a foreign land." (p.9)
"Life seems to flood by, taking our loves quickly in its flow. In the growth of children, in the aging of beloved parents, time's chart is magnified, shown in its particularity, focused, so that with each celebration of maturity there is also a pang of loss. This is our human problem, one common to parents, sons and daughters, too--how to let go while holding tight, how to simultaneously cherish the closeness and intricacy of the bond while at the same time letting out the raveling string, the red yarn that ties our hearts." (p.69)
"Early on in my adult life I tried to ware a watch, but I didn't like the feel of time ticking itself away on my wrist, as if in a mortal race with my own pulse. I tried to tell time by the length of light, but I was always late... Still, I'm usually a bit late and relieved if others are a little late too. For some reason, waiting, even alone and conspicuously, doesn't bother me as much as it seems to bother others. Life comes on you all unawares while you are stuck in an interim situation. Life sneaks up. You have a tea, another tea, watch the water, the goldfish in the Chinese restaurant... There is a sweet self-indulgence of reading in public, a newspaper! Sometimes I simply feel myself vitally alive in the moment, the interstice." (p.84)
"A woman needs to tell her own story, to tell the bloody version of the fairy tale. A woman has to be her own hero. The princess cuts off her hair, blinds her eyes, scores her arms, and rushes wildly toward the mouth of the dragon. The princess slays the dragon, sets off on her own quest. She crushes her crown beneath her foot, eats dirt, eats roses, deals with the humility and grandeur of her own human life." (p.104)
On love: "Blind will without direction. Stubborn and insufficient love. Bewildering love. Helpless and devouring love of children. Forged love, married love, love that starts molten and throughout its life must be thrown back into the fire, recast, reshaped, restored. Sometimes a vase, a startling beast, a perfect shoe, there is no predicting the raw shape of love when it drops from the burning mold. Married passion is a quest, in the end, and the lovers are its heroes, fighting along the way demons of their own making and of others, changing identities, carving their initials into each other's hearts." (p.104)
"We cannot choose who our children are, or what they will be--by nature they inspire a helpless love, wholly delicious, also capable of delivering startling pain... Some children are best cherished when lightly held, some need to test the strength of your grip. We all grow thrown. We have to." (p.105)
"Grief blinds us to itself, plunges under, moves through our arms into the earth, and surfaces in moments out of time. Grief is alchemy by which living memory changes the daily lead and silver of our loved one's existence to purest gold. We caress air, murder hope, wishing for just one ordinary word. Loss is a powerful wave that hurls us forward at the same time that its undertow drags us down, scrapes us along the bottom." (p.109)
"And, for the first night since she was conceived, she sleeps more than a foot away. First she was part of me, and then she slept curled between us. Then, a night, I don't know when, she was placed in her bassinet. Now she sleeps in the next room. For nights I wake, startled, my brain humming with abysmal exhaustion, aware only in the most atavistic way that something is wrong. It is as if in sleep I have been cut in two and suddenly miss my other half. I am there at her cry in the deepest hour of the night we fit together again like the pieces of a broken locket. On a cot in her little room, warming gradually under webs of afghans, we nurse, sighing, becoming more separate with every breath." (p.152)
February 8, 2025
The parts of The Blue Jay’s Dance: A Memoir of Early Motherhood hat dealt with feral cats, writers, and random musings about dreams appealed to me more than those about motherhood and her favorite recipes.
That is to be expected since I am male and chose not to have children, although I have cats (and tried unsuccessfully several times to adopt feral felines) and dogs, do the cooking for my wife and I, and have way too many random musings.
I read this as part of a personal project to read and reread all of Louise Erdrich’s books. While engaged in similar projects, it helped me to understand their fiction when I read non-fiction and memoirs by the authors I was focusing on, such as Wallace Stegner, Kurt Vonnegut and Larry McMurtry.
This book focuses on her life in the 1980s and 1990s, compressing the time period when she published six novels and was raising six kids into what seems like a single year.
I was fascinated by some of the fabulous lead sentences Erdrich began sections with. One began with “When I was 14, I slept alone on a North Dakota football field under cold stars on an early September night” with no other explanation about why this happened. But it led to a memorable tale of a skunk falling asleep on her sleeping bag, traveled into her thoughts about whether skunks dream, and that she has her best dreams in cheap motels.
That reminded me of why I am a huge fan of her fiction. Because of that fandom, I expect to reread this book later in this project to see if I get more out of it after reading all of her fiction.
That is to be expected since I am male and chose not to have children, although I have cats (and tried unsuccessfully several times to adopt feral felines) and dogs, do the cooking for my wife and I, and have way too many random musings.
I read this as part of a personal project to read and reread all of Louise Erdrich’s books. While engaged in similar projects, it helped me to understand their fiction when I read non-fiction and memoirs by the authors I was focusing on, such as Wallace Stegner, Kurt Vonnegut and Larry McMurtry.
This book focuses on her life in the 1980s and 1990s, compressing the time period when she published six novels and was raising six kids into what seems like a single year.
I was fascinated by some of the fabulous lead sentences Erdrich began sections with. One began with “When I was 14, I slept alone on a North Dakota football field under cold stars on an early September night” with no other explanation about why this happened. But it led to a memorable tale of a skunk falling asleep on her sleeping bag, traveled into her thoughts about whether skunks dream, and that she has her best dreams in cheap motels.
That reminded me of why I am a huge fan of her fiction. Because of that fandom, I expect to reread this book later in this project to see if I get more out of it after reading all of her fiction.
May 15, 2016
This book was so difficult to read. Aside from the fact that I found it dreadfully boring, not just because it was an assigned reading for my class, but because the author's writing style lulled me to sleep on more than one occasion.
Let me digress for a moment and say that I was actually looking forward to reading the book. There's not that many nonfiction books, that I know of, that focus pregnancy, childbirth, and child care especially from a the perspective of a Native American woman. Now most people would say, "It's nothing special, many women around the world go through this.", and where that might be true, Native Americans are culturally different from us and thus having a brief inside look at how Native American women go through this, otherwise clandestine process, was very intriguing. However, I was in for something completely unexpected.
By the end of the book I felt like Erdrich wrote this while going through postpartum depression. Erdrich talks about herself as a woman, a mother, and a writer, but it's easy to see that those three aspects, that make her who she is, are in constant conflict—it's your typical love-hate relationship.
All that aside, I want to say that what deterred me the most was how Erdrich tried to humanize everything that to animals is considered natural instinct. For example, there is a section in the book called "Duck Rape", I'm not even kidding. Erdrich goes through that section victimizing a female mallard duck that is having intercourse with multiple male mallards. In her eyes she sees this as aggressive behavior in which the female is repeatedly violated, however she fails to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Animal instincts are different from our own. She projects a humanizing lens over the situation to make the act vile in the eyes of the reader. If anyone has ever taken a biology or zoology course, they'd know that within some animal species this behavior is normal. It's not a violation, instead it's the animal's pure instinct to procreate to ensure the survival of the species—new offspring. Erdrich also tries to paint herself as a savior by saying she tried to save the female duck and in turn made the situation worse. It might have seemed worse to her, but to the animals, her intrusion could be seen as a violation of a procreating ritual. Let's be realistic, how can she know if this duck is really being raped? Rape is a human word, last I checked ducks don't speak human, so there lies the disconnection.
Yes the rant is long, but through the entire book Erdrich keeps trying to project animal situations through a humanized lens that not only makes no sense whatsoever, but deters from the actual point of the book. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, unless you absolutely must read it for a class.
Let me digress for a moment and say that I was actually looking forward to reading the book. There's not that many nonfiction books, that I know of, that focus pregnancy, childbirth, and child care especially from a the perspective of a Native American woman. Now most people would say, "It's nothing special, many women around the world go through this.", and where that might be true, Native Americans are culturally different from us and thus having a brief inside look at how Native American women go through this, otherwise clandestine process, was very intriguing. However, I was in for something completely unexpected.
By the end of the book I felt like Erdrich wrote this while going through postpartum depression. Erdrich talks about herself as a woman, a mother, and a writer, but it's easy to see that those three aspects, that make her who she is, are in constant conflict—it's your typical love-hate relationship.
All that aside, I want to say that what deterred me the most was how Erdrich tried to humanize everything that to animals is considered natural instinct. For example, there is a section in the book called "Duck Rape", I'm not even kidding. Erdrich goes through that section victimizing a female mallard duck that is having intercourse with multiple male mallards. In her eyes she sees this as aggressive behavior in which the female is repeatedly violated, however she fails to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Animal instincts are different from our own. She projects a humanizing lens over the situation to make the act vile in the eyes of the reader. If anyone has ever taken a biology or zoology course, they'd know that within some animal species this behavior is normal. It's not a violation, instead it's the animal's pure instinct to procreate to ensure the survival of the species—new offspring. Erdrich also tries to paint herself as a savior by saying she tried to save the female duck and in turn made the situation worse. It might have seemed worse to her, but to the animals, her intrusion could be seen as a violation of a procreating ritual. Let's be realistic, how can she know if this duck is really being raped? Rape is a human word, last I checked ducks don't speak human, so there lies the disconnection.
Yes the rant is long, but through the entire book Erdrich keeps trying to project animal situations through a humanized lens that not only makes no sense whatsoever, but deters from the actual point of the book. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, unless you absolutely must read it for a class.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 13, 2012
There is some lovely nature writing here and some good, honest descriptions of the all-encompassing work of motherhood. I wish I had read this when my kids were babies--I'm glad for all the moments Erdrich expresses the intensity and difficulty of being a mother.
Edrich's skill as a writer shines through as she describes pain and beauty, darkness, depression, joy, observes wildlife and the forest that surrounds, describes her babies and their growth--all with precision, care, and grace. She never does sound self-pitying or complaining. She honors toughness--that of her forbears, herself, her offspring, the survival instinct of all living things.
If there is anything that keeps me from giving this book four stars it is that Erdrich sometimes seems to want to create or say things that to me do not sound authentic; they do not ring true. They make pretty sentences, but they are too precious.
I find also that in some of the nature writing I read from this era (the 1990s) that there is almost a self-congratulatory or complacent element that creeps in and then I feel less enjoyment in the writing. It is as if the writer thinks he or she is a little more righteous or enlightened than everyone else because she is wise enough to observe and enjoy the natural world, and there is an artificial (!) feeling at those moments.
Now we are in a post 9/11 world of edginess and fear and a distractedness that makes some of these works from the 90s seem naive to me. Too content. Like the writer is a cat who has just finished a bowl of cream and congratulates herself for her enjoyment of it. But who gave her the bowl? She is dependent on her caretaker and doesn't see how tenuous her existence really is.
However, here are some quotes I liked:
"The primary parent of a new infant loses the ability to focus. and that in turn saws on the emotions, wears away the fragile strings of nerves. Hormones, milk, heaviness, no sleep, internal joy, all jam the first few months after a baby is born, so that I experience a state of tragic confusion. Most days, I can't get enough distance on myself to define what I am feeling. I walk through a tunnel from one house to the other. . . I'm being swallowed alive. On those days, suicide is an idea too persistent for comfort. There isn't a self to kill, I think, filled with dramatic pity for who I used to be. That person is gone. Yet, once I've established that I have no personal self, killing whatever remains seems hardly worth the effort...."
"Any sublime effort has its dark moments."
Edrich's skill as a writer shines through as she describes pain and beauty, darkness, depression, joy, observes wildlife and the forest that surrounds, describes her babies and their growth--all with precision, care, and grace. She never does sound self-pitying or complaining. She honors toughness--that of her forbears, herself, her offspring, the survival instinct of all living things.
If there is anything that keeps me from giving this book four stars it is that Erdrich sometimes seems to want to create or say things that to me do not sound authentic; they do not ring true. They make pretty sentences, but they are too precious.
I find also that in some of the nature writing I read from this era (the 1990s) that there is almost a self-congratulatory or complacent element that creeps in and then I feel less enjoyment in the writing. It is as if the writer thinks he or she is a little more righteous or enlightened than everyone else because she is wise enough to observe and enjoy the natural world, and there is an artificial (!) feeling at those moments.
Now we are in a post 9/11 world of edginess and fear and a distractedness that makes some of these works from the 90s seem naive to me. Too content. Like the writer is a cat who has just finished a bowl of cream and congratulates herself for her enjoyment of it. But who gave her the bowl? She is dependent on her caretaker and doesn't see how tenuous her existence really is.
However, here are some quotes I liked:
"The primary parent of a new infant loses the ability to focus. and that in turn saws on the emotions, wears away the fragile strings of nerves. Hormones, milk, heaviness, no sleep, internal joy, all jam the first few months after a baby is born, so that I experience a state of tragic confusion. Most days, I can't get enough distance on myself to define what I am feeling. I walk through a tunnel from one house to the other. . . I'm being swallowed alive. On those days, suicide is an idea too persistent for comfort. There isn't a self to kill, I think, filled with dramatic pity for who I used to be. That person is gone. Yet, once I've established that I have no personal self, killing whatever remains seems hardly worth the effort...."
"Any sublime effort has its dark moments."
June 10, 2020
Pregnancy / Delivery / Self Identity -- Dependency to First Steps -- Natural World / Seasonal Changes
Motherhood prompts Erlich to see herself as part of a bigger picture, and to reflect on her relationship to other women, the human race, and the natural world.
p 62: [I admire the chickadee,] for it is a tough, cheerful, weightless survivor of the harshest winters, and its call seems always pleasantly friendly and encouraging.
p 89: The West, or the edge of it anyway, the great level patchwork of chemically treated fields and tortured grazing land, is the outside I've internalized.
I believe that the land where a child spends the first 10 or 12 years of life is the one that the child thinks of as "home." It's imprinted and internalized even if the person never again lives in that environment.
p 162: Women without children are also the best of mothers, often with the patience, interest, and saving grace that the constant relationship with children cannot always sustain. ... A child is fortunate who feels witnessed as a person, outside the relationship with parents, by another adult.
We cannot chose who our children are, or what they will be - by nature they inspire a helpless love, wholly delicious, also capable of delivering startling pain. ... Some children are best cherished when lightly held, some need to test the strength of your grip. We all grow thorns. We have to.
Motherhood prompts Erlich to see herself as part of a bigger picture, and to reflect on her relationship to other women, the human race, and the natural world.
p 62: [I admire the chickadee,] for it is a tough, cheerful, weightless survivor of the harshest winters, and its call seems always pleasantly friendly and encouraging.
p 89: The West, or the edge of it anyway, the great level patchwork of chemically treated fields and tortured grazing land, is the outside I've internalized.
I believe that the land where a child spends the first 10 or 12 years of life is the one that the child thinks of as "home." It's imprinted and internalized even if the person never again lives in that environment.
p 162: Women without children are also the best of mothers, often with the patience, interest, and saving grace that the constant relationship with children cannot always sustain. ... A child is fortunate who feels witnessed as a person, outside the relationship with parents, by another adult.
We cannot chose who our children are, or what they will be - by nature they inspire a helpless love, wholly delicious, also capable of delivering startling pain. ... Some children are best cherished when lightly held, some need to test the strength of your grip. We all grow thorns. We have to.
December 29, 2009
This is such a beautiful book - lyrical and thought-provoking, and full of a certain dream-like quality that I (think I) recognize as the need for sleep. I loved Erdrich's honesty, her strategy for coping with a ceaselessly crying baby (calling her names in the sweetest voice she had), her musings on losing herself in motherhood and finding her way back to a life with, but not of, her child.
A quick read, it feels written for new mothers - the chapters aren't chapters so much as short vignettes; the font is large; for someone with limited time or attention, it's a perfect choice.
Loved it. And for my own self, loved this:
A quick read, it feels written for new mothers - the chapters aren't chapters so much as short vignettes; the font is large; for someone with limited time or attention, it's a perfect choice.
Loved it. And for my own self, loved this:
Women without children are also the best of mothers, often, with the patience, interest, and saving grace that the constant relationship with children cannot sustain. I come to crave our talk and our daughters gain precious aunts. Women who are not mothering their own children have the clarity and focus to see deeply into the character of children webbed by family. A children is fortunate who feels witnessed as a person, outside relationships with parents, by another adult.
Thank you, Louise.
July 4, 2014
My best experience with Erdrich since her novel Love Medicine. So many of her observations, carefully crafted into a sentence, startled me with insight:
"Laughter is our consolation prize for consciousness."
"We cannot choose who our children are, or what they will be--by nature they inspire a helpless love, wholly delicious, also capable of delivering startling pain."
"Love's combination of attraction and despair thrills us. Our peculiar ability to be at home in the arms of one person, while always a stranger in the presence of another, is an ongoing human mystery."
Reflecting on her grandfather's death, "The depth of his loss seems almost out of proportion, for isn't it--as most people say--a blessing? And yet, as the old go walking into night, we lose our sense of time's extension, we lose our witnesses, our living memories. We lose them and we lose the farthest reach of ourselves."
Her writing often rooted in observations about nature reminds me of Annie Dillard though more grounded. I will soon forget these quotations and most of the details but the rhythm, the way of merging with life will stick with me for a long time.
"Laughter is our consolation prize for consciousness."
"We cannot choose who our children are, or what they will be--by nature they inspire a helpless love, wholly delicious, also capable of delivering startling pain."
"Love's combination of attraction and despair thrills us. Our peculiar ability to be at home in the arms of one person, while always a stranger in the presence of another, is an ongoing human mystery."
Reflecting on her grandfather's death, "The depth of his loss seems almost out of proportion, for isn't it--as most people say--a blessing? And yet, as the old go walking into night, we lose our sense of time's extension, we lose our witnesses, our living memories. We lose them and we lose the farthest reach of ourselves."
Her writing often rooted in observations about nature reminds me of Annie Dillard though more grounded. I will soon forget these quotations and most of the details but the rhythm, the way of merging with life will stick with me for a long time.
December 16, 2020
I found this at a secondhand bookstore, and after enjoying another of Louise erdrich's books, thought I'd try it. It was wonderful. Very pretty and poetic, it followed a year of her pregnancy and birth, but I liked it because she talked about birds and flowers and cats and trees and snow, giving profound observations and making metaphors.
At one point she notices that a groundhog comes out of her tunnels and eats a lunch of flowers at 11:45 exactly everyday. She then talks of when she was given a watch as a gift, but had always felt a dislike for keeping time. She writes, "Fortunately, not long after I received the time piece I developed an allergy to metal and broke out in red bumps where the watch touched my wrist. Perhaps it is true I am allergic to time itself. At any rate, I find these days I can tell time well enough by woodchuck. My working day is half over when the fat lady eats her flowers."
At one point she notices that a groundhog comes out of her tunnels and eats a lunch of flowers at 11:45 exactly everyday. She then talks of when she was given a watch as a gift, but had always felt a dislike for keeping time. She writes, "Fortunately, not long after I received the time piece I developed an allergy to metal and broke out in red bumps where the watch touched my wrist. Perhaps it is true I am allergic to time itself. At any rate, I find these days I can tell time well enough by woodchuck. My working day is half over when the fat lady eats her flowers."
June 7, 2012
Like a conversation with a wise friend, complete with recipe ideas (including an all-licorice dinner menu!) I like the short entries, diary-like format, which allows Erdrich to let her thoughts go where they will and have the whole thing still hold together.
This resonated:
"The British psychotherapist Adam Phillips has examined obstacles from several different angles, attempting to define thier emotional use: 'It is impossible to imagine desire without obstacles,' he writes, 'and wherever we find something to be an obstacle we are at the same time desiring something. It is part of the fascination of the Oedipus story in particular, and perhaps narrative in general, that we and the heroes and heroines of our fiction never know whether obstacles create desire or desire creates obstacles.'"
This resonated:
"The British psychotherapist Adam Phillips has examined obstacles from several different angles, attempting to define thier emotional use: 'It is impossible to imagine desire without obstacles,' he writes, 'and wherever we find something to be an obstacle we are at the same time desiring something. It is part of the fascination of the Oedipus story in particular, and perhaps narrative in general, that we and the heroes and heroines of our fiction never know whether obstacles create desire or desire creates obstacles.'"
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