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The Light People: A Novel
The Light People is a multi-genre novel that includes a series of nested stories about a tribal community in Northern Minnesota. Major themes include Oskinaway’s search for his parents and the legal wrangling over the possession of a leg that has been removed from a tribal elder. Each story is linked to previous and successive stories to form a discourse on identity and cultural appropriation, all told with humor and wisdom.
Taking inspiration from traditional Anishinabe stories and drawing from his own family's storytelling tradition, Gordon Henry, Jr., has woven a tapestry of interlocking narratives in The Light People , a novel of surpassing emotional strength. His characters tell of their experiences, dreams, and visions in a multitude of literary styles and genres. Poetry, drama, legal testimony, letters, and essays combine with more conventional narrative techniques to create a multifaceted, deeply rooted, and vibrant portrait of the author's own tribal culture. Keenly aware of Eurocentric views of that culture, Henry offers a "corrective history" where humor and wisdom transcend the political.
In the contemporary Minnesota village of Four Bears, on the mythical Fineday Reservation, a young Chippewa boy named Oskinaway is trying to learn the whereabouts of his parents. His grandparents turn for help to a tribal elder, one of the light people, Jake Seed. Seed's assistant, a magician who performs at children's birthday parties, tells Oskinaway's family his story, which gives way to the stories of those he encounters. Narratives unfold into earlier narratives, spinning back in time and encompassing the intertwined lives of the Fineday Chippewas, eventually revealing the place of Oskinaway and his parents in a complex web of human relationships.
Taking inspiration from traditional Anishinabe stories and drawing from his own family's storytelling tradition, Gordon Henry, Jr., has woven a tapestry of interlocking narratives in The Light People , a novel of surpassing emotional strength. His characters tell of their experiences, dreams, and visions in a multitude of literary styles and genres. Poetry, drama, legal testimony, letters, and essays combine with more conventional narrative techniques to create a multifaceted, deeply rooted, and vibrant portrait of the author's own tribal culture. Keenly aware of Eurocentric views of that culture, Henry offers a "corrective history" where humor and wisdom transcend the political.
In the contemporary Minnesota village of Four Bears, on the mythical Fineday Reservation, a young Chippewa boy named Oskinaway is trying to learn the whereabouts of his parents. His grandparents turn for help to a tribal elder, one of the light people, Jake Seed. Seed's assistant, a magician who performs at children's birthday parties, tells Oskinaway's family his story, which gives way to the stories of those he encounters. Narratives unfold into earlier narratives, spinning back in time and encompassing the intertwined lives of the Fineday Chippewas, eventually revealing the place of Oskinaway and his parents in a complex web of human relationships.
- GenresFiction
236 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 9, 2016
I read this book for a Native American Novel course I'm taking for my major, and my class was lucky enough to video chat with the author, Gordon Henry, to discuss his work.
I thought this novel was especially thought-provoking, particularly the format and the repetitive inclusion of the letter X as a marker of a presence and an absence at the same time - very clever. While it was a complex work with a complicated family tree, it was an interesting process, attempting to find the link in all the stories as the chapters went on.
I thought this novel was especially thought-provoking, particularly the format and the repetitive inclusion of the letter X as a marker of a presence and an absence at the same time - very clever. While it was a complex work with a complicated family tree, it was an interesting process, attempting to find the link in all the stories as the chapters went on.
February 12, 2023
did not enjoy this book but i appreciate what it’s trying to do.
June 7, 2011
There's so much going on in this book that I can't begin to do it justice. Structurally, Henry maps out the importance of kinship, history, and storytelling by connecting one chapter to the next, working backwards in time to explore what it means to be Ojibwe on the Fineday reservation. Thematically, he turns over the idea of Christianity, schooling, treaties, politicians, higher education, traditional healing, and art, not just as the subject matter of particular chapters, but in his prose, slipping into haiku, into the legaleze of lawyers and judges, into the self-congratulatory, academic-speak of anthropologists. Time passes, but the passage of time is not always important; places change in meaningful ways, often reflecting environmental destruction from outside the rez, but trees and prairie and water have their own stories. The Vietnam war intrudes; death and dying occur in a dozen different ways.
It's masterful, and I'll be thinking about it for a long time, unpacking the imagery and poetry, thinking through the lingering bird-song of 'we the people' at the end.
It's masterful, and I'll be thinking about it for a long time, unpacking the imagery and poetry, thinking through the lingering bird-song of 'we the people' at the end.
January 17, 2016
Absolutely amazing novel: Inventive, original, thought-provoking, and wise.
Each chapter adds on to the previous one like a turtle beneath a turtle; the links seem to reach as far as the cosmos until mid-span, in which the novel begins to retreat back on itself and new resolutions become apparent.
What's more, some of the chapters have Vonnegut, John White kinds of satire (esp. the trial scene over who owns the rights to Moses Four Bear's severed leg). The concluding chapter where Oskinaway tries to teach a crow to speak but succeeds only as far as "We the People" carries immense ponder-ables.
In my view, this is a minor classic and should be read by intelligent, sensitive seekers.
Each chapter adds on to the previous one like a turtle beneath a turtle; the links seem to reach as far as the cosmos until mid-span, in which the novel begins to retreat back on itself and new resolutions become apparent.
What's more, some of the chapters have Vonnegut, John White kinds of satire (esp. the trial scene over who owns the rights to Moses Four Bear's severed leg). The concluding chapter where Oskinaway tries to teach a crow to speak but succeeds only as far as "We the People" carries immense ponder-ables.
In my view, this is a minor classic and should be read by intelligent, sensitive seekers.
March 3, 2016
Absolutely amazing novel: Inventive, original, thought-provoking, and wise.
Each chapter adds on to the previous one like a turtle beneath a turtle; the links seem to reach as far as the cosmos until mid-span, in which the novel begins to retreat back on itself and new resolutions become apparent.
What's more, some of the chapters have Vonnegut, John White kinds of satire (esp. the trial scene over who owns the rights to Moses Four Bear's severed leg). The concluding chapter where Oskinaway tries to teach a crow to speak but succeeds only as far as "We the People" carries immense ponder-ables.
In my view, this is a minor classic and should be read by intelligent, sensitive seekers.
Each chapter adds on to the previous one like a turtle beneath a turtle; the links seem to reach as far as the cosmos until mid-span, in which the novel begins to retreat back on itself and new resolutions become apparent.
What's more, some of the chapters have Vonnegut, John White kinds of satire (esp. the trial scene over who owns the rights to Moses Four Bear's severed leg). The concluding chapter where Oskinaway tries to teach a crow to speak but succeeds only as far as "We the People" carries immense ponder-ables.
In my view, this is a minor classic and should be read by intelligent, sensitive seekers.
May 29, 2008
Gordon Henry (Ojibwe) is a master of prose. He has multiple narrators flowing into multiple narrations. There is humor and sorrow in the book as Oskinaway learns about his tribal heritage. There is also lots of laughs in the chapter - Requiem for a Leg - you have to read this book - it is like no other. I met Gordon Henry at the Native American Literature Symposium this year. He is an incredibly kind and intelligent individual.
November 28, 2009
The last Native American fiction work I read was Sherman Alexie's "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven. This work is similar, but more organized. It is essentially a series of vignettes about certain interconnected people on the reservation and some of the dreams they have and things that happen to them.
November 12, 2013
Stories within stories abound. The structure the story by itself was interesting. An unexpected piece of Native-American literature.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews