Random linkages: Sherman Alexie

What's it called when you're online and you follow a link, then another, and another until, the next thing you know, you have no idea how you got to where you are?  But you're glad to be there.  There's gotta be a phrase for that.  It happens too often for it to not be a universal thing.

In fact, when it doesn't happen I end up saying to myself, "There's nothing on the Internet today," like it's a Sunday afternoon in 1978 and the only options on TV are ABC Wide World of Sports, some ice-dancing show on CTV and a mind-numbing foreign documentary on CBC.  You know what I'm talkin'bout.  Nothing.

Dare I credit Facebook: I followed a link to some writer's favourite books of 2010 at the New Yorker, where I recognized none of the selected titles, but found my way to this page, where Lauren Collins credits the great American Indian writer Sherman Alexie for entertaining her literarily this year.  She identifies his "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" as "my favorite short story."  A grand pronouncement, yes?  I attempted to read that story when it was published, back in 2003 and, a testament to my ever-growing intellect, I din't get it way back then.  Just didn't seem to comprehend the story.

But boy did I love it earlier this evening, when I gave it another shot.  You have to read it.  You just have to.  The story is not about grandmother's powwow regalia, not about alcoholism or homelessness.  It's about Native people -- ahem, Native North American Indians -- and the ways we relate to each other, and everyone else.  It's about laughter, relatability, finding connection in unusual places, (and being open to connecting in unusual places), about losing touch but trusting that you have family at the next turn.

I saw myself in this story, surprisingly, because I've never been homeless or much of a drinker and my grandmothers never owned powwow regalia.

So I went back to the main page at the New Yorker website and searched "Sherman Alexie," where I discovered his new book (at the time) called War Dances was selected a book club pick back in November of last year.  They'd archived an online chat with him and that's where I found this article.  Unrelated, I'll admit -- and I've yet to read it -- but if Sherman Alexie wants me to read it, I'm gonna read it.  It's an essay called "Twilight of the American Newspaper," written by Richard Rodriguez (who's no literary slouch himself).

In nearly every article and blog post the New Yorker published around this book club title the writers each referenced an outside piece: it's an article from the New York Times that (apparently) notoriously quoted Alexie as saying War Dances, the follow-up to his much-heralded, best-selling young-adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, was "an attempt to re-establish my eccentric self."  An interesting quote, but set it aside.  Here's the good one:

"We all know the Indians were colonized by the Europeans," he continued, "but every colonized Indian has been colonized by the Indian reaction to colonization."

I trust you're an intelligent reader.  I could explain that statement, but I'm sure you're already there.  In short: there exists a long complicated web of repatriation of our culture and traditions that includes our own varying degrees of acquiescence to the world as it was during each successive generation since the first "strain" of colonization.  I will argue that understanding this as the new starting point in our journey makes the next steps clearer.

Lots of great reading here.  I hope you enjoy it, too.