Sollenbum reviewed Dance Me Outside by W. P. Kinsella
Review of 'Dance Me Outside' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
"Dance Me Outside" is a series of interconnected short stories about Cree indians on a reservation. It depicts their lives as they are influenced by historically induced poverty and their fraught interaction with people outside of their community. There is a humorous, but serious narrative voice throughout the short stories, which allows the social consequences of their situation to sink in without being unnecessarily emotional. The most of the characters are flat and their relationships do not develop to any significant degree, but it is interesting to follow them through a series of situations that bring them into conflict with white society and at times with each other.
This book is the basis for the film of the same name and that is also how I was inspired to read it. There is, however, a sense that the book is written by an outsider looking in on a community of …
"Dance Me Outside" is a series of interconnected short stories about Cree indians on a reservation. It depicts their lives as they are influenced by historically induced poverty and their fraught interaction with people outside of their community. There is a humorous, but serious narrative voice throughout the short stories, which allows the social consequences of their situation to sink in without being unnecessarily emotional. The most of the characters are flat and their relationships do not develop to any significant degree, but it is interesting to follow them through a series of situations that bring them into conflict with white society and at times with each other.
This book is the basis for the film of the same name and that is also how I was inspired to read it. There is, however, a sense that the book is written by an outsider looking in on a community of which he is not a member. The language tries to mimic the ethnolect of Cree Indians, but it seems to be limited to a simplified form of verb conjungation, which is grating in the long run. These characters would probably not be speaking in English at all when they are amongst themselves, so the effect is slightly patronizing when it is used so systematically. But the book is from 1977 so perceptions of what is culturally acceptable is now quite different than when the book was first published.
The feature film from 1994 seems much more in tune with a more culturally sensitive representation of life on the reservation and perhaps more representative of how humour is used to deal with life there.