The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a first-person narrative novel by Sherman Alexie, from the perspective of a Native American teenager, Arnold Spirit Jr., also known as "Junior", a 14-year-old promising cartoonist. The book is about Junior's life on the Spokane Indian Reservation and his decision to go to a nearly all-white public high school away from the reservation. The graphic novel includes 65 comic illustrations that help further the plot.Although critically acclaimed, The Absolutely True Diary has also been the subject of controversy and has consistently appeared on the annual list of frequently challenged books since 2008, becoming the most frequently challenged book from 2010 to 2019. Controversy stems from the novel's depiction of alcohol, poverty, bullying, violence, sexuality, profanity and slurs related to homosexuality and mental disability. As a result, dozens of schools have challenged it, and some schools have banned the book from school …
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a first-person narrative novel by Sherman Alexie, from the perspective of a Native American teenager, Arnold Spirit Jr., also known as "Junior", a 14-year-old promising cartoonist. The book is about Junior's life on the Spokane Indian Reservation and his decision to go to a nearly all-white public high school away from the reservation. The graphic novel includes 65 comic illustrations that help further the plot.Although critically acclaimed, The Absolutely True Diary has also been the subject of controversy and has consistently appeared on the annual list of frequently challenged books since 2008, becoming the most frequently challenged book from 2010 to 2019. Controversy stems from the novel's depiction of alcohol, poverty, bullying, violence, sexuality, profanity and slurs related to homosexuality and mental disability. As a result, dozens of schools have challenged it, and some schools have banned the book from school libraries or inclusion in curricula.
Arnold Spirit Junior verlässt die Reservats-eigene Schule, um in eine komplett weiße Schule der komplett weißen Nachbarstadt zu gehen. Angesichts der Resignation der eigenen Leute, den Rassismus weißer Schulkameraden und dem Tod enger Angehörige*r versucht er, seinen Weg zu finden. Das Buch ist unglaublich lustig geschrieben und schafft es zugleich, über sehr ernste Themen zu reden.
I heard about this book in a news report about it being banned in an Idaho school. It's quite good, and a quick read. It paints a vivid picture of life on a reservation.
THE AUDIOBOOK
Commute audiobook. Criteria: 1) simple enough that I can divide my attention with driving and not miss too much; 2) interesting enough to keep me awake on long drives; optionally 3) a great reader
1. Check. 2. Check. 3. Quadruple infinity check because it's read by Sherman Alexie himself and he's one of my very favorite human beings.
THE BOOK
No really, I'm serious about that. I love Sherman Alexie. I mean I love his books but it's more complex than that, I feel like I know him and he's talking just to me and if he showed up for dinner tomorrow evening it wouldn't be weird. It's not how I feel about other writers and cultural figures, for example I love Margaret Atwood's books which affect me deeply and have a lot of respect for her, but the love is for the books, not her. Whereas I …
THE AUDIOBOOK
Commute audiobook. Criteria: 1) simple enough that I can divide my attention with driving and not miss too much; 2) interesting enough to keep me awake on long drives; optionally 3) a great reader
1. Check. 2. Check. 3. Quadruple infinity check because it's read by Sherman Alexie himself and he's one of my very favorite human beings.
THE BOOK
No really, I'm serious about that. I love Sherman Alexie. I mean I love his books but it's more complex than that, I feel like I know him and he's talking just to me and if he showed up for dinner tomorrow evening it wouldn't be weird. It's not how I feel about other writers and cultural figures, for example I love Margaret Atwood's books which affect me deeply and have a lot of respect for her, but the love is for the books, not her. Whereas I love Sherman Alexie the person, and it's tied up a lot in how I feel about his books but it's not JUST the books.
I realized this evening that this must be what Christians mean when they describe a personal relationship with god. I have an advantage here as Sherman Alexie is attestably real (I've seen him, in the flesh, give a lecture which was one of the great highlights of my life), but I think the feeling must be similar, and it's kind of weird to suddenly have insight into a behavior that has always been entirely foreign. At the same time that "personal relationship with god" is even less understandable now that I can compare it to something familiar considering that I FEEL FUCKING INSANE FEELING THIS WAY ABOUT SOMEONE I DONT ACTUALLY KNOW and I have a hard time seeing why people would willingly feel this way about something that ISNT attestably real.
I worry that in feeling this way I am one of the crazy white people Sherman Alexie objects to in his books, a white weirdo who fetishizes Indian culture. I don't think I am but who am I to say for sure? I'm just a middle class suburban white person with a mountain of white privilege and maybe my feelings for Sherman Alexie ARE fetishistic but I really, really hope I'm not that shitty. Then I wonder, is even wondering about all this in the first place fetishistic? Again I really really hope not.
This is why I probably won't be writing him any letters. Though I've thought about it. I like to think that if I were a writer, I'd want to hear from people who felt like they'd connected with me through my work. Isn't that sort of the whole point of making art?
Anyway, the book is wonderful. It's about friendship, family, community, alcoholism, poverty, Indianness, cultural identity, independence, racism, kindness, growing up. If you've read anything by Sherman Alexie before this will feel familiar as a warm blanket. If you haven't it's a short sweet introduction to everything else he's written. Highly recommended.
A surprisingly small group. (Or maybe not so surprising, considering that there something else, like the State of the Union, competing.) Kim actually showed up, for the first time, but had accidentally read the wrong book - that is, the one for two weeks from now. But she made up for that by doing research into the controversies about this book - and of its removals from some schools. Because what would a 15-year-old boy know about masturbation? Or alcoholism? (Well, hopefully less. But some doubtless know quite a bit.)
It was most assuredly a young-adult novel. But Kim told how there's a run on YA books of late, and that they're flying off the shelves, into largely adult hands. The illustrations proved to be either endearing and a complement to the text or overly cute and feeling tacked on, depending.
We didn't really have a whole lot to say …
A surprisingly small group. (Or maybe not so surprising, considering that there something else, like the State of the Union, competing.) Kim actually showed up, for the first time, but had accidentally read the wrong book - that is, the one for two weeks from now. But she made up for that by doing research into the controversies about this book - and of its removals from some schools. Because what would a 15-year-old boy know about masturbation? Or alcoholism? (Well, hopefully less. But some doubtless know quite a bit.)
It was most assuredly a young-adult novel. But Kim told how there's a run on YA books of late, and that they're flying off the shelves, into largely adult hands. The illustrations proved to be either endearing and a complement to the text or overly cute and feeling tacked on, depending.
We didn't really have a whole lot to say about the book. Alexie will be in town for a talk, but unfortunately exactly four weeks from tonight, which will conflict with this group. We devolved into talking about the interesting books that we'd read recently, and looking through the calendar to see what was coming up.
