Book Review: Path Lit by Lightning by David Maraniss

Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe by David Maraniss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As sports became embedded within the American cultural zeitgeist at the turn of the 20th Century, one man’s raw athletic ability and accomplishments would make him a legend in his own time even while being described in disparaging language at the same time. Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe by David Maraniss follows the wandering life of the greatest athlete of the first half of the 20th Century who straddled the divide between White American culture and his Native roots that mirrored thousands of others who wasn’t as well known.

Maraniss, basing the book’s title on Thorpe’s given Sac-and-Fox name, gives a very detailed chronicle of Thorpe’s life from his childhood on the reservation to attending Carlisle Indian Industrial School where is athletic prowess in first track and field then football gained national attention before his Olympic triumph followed by ‘disgrace’ then sis long professional careers in baseball, football, and even a little basketball before wandering across the country looking to make a living and get by. Yet while Thorpe the man’s story is amazing, Maraniss uses him to highlight the plight of Native Americans within the larger text of mainstream White American culture from the military and government’s treatment of tribes over history to the benign sound but cultural devastating “Kill the Indian, save the man” philosophy of Carlisle and the casual racism that the press and organized sport’s white elitism who viewed amateurism as the ideal over professionalism thus causing a 110+ year injustice. This dual purpose was executed very well by Maraniss, though I will admit that he appeared to belabor some things like his critique on historical accuracy of the 1951 Hollywood biopic because at that point the reader was in 400 pages of a biography and could tell what the inaccuracies were already. And ironically mere weeks before it’s publication some information in the biography became dated when the IOC fully restored Thorpe as sole champion and his scores of his 1912 Olympic events.

Path Lit by Lightning is not only a revealing look into the man who was head and shoulders the best athlete of his time, but also of the difficulty Native Americans dealt within as they tried to remain true to their culture while attempt to live in White American society. David Maraniss writes in a very good narrative style though at times belabors inaccuracies as if the readers didn’t pay attention in early portions of the book. Overall, highly recommend for those interested in sports biographies or Native Americans in the United States.

I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads program in exchange for an honest review.  

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Book Review: Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.C. Gwynne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

European-Americans in the southern Great Plains feared them, other Native Americans quickly learned to get out of their way, and eventually the United States army would have to learn to be like them to defeat them. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.C. Gwynne gives a general history of the Comanche nation from their rise as a power on the Plains thanks to the introduction of the horse and their fall with the near extinction of the bison mainly through the lives of Quanah Parker and his mother.

Gwynne’s dual history of the Comanche nation and the Parker family so closely linked with them for most of the 19th Century, are two different books combined in one that separately would have been good but together is just okay. While the subtitle implies that Quanah Parker plays a larger role in the history of the Comanche, his prominence is in the closing days of the Comanche’s pre-reservation years and attempt to help his people once on the reservation by essentially calling duplicitous government efforts to take away reservation land. One of the biggest issues throughout is Gwynne’s use of civilization and barbarism in relation to the Comanche and Euro-Americans they encountered, along with related words like savage when not in the context of a quote, is haphazard at best and problematic at worst that should have been taken care of in the editing process.

Empire of the Summer Moon is a very good general history of the Comanche as well as very good family drama in a clash of cultures only if the two were separated as together they are an okay combination. While S.C. Gwynne shows the complicated interactions between Native tribes and the ever-expanding tide of Anglo-American settlement well, his terminology is questionable and distracting.

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Book Review: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Matter-of-factly we’re given the moment that the main character’s life changed forever, but as we follow the narration of her life as well as insertions of the titular fictional novel things don’t seem so clear. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood is a novel within a novel—with another novel within the first—historical fiction whose multilayered unfolding mystery is peeled away until everything falls into place just as you get to the end of the book.

An elderly Iris Chase Griffin pens her autobiography that also is a biography of her famous sister Laura, whose posthumous novel the titular The Blind Assassin has a cult status in literary circles. While Iris’ biographical narration is the bulk of the novel, Atwood includes faux news articles and insertions from The Blind Assassin. But its these insertions from this novel within the novel begin revealing a different version of history of Laura’s life as well as Iris’ which would have surprised her deceased daughter who had been estranged from her. Atwood’s layered writing of biography, pulp fiction, and newspaper reports with subtle misdirection in the beginning and subtle revealing throughout the book creates a very engaging read that keeps the reader wanting to find out what really happened. Honestly, it was only in research after finishing that I learned of the Canadian history that Atwood wove into the narrative after thinking that the various real life individuals name dropped were fictional thus making me not understand the importance of some of the political talk—thanks to Iris’ politically ambitious husband—that was occurring within the novel.

The Blind Assassin was my first Margaret Atwood work and after finishing it, I can say that it will not be my last.

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