Reviews
When I first read this book a decade ago, it gutted me. And it still guts me. Sherman Alexie’s work is hauntingly beautiful.
A story I read recently talked about how the beauty of words on a page doesn’t usually isn’t matched by the beauty of the person who wrote them; in short, authors can be real let-downs of people even though they put so much magnificence into the world. I was reminded of this deeply when I re-read The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven; it’s every bit as stunning and evocative as I remember it, but the experience of reading it has changed a little bit knowing what I know now about Alexie acting like a pretty garbage human for a long time. That said, it’s like a Woody Allen movie; if you watched one back when everything was roses, it’s pretty hard to decide it doesn’t make you feel all the things it once did. This book remains one of my all-time favorites and I can’t help it. It does exactly what good writing should; it makes you cry for experiences had by others that you’ll never share but you were made to feel like you know for just a few moments in time, and it makes you laugh along with jokes that you’ll never have to tell but you recognize all the humor in because they are very, very human. The Lone Ranger and Tonto is an oxymoron. It’s a very sad book about hope; it is otherworldly stories about the human condition; it is a hilarious take on tragic things; it is a portrait of an entire culture built on stories and dream visions that has had its rights to dreams and visions ripped away - sometimes violently, sometimes so slowly it’s hard to perceive, always unjustly. The writing is breathtaking; sentences will make you cry out of nowhere; the characters are deeply flawed and deeply human and loveable despite all that. I just wish I could say the same for its author.
I've read Sherman Alexie before, but this is going back in his writing history. It shows; the stories are more raw, which can be a good thing but also leaves plenty undone. The pain of poverty and oppression of life on a reservation is more evident and his dry humour less so. Still, it's not one to miss.
