Subject: Laughing Boy
From: Cecilia Baader (ceciliaann@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Dec 19 2000 - 10:50:20 GMT
Good morning,
This morning, I found the following entry in my daily literary calendar:
99 years ago (1901),
American anthropholgist, short-story writer, and novelist who
acted as a spokesman for Native Americans through his political
actions and his fiction, Oliver La Farge is born in New York.
His first novel, _Laughing Boy_ (1929) will be a poetic but
realistic story of the clash of cultures.
A man named La Farge who wrote a story called _Laughing Boy_? Is this as
obvious a connection as it seems?
I checked Amazon.com for a summary of the novel, which leaves a great deal
to be desired:
This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel captures the essence of the Southwest in
the early 1900s-and depicts a young Native American couple experiencing all
the uncertainties and joys of first love. Laughing Boy is one of the most
powerful novels in American fiction.
And another website gives a scholarly discourse on La Farge and _Laughing
Boy_:
http://www.richmond.edu/faculty/ASAIL/SAILns/102.html
D'Arcy McNickle may be closest to a proper evaluation of La Farge's seeming
dislocation from his background when he expresses the opinion that La
Farge's accomplishment in Laughing Boy is that of a clever interpreter,
whose "artistry consisted in blending . . . essentially esoteric information
in a narrative carried along by imagery drawn from the usages of polite
society of the Eastern seaboard. . . . He brought outlandish subject {72}
matter into the realm of acceptable experience.
"Outlandish subject matter into the realm of acceptable experience." Yes, I
can see that.
The book has a character named Wounded Face, Laughing Boy's uncle who tries
to prevent his marriage to Slim Girl, who has been educated outside of their
reservation and therefore considered an American, someone who is outside of
their culture. Wounded Face warns Laughing Boy not to marry her, for it
will mean his destruction.
Now, I don't know anything more about the book, and I'm wondering if anyone
else does. I'm thinking that I'm going to have to get my hands on it pretty
soon. It's a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, published around the time period
when "The Laughing Man" must have taken place.
Interesting, no?
Regards,
Cecilia.
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