House Made of Dawn: A Novel
By: N. Scott Momaday / Narrated by: N. Scott Momaday, Darrell Dennis
Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
Dare I say it of this Classic? It’s not meeeee, it’s the danged novel…!
Eons ago, there was a GoodWill bookstore right by where I cashed my paychecks. In those heady Hand to Mouth days with no bank account and only a delight in the written word, I’d use a portion of my pay to buy used books. I was sooooo excited to “find” House Made of Dawn, and I INSTANTLY began reading it.
…and then I gave up… Tried it again a year later. …and then I gave up… Ditto for the year after that. I was taken by the cover art, the Navajo man Abel coming back from WWII and finding that he doesn’t fit in with Modern American Life, and that he’s forgotten and become distant from the Seasons and Life Attuned with Nature. How could that NOT be compelling, completely and absolutely?
Uhm… it can inDEEd be NOT compelling, completely and absolutely, and what makes this current completion of the entire novel (As opposed to a mere attempt) worse is the asTOUNdingly ridiculous narration by Darrell Dennis. Yes yes yes, Bravo for finding a Native actor to voice this Native American Heritage Listen, but dude! you blew the entirety of it. And as the Preface is an extensive Introduction to the book by author and poet N. Scott Momaday himself, oh good golly gosh, the man SHOULD’VE narrated his own work himself. He has such a wonderful voice, such feeling, a fine gravelly tone, kinda gritty tho’ verrrry warm.
And then we’re off to Darrell Dennis and his unenthusiastic, unemotional, deCIDedly subpar performance. This does NOT serve this jumbled bag of a story.
Let’s keep in mind that Momaday’s start, his greatest usage of language at the time he wrote this was in the world of words via poetry. Cuz you see: The book is one huuuuuge jumble o’ fragments, and were it not for the fact that I do NOT review what I haven’t comPLETEly listened to, I soooo woulda chucked this work and started in on something else. Yup, that unfortunate a work…
What we’re given: Abel is back from WWII, drunken sot, so drunk he doesn’t recognize his grandfather, Francisco, who’s come to pick him up. And then it’s about him being drunk in various places, and of him succumbing to the sexual lure of a white woman who he’s been chopping wood for, and of him not quite fitting in/doing well during a horsemanship contest and later murdering the dude that won it. After jail, he’s off to LA to be drunk and verbally abusive to all and sundry, then he comes back home and drunkenly is there for his grandfather’s demise. Through this hodgepodge narrative are stories of Francisco’s experiences as an Indian man, living in tune with the earth.
Back and forth head hopping? Check. Drunken dude coming out of his stupor long enough to realign himself with Nature? Check. Brief snippets of GLORIOUS lyricism from an obvious poet, Momaday? Check.
No cohesion whatsoever and a bored-sounding narrator? DOUBLE Check.
Man, I sooo zoned in and out of this, had to keep tapping the 30-sec. back arrow as boy did Abel wear out his welcome with me, like, Uber Fast! I admit, Momaday showed early genius as a wordsmith with this, his first novel. But that it was soooo random, soooo many snippets tossed out willy nilly, it was so very hard to keep track of. And don’t even get me started on why it’s not worth it. I had to hit Wikipedia cuz I was dying to learn of how it was received, and I’ll give the book this: It was THE first to usher in Literature from a Native American perspective. Momaday is The Man!
It’s just that he wasn’t the Narrator, and p’raps, dunno, that woulda made all the difference in the world.
Me, I’m just so very thrilled to have finished it. Also? That there are now, in this day and age, so many OTHER voices of Literature that can give his Legacy a nod.
> PHEW <
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