The Blessing Way and Dance Hall of the Dead - Tony Hillerman

Over Memorial Day weekend, my friends and I went camping, and I finally had some time to relax and read. Inspired by dad, I decided to give Tony Hillerman a try, and I'm glad I did! I read the first two of his Navajo country murder mysteries, The Blessing Way (1970) and Dance Hall of the Dead (1973).

I really enjoyed these novels, particularly the worldview conveyed by the protagonist, Navajo sheriff Joe Leaphorn:

"Leaphorn never counted on luck. Instead he expected order—the natural sequence of behavior, the cause producing the natural effect, the human behaving in the way it was natural for him to behave. He counted on that and upon his own ability to sort out the chaos of observed facts and find in them this natural order. Leaphorn knew from experience that he was unusually adept at this. As a policeman, he found it to be a talent which saved him a great deal of labor. It was a talent which, when it worked unusually well, caused him a faint subconscious uneasiness, grating on his ingrained Navajo conviction that any emergence from the human norm was unnatural and—therefore—unhealthy. And it was a talent which caused him, when the facts refused to fall into the pattern demanded by nature and the Navajo Way, acute mental discomfort."

When I read this passage, I was strongly reminded of a quote by Hercules Poirot in the film version of the Murder on the Orient Express -

"I can only see the world as it should be. And when it is not, the imperfection stands out like the nose in the middle of a face. It makes most of life unbearable. But it is useful in the detection of crime."

I'm not sure if this characterization reflects a shared reality among talented detectives, or whether it is a purely literary conceit, but I thought this parallel was interesting.

The books also treat fairly extensively on Navajo culture and religion, its beliefs, and its rituals. My experience with Native American culture, and Navajo culture in particular, is fairly limited, so I was very interested in the insights from these works. (Although Hillerman is White, it seems he was was considered a true friend of the Navajo people and an excellent student of their culture, and his books, although works of fiction, are evidently praised for their accuracy in this regard.)

Finally, I really enjoyed the depictions of nature, and especially the scenes where Leaphorn applies his skilled tracking abilities to locate missing persons. The books are very successful in conveying a sense of the rich beauty and detail of nature, which I appreciated.

I will definitely be reading more Hillerman!

Astoria - Peter Stark

Our May bookclub book was Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival, by Peter Stark. Nate recommended this one, and I really enjoyed it!

Astoria is a remarkable true tale of ambition, wilderness exploration, and hardship, recounting John Jacob Astor's efforts to establish the first American outpost in the Pacific Northwest, as a means of building a hugely profitable global trading empire. Astor was a friend of Thomas Jefferson's, and undertook the mission with his support.

While Astor remained comfortably lodged at home in his mansion in New York, he sent two parties, an overland and an oversea party, to try to forge a path through the wilderness, and meet up in present-day Astoria, Oregon (about a 2 hour drive northeast of Portland, on the Columbia River and coast of the Pacific Ocean). The story covers the 3 years of their expedition, from 1810-1813.

Astor was an incredibly far-seeing and enterprising person, and he did his utmost to select the very best men and equipment for his missions. Even still, the journeys were incredibly brutal, owing in part to the roughness of the unknown terrain, physical hardship and starvation, and constant stress from fear of Native American attack, and in part due to interpersonal conflicts and ignorance among the party members themselves.

A fascinating story! Definitely recommend, especially for Pacific Northwest enthusiasts.

Northwest Coast Indian Art

The only thing in my entire life that I believe I was fated to do was to buy this book by Bill Holm.

On my last visit to Seattle, I went to the Burke Museum of Natural History on the campus of UW. The museum is small and cozy with specialized, excellent exhibits.  One that I especially enjoyed was a new permanent collection of Northwest Coast Indian art, named in honor  of Bill Holm, a longtime professor at UW and a revered scholar and beloved mentor to many native American artists.  There was also a temporary exhibit of paired pieces of native art - several contemporary native artists had been invited to stay in residence at the Museum, to study iconic pieces in the collection, then choose one and create a responsive piece - an update, a variation, or some kind of modern riff on the piece.  Many of these works were highly inventive and visually stunning.

While I was browsing these exhibits, I noticed an older man and two women who were examining pieces and commenting animatedly on them - and in a personal way.  Comparing this group to the pictures accompanying the Bill Holm Collection, I realized that the man was Bill Holm himself!  I exchanged a couple pleasantries with him and his friends and took the picture you see below.

The exhibit had indicated that the founding of the Bill Holm collection had been coupled with a special commemorative edition of Holm's famous book, Northwest Coast Indian Art.  I was interested in the book and inquired at the Museum desk if they had copies for sale, although, at $35, the price was a little higher, truthfully, than my level of interest.  The woman at the desk said no, unfortunately they had sold out of them, though they were expecting a new shipment in a couple days.  Somewhat relieved, I went to a different section of the museum to see an exhibit on the geology of the northwest coast.  A few minutes after, the woman from the museum desk caught up with me in the exhibit and breathlessly announced that I was in luck - the delivery had just arrived!

Well, I have been reading my copy of Northwest Coast Indian Art rather slowly.  Holm made a meticulous study of more than 400 high quality artifacts, recording and eventually collating detailed information on the "rules" that he discovered underly the stylized designs.  These principles are almost invariant, but like other rigorous forms such as the sonnet, the gifted Indian artists were able to create stunning and distinctive designs while working within these constraints.  Holm's deep knowledge of the forms, his humility and his respect and generosity toward the Indian artists made him a honored figure and valued friend.  I feel grateful for this fleeting moment of contact with him.