Narrative Chance: Postmodern Discourse on Native American Indian Literatures ed. by Gerald Vizenor (review)

176 WesternAmerican Literature the United States for the multicultural, hemispheric reality ofthe next century.” These are stories and voices ofAmerica’s past, present, and, most assuredly, its future. GREG SÁNCHEZ Loyola University Chicago Narrative Chance: Postmodern Discourse on Native American Indian Literatures. Ed­ ited by Gerald Vizenor. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993. 223 pages, $14.95.) Thanks to the University of Oklahoma Press for making available in paper­ back this still-relevant and stimulating study of Native American Indian litera­ tures. The vogue of literary theory in English and literary studies seemed to have run its course by the beginning of the 1990s. Paul Bove published, in 1992, a book whose title encapsulated the prevailing opinion that we are all now working In the Wake ofTheory. This collection, however, edited by noted Native American and postmodern crafter of fictions, Gerald Vizenor, overwhelmingly suggests that the requiem for theory may have been sung much too early. Ahead of its time upon publication in 1989, Narrative Chancedemonstrates that postmodern theory need not be unreadable. More importantly, this vol­ ume of essays forges important connections between developments in postmodern theory and the literature ofAmerican aboriginal peoples. Far from imposing the theoretical methodology of a dominant white culture upon the literatures of non-white and oppressed writers, Narrative Chance reveals that postmodern theories harmonize closely with the forms and stories of Native American Indian literatures. Vizenor’spreface and introduction are challenging reading. His aphoristic style recalls Friedrich Nietzsche, the trickster of modern philosophy, and his main point is that the trickster figure in Native American literature defines that literature as inherently postmodern. The essays which follow Vizenor’s intro­ duction pursue the occasion for applying contemporary literary theory to Native American Indian literatures. Karl Kroeber contrasts HouseMade ofDawn, by N. Scott Momaday, with the more authentic story-telling of Colville Indian Peter Seymour, while Kimberly Blaeser insists upon the postmodern impact of Momaday’s art. Arnold Krupat offers an illuminating “Bakhtinian” reading of Leslie Marmon Silko’s Storyteller, and Gretchen Ronnow writes a remarkably intelligible Lacanian reading of Ceremony. James Ruppert offers a “readerresponse ” to D’Arcy McNickle’s The Surrounded, and James Silberman ranges over the full spectrum of contemporary theory in a delightful and literary essay on Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine. Alan Velie, Louis Owens, and Vizenor him­ self elaborate on the trickster theme in Native American literatures, and Elaine A.Jahner explores “metalanguages”in Native American discourse. Reviews 111 This volume is a readable contribution to contemporary literary theory, and an important collection of analyses of Native American literature. SCOTT R. CHRISTIANSON Radford University AllMyRelatives: Community in ContemporaryEthnicAmericanLiteratures. ByBonnie TuSmith. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993. 216 pages, $34.50.) About a decade ago, sociologist Robert Bellah and his associates claimed that Americans have lost the language for expressing communal values. In this ambitious and insightful book, however, Bonnie TuSmith asserts that in the works of ethnic American writers the vision of community is very much alive. Four main chapters deal with the four broad ethnic American groups— Asian American, African American, Native American, and Chicano/a. For each of these groups, TuSmith examines two major writers, one male and one female, whose works appeared after the civil rights movement and who have consciously drawn from their ethnic backgrounds: Frank Chin and Maxine Hong Kingston,John Edgar Wideman and Alice Walker, N. Scott Momaday and Leslie Marmon Silko, Tomás Rivera and Sandra Cisneros. In most cases, the synopses are too brief to help those who are unfamiliar with the works under discussion. And the author rarely deals with such relevant questions as “What do these texts suggest about the community or communities outside their own?”and “How are their visions of their own ethnic communities affected by their attitudes towards the American community as a whole?” TuSmith nonetheless accomplishes important things with this book. Filled with cultural and socio-historical insights, her readings successfully refute ear­ lier misreadings by those who interpreted and evaluated the works from Eurocentric perspectives. Her analysis of the linguistic patterns in each work is exceptionally brilliant. More significant, her courage to cross cultures is inspir­ ing: a first-generation Chinese American...