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Tales of Burning Love: A Novel |
Author: Louise Erdrich
Published: 1997-04-23 |
List price: $14.00
Our price: $11.90
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As of: January 05th, 2009 09:50:59 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Loved it!
I think I found this book by Louise Erdrich possibly the most consistently interesting book in the series, all of which I enjoyed. There's never a dull passage, and honestly the characters are easier to understand, if not always relate to, than a memorable but so "strange" (for lack of a better word) character than Fleur Pillager. I didn't like Jack Mauser one bit, though, but maybe I wasn't supposed to like him. And I'm glad I didn't read the Publisher's Weekly review before reading this, either, considering all the spoilers.
 Another good book to read
Excellent book, jumps around a bit, but really wonderful.
 Too many brushes with death
How many times can the characters almost freeze to death? This story still has Erdich's excellenct characterizations, but the storyline is full of too many people and too much cold. I got tired of the Jack [messing] up everything over and over. Read The Beet Queen if you want a good book by her. Skip this one.
A blizzard in all of us
Having read some of Erdrich's novels, including Love Medicine or The Beet Queen, I was expecting an 'Indianesque' novel again. However, the only thing that reminded me of the other novels was her way of emphasizing the importance of stories, that is 'Tales of Burning Love' for our lives. In this case it is the tales that literally help the women survive. Let me start at the beginning:
We get to know Jack Mauser who, yes, is a womanizer, but (we have to admit) a very fascinating and challenging persona. At least this comes to show why five women were once married to him. Now they get together at his burial (only to find out at the end that he isn't dead after all) and get stuck in a blizzard. Their only way of surving the snowstorm is by each of the respective women telling her story with Jack. What grabs the reader is that each of the women has an individual voice which shows in her way of telling the story. Although Jack is the centre of the stories, he's also at the margin, because the stories are about themselves, too. Somehow the telling revives and warms them and at the same time soothes the wounds Jack has caused. Finally they are rescued and resume their lives with renewed strength. Once again Erdrich succeeded in creating such an intense atmosphere that I had problems putting the book down. I hope she will forever go on telling us tales...
A Great Read!
I read this my first Erdrich novel after a writer whose opinion I respect recommended her. This is the tale of Jack Mauser and his many wives-- maybe five altogether. The plot has as many twists and turns as a blizzard in North Dakota where much of the action occurs. Watch for what Ms. Erdrich does with the title near the end of the book. She's always ahead of us. At times I thought that Jack isn't worth all the attention he gets from his women. He is after all a drunk, a womanizer and a cheater in business, truly one of the types that George and Tammy sang about. But his women often get the upper hand, sometimes quite literally. One of them in order to show Jack that "it hurts to be a girl," ties him up and plucks out most of his facial hair in what has to be one of the funniest scenes I've read in a long time. The story, sometimes outlandish, probably wouldn't have worked with someone with less talent. But these characters with all their warts breathe. I never doubted for a moment their humanity. Erdrich is wonderful at describing a character with few words -- or with many if the occasion calls for it. Finally, don't you have to love a writer who says that "no blue is ordinary. Blue is the stuff of the soul"?
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